Also, if the ocean were sterilized, the ocean bio C pump would be turned off, so as the old CO2 rich deep water thermo haline circulates to the surface, CO2 would degas to the air/surface ocean without a marine bio uptake counterbalance. So the earth would get hotter and the surface ocean more acidic (how much?). The oceans would get more alkaline because bio CaCO3 precip is turned off and land/ocean mineral weathering is increased. DMS and other marine bio aerosols turned off - consequences? Seabirds would be up a creek unless they liked McNuggets - seagulls? Uphill nutrient hauling by salmon turned off - the grizzlies would be pretty bummed, not to mention native Americans and fishermen lobby. Anyway, an earth mode hopefully only experienced by someone's ocean biogeochem model. -Greg ________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Greg Rau [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, June 08, 2013 8:13 AM To: [email protected] Cc: Ken Caldeira; David Lewis; Emily Lewis-Brown; geoengineering Subject: Re: [geo] The Caldeira "If you Sterilize the Ocean We'd Still Have Chicken McNuggets Hypothesis" questioned by Ocean expert
If the ocean was sterilized, then presumably there wouldn't be any marine microbes to consume O2 or generate H2S, CH4, etc. Good final exam written question for Biogeochemistry 476 - what would happen to the earth? As for McNuggets, some Asia countries get 40% of their protein from the ocean. I'd buy stock in KFC. Greg Sent from my iPad On Jun 8, 2013, at 2:25 AM, Andrew Lockley <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: For a start, oceans provide 12% of the global food supply. Losing all that could be the tipping point on its own, as a starving society unravels into a vicious circle of conflict, de-industrialisation and de-urbanisation. However, a far more serious concern is the change in the oceans which would lead to them becoming sterilised. Likely, an ocean anoxic event is the precursor event. As I understand it, the Great Dying (P-T extinction) provides an analogue. Anoxic oceans were linked with a mass extinction of land biodiversity. I understand that a proposed mechanism for this is the creation of an atmosphere laden with H2S and lacking a functioning ozone layer. That's wouldn't be promising for the Chicken McNugget supply. A On Jun 8, 2013 10:01 AM, "Ken Caldeira" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Andrew, Please respond to what I said and not what you imagine I said. The issue has to do with a hypothetical case of sterilization of the oceans. There was no reference to climate change in my statement. I challenge anyone to construct a plausible causal chain that would lead from sterilization of the oceans to downfall of human civilization. This is not an expression of my values, this is an expression of my scientific understanding. Let all realize that I spend a large chunk of my time trying to investigate and protect human threats to ocean ecosystems. This Scientist Aims High to Save the World's Coral Reefs http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=176344300&m=178462367<http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=176344300&m=178462367> (Aired Monday, 4/22 on NPR's All Things Considered; 7 minutes, 49 seconds) Best, Ken On Saturday, June 8, 2013, Andrew Lockley wrote: In my view, history provides the best guide to the future. Civilisations are not long lived at the best of times, and their messy and painful demise is usually accompanied by minor climate disruption. The more complex the civilisation, the less robust it is, as there is a greater interconnectedness, and hence a greater ability to transmit shocks through the system. To further explain : our ancestors would not have heard about an antipodean earthquake, whereas now such a tremor can send markets into meltdown in minutes. The idea that despite this much more vulnerable society, the American middle class will survive the worst climate change in human history without disruption to the Chicken McNugget supply, or to the ability of Hollywood to produce Game of Thrones, is completely bizarre. Someone, somewhere will likely be eating a piece of battered chicken meat. Someone, somewhere will probably still have a working digital camera and some kind of transmission equipment . This does not equate to an uninterrupted experience for the US middle class. A On Jun 8, 2013 8:42 AM, "Emily L-B" <[email protected]> wrote: Hi all, I'd propose you put this hypothesis to Dan Laffolley (you can google him). There are so many responses to this I am overwhelmed and can't respond coherently. Apart from anything else, my understanding is that decay of ocean matter would release noxious gases. So while there may be O2, it may be polluted. Best wishes, Emily. Sent from my BlackBerry ________________________________ From: Ken Caldeira <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2013 15:05:06 +0800 To: [email protected]<[email protected]> ReplyTo: [email protected] Cc: [email protected]<[email protected]> Subject: [geo] The Caldeira "If you Sterilize the Ocean We'd Still Have Chicken McNuggets Hypothesis" questioned by Ocean expert David, The residence time of oxygen in the atmosphere + ocean + biosphere with respect to the lithosphere is millions of years. There are about 4 x 10 ** 19 mol of O2 in the atmosphere. The rate of removal of this O2 by organic carbon weathering is about 4 x 10 ** 12 mol per year. I am not sure about pyrite oxidation and so on but you can check out the attached paper for an entree into the literature. In any case, the 1000 year number you cite is not based on any reliable literature value. A better guess might be that we would have breathable oxygen on the order of a million years if you eliminated all life on land and sea. If life were eliminated in the oceans only, I don't know of anything that would impede our ability to eat Chicken McNuggets and watch TV indefinitely. Let me make it clear that I value life in the oceans quite highly and do not at all like Chicken McNuggets. (For some reason, nutters on the web think that you can't discuss anything unless you are advocating actually doing it.) Best, Ken On Saturday, June 8, 2013, David Lewis wrote: During the Q&A after his 2012 AGU talk entitled "Ocean Acidification: Adaptive Challenge or Extinction Threat?", Ken Caldeira said: "I actually think if you sterilize the ocean, yes vulnerable people would be hurt, poor people would be hurt, but that we'd still have Chicken McNuggets and TV shows and basically we'd be OK " A video of Ken's entire talk is available here<http://fallmeeting.agu.org/2012/events/gc44c-special-lecture-in-ocean-acidification-consequences-of-excess-carbon-dioxide-in-the-marine-environment-video-on-demand/>. He lays out the McNugget/Ocean Sterilization hypothesis starting at minute 50:20. This seemed to be Ken's answer to the question he posed in his subtitle, i.e. is homo sapiens facing a threat of extinction as a result of any particular odd behavior the species is engaged in at the moment such as carelessly dumping waste gases into the atmosphere which are changing the chemistry of the global ocean? Callum Roberts, a scientist who studies the impact of human activity on marine ecosystems, addressed an audience at the University of Sydney this year where he discussed the many problems human activity is causing life in the oceans. He interrupted his litany of woe briefly to tell the audience of some "good news" he had: "even if all the ocean's primary productivity were shot down tomorrow, it will still be a long time before we suffocate because there's plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere, enough for more than 1,000 years. So hopefully we can get our heads aro -- _______________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution for Science Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212<tel:%2B1%20650%20704%207212> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira Caldeira Lab is hiring postdoctoral researchers. http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira_employment.html Check out the profile of me on NPR's All Things Considered<http://www.npr.org/2013/04/22/176344300/this-scientist-aims-high-to-save-the-worlds-coral-reefs> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
