Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Ocean alkalinity
In former times of high atmospheric CO
2
, oceans were not acid, there was no runaway
greenhouse, and the rate of change of temperature, sea level and ice waxing and waning
was no different from the present. The alkalinity (measured as pH units on a logarithmic
scale) of ocean water changes is slightly variable. A very slight change to ocean pH would
involveachemicalreactionutilisingmonstrousvolumesofacid.Seawaterdoesnotbecome
acidified: it changes slightly in alkalinity. The lowest alkalinity (pH 7.3) is very close to
acid hot springs. Any Green, climate activist, or journalist who refers to ocean acidity
demonstrates a lack of knowledge of basic chemistry. Or maybe they are just deliberately
misleading.
The oceans have been alkaline throughout the history of time because water chemistry,
ocean floor sediments, and new volcanic rocks on the sea floor buffer seawater to stop it
becoming acid, even during times of CO
2
concentrations that were thousands of times the
present value. Ocean waters, such as borates, buffer seawater and keep its pH constant. At
mid-ocean ridges where volcanic rocks spew out on the ocean floor above large magma
chambers, the extensional tectonics allows the ingress of cool alkaline seawater down
fractures to depths of about five kilometres into the fresh basalts.
Chemicalreactionsbetweennaturalglassesandmineralsinbasaltcausewaterandrock
to swap chemicals. This is a buffering process that allows the oceans to remain at constant
pH. This process has been taking place for thousands of millions of years during warm
times, cold times and times of high atmospheric CO
2
yet the oceans have never been acid.
Iftheywereacidatsometime,thentherewouldhavebeenagapinthemarinefossilrecord
as carbonate shells of organisms would have dissolved. There is no such gap.
iv. Climate change will be irreversible and that human emissions of carbon
dioxide must be reduced or stopped as soon as possible
Governments and their agencies claim that science supports their ideology, but while
research grants are given to support this ideology, naysayers are denied grants, ignored,
or—more commonly—pilloried. This doesn't happen in many other branches of science,
where competing theories are supported with research funds, ideas are energetically
discussed, and theories are changed based on new validated evidence. Matters of climate
change have been politicised, everyone has an opinion (despite commonly not having the
knowledge to underpin an opinion), scientifically illiterate journalists become champions
of a cause rather than impartial journalists, and various media networks have taken a
partisan political position.
There has never been a public debate about human-induced climate change. Only
dogma. Science is full of different interpretations of similar observations and, while it
