A large research synthesis, published in one of the world's most influential scientific journals, has detected a decline in the amount of dissolved oxygen in oceans around the world — a long-predicted result of climate change that could have severe consequences for marine organisms if it continues.
The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature by oceanographer Sunke Schmidtko and two colleagues from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, found a decline of more than 2 percent in ocean oxygen content worldwide between 1960 and 2010.
The loss of ocean oxygen "has been assumed from models, and there have been lots of regional analysis that have shown local decline, but it has never been shown on the global scale, and never for the deep ocean," said Schmidtko, who conducted the research with Lothar Stramma and Martin Visbeck, also of GEOMAR.
Because oxygen in the global ocean is not evenly distributed, the 2 percent overall decline means there is a much larger decline in some areas of the ocean than others.
Moreover, the ocean already contains so-called oxygen minimum zones, generally found in the middle depths. The great fear is that their expansion upward, into habitats where fish and other organism thrive, will reduce the available habitat for marine organisms.
In shallower waters, meanwhile, the development of ocean "hypoxic" areas, or so-called "dead zones," may also be influenced in part by declining oxygen content overall.
On top of all of that, declining ocean oxygen can also worsen global warming in a feedback loop. In or near low oxygen areas of the oceans, microorganisms tend to produce nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Thus the new study "implies that production rates and efflux to the atmosphere of nitrous oxide ... will probably have increased."
(Score: -1, Disagree) by Entropy on Friday February 17 2017, @05:35PM
The 2015 record cold weather was a sign of global warming.
Record hot weather is a sign of global warming.
If hot, and cold is a sign of global warming...what exactly wouldn't be?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html [dailymail.co.uk] - We need this data to say global warming, so lets manipulate it so it says global warming..
This might be a real sign, or it might not...But unfortunately there are so many fake studies and political agendas(carbon credits, really?) trying to push this down our threat it's become like the war on drugs: Mostly lies, and I really don't believe much the government has to say on the matter. Don't get me wrong: Climate change is a fact of the natural world, but trying to fake data so it's supposedly man made won't really help matters.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday February 17 2017, @05:46PM
I have always been sceptical of carbon trading.
If I get credits for not cutting down a tree, what happens if it dies due to old age or other natural causes? Do I suddenly have to buy carbon offsets before burning the wood?
However, many people insist on letting the "free market" run the economy. If you are going to do that, some kind of price on carbon is needed to discourage businesses from taking advantage of externalities.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday February 17 2017, @07:50PM
If I get credits for not cutting down a tree, what happens if it dies due to old age or other natural causes? Do I suddenly have to buy carbon offsets before burning the wood?
One might suppose that you had spare credits from all the other trees that you kept alive or allowed to live. If people who are landless can afford such credits, surely those who have land and are granted credits for using their land in an environmentally favourable manner should be able to muddle through. Are you saying that such a system cannot be fair, or cannot be workable at all?
You wrote in another thread that you are in Canada where you once experienced such hot weather that you didn't "feel like moving at all."
/article.pl?sid=17/02/16/1830215 [soylentnews.org]
The Canadian prime minister supports increased extraction of the tar sands oil, which releases more carbon per unit of usable energy than other oil deposits do.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13022017/justin-trudeau-canada-trump-climate-change-agreements [insideclimatenews.org]
That could mean more hot weather, and more events like last year's Fort McMurray fire (the fact that the fire occurred near the tar sands was AFAIK concidental).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McMurray_fire [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday February 17 2017, @08:21PM
The problem with the oil sands is that about 50% of Alberta's economy relies on the resource extraction. Our economy is very cyclical as a result.
The provincial government has recently introduced a carbon tax. Hopefully that will encourage some diversification.
Because I am using a pseudonymous account, I did not want to say where this summer camp was. Suffice it to say, the day-time highs in the summer were higher than I was used to.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday February 17 2017, @06:11PM
The irony of this post coming from someone whose callsign is "Entropy" is enough to choke Carnot.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @07:27PM
It's not ironic. An asshole and/or spambot is tasked to go around debunking stories about global warming, so he picks a username that evokes lots of superstitions in many readers while also making himself look more scientifically authoritative to the less-discerning among that group.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday February 17 2017, @10:47PM
Insightful second sentence there but can still be viewed as ironic. Seems like the mods have this right, both 5s!
(Score: 5, Informative) by butthurt on Friday February 17 2017, @06:16PM
We need this data to say global warming, so lets manipulate it so it says global warming..
You seem to have missed the follow-up to that story.
But a congressional committee on Tuesday seized on complaints from a retired scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about how the original data were handled to claim the data were falsified — even though the retired NOAA scientist they cite does not argue that it was.
-- http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3fc5d49a349344f1967aadc4950e1a91/major-global-warming-study-again-questioned-again-defended [ap.org]
"The issue here is not an issue of tampering with data, but rather really of timing of a release of a paper that had not properly disclosed everything it was," he said.
-- http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060049630 [eenews.net]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:22PM
The 2015 record cold weather was a sign of global warming.
Record hot weather is a sign of global warming.
If hot, and cold is a sign of global warming...what exactly wouldn't be?
The words you're looking for are "extreme weather". Increased swings between record cold and hot weather indicate that the climate is getting more UNSTABLE. You know, like things swing left and right before toppling over.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:59AM
Increased swings between record cold and hot weather indicate
Where's the evidence for "increased swings"? Confirmation and observation bias are not evidence.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 18 2017, @09:50AM
So what would you accept as evidence for increased swings?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 18 2017, @02:01PM
So what would you accept as evidence for increased swings?
I don't play that game. I want to see evidence far in excess of what I would accept.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 18 2017, @04:42PM
Ah, thank you for confirming, in words that could not be clearer, that you are holding an irrational belief and are not interested in rational discourse.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 18 2017, @11:46PM
Ah, thank you for confirming, in words that could not be clearer, that you are holding an irrational belief and are not interested in rational discourse.
To the contrary, it's quite rational. We're in an adversarial situation like a courtroom where most parties are making arguments to support particular viewpoints or interests. By not explicitly given a criteria for which I can be convinced, I'm forcing the other side to provide a preponderance of evidence, not merely the minimum necessary. That reduces the benefits from exaggerating or distorting research.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday February 19 2017, @11:14AM
There are good reasons why lawyers are widely regarded as bad people. Think about it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:11PM
There are good reasons why lawyers are widely regarded as bad people. Think about it.
That ship sailed long ago. The debate is fundamentally adversarial now no matter what people think of lawyers.
I don't want to discuss my hypothetical level of acceptance of imaginary evidence. I want to discuss evidence that actually exists. Let us recall your earlier comment:
The words you're looking for are "extreme weather". Increased swings between record cold and hot weather indicate that the climate is getting more UNSTABLE. You know, like things swing left and right before toppling over.
That was completely unsupported by actual evidence. As butthurt noted [soylentnews.org], there is some evidence that extreme warming events are becoming somewhat more common as one would expect in a global warming situation. But there hasn't been an corresponding statistical increase in extreme cooling events to go with it.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:25PM
I searched Google News for "north pole" as a phrase and for "extreme" together with "temperature."
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=nws&q=%22north+pole%22 [google.com]
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=nws&q=extreme+temperature [google.com]
A 10 February story stated:
Friday's temperatures very near the North Pole are about 50 degrees warmer than normal, according to a temperature analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
-- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/02/10/its-about-50-degrees-warmer-than-normal-near-the-north-pole/ [washingtonpost.com]
A few days earlier, the paper had predicted:
For the fourth time in just over a year, the North Pole may near the melting point in winter, a previously rare event.
-- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/02/06/massive-hurricane-force-atlantic-storm-to-push-abnormally-mild-air-towards-north-pole/ [washingtonpost.com]
A blogger says of the same event:
It's the third heatwave this winter. In the past, Arctic heatwaves have been recorded once or twice per decade. The Arctic was missing a staggering area of sea ice in January. It's a record-breaking area, equivalent to roughly two times the size of France.
-- http://www.malibutimes.com/blogs/article_50877d82-f563-11e6-a2d2-6bfd1a973594.html [malibutimes.com] or http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heatwaves-australia-to-the-north-pole_us_58a4fa79e4b026a89a7a264b [huffingtonpost.com]
He links to a Nature article which says a
[...] change in the upper-atmospheric circulation has been linked to more extreme mid-latitude weather including cold air outbreaks that are associated with the southward extension of the polar vortex. There is however considerable debate concerning this linkage.
[...]
[...] We will also show that these midwinter warming events occur once or twice each decade with an event in 2014 as well as one in 1959. The identification of events prior to 1959 is hampered by the lack of a comprehensive upper-air observing network prior to this time22. In addition, the warmest midwinter surface air temperatures at the pole are increasing at a rate that is twice as high as that for the mean midwinter surface air temperatures indicating that these events may become more common in the future.
-- http://www.nature.com/articles/srep39084 [nature.com]
The blogger quotes Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales regarding unusually high summertime temperatures in Australia:
"Usually you would only get this kind of extreme heat if it was an El Nino summer. The most recent El Nino phenomenon ended in mid 2016."
Inside Climate News interviewed her, too:
Based on records going back to the late 1800s, there's no question that heatwaves have become more frequent, with some regional nuances, Perkins-Kirkpatrick said.
"In Canberra, Australia's capital, the number of heat wave days has doubled in the past 60 years. In that same time, the beginning of the heatwave season in Sydney has advanced by three weeks, and in Melbourne, heatwaves are hotter," she said.
-- https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13022017/australia-heatwave-climate-change-sydney-melbourne [insideclimatenews.org]
In Oklahoma, it's winter:
The Northern Hemisphere is in the depths of winter at the moment, with February usually the coldest month for the United States.
But over the weekend, the city of Mangum, Oklahoma, hit temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) - way above the average February high of 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) for the region.
[...]
[...] these types of extreme weather events - both hot and cold - are becoming far more common around the world.
[...]
The coverage of the polar ice cap is also at a record low for January out of the 38 years that the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre has been collecting satellite data.
When researchers compare January this year to last year, the North Pole has lost a Wyoming-sized area of ice.
"I've been looking at Arctic weather and climate for 35 years and I've never seen anything like the warming conditions we've been seeing this winter," director of National Snow and Ice Data Centre, Mark Serreze, told Inside Climate News.
-- https://www.sciencealert.com/oklahoma-hit-temperatures-of-100-fahrenheit-in-the-depths-of-winter [sciencealert.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 19 2017, @12:05AM
The words you're looking for are "extreme weather". Increased swings between record cold and hot weather indicate that the climate is getting more UNSTABLE. You know, like things swing left and right before toppling over.
I believe there is some global warming and it is resulting in an increase in extreme warming events in weather. But we've been looking at weather for a limited period of time. We should expect to see regional warming (and cooling) even in the complete absence of global warming. And it would be possible, as in these news stories to come up with a narrative of regions with elevated levels of warming events even in the complete absence of global warming. That's the power of confirmation bias. It's worth noting here that the IPCC has near completely abandoned concrete claims about extreme weather events coming from global warming.
maxwell demon goes beyond even that to claim that global warming will result in an increase in extreme cooling events in weather globally. I think that's complete bunk. My view is that global warming is slow. So there will continue to be normal extreme cooling events. But the narrative of an imaginary increase in extreme cooling events is great for assuaging the doubts of the faithful as to why extreme cooling events still happen.
Finally, notice that several of these events are a 1 in few decades event ("The identification of events prior to 1959 is hampered by the lack of a comprehensive upper-air observing network prior to this time"). They have no record for polar regions prior to modern times, so it is currently conjecture to state that the extreme warming events are particularly unusual for the region.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:46AM
> [...] several of these events are a 1 in few decades event [...]
They were happening somewhat more often than that. "They occur once or twice each decade with the earliest identified event taking place in 1959." was what the Nature authors wrote. There was an event in 2014, one in late 2015 that they wrote about, then in November 2016, December 2016 and again this month there were episodes of unusually warm weather in the high Arctic. That looks to me like an increasing frequency of such events.
I believe there is some global warming and it is resulting in an increase in extreme warming events in weather.
That's probably all that's supportable from what I found in my brief foray into the last couple of weeks' news. I would also expect changes in precipitation, because warm air can hold more moisture. In this topic there were some posts about an unusually cold winter in 2014 in North America that might have been connected to global warming. I don't have evidence of an increasing frequency of extreme cold.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:58AM
There was an event in 2014, one in late 2015 that they wrote about, then in November 2016, December 2016 and again this month there were episodes of unusually warm weather in the high Arctic.
Or one event happening over a two year period.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20 2017, @12:34AM
Because something happening for 2 years is now less extreme than something that usually happens over a week?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 20 2017, @09:11AM
Because something happening for 2 years is now less extreme than something that usually happens over a week?
Depends on how often it happens for two years. We need to keep in mind yet again, that we don't have a long record here in which to determine how unusual the current weather is.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:22PM
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ [dailymail.co.uk]
Hello? You just cited the daily mail. You know, the british version of the Weekly World News.
You also cited an article that has already been thorughly debunked. Debunked by the so-called "whistleblower" cited in the article itself.
In fact, soylent already ran the story of that debunking here. [soylentnews.org]
Just WTF kind of bubble do you live in where what you did is OK?
I despair at your embrace of idiocy.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 17 2017, @06:23PM
The 2015 record cold weather was a sign of global warming.
What record cold temperature?
2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say [nytimes.com]
Until 2016 beat it, that is.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday February 17 2017, @07:22PM
I'm guessing the OP was alluding to cold weather in North America in early 2014, which did set records:
[...] the tiny unincorporated village of Daniel, Wyoming, plummeted to 48 degrees below zero. That wasn't the wind chill -- that was the actual temperature. It's the coldest temperature recorded anywhere in the contiguous United States in all of 2014.
-- https://weather.com/forecast/national/news/cold-outbreak-ends-2014-west-midwest-northeast [weather.com]
...and was ascribed by some to global warming:
This phenomenon has been suggested by some to result from the rapid melting of polar sea ice, which replaces white, reflective ice with dark, absorbent open water (i.e., the albedo of this region has decreased). As a result, the region has heated up faster than other parts of the globe. With the lack of a sufficient temperature difference between Arctic and southern regions to drive jet stream winds, the jet stream may have become weaker and more variable in its course, allowing cold air usually confined to the poles to reach further into the mid latitudes.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_North_American_cold_wave#Role_of_climate_change [wikipedia.org]
In contrast, this observation of decreased oxygen in the ocean is exactly what we would naively expect in a warming world. The decreasing solubility of oxygen in water as the water becomes warmes is well-known and well-documented. The authors also offer some other, more debatable reasons, "biological consumption" and "reduced ventilation."
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday February 17 2017, @07:51PM
I'm guessing the OP was alluding to cold weather in North America in early 2014
2014 was also the hottest year on record. Until 2015 then 2016 beat it.
NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record [nasa.gov]
He must not know what the word "global" means.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday February 17 2017, @08:56PM
The OP acknowledged that "climate change is a fact" but noted that various observations have been ascribed to global warming, including, counter-intuitively, an episode of unusually cold weather. The OP seems to think that the way a variety of phenomena have been attributed to one cause amounts to intellectual dishonesty.
For me the page you linked doesn't display properly. From what I can see of it, and from your comment, I'm guessing it says the global average temperature in 2014 reached a record high. If it doesn't explain the connection between that and the cold winter in North America, it may not address the OP's remarks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hawkwind on Friday February 17 2017, @10:55PM
However the reason has received a good amount of attention this year. Here's one link http://www.sciencealert.com/satellite-data-shows-the-polar-vortex-is-shifting [sciencealert.com].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by andersjm on Friday February 17 2017, @09:07PM
A contiguous ten year period during which the average global temperature does not significantly exceed the 20th century average.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:10AM
You fail basic reading comprehension. This isn't a sign of global warming (according to TFS) but it could result in increased greenhouse gases.
TL:TS, cause != effect
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:04AM
...*or*, it could be that 'global warming' is an unfortunate choice of words in that it is more like 'global weather systems destabilization with increasingly extreme local/regional events, and generally disrupted weather patterns, with local/regional plus/minus changes in average temperatures and precipitation, due to overall man-made global warming processes and negative feedback cycles being unleashed over time'...
i sure would like some crunchy think-tank researchers to run the numbers of millions of dollars of grants/salaries of 'pro-AGW' science 'scammers', vs the billions of dollars of grants/salaries/PR money/etc spent by the fossil fuel/AGW-deniers... and then just *why* is it the mercenary nerds looking for a payoff go to the LOWER paying side ? ? ? they are greedy and have no principles, but stupidly bid their for-hire science authority to the low-paying side ? ? ?
uhhhhh, see, that is kind of a self-refuting argument...
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:47AM
...*or*, it could be that 'global warming' is an unfortunate choice of words in that it is more like 'global weather systems destabilization with increasingly extreme local/regional events, and generally disrupted weather patterns, with local/regional plus/minus changes in average temperatures and precipitation, due to overall man-made global warming processes and negative feedback cycles being unleashed over time'...
I think the latter is definitely more unfortunate and presupposes a bunch of phenomena that haven't been adequately demonstrated, making it more inaccurate as well. And no offense, but a fair portion of your phrases are nonsensical. You won't find a difference between disrupted and non-disrupted weather. It's all quite self-disrupting even in the complete absence of any sort of climate change due to the chaotic behavior of weather on Earth. As to "negative feedback cycles", feedback only makes sense with respect to cycles thus "cycles" is redundant. And negative feedback would be stabilizing. You want positive feedback which is destabilizing (and can lead to things like "tipping points"). "with local/regional plus/minus changes in average temperatures and precipitation" is so vague as to be useless. And "increasingly extreme local/regional events" hasn't been demonstrated.
i sure would like some crunchy think-tank researchers to run the numbers of millions of dollars of grants/salaries of 'pro-AGW' science 'scammers', vs the billions of dollars of grants/salaries/PR money/etc spent by the fossil fuel/AGW-deniers...
You would find the former is at least an order of magnitude larger than the latter. I've remarked in the past on the huge difference in spending between pro-climate change propaganda and its opposite. The World Wildlife Fund or Greenpeace International probably spend several times more by themselves on pro-climate change propaganda than the entire other side does. Even the relatively meager amount spent by the IPCC is comparable to the entirety of spending by its detractors. There is little funding of "denialist" climate research while one can point to numerous government agencies for the other side.
I find this delusion particularly bizarre because no one has actually established that oil companies actually lose money from climate change or climate change mitigation (certain mitigation policies can be insanely profitable for oil companies IMHO such as increasing barrier to entry in oil drilling and refining for smaller businesses). The Koch brothers are the primary funders of said propaganda as of present and they're a relatively minor presence in the oil industry. Their opposition can easily be traced to their ideological viewpoints (for example, they've supported libertarianism for four decades). Meanwhile we have companies like Exxon with an explicitly pro-global warming stance for a decade [thehill.com].
Finally, if there really were "billions" in whatever being spent on "AGW-denier" propaganda then where is this Goliath? This supposed massive effort is remarkably invisible while the "David" of this supposed one-side struggle has no trouble getting anything climate-related into the press.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @07:28PM
"world's most influential scientific journals" == "tabloids"
The reports in Nature/Science/PNAS are usually awful if you try to go deeper than simply taking their word for it. They publish "exciting" summaries like the news media rather than reliable and complete stuff like a science journal should. I have no idea how this prestige is maintained in the face of that.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @09:10PM
Because your opinion isn't shared by anybody of consequence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @10:03PM
I know, its insane. Every scientist figures it out quickly ("you have to read their other papers to guess what they did"), but the administrators and careerists never personally experience that.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tfried on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:26AM
There is a grain of truth in your criticism. Articles in Nature are so condensed, they are really not useful to anybody who wants to go too deep. They are not discussing, they are stating as fact. Nature did not gather its enormous prestige by being shallow, however. It's renowned for very, very rigid review, and you can safely assume that what you eventually get to see is merely a tenth or less of what gets exchanged between authors, editors and reviewers.
Think of Nature as a ticker of the most important developments in quite a diversity of fields. A really, really high quality ticker, though.