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Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950 (2010)
- patientplatypus 7y agoYou know there are a lot of people who think we're going to die from global warming but I always figured the food web will just collapse. Like one year all the harvests stop working. Could be the missing bees and insects or the soil exhaustion or the heat. Or just that plastic is in the water supply. Heck, we just found out a few days ago that larger amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere actually makes rice less nutritious. But by then the reasons won't matter and people will just start killing each other over food.
- titzer 7y ago> I always figured the food web will just collapse. I fear this too, but it won't be so dramatic. On geologic and evolutionary timescales, it will be like a flash. On human timescales, it might be a decade or a century. From our perspective it will look a lot more like a ratcheting-down of the food web, as loss of biodiversity will lead to pancaking of layers down. There will be booms and busts, as the ecological niche filled by one organism is vacated by its sudden collapse and a temporary resurgence of some aggressive species fills that gap, until that poorly adapted monoculture succumbs to something else. In a sense, the whole thing is going to come down in spasms, and we'll be arguing the whole way into the grave, because it's so complicated that gaslighters and deniers will always be able to point to something that looks like recovery, but really isn't. I am long past accepting this. The question in my mind is really, how big is the crater left by humanity going to be?
- jes5199 7y agoAre we doomed? It seems like we might be doomed
- chadcmulligan 7y agoI'd guess like any environment if the species population (humans) exceeds the carrying capacity of the land (earth) then there will be a die back.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoTL;DR: Yup, we're doomed. Read or listen to David Wallace-Wells' Uninhabitable Earth[1] and/or Jem Bendell's Deep Adaptation[2] and decide for yourself. Both a couple of years old, neither will leave you the slightest bit optimistic. [1] http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-... [2] https://jembendell.com/category/deep-adaptation/ https://jembendell.com/category/deep-adaptation/
- ridewinter 7y agoEarth has always been uninhabitable for the most part. It’s only technology that allows us to live where we are (unless you live in the great Rift Valley). And it will be technology that saves us in the future. Edit: downvoted for technology optimism on this site?? Please explain.
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- incompatible 7y agoHumans already colonised most of the Earth in the Paleolithic, using the minimal technology of hunter-gatherers.
- ridewinter 7y agoYes, we’ve always used technology to alter our environments and we’ll need to continue to do so. The explanations in the doomsday articles here assume no technological progress. We’ve only put minimal effort into geo-engineering solutions, but even with that minimal effort there’s been some good ideas, such as planting 130 trees per person [1], olovine rocks on beaches [2], and basalt dusting of farmland [3]. [1] https://m.phys.org/news/2019-07-climate-trillion-trees.html https://m.phys.org/news/2019-07-climate-trillion-trees.html [2] https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/ [3] https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/spreading-crushed-rock-on-farms-could-improve-soil-and-lower-co₂/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/spreading-crushed-ro...
- ridewinter 7y agoNo, we’ve been on the brink of annihilation many times and have found a way through. We cannot predict what new knowledge will be discovered to solve these problems. But we must keep trying.
- rosybox 7y agoWhen have we been on the brink of annihilation before?
- ridewinter 7y agoThere’s the multiple population bottlenecks in our DNA history [1]. The close calls in world wars and cold wars. Etc. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842629/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2842629/
- abraae 7y agoThe cold wars were called that because they never actually became war. And the world war's combined impact on global populations was only a couple of percentage points. Neither remotely qualifies as being on the brink of annihilation.
- ridewinter 7y agoThe soviet naval officer who prevented WWIII: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/03/you-and-almost-everyone-you-know-owe-your-life-to-this-man/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/03/you-and-almo... The British government on the brink of capitulating to Hitler: https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/the-may-1940-war-cabinet-crisis-churchills-darkest-hour/ https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/the-may... The Allies and not Hitler getting the atomic bomb. Examples abound just in the past few generations.
- beamatronic 7y agoUntil Thanos comes along
- coldtea 7y agoNot at all, handwaving, technological breakthroughs, handwaving, renewables, handwaving, mars colonies, and we'll be alright...
- mietek 7y ago(2010)
- pygy_ 7y ago[2010], here's the paper referenced in the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268 I knew we had fucked up the oceans with plastics and overfishing, but I didn't know that phytoplankton was down as well, at such a scale. Per TFA, it provided 50% of the Earth's photosynthesis (in 2010). If it kept on dwindling that fast, that share is even lower now (down ~45%, with a half-life of 81 years, assuming the decline was constant between 1950 and 2010). This is also freaky knowing that it is the base of the food chain in the oceans... I don't have any idea of the amount of oxygen that's cycled each year vs the total amount in the atmosphere... I suppose there's no immediate danger on that end, even if it were to drop to an even lower point before recovering, otherwise we'd have heard of this more often...
- Gibbon1 7y agoI keep coming back to the idea that over fishing --> pulling micro nutrients from the ocean --> plankton collapse.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoWe take the good stuff out (i.e., fish) and dump garbage and pollutants back in. What could go wrong? Humans fully deserve the next extinction event.
- bamboozled 7y agoYeah right, children, innocents and wildlife deserve an extinction event. Sorry but what a silly idea that is.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoOdd and ironic that you're accusing me of neglecting children, innocents and wildlife. I'm not making the news. I'm only reporting it. Why not turn your anger and disgust on those that deserve it. That's not me.
- schainks 7y agoAre there any teams trying to genetically engineer phytoplankton to deal with these changes in ocean conditions?
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y agoWho is going to pay them to do that extremely expensive work? I really wish I never had to even think of that question, but it is a serious one. Capitalism certainly has it's drawbacks...
- geedy 7y agoI am not associated with any of the following, but there are organizations attempting to build devices that will bring colder, nutrient rich waters to the surface to cause phytoplankton blooms (or use the same nutrients for seaweed farming): 1) ocean-based.com 2) http://www.climatefoundation.org/ http://www.climatefoundation.org/ We should of course do everything we can to stop emitting carbon. But projects like these may an important part in our future.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y agoI don't think it's the carbon dioxide that is killing the phytoplankton, they probably love it like most plants love a little extra CO2. I imagine it's other chemicals like herbicides making their way into the oceans and killing the tiny plants.
- geedy 7y agoThe general problem is that the warmer waters are trapping the cooler waters below. Upwelling is an attempt to fix it!
- tedivm 7y agoA little extra CO2 sure, but the rising CO2 in the oceans is actually changing the PH balance. https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-0720 https://news.mit.edu/2015/ocean-acidification-phytoplankton-...
- petre 7y agoIt's the temperature, not the CO2. I have fresh water shrimp and some fish. If you raise the temperature over 30°C, less oxygen dissolves into the water and there's not enough for the critters to breathe. It's basically asphyxiation. Labyrinth fish are adapted, since they can breathe air as well, but they do it merely for survival, they too become stressed and die after a while. Also some types of algae grow faster when the water is warmer. More algae = more O2 uptake during daytime.
- chiefalchemist 7y ago> The tiny organisms, known as phytoplankton, also gobble up carbon dioxide to produce half the world's oxygen output—equaling that of trees and plants on land. So does this mean there's been a significant drop in oxygen (produced)? And if so, how much? If 100% of phytoplankton produces 50% of the oxygen and 100% is now 60% that mean 50% of oxygen is down to 30%. In other words, sans a drop in non phytoplankton, total oxygen that was 100% is not 80%? Wouldn't we feel that?
- hanniabu 7y agoThat's pretty amazing, so in essence losing 40% of the phyloplankton is like us losing 50% of all trees over the last 50 years without even realizing it.
- JoeSamoa 7y agoAlot more is going to happen without us realizing it unless we take action fast... https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/1/316 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/1/316
- tedivm 7y agoThat's oxygen produced, not oxygen total. Dropping to 80% yearly production isn't going to remove the already stockpiled oxygen in the system, so how quickly we notice is going to depend on how much oxygen is being "removed" from the system at the same time. From a different paper- > Oxygen concentrations are currently declining at roughly 19 per meg per year, or about 4 ppm per year. One "per meg" indicates one molecule out of 1,000,000 oxygen molecules, or roughly one molecule in 4.8 million molecules of air.
- mirimir 7y agoTotal atmospheric oxygen is 195000 ppm, so 4 ppm isn't much. But if it's a consistent trend, it is a little concerning.
- soperj 7y agoWouldn't this also mean the amount of CO2 processed was also down significantly?
- qwerty456127 7y agoNot in the lakes near me. These are so damn green right now...
- mistrial9 7y agorumors of this were spread in certain environmentalist communities in the late 1980s, with less certainty, and were widely accompanied by dread, sorrow and a feeling of being overwhelmed. The gut-sense was that toxics, plastics, human activity and at that time, missing ozone layer, had broken or was about to break, some balance point in the top few feet of saltwater, where a huge amount of the vital activity lie. Now, thirty years later, the ability to measure and predict is much greater, such that science literature can put a finer point on things. Yet the overall pollution activity (minus the success of the ozone layer repletion, worse with single-use plastics) continues. Like the therapist says, you own your reaction to this.. hard to dismiss...
- algaeontoast 7y agoThis should be more troubling than dwindling forest and marshland.
- radford-neal 7y agoThe referenced paper is from 2010. Do you suppose that the reason you haven't been hearing more about this recently is that it's just wrong? In 2011, this comment disputing it was published: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09950 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09950 The paper was discussed on HN earlier, as part of the discussion of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19127911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19127911 I have a comment there pointing out that if you actually look at the data in the paper, there is really no evidence of a decline.
- strainer 7y agoThe authors of the 2010 paper did follow up with another in 2014[1] so "heard nothing since disputed in 2011 - its just wrong" is at least, inaccurate. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079661114000135 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S007966111... >This work builds upon an earlier analysis (Boyce et al., 2010) by taking published criticisms into account, and by using recalibrated data, and novel analysis methods.
- philipkglass 7y agoGood counterpoint. I upvoted you and radford-neal. Having looked at both papers now, I think that the 2014 followup confirmed the direction of the trend (downward), but it looks like it also significantly reduced the magnitude of the trend. Look at figure 2b in the 2010 paper and figure 1a in the 2014 paper. They both show "Rate of Chl change (mg m–3 yr–1)" on a grid of cells covering the world's oceans. But the scale in the 2010 paper went from -0.40 to 0.40. In the 2014 paper the extremes of the scale are only -0.10 and 0.10. It looks like re-analysis indicated less dramatic rates of change both in the cells showing increase and those showing decrease.
- sieabahlpark 7y agoHN seems to more and more turn into Reddit when it comes to upvoting articles people only read the headlines for.
- 7y ago
- eklavyaa 7y agocoincidentally I watched Our Planet High Seas episode today. They showed how crucial Phytoplankton is. No matter where you are in world the air you are breathing is somewhere coming from these microscopic plants. This fact made me stop and think even these tiny organisms contributing to make earth habitable, What we do as human beings ?