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Acidity in atmosphere minimised to preindustrial levels
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoReally confusing that the graph starts at 2000 and goes backwards in time along the X axis. Is that a Danish thing?
- adamtulinius 10y agoThe plot is weird: The title of the plot ("Isens alder (år )") literally means "age of the ice (years)", so the x-axis should probably have gone from 0 (being year 2016) to 116 (being year 1900), which would sorta have made sense.
- Ericson2314 10y agoices older (y)ear. Oh, how Germanic languages always make sense in hindsight.
- laveur 10y agoI'm pretty sure the X Axis is the year.. meaning to the right is historical data and to the left is the most recent. Its a little weird but it kind of makes sense.
- johnm1019 10y agoAgreed. I think what happened here is that the graph is really made by depth along an ice core (which starts at 0). In order to make the graph more interesting they converted depth to "years ago".
- ThomPete 10y agonot a Danish thing, perhaps it's because it's just a plotter so it starts printing the first year and then goes back?
- prosaichacker 10y agoGood news for a change. I will wait a decade and want to see these kind of tests repeated before I will really cheer.
- kaybe 10y agoWe have directly-measured data for the later part of the plot (from different locations of course), and many satellite images with excellent spatial coverage to boot. This is real, don't worry. :)
- fokinsean 10y agos/Acidity/CO2/g If only we could save the world with Perl
- TallGuyShort 10y agoThere are a lot of people who will hear CO2 and immediately decide they don't believe you. There's been some bad science behind global warming that deniers will latch onto, and I suspect "CO2" will just get associated with that in many people's minds. The science behind (and the effects of) ocean acidification are far more sound, IMHO. Probably wouldn't be bad to get a second chance in many people's minds at presenting the data. Of course, I'm sure the same people may latch on to this as "the problem is all fixed".
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kaybe 10y agoHow do you want to discuss ocean acidification without mentioning CO2?
- TallGuyShort 10y agoI don't want to. I don't want to s/Acidification/CO2/ either.
- fokinsean 10y agoThis was in reference to the articles title, in other words "CO2 in atmosphere minimised to preindustrial levels..." Sorry to rustle so many jimmies
- al_biglan 10y ago"preindustrial" being tagged at 1900 seems more than a bit off. Steel boomed in the 1880's (starting in 1850's with Bessemer). I would think a better data set would be to look back to 1850 or better 1800 to be sure to capture a decent number of years that show the "preindustrial" time period. All that said. It is nice to see the trend over the past 30 years!
- rjsw 10y agoI think it needs to start a lot earlier. I would expect that a lot of the acidity would have come from the UK, we were to blame for a lot of the acid rain that affected the Black Forest.
- btilly 10y agoA combination of short smokestacks and global weather patterns mean that while England created a lot of local problems for itself, it wouldn't show up well in the Greenland ice sheet record that is being sampled here.
- olkid 10y agoAgreed. The direction we're trending is good, but isn't that entire range [4.99-5.75] considered "acidic"?
- jplasmeier 10y agoRain is normally acidic due to dissolved Carbonic acid. Source: http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/190acidrain.html http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/190acidrain.html
- olkid 10y ago"Normal rainfall is slightly acidic..." ~ thanks for the info
- maxerickson 10y agoHalf the steel ever made has been produced in the last couple decades. 1913 production was ~60 million tons (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2892944/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2892944/posts ). 2015 production was ~1500 million tons.
- sunstone 10y agoNow if we can just get acidity in the oceans back to preindustrial levels we'll be set.
- M_Grey 10y agoWe don't even have a shred of a clue how to do that, only prevent it, and it may well be a bit late to meaningfully prevent.
- endisukaj 10y agoAs someone with 0 knowledge on this. Why is it late and is there any hope one day to be able to reverse the acidity of the oceans?
- M_Grey 10y agoThe problem is the sheer scale, both in terms of quantity of dissolved CO2, and time. I think the (second part)of this does a better job explaining just how and why than I would though: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/reversing-ocean-acidification-aggressive-co2-removal-will-take-more-700-years-1513897 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/reversing-ocean-acidification-aggre...
- Gibbon1 10y agoI think the difference between acidity due to sulfur dioxide and CO2 is twofold. Sulfur dioxide is reactive and gets rapidly cleared in the environment. Sulfur dioxide + H2O -> sulfuric acid -> acidic rain -> + just about any metallic element -> sulfate[1]. So a hang time of 'years' vs CO2 hang time of thousands of years. Second the amount of CO2 we're releasing is probably two orders larger than the amount of sulfur dioxide we were releasing back in the 70's. Since raw coal and petroleum contains a fractional percentage of sulfur it stands to reason the CO2 produced is probably 100 larger than SO2.
- zkhalique 10y agoHow about acidification of the oceans? How about greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?
- kaybe 10y agoIt's a different issue. Acidification of the oceans happens mainly due to dissolved CO2 [0], while the acid in the atmosphere is mainly due to SO2 and NOx. Greenhouse gases were not discussed in the article and were not part of that study, but as you may know, they're still going up. [1][2][3] (Oh yay, the sum of CFCs is actually going down.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification [1] http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ (This page is so scary.) [2] http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/ http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends_ch4/ [3] http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.fig2.png http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.fig2.png // http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/aggi.html http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/aggi.html
- allendoerfer 10y ago> How about acidification of the oceans? Reduce waste, stop ships from ocean dumping. Start with the West and then bully the rest to follow. The US/EU can control who can access their market. "Sorry, you can only land here, if you can prove that you did not dump your waste." > How about greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? I think economics will solve this one. To me waste and planned obsolescence seems like the much bigger problem. Green energy is just "more new stuff", we are good at that. Edit: Another answer to your comment just made me realize, I had a different kind of acidification in mind and missed the point.
- rosege 10y agoSounds like you are talking about what Sweden announced today: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/waste-not-want-not-sweden-tax-breaks-repairs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/waste-not-want...
- mzw_mzw 10y agoRemember, guys, there's no good news and everyone is doomed.
- DubiousPusher 10y agoI normally love HN comment sections because really knowledgable people put these articles into greater perspective. This has not been one such section. Can someone with domain specific knowledge speak to what this means? What are the scope of the benefits? What was the danger if this hadn't been turned around?
- btilly 10y agoLook up "acid rain". In the 1970s we had marble buildings being corroded, lakes becoming inhospitable to fish, losses of billions of years per year in reduced agriculture and large numbers of people dying each year from respiratory problems. Today all of those have been reversed. As well, visible smog didn't look very nice...
- reitanqild 10y agoAround where I live acid rain was a major problem earlier. It wiped out the wild trout along the west coast of the country. AFAIK the problem was that the when the streams became acidic they dissolved certain minerals from the soil that somehow congested the gills and made it impossible for the fish to exchange oxygen with the water.
- baldfat 10y agoIt also ruined thousands of small ponds. There were ponds, miles into the wilderness, with huge Brook Trout populations. I fished them with my dad in the 1970 and 1980s. By the mid to late 80s all the fish were gone. I went back in 2005 and there wasn't a single fish in the ponds still. I am hoping they will come back one day. EDIT: Looks like these ponds have been restored by the state with thousands of dollars of state money. These ponds are literally 3 miles from the closest dirt road. I might be able to take my kids there in a few years.
- kaybe 10y agoAs far as I can see, the general trend of the plot is not new knowledge. There are a myriad of this kind of analysis going on in the background all the time, and what is mostly gained is a slightly clearer picture, with more locations covered, better temporal resolution and more independent measurements to crosscheck with (eg so you can be reasonably sure your equipment was calibrated properly, you did a good job taking the samples and applied all the corrections right - of course, don't just believe everything if the results fit, and don't just throw them away if they don't, but at the beginning it is often not clear what is correct, and many teams tackling the problem increases the quality of the results.) The interesting thing here is the measurement method, that can now be let loose on other samples as well. However, that also is one further small step to better data, I reckon, no great breakthrough here. So, it's nice, and the paper will most probably be cited quite a bit within the community, but that should be the level of importance I think. If you want to talk about acid in the atmosphere.. look no further than polluted cities in eg China. It's straight-out unhealthy for people and the acidic rain is bad for plants and things. So it's a problem for forests and agriculture, and also smaller bodies of water and the life within. On the other hand, the aerosols that form block some sunlight and cool the area down, and counteract global warming, especially in the stratosphere (which is only reached by huge volcanic eruptions, we don't have many of there, just a handful per century). (Yes, this is a proposed climate engineering method.) (Btw, the oil sand extraction in Alberta, Canada has produced huge mountains of sulfur. The stuff is only mildly flammable, but I can't help imagine what would happen.) http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/keystone-xl-pipeline.337712/ http://www.usmessageboard.com/threads/keystone-xl-pipeline.3...
- hasbroslasher 10y agoThis seems incredibly vacuous: > Acid in the atmosphere can come from large volcanic eruptions and manmade emissions from industry It's not surprising that the atmosphere isn't as acidic now, as there has been a decline in volcanic activity in the last 100 years (purely statistical noise). In fact, it's rather harmful to push the "hey we're making improvements" narrative when there is still so much to be done to prevent global environmental catastrophes.
- ced 10y agoCould you support your assertion that the variation shown in the graph is due to volcanic activity? To me it looks like "steady increase after WWII, up to critical levels, then subsiding after the clean air acts of the 1970s". But I have no background in the subject. http://www.nbi.ku.dk/Nyheder/nyheder_16/luftens-syreforurening-er-minimeret-til-foer-industrialiseringen/forGertie-1280.jpg http://www.nbi.ku.dk/Nyheder/nyheder_16/luftens-syreforureni...
- hasbroslasher 10y agoSure, here's a really simple one: https://www.metabunk.org/sk/Volcanic-activity-1945-2015.png https://www.metabunk.org/sk/Volcanic-activity-1945-2015.png Interestingly, this graph shows volcanic activity declining after the passage of the clean air act - perhaps the gods of volcanism heard our pleas. In all likelihood, yeah, it was a combination of the two factors, but it did bug me that they ignored below-average global volcanism post 1970.
- wycx 10y agoGlobal volcanic activity is an imperfect proxy, however. For instance, about 20% of present day global volcanic SO2 emissions are from a few volcanoes in Vanuatu (Yasur, Lopevi, Ambrym, Ambae, Gaua and Vanua Lava).
- sliverstorm 10y agoVictories are good. If the narrative is 100% gloom and doom and never acknowledges a shred of success, people become fatalistic and give up.
- mayank10j 10y agoIt is a tragedy that article like these are usually used by climate change deniers as SCIENTIFIC proof.
- jcoffland 10y agoIt's a tragedy that so many so called intellectuals want to stifle any debate by labeling people "climate change deniers" in the first place. I fully believe that there is enough evidence that we need to take immediate action but exactly how human activity is impacting the environment is far from understood. To pretend that anyone knows exactly what's going on, or even if the changes we have measured in recent years are with out a doubt human caused, is BS, even if there is significant evidence pointing in that direction.
- yongjik 10y agoA climate change denier, citing the success of government regulations that limit emission of environmentally harmful substance, without noticeable harm on economy, must not be really thinking it through...
- Alex3917 10y agoAccording to the EPA, fixing acid rain has brought society $2.0 trillion worth of economic benefits per year at an annual cost of $65 billion. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-07/documents/fullreport_rev_a.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-07/documents...
- zeveb 10y agoThis is purely an ad hominem argument because I don't have time to dig into their claims: isn't in the EPA's interest to claim that their regulations are worth the cost?
- Alex3917 10y agoThe clean air act isn't an EPA regulation. It was created by an act of congress, and part of that law requires the EPA to file regular reports on whether or not the law is working. https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/1990-clean-air-act-amendment-summary https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/1990-clean-air-ac...
- tlb 10y agoMy family's business in the 1970s was cleaning windows on tall buildings in Saskatoon (there were dozens). The effects of acid rain on buildings was dramatic. Facades on buildings that had stood since the 1920s were crumbling. Acid rain damage control was a whole segment of our business. Presumably the pollution there was no worse than anywhere else. Emissions controls for vehicles and coal power plants are important. Things would be much worse without them.
- mirimir 10y agoThis is great news for ecosystems everywhere! But there may be a downside. It remains unclear how human SO2 emissions contribute to sulfate aerosol levels in the stratosphere, and so increase albedo. As China reduces SO2 emissions, global warming may accelerate.[0] Maybe getting those emissions directly into the stratosphere would be useful. But that would require nontrivial energy. [0] Kasoar et al. (2016) Regional and Global Climate Response to Anthropogenic SO2 Emissions from China in Three Climate Models. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160011155 http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160011155
- dnautics 10y agoThe mind is blown that this can't be repeated with CO2 emissions: The rules should be simple. 1) auction permits for a single compound (create separate auctions for each worrisome greenhouse gas) 2) allow for secondary markets (e.g. futures) with some cost for permit transfers 3) disallow credit schemes. Trading offsets is too easy to game. 4) allow anyone who cares to buy off carbon permits in the general auction and let them go fallow. Of course, that will never happen, because there are a host of politically favored entities that are interested in keeping things complicated for their own benefit.