
Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950 (2010) - yusufaytas
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/phytoplankton-population/
======
radford-neal
The 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
The 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/S007966111...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079661114000135)

>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
Good 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.

------
pygy_
[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
I keep coming back to the idea that over fishing --> pulling micro nutrients
from the ocean --> plankton collapse.

~~~
hanniabu
Not only that, but the oceans are already at capacity with CO2 absorption and
now with the plankton collapse the oxygenation of the ocean is also being
reduced. The entire ocean ecosystem is going to suffocate, species after
species.

~~~
pvaldes
Not necessarily. First of all ocean is not a continuous; is layered. Water
masses sink and travel. I bet that we could find artic water (rich in oxigen)
in the african coast for example. Oxygen content is strongly related with
salinity and temperature.

------
geedy
I 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
I 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
The general problem is that the warmer waters are trapping the cooler waters
below. Upwelling is an attempt to fix it!

------
chiefalchemist
> 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?

~~~
tedivm
That'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
Total atmospheric oxygen is 195000 ppm, so 4 ppm isn't much. But if it's a
consistent trend, it is a little concerning.

------
jes5199
Are we doomed? It seems like we might be doomed

~~~
NeedMoreTea
TL;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-...](http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-
hot-for-humans.html)

[2] [https://jembendell.com/category/deep-
adaptation/](https://jembendell.com/category/deep-adaptation/)

~~~
ridewinter
Earth 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.

~~~
titzer
I didn't downvote you but I would be tempted to.

Imagine you were standing on the sidelines watching Notre Dame burning down
and made a similar statement. Meanwhile a fire hydrant and fire hose were
nearby, unused. And twenty bystanders like you were standing there facing the
other way, unaware, chatting about trivia while (unknowingly) leaking gasoline
out their butts right onto it. Your comment would be massively misplaced and
probably overall harmful in the grand scheme of things.

We need to fight this.

~~~
ridewinter
Pretty sure what I’m saying is to use the dang fire hydrant in addition to
removing unnecessary wood from the cathedral.

------
mietek
(2010)

------
mistrial9
rumors 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...

------
eklavyaa
coincidentally 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 ?

------
algaeontoast
This should be more troubling than dwindling forest and marshland.

------
schainks
Are there any teams trying to genetically engineer phytoplankton to deal with
these changes in ocean conditions?

~~~
flyGuyOnTheSly
Who 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...

------
qwerty456127
Not in the lakes near me. These are so damn green right now...

------
patientplatypus
You 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
> 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?

