
California oceans rising in acidity at alarming rate, study finds - Elof
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-16/ocean-acidification-california
======
Thorentis
I wonder if instead of desalination plants, there exists "de-acidification"
plants that can in turn use the acid for electricity generation or something
like that?

Whenever I see these articles, unfortunately my first thought is "we're too
far gone, we can't turn around now" in terms of climate change. But! I think
that instead of trying to reverse the situation (for instance, by convincing
the largest carbon emitters like China to stop - which they won't), we should
try to make use of the situation.

Too much carbon being released? Free carbon! How can we use it to make
something else / convert it to something else? Too much acid in the ocean? How
can we extract it and use it for something? Rising temps? How can we make use
of this to grow crops that need warmer environments, or use it for better
solar generation, or use thermal power generation in these areas. Our best
hope it to adapt to the new norm rather than fight a losing battle. I know
it's fatalistic, but I think we will last longer as a species if we adopt this
approach instead.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Trouble is, rising acidity at alarming rates is still only a 0.21 decline in
pH over a 100 year period. Whilst that might be more than enough to upset no
end of shelled animals and other issues. A de-acidifcation plant faces the
same issue as carbon capture and storage away from the huge emitters -- you're
going to have to process a colossal volume to capture enough of the pollutant
you're removing.

While we're at it, how much overhead do we add to global power requirements
for all these de-acidification plants, desalination plants and CCS
contraptions? How about we stop pouring it in the top and just fucking
decarbonise, and leave all those tar sands alone... :)

~~~
AstralStorm
It is not enough still. But processing such huge volumes with current
technology is out of reach.

Might be easier to devise a biotech solution, but messing with ecosystems is
quite risky nonetheless. An example would be putting carbon fixing bacteria or
algae in the water, additionally replacing the plankton that died due to
change in pH. We have similar technology for cleaning up oil spills and some
chemicals, so why not dilute carbonic acid as well.

------
lurquer
The underlying study is dubious...
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0499-z](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0499-z)

They took 0.5 meters of sediment.

They examined shells in the sediment, and using a very convoluted and new
measurement technique, they found that 'larger' shells were at the bottom
(without very much statistical certainty.) And, the study admits that other
factors -- such as water temperature -- could effect the size/shell
thickness... to what degree is ignored.

They then radiodated this 0.5 meter column of sludge, and after making
assumptions about this and that and nuclear bomb testing and a host of other
assumptions, they determined that the bottom of the 0.5 meter column was from
100 years ago, and the top more recent. (And, of course, they assume the
sedimentation was perfectly uniform during the century because... reasons.)

And, then you have a graph, showing a decrease in some factor of shells (using
a new measuring system) over a span of 100 years (give or take 100 years)...

they then claim the decrease is due to CO2, and Voila, the paper is sucked up
by Nature.

I'm not criticizing the work. I'm sure the researchers would be the first to
admit their conclusion is based on a host of assumptions and guesswork.

But, what I do find amusing is that a speculative study involving 0.5 meters
of mud can get HN readers to begin proposing massive 'de-acidification' plants
and fretting about the end of the world.

------
RickJWagner
It's worth noting that the oceans are actually alkaline, not acidic.

But it makes for less alarming headlines to say "Oceans becoming less
alkaline", doesn't it?

I really, really wish things were presented dispassionately and accurately.
Things like this smack of propaganda.

~~~
trophycase
becoming less alkaline = acidifying

one just takes fewer words

------
mirimir
Seriously, WTF is a study from a US agency doing behind a paywall? That ought
to be illegal! So here.[0]

0) Osborne et al. (2019) Decadal variability in twentieth-century ocean
acidification in the California Current Ecosystem. [https://sci-
hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0499-z](https://sci-
hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0499-z)

------
bsaul
Problem with climate related news is that it has such a bad record on wrong
prediction that i’m having a hard time believing anything that’s written in
regular newspaper. it’s just working too well at freaking people out, even the
most scientific minds.

For example, I can’t remember the first time i read about ‘ arctic ice
completely disappearing in the next ten years‘, or the polar bear going
extinct..

~~~
wolfd
While some headlines may be overly aggressive, many (anecdotally) of the very
serious consequences of climate change are predicted to happen on the order of
50/100 years from now.

There are a couple reasons this sucks: \- some people seem to not care about
that far in the future \- people seem to be pretty bad at detecting change in
their environment over longer time scales

A memorable example of the second one:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/b...](https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2014/02/05/257046530/big-
fish-stories-getting-littler)

------
ainiriand
California oceans? Does it have more than one?

~~~
warent
I think it's pretty common to refer to a single body of water in plural form.
Probably because it's so massive or maybe just due to the nature of liquid.
For example: sailing the waters; a ship got caught in the stormy seas; etc.

~~~
spurgu
Bodies of water like lakes yes. Stormy seas would refer to the state of the
sea (i.e. wavy, amount of unrest). An ocean is always an ocean and California
is only connected to one of those. Coastal waters is clearly the correct term
as they didn't do measurements across the whole Pacific (didn't read the
source articles linked though), only around the coastline of California.

So either "California coast" or rather "California coastal waters", since the
article is talking about the watery part of the coast, not the "landy" part.

------
egberts1
California oceans? Hard pass.

------
mrfusion
What’s the counter point to this?

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
How can there be a counterpoint to a scientific measurement? It either is or
isn’t more acidic.

~~~
comicjk
There could be sampling issues, since you can't measure the whole ocean at
once. The CO2 in the atmosphere is linked to the carbonic acid in the ocean,
though, and both indicators point in the same direction.

