do the folks who deny gw deny the rising acidity of the worlds oceans?

Throughout your life, you will encounter people who are intelligent but hold beliefs that seem ridiculous, or who disbelieve things that seem obviously true.

People filter what they see and hear through what they want to believe.

If you want to believe that global warming doesn't exist, you simply believe any report which says it's not real and assume any report that says it's real is either a lie or ignorance. There are many other little psychological tricks people use to customize their perception, such as confirmation bias.

This is how so many intelligent people can have beliefs which are so ridiculous.

We all do this to some extent or another.

>>>Do you have a data souce that demonstrates ocean pH change over time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WOA05_GLODAP_del...

I'll give this for now and all try to get you the root of this source. You can probably look up various papers about this topic too.

>>>If I inspect this data source will I be able to verify that ocean pH change over time is proportional to change in atmospheric CO2?

Quite likely, yes. I think you would need to have annual means (at some points in time anyways), which I can try to get for you. You have to make sure to take into account the log relationship introduced with pH measurements, of course.

DaveH - well, here's what I found.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/glodap/GlopDV.html

The graphic was generated by a third party, so I'm not sure if you would be able to find an equivalent one in the papers cited at the GLODAP page.

For pH measurements:

http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2005/2004JD005220....

(to everyone else answering, yes the oceans are acidifying)

Of course, you'll have to know the dissociation constants of the various deprotonated forms of carbonic acid, and also the molar count of hydronium ions in the sea. Then, some is also precipitated out, as jim said (though surely not nearly all of it yet). I personally don't know how to go about backtracking.

They deny acidifying oceans. They deny the depletion of the ozone layer. A lot of them deny pretty much anything that has to do with the environment. the funny thing is that they argue semantics as a way of denying ocean acidification. Take JimZ for example. Caliserve makes the argument that ocean pH is variable in a given location and often drops below the specified margin. Then again so does temperature and a rising temperature is the basis for Global warming of any kind. Rising temperatures have forced migratory birds to change habits, they have forced certain species to change distribution, and so on yet this is only due to an increase in temperatures that are less than what short term natural variability, or weather, would cause.

The oceans do not now exhibit a 'rising acidity'. They are not acidic. They are alkaline (basic). The average pH is about 7.96 or so. To be acidic they have to get under pH of 7.0.

The best data indicate the change in pH in modern times is about -0.05. There is no evidence that this change is a result of man-made CO2 emissions. There are models that say that, but models are not evidence. They show whatever the modeller put in for the assumptions.

The natural variations in pH are on the order of 0.3. Larger variations in pH are seen in the course of a single day in the intake pipes for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and in the interior lagoons of coral atolls.

The decline in the average pH of the oceans is insignificant when compared to even the daily variations of pH in a given location.

Upwelling of deep cold water, as it happens from time to time, lowers the pH far more than the average has changed in the last 100 years.

Marine life evolved and flourished through periods wherein the atmospheric CO2 levels were much higher than today.

The alarmists have failed to make a scientific case that:

1) the modern changes in average pH are out of line with natural variations

2) the modern changes in average pH are due to human causes

3) the modern changes in average pH constitute any threat to marine life

Do you have a data souce that demonstrates ocean pH change over time?

If I inspect this data source will I be able to verify that ocean pH change over time is proportional to change in atmospheric CO2?

Surely this is a simple matter to prove beyond doubt isn't it?

Edit AMP. Thanks for taking the time to research this further.

The GLODAP page/database (your second link) has only one data "source" for ocean pH. It leads to this paper "Global relationships of total alkalinity with salinity and temperature in surface waters of the world’s oceans", Lee et al, 2006. This paper is not a measurement data source, but a very thorough piece of work demonstrating how to use ocean temperature and salinity as a reliable proxy for for pH. It does not however include any historic pH reconstruction.

The third link "Studying ocean acidification with conservative, stable numerical schemes for nonequilibrium air-ocean exchange and ocean equilibrium chemistry" is the principal reference for almost all of the media stories about ocean acidification.

It is a model estimate of ocean pH from 1751 to 2004 and for 2004 to 2104... again unfortunately not measurements. This model both hindcasts and forcasts ocean pH. They use the A1B scenario for the pH forcast; it's not clear how they estimate atmospheric co2 for the hindcast. The paper is paywalled (and I couldn't find an escaped copy anywhere) so unfortunately I can only see the abstract, and the abstract (not unexpectedly) gives no indication of how the model has been either calibrated or verified. This is all there is... "CO2 estimates from the historic simulation compare well with the measured CO2 record"... which doesn't actually inspire great confidence.

I'm pretty sure that your first link (the chart from wikipedia) is incorrectly labelled. It's title implies it references both GLODAP and the World Ocean Atlas 2005 as sources. But the WOA 2005 (here http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOA05/woa05data.html) has no historic content and I have alrerady described the only GLODAP reference to ocean alkalinity. The description for this particular chart states it is the pH change from the 1700's, so I belive it's based on the source is from your second link.

As I have circled around the references in these papers I've kept seeing hints of data from cruises in the 1980's and 1990's, but alas I've not tracked down an actual data source yet.

This is the only source I have ever discovered, and even this doesn't let me get to the actual data...

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/48/18848.long Unfortunately this is limited to measurements "taken between 2000 and 2007", and only in a single location. Whilst they comment on it, no adjustment appears to be made for environmental changes that occurred during the study period (i.e upwelling changes and variation in the phytoplankton activity).

Ocean pH data remains very elusive, but thanks for taking the time to look.

I find it odd that some people seem to think the pH of the ocean is governed primarily by our CO2 emissions.

CO2 has been produced in "excess" for billions of years. That "excess" is absorbed by the ocean and precipiated as carbonates. It didn't turn it into a bubbling "acidic" caldron in the past and it is silly to think that it will in the future IMO.

If you are an alarmists and looking to exaggerate and lie to the uninformed, then pretending to turn the oceans into acid is a great comic strip for Captain Planet but little else. Will increased carbonic acid reduce the alkalinity?--- possibly. Will it ever even approach a neutral pH, Not a chance. It is a ridiculous notion. It is just another example where alarmists exaggerate their knowledge and exaggerate the potential consequences IMO.

It would be odd to me for somebody to hold opposite views on AGW and ocean acidification.

Yup,we sure do. Another blow struck for common sense and basic science knowledge.

is this rising acidity somehow related to the missing heat because both are missing