Most published studies have exaggerated the effects of ocean acidification – and animate, etc. – Increased by that?

Repost from Jennifer Marohasy’s Blog

February 20, 2022 By jennifer

The concept of ocean acidification, and anthropogenic global warming in general, can be described as containing a grain of truth lying in a mountain of nonsense. Indeed, the expected large increase in atmospheric CO2 would at most cause a small decrease in pH – it would not make the oceans acidic. However, this is what is implied by the term ocean acidification. True acidification will require the average pH to drop below 7.0, at which point the shells will actually begin to dissolve. However, this is an impossible scenario because of the ocean’s infinite buffering capacity.

this is a Newly published research by Jeff Clements and team conclude many published studies on ocean acidification, especially those published in high-impact journals and accompanied by sensational media reports, turn out to be false, or at least especially exaggerated.

My colleague, Peter Ridd, describes the situation:

This problem of exaggerating threats applies to many fields of science and has a name: The Decline Effect.

The Decline Effect goes like this: an initial report, which often attracts great media attention, predicts some kind of disaster. But when follow-up work was done, often with much better experimental procedures and a much larger number of samples, the initial report turned out to be false.

Jeff Clements’ team includes Timothy Clark, Josefin Sundin and Frederik Jutfelt, who participated in a study last year demonstrating that many of the reports by James Cook University reef centers on reef fish are complete totally wrong.

I co-author a book chapter with John Abbot some years ago that explained:

Early interest in ocean acidification focused on organisms that built their shells or skeletons from calcium carbonate. Such organisms are known as marine calcifiers and include not only corals but also crabs, clams and conchs (sea snails).

Theoretically, and according to popular scientific journals, all coral species have been severely and negatively affected by ocean acidification. But this has not been clearly demonstrated from methodological studies conducted at the Great Barrier Reef. An assessment of the growth rates of six species of hard corals on Lord Howe Island (Anderson et al. 2015) revealed a marked variation in the growth rates of branched corals, while the growth rates of branched corals showed a marked variation in the growth rates of branched corals. The large Porites corals did not change. The researchers suggest that the decrease in the growth rate of the branched species could be due to a decrease in calcium carbonate saturation due to higher summer temperatures. A study measuring the calcification rates of 41 long-lived Porites corals from seven reefs from the central Great Barrier Reef (D’Olivio et al. 2009), showed good recovery following a major bleaching event. In 1998, there was no significant trend in the rate of calcification for the interior reefs. However, corals from the Great Barrier Reef in the middle of the central shelf decreased by 3.3%.

While most studies on ocean acidification have focused on physiological processes, particularly calcification, there have also been studies on three common hard corals to look at pollination. spermatogenesis, embryonic development, larval viability and metamorphosis (Chua et al. 2013a; Chua et al. 2013b). These studies have found that early life history is not affected by decreased pH; There was no consistent effect of increasing CO2 alone, nor in combination with temperature.

Studies of the effects of very high CO2 levels (up to 2,850 ppm) on molluscs – including oysters, mussels, scallops and conch – have shown that these species will generally build shells slower as CO2 levels increase (Ries et al. 2009). This same study showed that crabs and lobsters responded quite differently to the same elevated CO levels, indicating an increase in the overall rate of calcification.

The different responses between different organisms reflect their different ability to regulate pH at the calcification site, and:

• the extent to which their outer shell is protected by an organic coating
• the solubility of the shell, or mineral in the bone
• the extent to which they utilize photosynthesis (Ries et al. 2009).

Of course, many marine organisms are not calcifiers, and some of these organisms have also been tested for their response to ocean acidification.

When seagrass collected from three locations in the Great Barrier Reef – Cockle Bay, Magnetic Island and Green Island – was exposed to four different levels of CO2 over two weeks – to water temperature and salinity in the tanks Experiments were almost constant – all three seagrass species exhibited enhanced photosynthesis (Ow et al. 2015). It was the growth rate, observed after two weeks of exposure to the CO2-rich environment in an indoor aquarium, that was higher. This suggests that ocean acidification could mean more seagrasses, which would be good for large cetaceans like dugongs (dumpbacks are prone to extinction because of climate problems). related to changes in ocean chemistry).

In addition, contrary to expectations, laboratory investigations into the effects of three different CO2 treatments on anemone fish (commonly known as clownfish) showed that higher CO2 levels stimulated reproductive activity (Miller et al. 2013). Pairs spawn from the outer reefs of Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier Reef, where they are exposed to the highest levels of CO2, producing twice as many litters per spawning pair and more eggs per pair 67% compared to the control. However, juvenile anemone fish reared in high CO2 and high temperature environments showed reduced length, weight, condition and survival (Miller et al. 2012). Although these effects were absent or reversed when their parents also experienced higher concentrations (Miller et al. 2013).

We have concluded:

Most studies have been performed on single species under adequate laboratory conditions. They are short-lived and do not consider the potential for adaptation. In the few cases where adaptation has been considered, it has been shown to significantly alter the effects of pH changes as a result of elevated CO2 levels.

All of this needs to be assessed against the fact that along the length and breadth of the Great Barrier Reef there are large daily pH fluctuations and clear trends in pH reduction are not yet known. current is part of any degree. existing natural cycles.

Most papers describe the effects of pH changes on biological organisms; many claims are based solely on laboratory experiments (Riebesell & Gattuso 2015). One problem with laboratory experiments, however, is that they cannot capture the complexities of the real world, not even the enormous natural variation in the ocean’s pH – a measure of ocean acidification response.

Statistician John PA Ioannidis published a review of medical research in 2005 titled ‘Why Most Published Research Results Are Wrong’ (Plos Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 ). It includes commenting that:

Much of modern biomedical research is operating in areas with very low pre- and post-study probabilities for true findings.

John Ioannidis’ review is a harsh criticism of the sad state of biomedical research. The same profession, biomedical research, has concluded that we should fear Covid-19 and get a vaccine – with results from the Pfizer trials on hold while emergency approvals are granted. mass vaccination of citizens around the world against Covid-19.

We will certainly have more insights, when studies like Jeff Clements’s on ocean acidification are done in recent Covid-19 vaccine research. We may then be able to assess whether the apparent ineffectiveness of these particular Covid-19 vaccines, despite all the promises, can best be explained by corporate greed and audacity, or simply a flaw in the scientific method. There has certainly been pressure on medical researchers to find a quick cure, which can be implemented as part of a global public health response, to what appeared initially. The first is a deadly new virus, much worse than the seasonal flu.

British Medical Journal in an editorial on 19^orderJanuary included comments we don’t know enough about a Covid-19 vaccine.

‘Today, despite the global rollout of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, the anonymous participant-level data underlying trials for these new products is still not possible. accessible to doctors, researchers and the general public – and likely to remain so for many years to come,’ the editorial said. ‘This is ethically indisputable for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health interventions.’

The editorial also accused pharmaceutical companies of ‘making huge profits without adequate independent scrutiny of their scientific claims’, pointing to Pfizer, whose Covid vaccine trials ‘ company-sponsored and designed, operated, analyzed, and authored by Pfizer employees’.

Of course, Peter Ridd lost his job at James Cook University for telling the truth to power. Those who continue to publish studies on ocean acidification, especially those published in high-impact journals and accompanied by sensational media reports, have most recently been rewarded by the Australian government an additional $1 billion in funding. Some of this money will eventually fund more pointless ocean acidification projects at James Cook University. It is unlikely that any of these grants will be used to ensure that there is some quality assurance of the same study.

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The featured image, at the top of this blog post, shows me returning to a small boat off the coast of Noosa after a free dive.

Scientists once decided that free divers – men and women trained to dive as deeply as possible into the ocean with a single breath of air – would not be able to dive excessively about 30 meters deep. According to these experts, the problem is not only how long a diver can hold their breath, but more importantly the impact of pressure on the lungs. Dive to a depth of just 10 meters and the pressure is double that of sea level – because water is much denser than air, it exerts a much greater compressive force on your body. So what will be the pressure at 131 meters?

Free divers defied science. Just a few years ago, Alexey Molchanov, of Russia, broke the freediving record by diving to a depth of 131 meters in a single breath of air.

Scientists often make the mistake of not considering the complexity of the real world and real people.

Freediving is based on a series of involuntary physiological changes taking place in the body. The mammalian recessive response causes a decrease in heart rate, narrowing of blood vessels, and circulation of blood from the extremities into vital organs and the chest, resulting in a higher percentage of blood volume in the lungs. This is the right way for young men and Women can dive more than 40 meters, even more than 100 meterswith just one breath their lungs are not crushed.