8 ms·

Boy are characterizations like this getting tired. An actually accurate title would read something like: Farm and industry run-off in certain areas of the world

Boy are characterizations like this getting tired. An actually accurate title would read something like: Farm and industry run-off in certain areas of the world is depleting oxygen in certain parts of the ocean. The vast majority of the issue isn't related to rising temps, it would still be there if there were no rising temps. It is the agricultural and industrial runoff in what I suspect are very, very specific parts of the ocean. The title "as temperatures rise" is totally dishonest. It's probably closer to something like "as demand for palm oil increases" (not trying to finger that one crop, but its more accurate than "as temperatures rise"). > "To stop the worrying expansion of oxygen-poor areas, we need to decisively curb greenhouse gas emissions as well as nutrient pollution from agriculture and other sources." If you want to do something decisive, point out where these oxygen depleted areas are, and do something to stop the runoff. That's the main problem. Tying it in to the much more nebulous "carbon emissions" hurts more than it helps but its like climate writers cannot help themselves. Imagine if everyone trying to stop the ozone-depletion problem did this. Nothing would have gotten done to this day. Find the smallest unit of actionable, measurable change and try to change that first. EDIT hokay lets read the study: BBC: "Around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s." Section 2.5 summary on page 109 (PDF) or page 85 of the report, two bullets: • Over 900 areas around the world have been identified as experiencing the effects of eutrophication. Of these, over 700 have problems with hypoxia, but through nutrient and organic loading management about 70 (10%) of them can now be classified as recovering. • There is no other environmental variable of such ecological importance to coastal ecosystems that has changed so drastically in such a short period of time as a result of human activities as dissolved oxygen. Look, the part BBC wants to spook you with? It's eutrophication! It is independent of warming and can be fixed independent of warming. This is a good thing! It is already being fixed in some areas, which is even nicer. All I ask is that we actually decouple these from "warming" so we can do something about them faster.

czbond 7y ago
I'm not informed enough to make a reply comment, but thank you for adding clarity - it informed me.
- endorphone 7y ago
  If you read an article citing the conclusions of an international group with 15,000+ experts in their respective field, many member nations and their scientific establishment, etc, and you believe some random comment by some random guy on the internet adds "clarity", you need to really reconsider how you evaluate information. This is how we ended up in the situations of enormous ignorance in the climate change and immunization realms, as if scientific rigour, consensus, statistical and foundational fact, etc, are all contentious the moment some random blowhard gives their opinion.
  - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
    While I agree with you, it's not unreasonable to try to correct for expected press sensationalism.
    - magicalist 7y ago
      > While I agree with you, it's not unreasonable to try to correct for expected press sensationalism. I don't see why a random internet commentator's pet theory (with nothing in the article to support it) should be treated as necessarily better.
      - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
        Neither do I. That’s why I didn’t suggest that.
    - endorphone 7y ago
      Sure, if the root post analyzed the study, or even did the most cursory skim of it, and pointed out how the article differed from its conclusions, that would be valuable. They didn't. They blanket dismissed it, gave their own theory, and expressed how tired they are from this cross they must bear. https://www.unitgraphics.com/deox/IUCNDeoxreportBOOK15-11-2019.pdf https://www.unitgraphics.com/deox/IUCNDeoxreportBOOK15-11-20... (77MB) There's the actual study. The BBC article is pretty accurate in its summary.
endorphone 7y ago
Warmer waters hold less oxygen. This is fundamental, scientific fact.. The article specifically mentions the relatively small problem of run-off, and then the broader problem of, you know, entire oceans. A relatively constant, albeit still problematic, issue with runoff is pretty mild compared to the potentially for extremely wide-scale change from climate, hence the alarmism. To snidely quote from the beginning of your reply- "Boy are characterizations like this getting tired." I'm sorry you had to go through these trials. How very heroic of you to set the record straight for all these dummies. You surely must have some relevant education and peer group, right?
- ra1n85 7y ago
  >I'm sorry you had to go through these trials. How very heroic of you to set the record straight for all these dummies. You surely must have some relevant education and peer group, right? I think you're completely missing the point. The bombast ("the oceans are running out of oxygen","we only have 12 years left") is counter productive. We need to identify actionable problems and address them now. Alarming everyone through apocalyptic headlines will only fatigue and confuse.
  - endorphone 7y ago
    Science isn't there to make you feel good, motiviated, etc. They're just pointing out what's happening to the best of their abilities to measure and analyze. Demanding a feel-good or less dire reporting on it isn't a solution.
    - ra1n85 7y ago
      >Demanding a feel-good or less dire reporting on it isn't a solution. It's not about feeling good, it's about accuracy. If accuracy is something you see as an optional component of reporting, then I'm not going to be able to get on your wavelength.
      - endorphone 7y ago
        "It's not about feeling good, it's about accuracy" So....what's inaccurate about the reporting? You've strangely yet to mention any, though you did add your own invented "we only have 12 years left" bit for whatever reason (neither the article or report say anything of the sort). But yes, we aren't going to get on the same wavelength, clearly. Your original post claimed that I "missed the point", when I clearly replied to someone's specific points, then you injected yet another narrative. This is a tactic as old as time for baseless rhetoric -- just constantly spin around the topic, adding just enough noise that you hope it disrupts the conversation.
Phylter 7y ago
Honestly, sensational headlines like this are why so many people have a difficult time buying into climate change. If the media would present it as it actually is then I think more people would get on board.
- bayarrhea 7y ago
  No, it’s because those people have a deep mistrust of science and expertise, and using as much oil as possible is tied into some weird, macho, and at times oddly Christian identity, and suggesting that that’s harmful is threatening to them.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Anti-scientific thinking transcends political and gender identities in the USA. It can be traced at least as far back as Esalen institute stuff, and likely much farther. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-ame... It's partially our governments fault for doing things like when the Atomic Energy Commission got caught being fraudulent about what killed 5000 sheep after the 1953 Upshot-Knothole nuclear weapons test series. When the top scientific institutions lose credibility, where we are today seems at least a little inevitable. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/09/magazine/downwind-from-the-bomb.html https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/09/magazine/downwind-from-th...
    - fuckoffhn 7y ago
      Doesn’t make the science wrong.
- the_narrator 7y ago
  That is the problem. Without actual proof of something, sensational headlines are mandatory.
  - adamsea 7y ago
    Oh my god dude go home
acollins1331 7y ago
Warmer waters increase CO2 dissolution into the water.
- hcknwscommenter 7y ago
  That is very incorrect. While heat helps dissolve ionic compounds like salt, it has the opposite effect for CO2.
- roter 7y ago
  CO2 solubility typically decreases with increasing water temperature [0]. [0] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_...
- duelingjello 7y ago
  CO2 solubility in H2O is inversely proportional to temperature but proportional to pressure. Even at 500 atmospheres (~5 km / ~15,000 ft depth), it's still not proportional to temperature. Whether a high-pressure environment precipitates out supercritical CO2 as a "solidish" hydrate or affects solubility is beyond my current laziness to look for. I would guess supercritical CO2 has a density higher than the densest water, but that's only a guess. (Paging Thunderf00t, CodysLab or NileRed to make a video.) https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja01861a033 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja01861a033 EDIT: I didn't see any replies before commenting, so "eventual consistency" of independent commenters likely led to what looks like piling-on. Sorry, that's not the intention.
magicalist 7y ago
> It is the agricultural and industrial runoff in what I suspect are very, very specific parts of the ocean. I'm not sure why you think we should take your non-expert, evidenceless hot take on a BBC article more seriously than an actual study, but if you'd like to dig in more, here it is: https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/48892 https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/48892
- simonsarris 7y ago
  I updated my comment with the part of the study that says the 700 danger zones are from eutrophication.
duelingjello 7y ago
Incrementalism and delay won't solve the climate change emergency fast enough, which means we and the planet die. Is that what you want? We have the money and the ability (Bio CCS) to solve CO2 levels back to 280-300 ppm for about the total cost of the US campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Page 109 is a summary specifically relating to estuaries and semi-enclosed seas. There are multiple other summaries relating to other ocean types preceding it. From the executive summary at the beginning: The loss of oxygen in the ocean can broadly be put down to two overlying causes – eutrophication as a result of nutrient run-off from land and deposition of nitrogen from the burning of fossil fuels, and the heating of ocean waters as a result of climate change, primarily causing a change in ventilation with the overlying atmosphere so that they hold less soluble oxygen, and compounded by reduced ocean mixing and changes in currents and wind patterns. Ocean deoxygenation is but the latest consequence of our activities on the ocean to be recognized. Ocean warming, ocean deoxygenation, and ocean acidification are major ‘stressors’ on marine systems and typically co-occur because they share a common cause. Then from Section 2.1, Global Evidence of ocean deoxygenation: + Open-ocean deoxygenation is resulting mainly from a warming ocean, increased stratification and changing circulation which interact with eutrophication-induced hypoxia (oxygen concentration below ~60 to 120 µmol O2 kg-1) and biological activity in shelf regions. + Oxygen loss is closely related to ocean warming and acidification caused by CO2 increase driven by CO2 emissions as well as biogeochemical consequences related to anthropogenic fertilization of the ocean; hence a combined effort investigating the different stressors will be most beneficial to understand future ocean changes.
- simonsarris 7y ago
  Yes! That's the problem! Read the BBC article again: Do they mention that the 700 ocean sites are specifically related to estuaries and semi-enclosed seas? They don't? Hm. I'm responding to something presented in the BBC article, something they mention context-free, because they want to(?) imply that the problem is related to open ocean temp changes, when... it's not. It's a problem of eutrophication. It's still a man-made problem, maybe its exacerbated by additional forces, but its dishonest to paint it as if warming has caused these 700 dead zones. Warming did not. Eutrophication did. Most people who read this: > While nutrient run-off has been known for decades, researchers say that climate change is making the lack of oxygen worse. > Around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s. Will think that climate change caused the 700 ocean sites, up from 45, and not run-off. It's how they are couching it. It is bad and we should scrutinize that.
robocat 7y ago
And you completely ignored the spooky part of the article: Much of the [oxygen] loss is expected in the top 1,000m of the water column, which is richest in biodiversity. You are focusing on eutrophication of shallow waters near land, but that isn’t the problem.
fzeroracer 7y ago
I'm getting tired of comments like these. Every single article about climate change or issues with the environment on HN always has someone swooping in to complain about sensationalism or something-or-other rather than talking about the actual article or the actions that can be taken. Then the rest of the HN post devolves into further nonsense because then the discussion becomes more about nitpicking rather than the actual content of the post at hand. Instead of complaining about sensationalism or nonsense, why don't you skip instead to discussing the actual study at hand and suggest some actual actions we could do to solve the problem? Since you're apparently more of an expert than the journalist here.
- endorphone 7y ago
  This discussion was long excised from the front page yet my comments were multiply flagged (despite being absolutely benign given the scale of it), I got a warning from dang, etc. Somehow it was yielding significant traffic when it should have been seeing none. I don't know where the brigade was drawn from, but this is simply incredible anti-intellectualism writ large. Seeing the pandering of this sort of behavior on HN is deeply disturbing. Seeing this guy's classic denialist post literally as the top moderated post on HN -- wow, I wouldn't trust this aggregate crowd on any topic. It is one of those eye-opening moments that makes me seriously ask what I'm doing here. When we have to treat all "opinions" as if they carry weight, we are doomed.
  - chrchang523 7y ago
    You're mistaking anti-religious-authority behavior for "anti-intellectualism". Climate change is a long-term issue we absolutely should deal with, but the consequences of not doing as much as ideal are, while large, still normalish-distribution-bad, not apocalypse-bad. Too much of the messaging around climate change to date has been apocalyptic. Realistically, anyone who wants to create a bubble of actually constructive discussion and action in this area in a public forum in 2019 should ban all apocalyptic terms/discussion on sight, to avoid triggering a huge number of people who are offended by bogus apocalyptic claims.
    - 7y ago

czbond 7y ago

I'm not informed enough to make a reply comment, but thank you for adding clarity - it informed me.

endorphone 7y ago
If you read an article citing the conclusions of an international group with 15,000+ experts in their respective field, many member nations and their scientific establishment, etc, and you believe some random comment by some random guy on the internet adds "clarity", you need to really reconsider how you evaluate information. This is how we ended up in the situations of enormous ignorance in the climate change and immunization realms, as if scientific rigour, consensus, statistical and foundational fact, etc, are all contentious the moment some random blowhard gives their opinion.
- yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
  While I agree with you, it's not unreasonable to try to correct for expected press sensationalism.
  - magicalist 7y ago
    > While I agree with you, it's not unreasonable to try to correct for expected press sensationalism. I don't see why a random internet commentator's pet theory (with nothing in the article to support it) should be treated as necessarily better.
    - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
      Neither do I. That’s why I didn’t suggest that.
  - endorphone 7y ago
    Sure, if the root post analyzed the study, or even did the most cursory skim of it, and pointed out how the article differed from its conclusions, that would be valuable. They didn't. They blanket dismissed it, gave their own theory, and expressed how tired they are from this cross they must bear. https://www.unitgraphics.com/deox/IUCNDeoxreportBOOK15-11-2019.pdf https://www.unitgraphics.com/deox/IUCNDeoxreportBOOK15-11-20... (77MB) There's the actual study. The BBC article is pretty accurate in its summary.

endorphone 7y ago

Warmer waters hold less oxygen. This is fundamental, scientific fact.. The article specifically mentions the relatively small problem of run-off, and then the broader problem of, you know, entire oceans. A relatively constant, albeit still problematic, issue with runoff is pretty mild compared to the potentially for extremely wide-scale change from climate, hence the alarmism. To snidely quote from the beginning of your reply- "Boy are characterizations like this getting tired." I'm sorry you had to go through these trials. How very heroic of you to set the record straight for all these dummies. You surely must have some relevant education and peer group, right?

ra1n85 7y ago
>I'm sorry you had to go through these trials. How very heroic of you to set the record straight for all these dummies. You surely must have some relevant education and peer group, right? I think you're completely missing the point. The bombast ("the oceans are running out of oxygen","we only have 12 years left") is counter productive. We need to identify actionable problems and address them now. Alarming everyone through apocalyptic headlines will only fatigue and confuse.
- endorphone 7y ago
  Science isn't there to make you feel good, motiviated, etc. They're just pointing out what's happening to the best of their abilities to measure and analyze. Demanding a feel-good or less dire reporting on it isn't a solution.
  - ra1n85 7y ago
    >Demanding a feel-good or less dire reporting on it isn't a solution. It's not about feeling good, it's about accuracy. If accuracy is something you see as an optional component of reporting, then I'm not going to be able to get on your wavelength.
    - endorphone 7y ago
      "It's not about feeling good, it's about accuracy" So....what's inaccurate about the reporting? You've strangely yet to mention any, though you did add your own invented "we only have 12 years left" bit for whatever reason (neither the article or report say anything of the sort). But yes, we aren't going to get on the same wavelength, clearly. Your original post claimed that I "missed the point", when I clearly replied to someone's specific points, then you injected yet another narrative. This is a tactic as old as time for baseless rhetoric -- just constantly spin around the topic, adding just enough noise that you hope it disrupts the conversation.

Phylter 7y ago

Honestly, sensational headlines like this are why so many people have a difficult time buying into climate change. If the media would present it as it actually is then I think more people would get on board.

bayarrhea 7y ago
No, it’s because those people have a deep mistrust of science and expertise, and using as much oil as possible is tied into some weird, macho, and at times oddly Christian identity, and suggesting that that’s harmful is threatening to them.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Anti-scientific thinking transcends political and gender identities in the USA. It can be traced at least as far back as Esalen institute stuff, and likely much farther. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-ame... It's partially our governments fault for doing things like when the Atomic Energy Commission got caught being fraudulent about what killed 5000 sheep after the 1953 Upshot-Knothole nuclear weapons test series. When the top scientific institutions lose credibility, where we are today seems at least a little inevitable. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/09/magazine/downwind-from-the-bomb.html https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/09/magazine/downwind-from-th...
  - fuckoffhn 7y ago
    Doesn’t make the science wrong.
the_narrator 7y ago
That is the problem. Without actual proof of something, sensational headlines are mandatory.
- adamsea 7y ago
  Oh my god dude go home

acollins1331 7y ago

Warmer waters increase CO2 dissolution into the water.

hcknwscommenter 7y ago
That is very incorrect. While heat helps dissolve ionic compounds like salt, it has the opposite effect for CO2.
roter 7y ago
CO2 solubility typically decreases with increasing water temperature [0]. [0] https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_1148.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/gases-solubility-water-d_...
duelingjello 7y ago
CO2 solubility in H2O is inversely proportional to temperature but proportional to pressure. Even at 500 atmospheres (~5 km / ~15,000 ft depth), it's still not proportional to temperature. Whether a high-pressure environment precipitates out supercritical CO2 as a "solidish" hydrate or affects solubility is beyond my current laziness to look for. I would guess supercritical CO2 has a density higher than the densest water, but that's only a guess. (Paging Thunderf00t, CodysLab or NileRed to make a video.) https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja01861a033 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ja01861a033 EDIT: I didn't see any replies before commenting, so "eventual consistency" of independent commenters likely led to what looks like piling-on. Sorry, that's not the intention.

magicalist 7y ago

> It is the agricultural and industrial runoff in what I suspect are very, very specific parts of the ocean. I'm not sure why you think we should take your non-expert, evidenceless hot take on a BBC article more seriously than an actual study, but if you'd like to dig in more, here it is: https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/48892 https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/48892

simonsarris 7y ago
I updated my comment with the part of the study that says the 700 danger zones are from eutrophication.

duelingjello 7y ago

Incrementalism and delay won't solve the climate change emergency fast enough, which means we and the planet die. Is that what you want? We have the money and the ability (Bio CCS) to solve CO2 levels back to 280-300 ppm for about the total cost of the US campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Page 109 is a summary specifically relating to estuaries and semi-enclosed seas. There are multiple other summaries relating to other ocean types preceding it. From the executive summary at the beginning: The loss of oxygen in the ocean can broadly be put down to two overlying causes – eutrophication as a result of nutrient run-off from land and deposition of nitrogen from the burning of fossil fuels, and the heating of ocean waters as a result of climate change, primarily causing a change in ventilation with the overlying atmosphere so that they hold less soluble oxygen, and compounded by reduced ocean mixing and changes in currents and wind patterns. Ocean deoxygenation is but the latest consequence of our activities on the ocean to be recognized. Ocean warming, ocean deoxygenation, and ocean acidification are major ‘stressors’ on marine systems and typically co-occur because they share a common cause. Then from Section 2.1, Global Evidence of ocean deoxygenation: + Open-ocean deoxygenation is resulting mainly from a warming ocean, increased stratification and changing circulation which interact with eutrophication-induced hypoxia (oxygen concentration below ~60 to 120 µmol O2 kg-1) and biological activity in shelf regions. + Oxygen loss is closely related to ocean warming and acidification caused by CO2 increase driven by CO2 emissions as well as biogeochemical consequences related to anthropogenic fertilization of the ocean; hence a combined effort investigating the different stressors will be most beneficial to understand future ocean changes.

simonsarris 7y ago
Yes! That's the problem! Read the BBC article again: Do they mention that the 700 ocean sites are specifically related to estuaries and semi-enclosed seas? They don't? Hm. I'm responding to something presented in the BBC article, something they mention context-free, because they want to(?) imply that the problem is related to open ocean temp changes, when... it's not. It's a problem of eutrophication. It's still a man-made problem, maybe its exacerbated by additional forces, but its dishonest to paint it as if warming has caused these 700 dead zones. Warming did not. Eutrophication did. Most people who read this: > While nutrient run-off has been known for decades, researchers say that climate change is making the lack of oxygen worse. > Around 700 ocean sites are now suffering from low oxygen, compared with 45 in the 1960s. Will think that climate change caused the 700 ocean sites, up from 45, and not run-off. It's how they are couching it. It is bad and we should scrutinize that.

robocat 7y ago

And you completely ignored the spooky part of the article: Much of the [oxygen] loss is expected in the top 1,000m of the water column, which is richest in biodiversity. You are focusing on eutrophication of shallow waters near land, but that isn’t the problem.

fzeroracer 7y ago

I'm getting tired of comments like these. Every single article about climate change or issues with the environment on HN always has someone swooping in to complain about sensationalism or something-or-other rather than talking about the actual article or the actions that can be taken. Then the rest of the HN post devolves into further nonsense because then the discussion becomes more about nitpicking rather than the actual content of the post at hand. Instead of complaining about sensationalism or nonsense, why don't you skip instead to discussing the actual study at hand and suggest some actual actions we could do to solve the problem? Since you're apparently more of an expert than the journalist here.

endorphone 7y ago
This discussion was long excised from the front page yet my comments were multiply flagged (despite being absolutely benign given the scale of it), I got a warning from dang, etc. Somehow it was yielding significant traffic when it should have been seeing none. I don't know where the brigade was drawn from, but this is simply incredible anti-intellectualism writ large. Seeing the pandering of this sort of behavior on HN is deeply disturbing. Seeing this guy's classic denialist post literally as the top moderated post on HN -- wow, I wouldn't trust this aggregate crowd on any topic. It is one of those eye-opening moments that makes me seriously ask what I'm doing here. When we have to treat all "opinions" as if they carry weight, we are doomed.
- chrchang523 7y ago
  You're mistaking anti-religious-authority behavior for "anti-intellectualism". Climate change is a long-term issue we absolutely should deal with, but the consequences of not doing as much as ideal are, while large, still normalish-distribution-bad, not apocalypse-bad. Too much of the messaging around climate change to date has been apocalyptic. Realistically, anyone who wants to create a bubble of actually constructive discussion and action in this area in a public forum in 2019 should ban all apocalyptic terms/discussion on sight, to avoid triggering a huge number of people who are offended by bogus apocalyptic claims.
  - 7y ago