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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (25070)	8/29/2009 6:22:12 PM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36921

I am not a scientist so all I can give you is a layman's interpretation of the New Yorker article which commented on the efficacy of Hansen's modeling. As far as I understood it (the article) the model correctly predicted the cooling effect to come after the volcano erupted with very good accuracy. Additionally, the main theme of the article was the accuracy of model's predictions TO DATE. I think, but am not sure, that the computer model has only been doing this less than 15 years so we do have to take the results with a grain of salt because of that. CO2: Have recently read 2 articles published in the University of California's at Santa Barbara (UCSB) publication Coastal Currents" that details the continuing acidification process of the ocean due to the formation of carbonic acid due to high CO2 levels being absorbed into the ocean. This is affecting the ability of reef building organisms and shellfish to extract/make Calcium carbonate from the Ocean to be used in reefs and shells. Scientists have actually talked about dumping Sulphur back into the ocean at key points (near reefs & fish nurseries) in order to affect the Ocean's ph level at these locations in order assist reef animals and shellfish. Interestingly enough--one of the articles discussed the absence of/extinction of shellfish life in the earth's past geologic/biologic history due to this same problem (based on ocean sedimentation sampling) The thinking was that earth at one time long ago had enough CO2 in the atmosphere to acidify the ocean and extinct the shell fish and it wasn't until the carbonic acid levels rose high enough to dissolve the residual shells that the ocean was able to return to enough basic levels so that shellfish life could again arise. Process of returning to new shellfish life forms took about 50,000 years according to the sedimentation sampling done. So what does this mean for us if the present trend continues. No more shrimp cocktail that's what, but flippancy aside if this happens it would probably adversely effect a tiny form of shell building life that is the basis for much sea life at both poles---krill. No krill, no little fish, no bigger fish as well as penguins, seals, and some whales.