Okay, from your urging, I looked up ocean acidification and found http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=165564&pt=2&p=150429 http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?

Okay, from your urging, I looked up ocean acidification and found http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=165564&pt=2&p=150429 http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=165564&pt=2&p=150429 with Ocean Acidification. They have a lot of seemingly serious organizations with their logos at the bottom, e.g., NOAA. Of course, nearly all those organizations (the IAEA is there and I can't guess why) are in the business of screaming about CO2 from humans -- so objectivity is in question. They had their chance, and they blew it; they just didn't make a convincing case at all. About all they really said was that if I go swimming in the ocean and exhale into the water, then my CO2 will make the water more acidic. I agree. Obviously both true and trivial. But that's also right where they blew it: They never got to how much CO2 and how much more acidic. So, in principle nearly everything they said would also hold for my case of blowing bubbles at the beach -- literally. They had a chance -- they blew it. Why? Incompetence or just covering up that so far the CO2 is nowhere nearly enough to do much to the oceans anytime soon, and I don't know which, but in either case they didn't turn me into a CO2 and ocean acidification alarmist. Early on they said that the atmospheric CO2 makes the surface water more acidic. I thought, "Sure, but so darned what?" It's just the surface water, and there's a lot more water out there and a lot of mixing. So, now, the whole ocean, human CO2 is going to make the whole ocean a lot more acidic? When? How? Via how darned much CO2 and how much more acidic? No answer. The whole ocean? In another context, I'd take that as a thigh slapping joke from Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny. Next I think, significantly harmful CO2 in the ocean? Gotta be kidding because of sea floor smokers, volcanoes, e.g., think Hawaii, and sea floor spreading and associated volcanic activity from plate tectonics, e.g., the line from Iceland south through the central Atlantic and around much of the planet. Next, especially in the top layers of the ocean are Phytoplankton, that is plankton that are plants and, thus, suck up CO2. They mentioned some means of the oceans getting rid of the CO2 but didn't mention plants. Gads. My objections are not solid science, but their PDF didn't address even my simple, obvious, first-cut points. So, their PDF fails both the sniff test and the giggle test. Maybe their worst was their "16 Full recovery of the oceans will require tens to hundreds of millennia. Over decades to centuries, neither weathering of continental rocks, deep ocean mixing, or dissolution of calcium carbonate minerals in marine sediments can occur fast enough to reverse OA over the next two centuries." The first problem, grade F on the giggle test, is "hundreds of millennia". That's hundreds of thousands of years, just to do something about CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution? This is from Bugs Bunny? In hundreds of thousands of years the oceans would routinely handle the CO2 from hundreds of thousands of years of volcanic activity but would struggle with the industrial output of CO2 from, say, 200 years? Grade F on the sniff test. This statement needs at least some support from actual numerical estimates of the quantities involved; just that statement in that PDF document is at least incompetent as writing if not science. Yes, they did mention pH: "4 Average global surface ocean pH has already fallen from a pre-industrial value of 8.2 to 8.1, corresponding to an increase in acidity of about 30%." Boy, does that scream out for a reference, some supporting arguments (e.g., just how much CO2 would that take, even if none of it was taken up by plants), and the significance of that much change in pH. Without getting out a chemistry book, maybe I see how their change from pH 8.2 to 8.1 is "an increase in acidity of about 30%." Gee, 30%; that sounds big, dangerous, etc. Wow! 30%! Gads. So, 8.2 is not acidic but basic. pH is essentially hydrogen ion concentration. So, in a basic solution, expect nearly no hydrogen ions. So, if pH 8.2 has nearly no hydrogen ions, then 30% more hydrogen ions to pH 8.1 is 30% of nearly nothing and, thus, nearly no change. Sorry, I have to get up and turn off my screaming, loud BS meter that just went off .... They blew it. This PDF is from Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Goofy, The Three Stooges, Groucho Marx, George Carlin, NOAA, or all of those? It that's even roughly the best argument they can make, then they added evidence of no serious problem from "ocean acidification". Tell you what: Next time to the beach, I'll bring a roll of Tums and drop a few into the ocean. For what's in the PDF, that should solve any problem. For that PDF, there's a much better explanation than a significant threat to the oceans: They want to fit in with the CO2 alarmists and, thus, get grant money. I'm all for good research, but first they need to learn how to write. I would not approve their grant request. Gotta quit reading this stuff or unplug my BS meter ....