Snabbare klimateffekter på havet än förväntat

Det finns fortfarande alltför många trångsynta ledarskribenter och andra opinionsbildare som tar alltför lätt på riskerna med klimatförändringarna (förklara gärna för mig hur Björn Lomborg har lyckats få en plattform med den oerhört lättviktiga argumentation som han för).

Nedanstående artikelutdrag (från Seattle Times) visar hur oerhört mycket större påverkan klimatförändringarna redan har på haven än vad man trodde för bara tio år sedan.

Snälla opinionbildare, sluta förstora de 0,2% forskningsrapporter som antyder att det inte är fastställt att det är mänskligheten som ligger bakom en klimatförändring!

 

Changes come decades faster than expected

Less than a decade ago, scientists expected acidification wouldn’t harm marine life until late in the 21st century. In the past five years, researchers instead have figured out it’s happening now. Here is a timeline of what we thought we knew — and how that changed.

Early 20th century

Scientists begin to understand how carbon moves between the atmosphere and the sea.

 

1999

A handful of scientists predict rising CO₂ emissions may change sea chemistry enough to harm corals by late in the 21st century.

2003

Atmospheric scientist Ken Caldeira predicts sea chemistry will change more rapidly over the next century than it has in tens of millions of years.

2006

Seattle oceanographer Richard Feely, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and others discover North Pacific sea chemistry has changed dramatically just since they sampled it in 1991.

Top ocean researchers release first major ocean-acidification report and brief Congress, highlighting marine changes they fear are possible by century’s end.

 

2007

Feely and colleagues take an ocean research trip between Canada and Mexico and find enormous stretches of seawater already changing in ways not expected for 50 to 100 years. Because of ocean currents, weather and geography, they figure out, West Coast sea chemistry — unlike oceans at large — will worsen for decades even if fossil-fuel emissions are cut.

2008

Scientists suspect sea-chemistry changes are killing oyster larvae in the Northwest, which would mean acidification is harming marine life at least a half-century sooner than expected.

Scientists predict tiny shelled pteropods, an important food for fish, birds and whales, will begin dissolving in Antarctica between 2030 and 2038.

2009

Oceanographer Jeremy Mathis finds the chemistry of water in the Gulf of Alaska changing more drastically than models projected.

2011

Mathis discovers CO₂ levels in the Bering Sea are amplified by melting sea ice. That exposes more ocean surface to fossil-fuel emissions and lets in sunlight, which allows plankton to bloom and die, boosting carbon dioxide even more. The pH of broad stretches of the North Pacific is now so low several months of the year that some animals already may struggle to grow shells.

2012

Scientists say they’re certain ocean acidification is killing Northwest oysters.

Computer models based on new data project that the acidified water that occasionally kills Northwest oysters will be common every day on half the U.S. West Coast in less than 40 years.

Scientist Nina Bednarsek finds pteropods in Antarctica already dissolving.

2013

 

Researchers show baby king crab die in high numbers when exposed to CO₂-rich waters expected later this century. Mathis finds North Pacific sea chemistry at certain times of the year already is that bad.

— Craig Welch

 

Media om IPCC och klimatrapporten:

DN, DN, DN, DN, SvD, SR, SR, Effekt, ASPO