The acidification scare

Climate Nonconformist

Cliff Ollier on the myth of ocean acidification:

‘Acid’ is an emotive word to the general public, which is why it is seized upon by the alarmists in their search for yet another scare. In reality increasing CO₂ makes the ocean become ‘less alkaline’, but never ‘acid’.

[…]Many marine organisms need CO₂ to make their coral skeletons, carbonate shells and so on. Corals also have symbiotic plants within their flesh that use CO₂ in photosynthesis.

[…]The pH of sea water can be very variable and makes temperature measurement look like child’s play. Ocean pH varies regionally by 0.3, and seasonally in a particular location by 0,3. But nobody has ever measured ocean water below 7, which is what “acid” means. Rhodes Fairbridge told me that he found the day-night variation in a coral pool was 9.4 to 7.5.

[…]One of the factors affecting ocean pH is…

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Ocean Acidification is a lie

Climate Nonconformist

A fallback position of AGW proponents is that the extra carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere will contaminate the oceans, leading to “ocean acidification”. This occurs due to the following reactions.

CO2 (g) -> CO2 (aq) [exothermic]
CO2 (aq) + H2O (l) -> H2CO3 (aq) [this is carbonic acid]
H2CO3 (aq) + H2O (l) -> HCO3- (aq) + H3O+ (aq)

This statement “ocean acidification” is itself a lie. This is because oceans are not acidic to begin with, they are alkaline (pH~8.1 depending on where you measure it). An acidic solution has a greater concentration of hydronium ions (H3O+) than hydroxide ions (OH-), while an alkaline solution is the other way around. But won’t increasing hydronium ion concentration by 30% make it acidic? No, because the pH scale is logarithmic, meaning a pH of 6 has ten times the concentration of H3O+ than one with a pH of 7…

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