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ARTICLE TEN
"EARTH’S DEEP OCEANS: A BAROMETER
FOR OUR BLUE MARBLE PLANET’S WELL-BEING”©
Diane A. Davis, M.S., Ph.D. Cand.
Researcher and Series Author
Copyright Claimed June 28, 2011
• As we approach the mid-point of the 21st Century, there are two major challenges facing us in North America,
especially the USA, as well as worldwide. These issues are of special concern to scientists spanning the broad spectrum of
human biological, medical, physiological, animal veterinary, avian and marine species. Specifically, these challenges concern
the health of the great oceans as a barometer for the present and near-term well-being of our entire Planet.
• Precious in its uniqueness, Planet Earth is the only planet in our solar system that is capable of sustaining
life even in the smallest form – the one-celled amoeba. This is due to the fact that >70% of the Earth’s
surface is covered in water – expansive deep bodies of water containing thousands of delicate marine species and
their ecosystems that sustain us here on land with food, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines and livelihoods. Therefore,
the continued environmental degradation of these deep great bodies of water are of special concern to scientists worldwide.
• In the work of the first monograph in the series, Fusion Energy ~ The Public’s Guide™
Volume I Averting Human Extinction: Energy Policy and Environmental Degradation,©[1] as well as the science articles posted
on this website, all have cautioned about the hastening of environmental degradation and our need to move onto clean-green
self-sustainable fuels to support our energy needs and economies worldwide.
• Both number and frequency of disrupting environmental and meteorological events that were predicted in the
above-referenced monograph (published late 2008) have progressed much faster than what scientists had originally believed
was occurring – “about ten times faster,”[2] as the most recent data has revealed to us.
• Essentially, these challenges – a dire concern to scientists worldwide - may be categorized into
two problems we are now facing:
1)Climate change causally-related thereto global warming as a result of unabated
continuance of burning fossil fuels worldwide,
and that which scientists refer to as:
2)“the other problem”: the CO2 problem sinking into the great bodies of deep ocean
waters from burning fossil fuels worldwide 24/7/365 unabated.
• Challenge 1) will be written about in greater detail in follow-on Article Eleven. Challenge 2) will be discussed
here in Article Ten. Both are large areas of information and recent study.
• In Article Ten we will discuss the environmental toxic pollutants as greenhouse gases (GHG) entering the world’s
great deep oceans and how this is quickening the effects of climate change, the acidification of the great oceans, destruction
of coral reefs as the architecture upon which thousands of marine species live, the deterioration of the permafrost coastlines
of the Northern Alaska region, along with the thinning of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica.
• Further in Article Eleven we will discuss the environmental toxic pollutants entering our great bodies of
water and how this is quickening the effects of global climate change, the ENSO Cycles of El Niño/La Niña, causing extreme
meteorological events in quick succession, loss of income, loss of crops and livestock, loss of land mass, loss of personal,
family and municipal real property assets, displacement and break up of families in various part of North America and throughout
the world when they must evacuate their homes and collection of belongings.
The Need For Immediate Grassroots Action:
• In Chapter Four, the above-referenced monograph discussed at great length the etiology of global warming and
climate change, thus explaining the basics of environmental degradation. In more recent studies by researchers worldwide,
it has been found that environmental degradation has progressed quickly and is about ten times worse than originally believed
by scientists spanning all disciplines of science the world over. This is of grave concern to all of us.
• Of special note is the recently identified condition referred to as “black soot” or “carbon
soot” within the ambient air stream emitted close to ground level that is now known to be hastening climate change
and the melting of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica, while warming the deep ocean bodies.
• This black carbon soot is a function of the Carnot Combustion Cycle (although engineers have tried to improve
its performance, >70% efficiency of completed combustion process has never been attained) which leads to partially-burned
particulate matter and aerosols of carbon black soot (e.g. sub-micron particles ranging in size from 0.001 to 1.0 microns).
These “fines” and “superfines,” being released into the ambient air stream only a
few hundred feet above ground level through gas waste stacks from process and power plants and tailpipes from passenger vehicles,
light trucks, diesel-fueled 16-, 18-wheeler flatbed and container trucks that haul manufactured products and fresh produce
from one end of the U.S. to another. Through these waste stream sources the black carbon soot enters the ambient air stream
within the atmosphere’s first few hundred feet above ground level – where it is most injurious. This
is the same air stream that you and I breathe - 24/7/365.
• The black carbon soot contains PCBs, CFCs, greenhouse gases (GHG): carbon dioxide (CO2) and especially methane
(Ch4) gas, [the same gas which is produced from garbage landfills], of all the greenhouse gases it is the most harmful to
our delicate marine ecosystems.
• In the above-referenced monograph, a dedicated chapter discussed in-depth the important significance of these
great deep ocean bodies encircling the globe and their unique role in governing the temperature and seasonal stability of
our unique “blue marble” planet, bringing to us the temperate Gulf Stream as an example.
• Volume I explained the etiology behind global warming and climate change. Explained were the ENSO Cycles
causally-related to the El Niño/La Niña syndromes - non-traditional meteorological events responsible for bringing the extreme
weather conditions: hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, simultaneous extreme droughts and extreme flooding in various
contiguous regions of the world with resultant reduction in available land mass on which to grow food, graze livestock, for
humans to live on, and specie ecosystems to exist within, as well as loss of coastal areas due to sea level rise.
• Additionally, Volume I discussed in-depth the socio-economic, medical commercial and political aspects that
healthy deep oceans provide to humans: i.e. food, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines, livelihoods for humankind, as
well streams of government tax revenue that build, maintain and support the infrastructure of the U.S. and all organized societies
worldwide.
• In the Epilogue Chapter of Volume I, the overwhelming research across the board of all life and science led
me as author, to make a prediction: that the horrific Hurricane Season of 2005 was just the beginning of a quickening climate
and meteorological trend that we would all witness becoming more aggravated worldwide if we didn’t stop burning
fossil fuels.
• Simultaneous with the publication of Volume I in October 2008, a Symposium Conference of 150 marine scientists,
on the dire condition of deep ocean acidification caused from climate change due to fossil fuel burning worldwide. Convened
in Monaco, the meeting produced “The Monaco Declaration,” delivered to Prince Albert II of Monaco urging
that he deliver their concerns to the World Climate Change Summit in December 2009.
• On January 30, 2009 the BBC announced the Symposium and “The Monaco Declaration” demanding
that world governments take proactive measure to cut back on fossil fuel burning. In the winter of 2009 in Article Nine of
this series, the most recent scientific studies and their findings on the advanced thinning of the ice shelves in the Arctic
and Antarctica were discussed, noting the growing concern which had led Team TARA of scientists and researchers from universities
worldwide, and the Royal Navy researchers to voice their cautions in articles, online bulletins, documentaries and letters
to various government agencies in the free world. These more recent findings are noted herein and further in Article Eleven.
New Evidence Presented:
• The following two studies are of great significance as it is now believed that the black carbon’s
effect on climate change is responsible for the rapidly advanced thinning of the ice shelves, erosion of the Arctic and northern
Alaskan coastlines as well as quickening acidification of the world’s deep oceans. The studies revealed that the
effect of the black carbon soot depends on the altitude at which the soot is occurring.[i] Black carbon soot is now believed
to be among the largest anthropogenic contributor to global warming and climate change because it absorbs solar radiation,
reacting with the UV rays of the sunlight and heat in the atmosphere. The heat and black carbon soot then becomes trapped
close to the surface of the Earth, acting as a heat inversion blanket.
• To prove-disprove this theory, a megaton of black carbon was uniformly distributed around the globe at different
altitudes in the atmosphere. Researchers found that the addition of black carbon near the surface of land or oceans caused
the surface to heat. As the altitude of the black carbon increased, the warming effect of the land decreased. Finally, when
black carbon soot was released into the atmosphere, it came back down on the ice shelves throughout the Arctic and Antarctica
forming an insulation barrier due to its black color. Whereas the white ice shelves and white snow reflect off the ice shelves
the warming sun’s UV rays back in to the atmosphere. This insulation barrier therefore increases the temperature
of the surface of the ice shelves as the sun shines on the ice, causing the shelves to melt even faster – ten times
faster, as it is now understood. In addition to temperature changes, black carbon soot also had varying effects on precipitation.
It increased precipitation in the lower atmosphere and decreased it in the upper atmosphere, as a result of changes in the
atmospheric stability.[3]
• This study provides several reasons accounting for the heightened melting of the ice shelves in the Arctic
and Antarctica as well as historically unprecedented rapidity of erosion of the permafrost coastlines of the northern Alaskan
region, together with the rise in temperature of the great ocean bodies of water. It is at the immediate lower atmosphere
that this black carbon soot is most dangerous to all forms of life, but especially to the coral reefs that form the infrastructure
architecture in and on which thousands of delicate marine species live, nourish and reproduce to the next generation. These
reefs as well as the rich biodiversity of marine life they support is now at serious risk. This must needs be a grave concern
to scientists of all disciplines as well as it should be to all of us worldwide.
• Based on the results of the foregoing ice shelf study, it is now believed that the black carbon’s
effect on climate change depends on the altitude at which the soot is occurring. [ii] Black carbon soot is released close
to the ground (within several hundred feet) into the lower atmosphere (e.g. the troposphere) from waste gas stacks and tail
pipes. The black soot becomes part of the ambient air stream rising slightly, due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (a
more concentrated [hot] stream of air will naturally seek a lower concentrated [colder] stream of air). The black soot rises
somewhat from its point of emittance at the stack or tailpipe becoming a component of the forming dust clouds.
• Clouds form as they collect the dust drifting along within the winds, hanging over us, sometimes forming acid
dew or acid fog when differential temperature conditions are optimized immediately above the ground surface, or when the clouds
release their contents coming back down to the ground’s surface as acid rain, acid snow, acid hail containing the
toxic polluting contents of the black carbon soot: greenhouse gases, especially CO2, SO2, CH4, PCBs and CFCs. (methane is
worse than carbon dioxide because it has 20 - 30% greater insulative capabilities (e.g. thermal capturing and holding). [See
Article Fourteen, this Series.]
• Further, these toxic pollutants leach into the ground’s precious aquifers that contain our drinking
water. Below the ground’s surface where there is no UV sunlight, the PCBs and CFCs will not break down. At this
point, these toxic pollutants become an injurious component in human – especially pregnant women - and mammalian
animal blood streams because they alter estrogen sensitivity. (See Volume I in the monograph series for a detailed explanation
and clinical studies.)
• Data in two further studies recently published revealed that Northern Alaskan coastlines respond to climate
change with increased erosion, causing an average of about half a meter per year. The effects are most severe in the Laptev,
Eastern Siberian and Beaufort Seas, where coastal erosion rates reach more than 8 meters (~ 24’-0”) per
year in some areas. More importantly, more and more coastlines are being exposed to the effects of climate change and this
carbon black soot. Two-thirds of these coastlines are composed of frozen substrate called permafrost, which is much more
susceptible to erosion than rock. Scientists have recently concluded that these effects will cause substantial changes for
Arctic and Alaskan ecosystems near the coast as well as human populations living there.[iii]
Gas Physics of Black Carbon Soot:
• The black carbon soot aerosols released into the immediate lower atmosphere become components of clouds that
are carried by the “horse” and “trade" winds traveling around the Earth’s circumference,
eventually being carried out to sea, spreading out over the large expanse of the deep oceans that cover 70.8% of the Earth’s
surface.
• The air and water of the oceans are constantly exchanging gases through evaporation and condensation, so whatever
we emit into the air eventually comes down into the great ocean bodies of water. Being acidic in their chemistry due to holding
the greenhouse gases, when the clouds become too heavy, their contents fall into the great oceans as acid snow, acid rain,
forming acid dew and fog. The waste gas aerosols emitted into the atmosphere from waste gas stacks containing that black carbon
soot eventually release the GHG acidic toxic pollutants containing the harmful PCBs and CFCs are released into the deep oceans
as a result of rain.
• The carbon dioxide (CO2) in the black carbon soot of GHG waste gases mix with the naturally alkaline water
to produce carbonic acid, thus changing the water chemistry from alkaline to acidic over time reducing the hydrogen ions available
for the marine species that need the hydrogen to produce their shells. These large expanses of oceans essentially act as
an expansive heat sink as well as a carbon storehouse. This accounts for the change from an alkaline base ≥8.3
neutral into a more acidic chemistry of ≤8.1, as it is presently. Of note, our ground soil is now 5.6 pH, or the
chemistry of brown vinegar. The change also places all marine ecosystems and the thousands of marine species that these ecosystems
support at risk because these species need an alkaline ecology in which to thrive and reproduce.
• The pH Scale which measures acidity in terms of the concentration of hydrogen ions, runs from 0 –
14. At the low end of the scale are strong acids, such as hydrochloric acid that releases hydrogen readily (e.g. more readily
than carbonic acid does). At the high end are strong bases such as lye. A neutral pH of 7.0, is the standardized basic requirement
for all drinking (potable) water throughout the world. Normal seawater should be slightly basic toward the alkaline end,
around 8.3+pH providing enough hydrogen ions to the fragile ecosystems within the marine ecology. To date, CO2 emissions
have reduced the pH by 0.1 down to the present 8.1 as seawater has been presently tested. This may not seem like a lot, but
like the Richter Scale, the pH Scale is logarithmic, so even small numerical changes represent large effects. A pH drop of
0.1 means the water has become 30% more acidic.
• In her April 2011 article, “The Acid Sea,” Ms. Kolbert writes: “If present trends
continue, surface pH will drop to 7.8 by 2100. At that point, the water will be 150% more acidic than it was in 1800. The
acidification that has occurred so far is probably irreversible.”
• These great bodies of water provide 90% of the Earth’s water. Currently these oceans absorb 30 –
33% of human-created CO2 emissions, roughly 22 million tons a day, or 8,030 trillion tons per year worldwide – as
yet, unabated – essentially acting as an expansive carbon storehouse.
• Most marine ecosystems and the thousands of species supported by these ecosystems thrive best in an alkaline
ecology >8.3 – 13pH.
• Scientific projections based on these numbers show that by the end of this century, continued greenhouse emissions
could reduce ocean pH by another 0.5 units. This drastic change in water chemistry from alkaline to acidic places at risk
not only the coral reefs but also the rich biodiversity of thousands of marine species worldwide.
Our Ocean’s Precious Coral Reefs:
‘The Mother Ship’ of All Marine Life
• Coral reef ecosystems have been termed “the rainforests” of the great ocean bodies, and
as such perform very important functions within the Earth’s planetary physics. Their significance to the health
and well-being of Planet Earth cannot be underestimated or overstated:
• Coral reef ecosystems are some of the most
productive ecosystems on the planet, often compared to rainforests in terms of biodiversity.
• In addition, coral reefs provide a variety of valuable ecosystem goods and services, including food
production services, biodiversity services, coastal
protection services, and the raw materials for medicines.
• Coral reefs are also some of the most imperiled
ecosystems on the planet. Recent evidence suggests
that twenty percent of the world's coral reefs have
been destroyed in the past few decades, while another 50% are ailing or verging on collapse.’
• Coral reefs are imperiled for a number of reasons, including pollution, physical destruction, coastal
development, and disease. Global climate change
will only exacerbate the destruction of coral reef ecosystems, as a result of both increasing sea temperatures, which
cause coral bleaching, and the acidification of the oceans as they absorb increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon
dioxide, which dissolves corals' calcium carbonate structures. Indeed, in the United States, the
• National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, also
known as NOAA Fisheries) recently listed two
species of Acropora coral for protection under
the Federal Endangered Species Act.
Background:
• In the late 1800s, optimal carbonate was available for the growth of coral. But with the advent of the Industrial
Revolution in 1850 – 95, the practice of burning fossil fuels en mass for all residential and commercial space needs,
industrial and smaller smith manufacturing processes called for burning of charcoal and coal in furnaces, and wood in fire
places.
• In the early 1900s fossil fuel burning was compounded by the invention, standardization and necessity of those
buying the passenger vehicle - the Ford “Model T” car of 1902-1903 - which most efficiently ran on the
petroleum derivative, leaded gasoline.
• Post-WWII, when Robert Moses designed the concept of the “suburb,” once-urban dwellers
were in need of the car for transportation to and from work back and forth to the city and around the suburb. As America gained
wealth, the two-car family became the norm and in the 1980s and 1990s the very popular SUVs and light trucks, great for the
family’s driving safety, but which guzzled gasoline with no Congressional mandate for meeting minimum fuel efficiency
standards, further compounded the rate of fossil fuel consumption with consequential GHG emissions, ten times greater presently
22 million tons of GHG (i.e. CO2, SO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, CHCs: HFCs, PFCs) being dumped into the great ocean bodies every day
or 8,030 trillion tons every year!
• By year 2000, the carbonate level in the great ocean bodies is now considered to be low. At current trends,
by 2050 it will be extremely low, dropping substantially near the Poles. And, by 2100 the carbonate composition of the great
ocean bodies may be too low even in the tropics for coral reefs to survive, taking with them the biodiversity of thousands
of marine species – representing at least 25% of the world’s total species.
Status of Coral Reefs Worldwide:
• Without a healthy coral reef ecosystem worldwide, the underwater marine “rainforests”
cannot perform their very important function of keeping the great oceans temperate, vital and teaming with thousands of species
of healthy marine life that provide food, livelihoods, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines for humans, as well as the
R&R enjoyment of scuba divers (an estimated trained and certified 6 million in the U.S.A. alone with another 10 –
12 million worldwide) who dive as an R&R adventure to witness the majestic beauty of unique marine colors, marine species
and marine ecosystems that do not exist on land.
• Hawaii is composed of several islands, each with its own coral reef forming an archipelago in the mid-Pacific.
In April 2006, President Bush and his wife viewed a screening of the documentary film “Voyage to the Bottom of the
Sea.” On April 4, 2008, the Marine Environmental Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization
warned that the collective coral reefs of Hawaii representing 200 square miles (518 km2) were becoming endangered, on their
way to becoming extinct. In his last one-hundred days of office, President George H. Bush (43rd) together with the U.S. Congress[6]
declared Hawaii’s collection of reefs as endangered species, reclassifying the reefs collectively as the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, both National Treasures and protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
This protected the collective reefs from tourism’s over-fishing, stripping, poaching or coral stripping in any way.
The preserve is guarded by the National Fish and Wildlife agents for the U.S. Government. Because of this act of conservation,
today both the corals that provide the infrastructure on which the reef ecosystem is built are now teaming with thousands
of healthy vibrant corals and thousands of thriving marine species.
• A great turn around for the fragile Hawaiian underwater ecology. While it is possible at this point in time,
the window of opportunity to proactively preserve our natural resources is coming quickly to an end. Scientists have estimated
that we may only have another two decades in which to accomplish this conservation before the window closes forever.
• Consider the following two examples of reefs in the world. One is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef,
which divides the Continental Shelf from deep oceans. The reef has many thousands of species. The ribbon of white coral
all around the east coast of the Great Barrier Reef is 1400 miles long. The reef houses 70 biological zones. However, among
scientists such as Dr. Charlie Vernon, Australian marine scientist and scuba diver, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
is considered to exist “in a state of fragility, … I fear what lies ahead,” he recently stated.
His cautioning is well-taken here.
• But some reef systems around the world have not been so lucky. While the Great Barrier Reef still has a vital,
healthy architecture in its corals, providing the infrastructure within which all other marine species are able to feed, thrive,
and reproduce, there are other reefs which have not been as lucky and have biologically ceased to function.
• One such reef is the Castello Aragonese, a tiny island that rises straight out of the Tyrrhenia Sea like a
tower, it is located 17 miles west of Naples, it can be reached from the larger island of Ischia, Italy via a long narrow
stone bridge. The sea around Castello Aragonese provides a window onto the great oceans of 2050 and beyond. Sadly, clumps
of brown algae lie at the bottom of the reef and bubbles of CO2 rise from volcanic vents on the seafloor and dissolve to form
carbonic acid. There is no longer a vital coral reef in Castello Aragonese.
• “When you get to the extremely high CO2, (e.g. 5.5pH), almost nothing living can tolerate that,”
stated Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist from Britain’s University of Plymouth who cited the Castello Aragonese
case that offers a natural analogue for an unnatural process: the acidification that has taken place off its shore is occurring
more gradually across the world’s oceans as they absorb more and more of the carbon dioxide that’s coming
from tail pipes and smoke stacks.
• Coral reefs the world over are already threatened and in a fragile state of survival. For example, between
1977 and 2001 coral cover in the Caribbean declined 80%.
• For vitality, health and well-being of the coral reefs worldwide, the worries begin at the surface, where
an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases interact with the briny. By studying the historical
records, present day science has established that the sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible,
for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. These are not all as familiar as shrimps and lobsters, yet
species like krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, play a crucial part in the food chain: kill them off, and you may kill off
their predators, whose predators may be the ones you enjoy eating. Worse than missing your favorite foods being available,
you may destabilize an entire ecosystem.
•
That is also what acidification does to coral reefs, especially if they are already suffering from over-fishing, overheating
or GHG toxic pollution. Many are, and most are therefore gravely damaged. Some scientists believe that coral reefs, home to
a quarter of all marine species, may virtually disappear within a few decades – an end to the rainforests of the
seas.
How Will the Extinction of the "Rainforests
of the Seas" Occur?
•
This can easily occur by the unmaking of shells and skeletons, snails, barnacles, sea urchins, crabs, lobsters, starfish,
even the tiny shelled snail-like Pteropod, upon which all other marine species feed, including the great whale, begins with
this acidification that drops into the surface waters of the great oceans.
• Many corals actually get most of their food from algae that live and photosynthesize inside the reefs they
live on; when corals bleach, it’s because stress has prompted the polyps to expel those dark symbionts. Each polyp
surrounds itself with a protective cup-shaped exoskeleton of calcium carbonate that contributes to the collective skeleton
of the whole colony. To make calcium carbonate, corals need two ingredients: calcium ions and carbonate ions. Acids react
with carbonate ions, in effect tying them up. So as atmospheric CO2 levels rise, carbonate ions become scarcer in the water,
and corals have to expend more energy to collect them. Under laboratory conditions, coral skeleton growth has been shown
to decline pretty much linearly as the carbonate concentration drops off.
• Slow growth may not matter much in the laboratory, but in the ocean though, reefs are constantly being picked
at by other organisms both large and small. “A reef is like a city,” said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who used
to direct the One Tree Island Research Station and now heads the Global Change Institute at Australia’s University
of Queensland. “You’ve got construction firms and you’ve got demolition firms. By restricting
the building materials that go into the construction, you tip the balance toward destruction, which is going on all the time,
even on a healthy reef. In the end, you wind up with a ‘city’ that destroys itself.”
• The acidification of our great ocean bodies is unlimited in the devastation and destruction of marine species.
For example, the beautifully colorful black, orange and white striped Clownfish reared in acidified water can’t
recognize the chemical signals that guide them to their universal home – the tentacles of an n anemone. Some are
even drawn to the scent of predators. Without their natural defense mechanisms, they will not live long enough to thrive and
reproduce to the next generation perpetuating their specie.
• Mollusks and crustaceans make their hard shells by combining calcium and carbonate ions they get from the
water they live in. When atmospheric CO2 levels go up, as they are now, the organism’s supply of essential carbonate
goes down, thus thinning their shells giving the marine animal within less protection from its predators.
• Further, it is now well known that this acidification of the ocean waters interferes with reproduction in
some species and with the ability of others – the so-called “calcifiers” – to
form shells and stony skeletons of calcium carbonate. At this point in time, it is not clear to researchers if these effects
will mean the ultimate extinction of those marine species. Further study is ongoing.
• For this reason, the group of >150 leading researchers met in Monaco and issued The Monaco Declaration,
stating that they were “deeply concerned by recent, rapid changes in ocean chemistry,” which could, within
decades “severely affect marine organisms, food webs, biodiversity and fisheries.” Warm-water coral reefs
are the prime worry.
• But in cold water the impact may actually show up first closer to the Poles. Scientists have already documented
significant impact on the Pteropods – tiny swimming snails that are an important food for fish, whales, and birds
both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Experiments have shown that Pteropod shells grow more slowly in acidified sea water.
This is because the hydrogen ions that are needed to grow their shells are inhibited in the higher chemical acidity of the
marine water ecology.
• Not only is the destruction of coral and shelled species by acidification of the great ocean waters in question,
but it has been found that “by changing the basic chemistry of seawater, acidification is also expected to reduce
the water’s ability to absorb and muffle low-frequency sound by up to 40%, making some parts of the ocean noisier.”[15]
Some species without shells may not be able to adjust or adapt to such an environmental stressor, thereby rendering them unable
to find their usual sources of food and like the beautiful black, orange and white striped Clownfish, actually be drawn to
their predator’s without their normal defense mechanisms in place, as such defense mechanisms should be.
• For those of us who love to explore first-hand the underwater marine world by scuba diving, the destruction
of the coral reefs means a loss of that majestic unique beauty and teaming vitality, of witnessing thousands of healthy species
very busy in “the coral city.” But also, lost is the opportunity to take an adventure to a new part of
the world and explore the various different species indigenous to those particular ecosystems.
• For the 6 million certified scuba divers in the U.S.A.,[16] the rest and relaxation of many scuba divers the
world over[17] who travel to the reefs as part of their holiday R&R would be denied the enjoyment of those beautiful colors
and marine species, the enjoyment of taking underwater photos and sharing their travel exploration adventures and photos with
their friends and other divers would be lost. While the cost of such a loss could be partially quantified including the travel
to and from the dive site, the hotel, food, car and boat accommodations, air tank refills and other necessary equipment rentals,
together with time away from one’s job duties as the tangible costs, the intrinsic value is not so easy to quantify.
The intrinsic value of being spiritually uplifted, of being renewed both psychologically and physically by the rest and relaxation
of an adventure to a new environment, the experience of seeing first-hand all those uniquely beautiful underwater colors and
biodiversity of the uniquely majestic species (~ 5,000 per coral reef) within “the coral city” that one
does not see on land, and cannot be quantified – it is truly priceless.
• Once gone, it will not be within the power of humankind to bring back to life those thousands of species or
the vital thriving coral city that once supported their ecosystems.
Your Role - Stopping This Needless
Environmental Destruction:
• As a Representative-style Democracy our elected representatives are sent to Washington on our behalf to undertake
the legislative actions that “We, The People,” want and desire. Our bicameral Congressional representatives
care about our votes and therefore about what we want them to do as a self-determined, self-governed people. You, as a member
of the General Electorate demands (a population of 320 million), making your thoughts and desires for legislative action to
your representatives by contacting them as one of their Constituents, telling them how you want them to vote and allocate
funding of U.S. Federal Tax Treasury on your behalf. After all, we all pay taxes! It’s your money that Congress
is entrusted with.
• We each have one vote and a voice to be heard. That is power! Every elected representative wants to know what
his/her Constituent wants. It is well within our own power to preserve our coral reefs right now. We must stop ocean acidification.
We must stop burning fossil fuels, now by bringing online clean-green self-sustainable thermonuclear fusion energy.
• Here’s how: on this website, a sample letter and contact information is provided for you to write
to your respective U.S. Congressional Senators and House Representatives, telling them that you want to bring online for powerplant
generation of clean-green electricity, together with the by-product production of clean-green fusion energy as alternative
transportation fuels (representing 87% of all fossil fuel burning), allowing us to stop burning fossil fuels now, conserving
our great deep Oceans and the coral reefs and their ecosystems they support .
• While you are here, online, in three easy mouse clicks, you can take immediate proactive action and make your
voice heard today. I cannot urge you strongly enough to exercise your electoral privilege and duty and write to your Congressional
Representatives right now.
Here’s how:
• Click on Write Your Representatives
• Pull down the letter you will see, then Click on Contact Your Elected Representatives, go to the state by
state listing for the 111th Part A U.S. Congress. Fill in the contact information. Save the letter.
• Click on the email address and send the letter off immediately to your Senate and House Representative’s
office in Washington.
Or, print the letter and mail it via first class mail.
• Of course, you can always compose your own letter and send it, but still use the contact information as provided
at Contact Your Elected Representatives. Just tell your representatives that you want to arrest this vicious cycle of extreme
weather patterns and acidification of the great ocean bodies caused by global climate change by:
• bringing online green-clean self-sustaining fusion energy for electricity generation and the production
of by-product clean-green self-sustainable hydrogen now!
and
• stopping all fossil fuel burning in America for electricity generation and passenger and vehicles fuels
(municipal vehicles, passenger and light trucks), while replacing 87% GDP with clean – green self-sustainable by-product
fuels generated from thermonuclear fusion energy power plants).
Readers, if you think that writing a letter to your elected representatives in Washington is hard or not worth the time
and effort, consider the alternative of not making your voice heard in Washington:
• Congress will continue business as usual and protect the cash-rich Petroleum and Gas Institute Lobby with
tax subsidies.
• The amount of ocean acidification will continue to escalate logarithmically, and in another two decades you
would be living in a world without the coral reefs, the food, livelihoods and medicines that their ecosystems and species
gives to humans on land.
• Living in a world without your favorite seafood to eat.
• Leaving your children and grandchildren trying to live together in a world without all the unique majestic
beauty of thousands of species living and feeding and reproducing their next generation of their specie on healthy teaming
coral reefs worldwide!
• No opportunity for your grandchildren to discover the sheer joy of seeing the spinner dolphins spin in mid-air.
• No opportunity for your grandchildren to discover the sheer joy of swimming with sea turtles and the dolphins!
• No opportunity for you to see the joy of your grandchildren’s smiles and the light in their eyes
at having the experience of swimming with the sea turtles and the dolphins!
Is this what you want to leave to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? We can preserve what we have -still in
this narrow window of opportunity- but once lost, it is not within humankind’s power to bring it back. Now is the
time to act proactively.
~ ~ ~
• This article filed and registered with U.S. Library of Congress, office of Copyrights Protection, Washington,
D.C. 20559 in June 2011 by author. All copyrights: domestic and pan-international claimed by author.
• Researcher and Author, Diane A. Davis, M.S., Ph.D. Cand., Founder and CEO, The International Institute For
Thermonuclear Fusion Energy Education, R&D, Regulation, Technology and Public Policy, Inc.™
 Article Nine Article Eleven 
REFERENCE CITATIONS:
________________________________________
[1] Davis, Diane A., Fusion Energy ~ The Public’s Guide,™ Volume I Averting Human Extinction: Energy
Policy And Environmental Degradation,© c. 2008 ISBN 978-0-9800166-1-1, c. 2008 by author. Published by Fusion Energy And The
Environment Publishing Co., NYC, NY 10163, www.fusionenergyandtheenvironmentpublishing.com. Available at www.bn.com. (Barnes
& Noble online store under name of book.) Also available at www.fusionenergythepublicsguide-onlinestore.com.
[2] Andy Ridgeway and Daniela Schmidt, University of Bristol, U.K., “An Ominous Warning On The Effects of Ocean
Acidification” Natural Geosciences Journal. Authors stated this is almost unprecedented event in history. About
55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. This time it is due to burning of fossil fuel may
portend a new wave of die-offs. There are 10 times more hydrogen ions in a pH5 than in a pH6 and 100 times more than pH7.
February 7, 2010. The JOIDES Resolution by scientists worldwide.
[i] In fact, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere tomorrow, temperatures would continue
to rise for 20 to 30 years because of what is already in the atmosphere. Once methane is injected into the
troposphere, [7 miles ASL/AGL] it remains for about 8 to 12 years (Prinn, et al., 1987). Carbon dioxide has a much longer
residence: 70 to 120 years. Twenty percent of the CO2 being emitted today will still affect the earth’s climate
1,000 years from now (Archer & Brovkin, 2008). If, as predicted, global temperature rises another 3°C. (5.4°F.) by the
end of the [current] century, the earth will be warmer than it has been in about 3 million years (Dowsett et al., 1994;
Rahmstorf, 2007). Oceans were then about 25m higher than they are today. We are already seeing important effects from
global warming; the effects of another 3°C. (5.4°F.) increase are hard to predict. However, such a drastic change would,
at the very least, put severe pressure on civilization as we know it.” This Author’s Note: However,
no one living now and none of humankind’s infrastructure existed 3 million years ago. Consider the marinas, first
3 floors, the basement and the cellar levels of high rise buildings all over the world on coastlines such as Miami, NYC, Boston,
San Francisco, Los Angeles, and all the high rise buildings that have transportation systems and utility and telecommunications
systems directly below their grade level stores such as in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc.
[3] B.M. Jones (USGS), C.D. Arp (USGS), M.T. Jorgenson (ABR. Inc.), K.M. Hinkel (University of Cincinnati), J.A. Schmutz
(USGS), and P.L. Flint (USGS). “Increase in the rate and uniformity of coastline erosion in arctic Alaska,”
Geophysical Letters, Feb. 14 2009 and B.M. Jones (USGS), K.M. Hinkel (University of Cincinnati), USGS “Modern Erosion
Rates and Loss of Coastal Features and Sites, Beaufort Sea Coast, Alaska,” Geophysical Letters, December 2008.
Available in part at http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0903/2008GL036205.
[ii] The Arctic is especially sensitive to black carbon emissions from within. Available at:
https://phys.org › Earth › Earth Sciences/Aug 14, 2013: When black carbon is deposited on snow and
ice, the soot-covered snow or ice absorbs more sunlight, leading to surface warming. Due to the large amount of snow and ice
in the Arctic—which has warmed twice as fast as the global average over the past century—the region is
likely to be especially sensitive to black carbon.
To investigate how sensitive the Arctic is to black carbon emissions from within the Arctic compared to those transported
from mid-latitudes, Sand et al. conducted experiments using a climate model that includes simulation of the effects of black
carbon deposited on snow. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2013-08-arctic-sensitive-black-carbon-emissions.html#jCp. When
black carbon is deposited on snow and ice, the soot-covered surfaces are more prone to melting because of the color black
on top of the ices surface. The researchers have found that most of the Arctic warming effect from black carbon is more devastating
that the Arctic from mid-latitudes is more likely to remain at higher altitudes. Explore further: Cutting soot emissions:
Fastest, most economical way to slow global warming.
[iii] 3 Emerging [Research]Questions: The Arctic in the Anthropocene: Emerging Research Questions, Chapter 3: available
at: https://www.nap.edu/read/18726/chapter/3. Coastal zone issues cut across the emerging research questions in this chapter:
the Evolving, Hidden, Connected, Managed, and Undetermined Arctic. Less than 10 percent of Alaska has contemporary shoreline
data. In Chapter 5, the focus on the effects of Arctic change on the Arctic system itself. Further, the Arctic cryosphere,
or “frozen Arctic,” is composed of permanent and seasonal sea ice, ... Ecosystems of the northern latitudes
are most vulnerable to a changing climate. These discharges and fluxes impact land fast ice and coastal dynamics as well as
bacterial and algal production and carbon cycling.
[4] USGS News Release Northern Alaska Coastal Erosion Affecting the in the Laptev, Eastern Siberian and Beaufort Seas,
February 18, 2009, in Geology, available at www.geology.com.
[5] Kundis, Robin Craig Article: “Coral Reefs, Fishing, and Tourism: Tensions in U.S. Ocean Law and Policy Reform
January, 2008”, 27 Stan. Envtl. L.J. 3, Introduction, www.lexisnexis.com.
[6] William G. Howell, co-Author is associate professor of government at Harvard University and, Kenneth R. Mayer, co-Author
is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, ”The Last One-Hundred Days,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 no. 3 (September c. 2005 Center for the Study of the Presidency), pages 533 –
553.
[7] Quote of Dr. Charlie Vernon, Australian marine scientist and scuba diver, appears in Kolbert, Elizabeth, “The
Acid Sea,” p. 34 – 35, National Geographic Magazine, April, 2011, Volume 219 #5. c. 2011 National Geographic
Society, Washington, D.C. 20036 USA.
[8] B.B. Dias1, M.B. Hart2*, C.W. Smart2 and J.M. Hall-Spencer.3 “Modern seawater acidification: the response
of foraminifera to high-CO2 conditions in the Mediterranean Sea,” Laboratório de Oceanografia Costeira, Departamento
de Geociências, CFH Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopólis-SC, Brazil 88040-900. 2 School of Geography, Earth
& Environmental Sciences; University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK; 3 School of Marine Science &
Engineering, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK *Corresponding author (e-mail: mhart@plymouth.ac.uk),
Journal of the Geological Society, September 2010, V. 167, No. 5, pages 843 – 846, doi.10.1144/0016-76492010-050,
c. 2010 Geological Society of London, U.K.
[9] Hannah L. Wood,1* John I. Spicer,2 and Stephen Widdicombe,1 PMCID: PMC25877981Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect
Place, West Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK2Marine Biology and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological Sciences, University
of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK*Author for correspondence (Email: hawo@pml.ac.uk),”Ocean acidification may increase
calcification rates, but at a cost,” Proceedings of the Royal Society in Biology, August 7, 2008 Volume 275 Issue
1644, pages 1767 – 1773. Proceedings of Biological Science, 2008 August 7; 275(1644): 1767–1773. I.D.
Published online 2008, May 6. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0343.
[10] Hutchings, P.A., Kingsford, M.J. & Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2008). The Great Barrier Reef: Biology, Environment and
Management. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, and Israel, A. & Hophy, M. (2002). Growth, photosynthetic properties and Rubisco
activities and amounts of marine macroalgae grown under current and elevated seawater CO2 concentrations. Copyright Global
Change Biology, 8, 831–840.
[11] Kolbert, Elizabeth, Kolbert, Elizabeth, “The Acid Sea,” p. 34 – 35, National Geographic
Magazine, April, 2011, Volume 219 #5. c. 2011 National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. 20036 USA., p. 116.
[12] Kolbert, Elizabeth, Ibid., p. 121.
[13] BBC News Broadcast January 30, 2009. 150 leading marine scientists met for a Symposium in October 2008 in Monaco,
drafted the Monaco Declaration and delivered to Prince Albert II of Monaco. The Declaration noted the urgent concern of the
scientists that ocean acidification caused by climate change CO2 production from fossil fuels was causing extreme concern
and alarm within the scientific community. The Declaration urged immediate action on the part of all governments. Declaration
drafted by Dr. James Orr, Chairman of the Symposium and Another signatory, Patricio Bernal, Executive Secretary of the UN
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission: "The questions are now: how bad will it be and how soon will it happen."
[14] Caldeira K, Wickett M.E., “Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH.,” Nature, c. 2003; Volume 425:Iss.
365. doi:10.1038/425365a. Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology.
[15] “Finding deaf Nemos: Clownfish are growing up with impaired hearing 'caused by fossil fuel emissions’,”
Daily Mail Reporter, U.K.: Science and Technology Section, www.dailymail.com, last updated at 12:28 PM on 1st June 2011 online.
[16] Davison, Ben, Undercurrent.org Magazine interviewed William Cline, Founder of The Cline Group, a consultancy to the
scuba industry, gave this figure. Between the four agencies, PADI, NAUI, IANT and TDI/SDI, there are certified 3.5 million
scuba divers of whom it is estimate 1.2 million are actively diving with ≥5 dives per year. (+/- 15% error margin),
© May 2007, Volume 22 #5. Copyright © 1996-2011 Undercurrent (www.undercurrent.org) 3020 Bridgeway, Ste. 102, Sausalito, Ca
94965, USA, All rights reserved.
[17] ScubaBoard.com has estimated there are 10 – 12 million trained and certified scuba divers worldwide. July
12, 2010. www.scubaboard.com/forums/archive/index…t/263672.html.
ARTICLE TEN
"EARTH’S DEEP OCEANS: A BAROMETER
FOR OUR BLUE MARBLE PLANET’S WELL-BEING”©
Diane A. Davis, M.S., Ph.D. Cand.
Researcher and Series Author
Copyright Claimed June 28, 2011
As we approach the mid-point of the 21st Century, there are two major challenges facing us in North America, especially
the USA, as well as worldwide. These issues are of special concern to scientists spanning the broad spectrum of human biological,
medical, physiological, animal veterinary, avian and marine species. Specifically, these challenges concern the health of
the great oceans as a barometer for the present and near-term well-being of our entire Planet.
• Precious in its uniqueness, Planet Earth is the only planet in our solar system that is capable of sustaining
life even in the smallest form – the one-celled amoeba. This is due to the fact that >70% of the Earth’s
surface is covered in water – expansive deep bodies of water containing thousands of delicate marine species and
their ecosystems that sustain us here on land with food, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines and livelihoods. Therefore,
the continued environmental degradation of these deep great bodies of water are of special concern to scientists worldwide.
• In the work of the first monograph in the series, Fusion Energy ~ The Public’s Guide™
Volume I Averting Human Extinction: Energy Policy and Environmental Degradation,©[1] as well as the science articles posted
on this website, all have cautioned about the hastening of environmental degradation and our need to move onto clean-green
self-sustainable fuels to support our energy needs and economies worldwide.
• Both number and frequency of disrupting environmental and meteorological events that were predicted in the
above-referenced monograph (published late 2008) have progressed much faster than what scientists had originally believed
was occurring – “about ten times faster,”[2] as the most recent data has revealed to us.
• Essentially, these challenges – a dire concern to scientists worldwide - may be categorized into
two problems we are now facing:
• Climate change causally-related thereto
• global warming as a result of unabated
• continuance of burning fossil fuels worldwide,
• and that which scientists refer to as:
• “the other problem”: the CO2 problem sinking into the great bodies of deep ocean waters
from burning fossil fuels worldwide 24/7/365 unabated.
• Challenge 1 will be written about in greater detail in follow-on Article Eleven. Challenge 2 will be discussed
here in Article Ten. Both are large areas of information and recent study.
• In Article Ten we will discuss the environmental toxic pollutants as greenhouse gases (GHG) entering the world’s
great deep oceans and how this is quickening the effects of climate change, the acidification of the great oceans, destruction
of coral reefs as the architecture upon which thousands of marine species live, the deterioration of the permafrost coastlines
of the Northern Alaska region, along with the thinning of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica.
• Further in Article Eleven we will discuss the environmental toxic pollutants entering our great bodies of
water and how this is quickening the effects of global climate change, the ENSO Cycles of El Niño/La Niña, causing extreme
meteorological events in quick succession, loss of income, loss of crops and livestock, loss of land mass, loss of personal,
family and municipal real property assets, displacement and break up of families in various part of North America and throughout
the world when they must evacuate their homes and collection of belongings.
The Need For Immediate Grassroots Action:
• In Chapter Four, the above-referenced monograph discussed at great length the etiology of global warming and
climate change, thus explaining the basics of environmental degradation. In more recent studies by researchers worldwide,
it has been found that environmental degradation has progressed quickly and is about ten times worse than originally believed
by scientists spanning all disciplines of science the world over. This is of grave concern to all of us.
• Of special note is the recently identified condition referred to as “black soot” or “carbon
soot” within the ambient air stream emitted close to ground level that is now known to be hastening climate change
and the melting of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica, while warming the deep ocean bodies.
• This black carbon soot is a function of the Carnot Combustion Cycle (although engineers have tried to improve
its performance, >70% efficiency of completed combustion process has never been attained) which leads to partially-burned
particulate matter and aerosols of carbon black soot (e.g. sub-micron particles ranging in size from 0.001 to 1.0 microns).
These “fines” and “superfines,” being released into the ambient air stream only a
few hundred feet above ground level through gas waste stacks from process and power plants and tailpipes from passenger vehicles,
light trucks, diesel-fueled 16-, 18-wheeler flatbed and container trucks that haul manufactured products and fresh produce
from one end of the U.S. to another. Through these waste stream sources the black carbon soot enters the ambient air stream
within the atmosphere’s first few hundred feet above ground level – where it is most injurious. This
is the same air stream that you and I breathe - 24/7/365.
• The black carbon soot contains PCBs, CFCs, greenhouse gases (GHG): carbon dioxide (CO2) and especially methane
(CH4) gas, [the same gas which is produced from garbage landfills], of all the greenhouse gases it is the most harmful to
our delicate marine ecosystems.
• In the above-referenced monograph, a dedicated chapter discussed in-depth the important significance of these
great deep ocean bodies encircling the globe and their unique role in governing the temperature and seasonal stability of
our unique “blue marble” planet, bringing to us the temperate Gulf Stream as an example.
• Volume I explained the etiology behind global warming and climate change. Explained were the ENSO Cycles
causally-related to the El Niño/La Niña syndromes - non-traditional meteorological events responsible for bringing the extreme
weather conditions: hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, simultaneous extreme droughts and extreme flooding in various
contiguous regions of the world with resultant reduction in available land mass on which to grow food, graze livestock, for
humans to live on, and specie ecosystems to exist within, as well as loss of coastal areas due to sea level rise.
• Additionally, Volume I discussed in-depth the socio-economic, medical commercial and political aspects that
healthy deep oceans provide to humans: i.e. food, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines, livelihoods for humankind, as
well streams of government tax revenue that build, maintain and support the infrastructure of the U.S. and all organized societies
worldwide.
• In the Epilogue Chapter of Volume I, the overwhelming research across the board of all life and science led
me as author, to make a prediction: that the horrific Hurricane Season of 2005 was just the beginning of a quickening climate
and meteorological trend that we would all witness becoming more aggravated worldwide if we didn’t stop burning
fossil fuels.
• Simultaneous with the publication of Volume I in October 2008, a Symposium Conference of 150 marine scientists,
on the dire condition of deep ocean acidification caused from climate change due to fossil fuel burning worldwide. Convened
in Monaco, the meeting produced “The Monaco Declaration,” delivered to Prince Albert II of Monaco urging
that he deliver their concerns to the World Climate Change Summit in December 2009.
• On January 30, 2009 the BBC announced the Symposium and “The Monaco Declaration” demanding
that world governments take proactive measure to cut back on fossil fuel burning. In the winter of 2009 in Article Nine of
this series, the most recent scientific studies and their findings on the advanced thinning of the ice shelves in the Arctic
and Antarctica were discussed, noting the growing concern which had led Team TARA of scientists and researchers from universities
worldwide, and the Royal Navy researchers to voice their cautions in articles, online bulletins, documentaries and letters
to various government agencies in the free world. These more recent findings are noted herein and further in Article Eleven.
New Evidence Presented:
• The following two studies are of great significance as it is now believed that the black carbon’s
effect on climate change is responsible for the rapidly advanced thinning of the ice shelves, erosion of the Arctic and northern
Alaskan coastlines as well as quickening acidification of the world’s deep oceans. The studies revealed that the
effect of the black carbon soot depends on the altitude at which the soot is occurring.[i] Black carbon soot is now believed
to be among the largest anthropogenic contributor to global warming and climate change because it absorbs solar radiation,
reacting with the UV rays of the sunlight and heat in the atmosphere. The heat and black carbon soot then becomes trapped
close to the surface of the Earth, acting as a heat inversion blanket.
• To prove-disprove this theory, a megaton of black carbon was uniformly distributed around the globe at different
altitudes in the atmosphere. Researchers found that the addition of black carbon near the surface of land or oceans caused
the surface to heat. As the altitude of the black carbon increased, the warming effect of the land decreased. Finally, when
black carbon soot was released into the atmosphere, it came back down on the ice shelves throughout the Arctic and Antarctica
forming an insulation barrier due to its black color. Whereas the white ice shelves and white snow reflect off the ice shelves
the warming sun’s UV rays back in to the atmosphere. This insulation barrier therefore increases the temperature
of the surface of the ice shelves as the sun shines on the ice, causing the shelves to melt even faster – ten times
faster, as it is now understood. In addition to temperature changes, black carbon soot also had varying effects on precipitation.
It increased precipitation in the lower atmosphere and decreased it in the upper atmosphere, as a result of changes in the
atmospheric stability.[3]
• This study provides several reasons accounting for the heightened melting of the ice shelves in the Arctic
and Antarctica as well as historically unprecedented rapidity of erosion of the permafrost coastlines of the northern Alaskan
region, together with the rise in temperature of the great ocean bodies of water. It is at the immediate lower atmosphere
that this black carbon soot is most dangerous to all forms of life, but especially to the coral reefs that form the infrastructure
architecture in and on which thousands of delicate marine species live, nourish and reproduce to the next generation. These
reefs as well as the rich biodiversity of marine life they support is now at serious risk. This must needs be a grave concern
to scientists of all disciplines as well as it should be to all of us worldwide.
• Based on the results of the foregoing ice shelf study, it is now believed that the black carbon’s
effect on climate change depends on the altitude at which the soot is occurring. [ii] Black carbon soot is released close
to the ground (within several hundred feet) into the lower atmosphere (e.g. the troposphere) from waste gas stacks and tail
pipes. The black soot becomes part of the ambient air stream rising slightly, due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (a
more concentrated [hot] stream of air will naturally seek a lower concentrated [colder] stream of air). The black soot rises
somewhat from its point of emittance at the stack or tailpipe becoming a component of the forming dust clouds.
• Clouds form as they collect the dust drifting along within the winds, hanging over us, sometimes forming acid
dew or acid fog when differential temperature conditions are optimized immediately above the ground surface, or when the clouds
release their contents coming back down to the ground’s surface as acid rain, acid snow, acid hail containing the
toxic polluting contents of the black carbon soot: greenhouse gases, especially CO2, SO2, CH4, PCBs and CFCs. (methane is
worse than carbon dioxide because it has 20 - 30% greater insulative capabilities (e.g. thermal capturing and holding). [See
Article Fourteen, this Series.]
• Further, these toxic pollutants leach into the ground’s precious aquifers that contain our drinking
water. Below the ground’s surface where there is no UV sunlight, the PCBs and CFCs will not break down. At this
point, these toxic pollutants become an injurious component in human – especially pregnant women - and mammalian
animal blood streams because they alter estrogen sensitivity. (See Volume I in the monograph series for a detailed explanation
and clinical studies.)
• Data in two further studies recently published revealed that Northern Alaskan coastlines respond to climate
change with increased erosion, causing an average of about half a meter per year. The effects are most severe in the Laptev,
Eastern Siberian and Beaufort Seas, where coastal erosion rates reach more than 8 meters (~ 24’-0”) per
year in some areas. More importantly, more and more coastlines are being exposed to the effects of climate change and this
carbon black soot. Two-thirds of these coastlines are composed of frozen substrate called permafrost, which is much more
susceptible to erosion than rock. Scientists have recently concluded that these effects will cause substantial changes for
Arctic and Alaskan ecosystems near the coast as well as human populations living there.[iii]
Gas Physics of Black Carbon Soot:
• The black carbon soot aerosols released into the immediate lower atmosphere become components of clouds that
are carried by the “horse” and “trade" winds traveling around the Earth’s circumference,
eventually being carried out to sea, spreading out over the large expanse of the deep oceans that cover 70.8% of the Earth’s
surface.
• The air and water of the oceans are constantly exchanging gases through evaporation and condensation, so whatever
we emit into the air eventually comes down into the great ocean bodies of water. Being acidic in their chemistry due to holding
the greenhouse gases, when the clouds become too heavy, their contents fall into the great oceans as acid snow, acid rain,
forming acid dew and fog. The waste gas aerosols emitted into the atmosphere from waste gas stacks containing that black carbon
soot eventually release the GHG acidic toxic pollutants containing the harmful PCBs and CFCs are released into the deep oceans
as a result of rain.
• The carbon dioxide (CO2) in the black carbon soot of GHG waste gases mix with the naturally alkaline water
to produce carbonic acid, thus changing the water chemistry from alkaline to acidic over time reducing the hydrogen ions available
for the marine species that need the hydrogen to produce their shells. These large expanses of oceans essentially act as
an expansive heat sink as well as a carbon storehouse. This accounts for the change from an alkaline base ≥8.3
neutral into a more acidic chemistry of ≤8.1, as it is presently. Of note, our ground soil is now 5.6 pH, or the
chemistry of brown vinegar. The change also places all marine ecosystems and the thousands of marine species that these ecosystems
support at risk because these species need an alkaline ecology in which to thrive and reproduce.
• The pH Scale which measures acidity in terms of the concentration of hydrogen ions, runs from 0 –
14. At the low end of the scale are strong acids, such as hydrochloric acid that releases hydrogen readily (e.g. more readily
than carbonic acid does). At the high end are strong bases such as lye. A neutral pH of 7.0, is the standardized basic requirement
for all drinking (potable) water throughout the world. Normal seawater should be slightly basic toward the alkaline end,
around 8.3+pH providing enough hydrogen ions to the fragile ecosystems within the marine ecology. To date, CO2 emissions
have reduced the pH by 0.1 down to the present 8.1 as seawater has been presently tested. This may not seem like a lot, but
like the Richter Scale, the pH Scale is logarithmic, so even small numerical changes represent large effects. A pH drop of
0.1 means the water has become 30% more acidic.
• In her April 2011 article, “The Acid Sea,” Ms. Kolbert writes: “If present trends
continue, surface pH will drop to 7.8 by 2100. At that point, the water will be 150% more acidic than it was in 1800. The
acidification that has occurred so far is probably irreversible.”
• These great bodies of water provide 90% of the Earth’s water. Currently these oceans absorb 30 –
33% of human-created CO2 emissions, roughly 22 million tons a day, or 8,030 trillion tons per year worldwide – as
yet, unabated – essentially acting as an expansive carbon storehouse.
• Most marine ecosystems and the thousands of species supported by these ecosystems thrive best in an alkaline
ecology >8.3 – 13pH.
• Scientific projections based on these numbers show that by the end of this century, continued greenhouse emissions
could reduce ocean pH by another 0.5 units. This drastic change in water chemistry from alkaline to acidic places at risk
not only the coral reefs but also the rich biodiversity of thousands of marine species worldwide.
Our Ocean’s Precious Coral Reefs:
‘The Mother Ship’ of All Marine Life
• Coral reef ecosystems have been termed “the rainforests” of
the great ocean bodies, and as such perform very important functions within the Earth’s planetary physics. Their
significance to the health and wellbeing of Planet Earth cannot be underestimated or overstated:
• Coral reef ecosystems are some of the most
productive ecosystems on the planet, often
compared to rainforests in terms of biodiversity.
• In addition, coral reefs provide a variety of valuable
ecosystem goods and services, including food
production services, biodiversity services, coastal
protection services, and the raw materials for
medicines.
• Coral reefs are also some of the most imperiled
ecosystems on the planet. Recent evidence suggests
that twenty percent of the world's coral reefs have
been destroyed in the past few decades, while
another 50% are ailing or verging on collapse.’
• Coral reefs are imperiled for a number of reasons,
including pollution, physical destruction, coastal
development, and disease. Global climate change
will only exacerbate the destruction of coral reef
ecosystems, as a result of both increasing sea
temperatures, which cause coral bleaching, and
the acidification of the oceans as they absorb
increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon
dioxide, which dissolves corals' calcium carbonate structures. Indeed, in the United States,
the
• National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, also
known as NOAA Fisheries) recently listed two
species of Acropora coral for protection under
the Federal Endangered Species Act.
Background:
• In the late 1800s, optimal carbonate was available for the growth of coral. But with the advent of the Industrial
Revolution in 1850 – 95, the practice of burning fossil fuels en masse for all residential and commercial space
needs, industrial and smaller smith manufacturing processes called for burning of charcoal and coal in furnaces, and wood
in fire places.
• In the early 1900s fossil fuel burning was compounded by the invention, standardization and necessity of those
buying the passenger vehicle - the Ford “Model T” car of 1902-1903 - which most efficiently ran on the
petroleum derivative, leaded gasoline.
• Post-WWII, when Robert Moses designed the concept of the “suburb,” once-urban dwellers
were in need of the car for transportation to and from work back and forth to the city and around the suburb. As America gained
wealth, the two-car family became the norm and in the 1980s and 1990s the very popular SUVs and light trucks, great for the
family’s driving safety, but which guzzled gasoline with no Congressional mandate for meeting minimum fuel efficiency
standards, further compounded the rate of fossil fuel consumption with consequential GHG emissions, ten times greater presently
22 million tons of GHG (i.e. CO2, SO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, CHCs: HFCs, PFCs) being dumped into the great ocean bodies every day
or 8,030 trillion tons every year!
• By year 2000, the carbonate level in the great ocean bodies is now considered to be low. At current trends,
by 2050 it will be extremely low, dropping substantially near the Poles. And, by 2100 the carbonate composition of the great
ocean bodies may be too low even in the tropics for coral reefs to survive, taking with them the biodiversity of thousands
of marine species – representing at least 25% of the world’s total species.
Status of Coral Reefs Worldwide:
• Without a healthy coral reef ecosystem worldwide, the underwater marine “rainforests”
cannot perform their very important function of keeping the great oceans temperate, vital and teaming with thousands of species
of healthy marine life that provide food, livelihoods, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines for humans, as well as the
R&R enjoyment of scuba divers (an estimated trained and certified 6 million in the U.S.A. alone with another 10 –
12 million worldwide) who dive as an R&R adventure to witness the majestic beauty of unique marine colors, marine species
and marine ecosystems that do not exist on land.
• Hawaii is composed of several islands, each with its own coral reef forming an archipelago in the mid-Pacific.
In April 2006, President Bush and his wife viewed a screening of the documentary film “Voyage to the Bottom of
the Sea.” On April 4, 2008, the Marine Environmental Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization
warned that the collective coral reefs of Hawaii representing 200 square miles (518 km2) were becoming endangered, on their
way to becoming extinct. In his last one-hundred days of office, President George H. Bush (43rd) together with the U.S. Congress[6]
declared Hawaii’s collection of reefs as endangered species, reclassifying the reefs collectively as the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, both National Treasures and protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
This protected the collective reefs from tourism’s over-fishing, stripping, poaching or coral stripping in any
way. The preserve is guarded by the National Fish and Wildlife agents for the U.S. Government. Because of this act of conservation,
today both the corals that provide the infrastructure on which the reef ecosystem is built are now teaming with thousands
of healthy vibrant corals and thousands of thriving marine species.
• A great turn around for the fragile Hawaiian underwater ecology. While it is possible at this point in time,
the window of opportunity to proactively preserve our natural resources is coming quickly to an end. Scientists have estimated
that we may only have another two decades in which to accomplish this conservation before the window closes forever.
• Consider the following two examples of reefs in the world. One is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef,
which divides the Continental Shelf from deep oceans. The reef has many thousands of species. The ribbon of white coral
all around the east coast of the Great Barrier Reef is 1400 miles long. The reef houses 70 biological zones. However, among
scientists such as Dr. Charlie Vernon, Australian marine scientist and scuba diver, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef
is considered to exist “in a state of fragility, … I fear what lies ahead,” he recently stated.
His cautioning is well-taken here.
• But some reef systems around the world have not been so lucky. While the Great Barrier Reef still has a vital,
healthy architecture in its corals, providing the infrastructure within which all other marine species are able to feed, thrive,
and reproduce, there are other reefs which have not been as lucky and have biologically ceased to function.
• One such reef is the Castello Aragonese, a tiny island that rises straight out of the Tyrrhenia Sea like a
tower, it is located 17 miles west of Naples, it can be reached from the larger island of Ischia, Italy via a long narrow
stone bridge. The sea around Castello Aragonese provides a window onto the great oceans of 2050 and beyond. Sadly, clumps
of brown algae lie at the bottom of the reef and bubbles of CO2 rise from volcanic vents on the seafloor and dissolve to form
carbonic acid. There is no longer a vital coral reef in Castello Aragonese.
• “When you get to the extremely high CO2, (e.g. 5.5pH), almost nothing living can tolerate that,”
stated Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist from Britain’s University of Plymouth who cited the Castello Aragonese
case that offers a natural analogue for an unnatural process: the acidification that has taken place off its shore is occurring
more gradually across the world’s oceans as they absorb more and more of the carbon dioxide that’s coming
from tail pipes and smoke stacks.
• Coral reefs the world over are already threatened and in a fragile state of survival. For example, between
1977 and 2001 coral cover in the Caribbean declined 80%.
• For vitality, health and wellbeing of the coral reefs worldwide, the worries begin at the surface, where an
atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases interact with the briny. By studying the historical
records, present day science has established that the sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible,
for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. These are not all as familiar as shrimps and lobsters, yet
species like krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, play a crucial part in the food chain: kill them off, and you may kill off
their predators, whose predators may be the ones you enjoy eating. Worse than missing your favorite foods being available,
you may destabilize an entire ecosystem.
•
That is also what acidification does to coral reefs, especially if they are already suffering from overfishing, overheating
or GHG toxic pollution. Many are, and most are therefore gravely damaged. Some scientists believe that coral reefs, home to
a quarter of all marine species, may virtually disappear within a few decades – an end to the rainforests of the
seas.
How Will the Extinction of the "Rainforests
of the Seas" Occur?
•
This can easily occur by the unmaking of shells and skeletons, snails, barnacles, sea urchins, crabs, lobsters, starfish,
even the tiny shelled snail-like Pteropod, upon which all other marine species feed, including the great whale, begins with
this acidification that drops into the surface waters of the great oceans.
• Many corals actually get most of their food from algae that live and photosynthesize inside the reefs they
live on; when corals bleach, it’s because stress has prompted the polyps to expel those dark symbionts. Each polyp
surrounds itself with a protective cup-shaped exoskeleton of calcium carbonate that contributes to the collective skeleton
of the whole colony. To make calcium carbonate, corals need two ingredients: calcium ions and carbonate ions. Acids react
with carbonate ions, in effect tying them up. So as atmospheric CO2 levels rise, carbonate ions become scarcer in the water,
and corals have to expend more energy to collect them. Under laboratory conditions, coral skeleton growth has been shown
to decline pretty much linearly as the carbonate concentration drops off.
• Slow growth may not matter much in the laboratory, but in the ocean though, reefs are constantly being picked
at by other organisms both large and small. “A reef is like a city,” said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who used
to direct the One Tree Island Research Station and now heads the Global Change Institute at Australia’s University
of Queensland. “You’ve got construction firms and you’ve got demolition firms. By restricting
the building materials that go into the construction, you tip the balance toward destruction, which is going on all the time,
even on a healthy reef. In the end, you wind up with a ‘city’ that destroys itself.”
• The acidification of our great ocean bodies is unlimited in the devastation and destruction of marine species.
For example, the beautifully colorful black, orange and white striped Clownfish reared in acidified water can’t
recognize the chemical signals that guide them to their universal home – the tentacles of an n anemone. Some are
even drawn to the scent of predators. Without their natural defense mechanisms, they will not live long enough to thrive and
reproduce to the next generation perpetuating their specie.
• mollusks and crustaceans make their hard shells by combining calcium and carbonate ions they get from the
water they live in. When atmospheric CO2 levels go up, as they are now, the organism’s supply of essential carbonate
goes down, thus thinning their shells giving the marine animal within less protection from its predators.
• Further, it is now well known that this acidification of the ocean waters interferes with reproduction in
some species and with the ability of others – the so-called “calcifiers” – to
form shells and stony skeletons of calcium carbonate. At this point in time, it is not clear to researchers if these effects
will mean the ultimate extinction of those marine species. Further study is ongoing.
• For this reason, the group of >150 leading researchers met in Monaco and issued The Monaco Declaration,
stating that they were “deeply concerned by recent, rapid changes in ocean chemistry,” which could, within
decades “severely affect marine organisms, food webs, biodiversity and fisheries.” Warm-water coral reefs
are the prime worry.
• But in cold water the impact may actually show up first closer to the Poles. Scientists have already documented
significant impact on the Pteropods – tiny swimming snails that are an important food for fish, whales, and birds
both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Experiments have shown that Pteropod shells grow more slowly in acidified sea water.
This is because the hydrogen ions that are needed to grow their shells are inhibited in the higher chemical acidity of the
marine water ecology.
• Not only is the destruction of coral and shelled species by acidification of the great ocean waters in question,
but it has been found that “by changing the basic chemistry of seawater, acidification is also expected to reduce
the water’s ability to absorb and muffle low-frequency sound by up to 40%, making some parts of the ocean noisier.”[15]
Some species without shells may not be able to adjust or adapt to such an environmental stressor, thereby rendering them
unable to find their usual sources of food and like the beautiful black, orange and white striped Clownfish, actually be drawn
to their predator’s without their normal defense mechanisms in place, as such defense mechanisms should be.
• For those of us who love to explore first-hand the underwater marine world by scuba diving, the destruction
of the coral reefs means a loss of that majestic unique beauty and teaming vitality, of witnessing thousands of healthy species
very busy in “the coral city.” But also, lost is the opportunity to take an adventure to a new part of
the world and explore the various different species indigenous to those particular ecosystems.
• For the 6 million certified scuba divers in the U.S.A.,[16] the rest and relaxation of many scuba divers the
world over[17] who travel to the reefs as part of their holiday R&R would be denied the enjoyment of those beautiful colors
and marine species, the enjoyment of taking underwater photos and sharing their travel exploration adventures and photos with
their friends and other divers would be lost. While the cost of such a loss could be partially quantified including the travel
to and from the dive site, the hotel, food, car and boat accommodations, air tank refills and other necessary equipment rentals,
together with time away from one’s job duties as the tangible costs, the intrinsic value is not so easy to quantify.
The intrinsic value of being spiritually uplifted, of being renewed both psychologically and physically by the rest and relaxation
of an adventure to a new environment, the experience of seeing first-hand all those uniquely beautiful underwater colors and
biodiversity of the uniquely majestic species (~ 5,000 per coral reef) within “the coral city” that one
does not see on land, and cannot be quantified – it is truly priceless.
• Once gone, it will not be within the power of humankind to bring back to life those thousands of species or
the vital thriving coral city that once supported their ecosystems.
Your Role - Stopping This Needless
Environmental Destruction:
• As a Representative-style Democracy our elected representatives are sent to Washington on our behalf to undertake
the legislative actions that “We, The People,” want and desire. Our bicameral Congressional representatives
care about our votes and therefore about what we want them to do as a self-determined, self-governed people. You, as a member
of the General Electorate demands (a population of 320 million), making your thoughts and desires for legislative action to
your representatives by contacting them as one of their Constituents, telling them how you want them to vote and allocate
funding of U.S. Federal Tax Treasury on your behalf. After all, we all pay taxes! It’s your money that Congress
is entrusted with.
• We each have one vote and a voice to be heard. That is power! Every elected representative wants to know what
his/her Constituent wants. It is well within our own power to preserve our coral reefs right now. We must stop ocean acidification.
We must stop burning fossil fuels, now by bringing online clean-green self-sustainable thermonuclear fusion energy.
• Here’s how: on this website, a sample letter and contact information is provided for you to write
to your respective U.S. Congressional Senators and House Representatives, telling them that you want to bring online for powerplant
generation of clean-green electricity, together with the by-product production of clean-green fusion energy as alternative
transportation fuels (representing 87% of all fossil fuel burning), allowing us to stop burning fossil fuels now, conserving
our great deep Oceans and the coral reefs and their ecosystems they support .
• While you are here, online, in three easy mouse clicks, you can take immediate proactive action and make your
voice heard today. I cannot urge you strongly enough to exercise your electoral privilege and duty and write to your Congressional
Representatives right now.
Here’s how:
• Click on Write Your Representatives
• Pull down the letter you will see, then Click on Contact Your Elected Representatives, go to the state by
state listing for the 111th Part A U.S. Congress. Fill in the contact information. Save the letter.
• Click on the email address and send the letter off immediately to your Senate and House Representative’s
office in Washington.
Or, print the letter and mail it via first class mail.
• Of course, you can always compose your own letter and send it, but still use the contact information as provided
at Contact Your Elected Representatives. Just tell your representatives that you want to arrest this vicious cycle of extreme
weather patterns and acidification of the great ocean bodies caused by global climate change by:
• bringing online green-clean self-sustaining fusion energy for electricity generation and the production
of by-product clean-green self-sustainable hydrogen now!
and
• stopping all fossil fuel burning in America for electricity generation and passenger and vehicles fuels
(municipal vehicles, passenger and light trucks), while replacing 87% GDP with clean – green self-sustainable by-product
fuels generated from thermonuclear fusion energy power plants).
Readers, if you think that writing a letter to your elected representatives in Washington is hard or not worth the time
and effort, consider the alternative of not making your voice heard in Washington:
• Congress will continue business as usual and protect the cash-rich Petroleum and Gas Institute Lobby with
tax subsidies.
• The amount of ocean acidification will continue to escalate logarithmically, and in another two decades you
would be living in a world without the coral reefs, the food, livelihoods and medicines that their ecosystems and species
gives to humans on land.
• Living in a world without your favorite seafood to eat.
• Leaving your children and grandchildren trying to live together in a world without all the unique majestic
beauty of thousands of species living and feeding and reproducing their next generation of their specie on healthy teaming
coral reefs worldwide!
• No opportunity for your grandchildren to discover the sheer joy of seeing the spinner dolphins spin in mid-air.
• No opportunity for your grandchildren to discover the sheer joy of swimming with sea turtles and the dolphins!
• No opportunity for you to see the joy of your grandchildren’s smiles and the light in their eyes
at having the experience of swimming with the sea turtles and the dolphins!
Is this what you want to leave to your grandchildren and great-grandchildren? We can preserve what we have -still in
this narrow window of opportunity- but once lost, it is not within humankind’s power to bring it back. Now is the
time to act proactively.
~ ~ ~
• This article filed and registered with U.S. Library of Congress, office of Copyrights Protection, Washington,
D.C. 20559 in June 2011 by author. All copyrights: domestic and pan-international claimed by author.
• Researcher and Author, Diane A. Davis, M.S., Ph.D. Cand., Founder and CEO, The International Institute For
Thermonuclear Fusion Energy Education, R&D, Regulation, Technology and Public Policy, Inc.™
 Article Nine Article Eleven 
REFERENCE CITATIONS:
________________________________________[1] Davis, Diane A., Fusion Energy ~ The Public’s Guide,™
Volume I Averting Human Extinction: Energy Policy And Environmental Degradation,© c. 2008 ISBN 978-0-9800166-1-1, c. 2008
by author. Published by Fusion Energy And The Environment Publishing Co., NYC, NY 10163, www.fusionenergyandtheenvironmentpublishing.com.
Available at www.bn.com. (Barnes & Noble online store under name of book.) Also available at www.fusionenergythepublicsguide-onlinestore.com.
[2] Andy Ridgeway and Daniela Schmidt, University of Bristol, U.K., “An Ominous Warning On The Effects of Ocean
Acidification” Natural Geosciences Journal. Authors stated this is almost unprecedented event in history. About
55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. This time it is due to burning of fossil fuel may
portend a new wave of die-offs. There are 10 times more hydrogen ions in a pH5 than in a pH6 and 100 times more than pH7.
February 7, 2010. The JOIDES Resolution by scientists worldwide.
[i] In fact, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere tomorrow, temperatures would continue
to rise for 20 to 30 years because of what is already in the atmosphere. Once methane is injected into the
troposphere, [7 miles ASL/AGL] it remains for about 8 to 12 years (Prinn, et al., 1987). Carbon dioxide has a much longer
residence: 70 to 120 years. Twenty percent of the CO2 being emitted today will still affect the earth’s climate
1,000 years from now (Archer & Brovkin, 2008). If, as predicted, global temperature rises another 3°C. (5.4°F.) by the
end of the [current] century, the earth will be warmer than it has been in about 3 million years (Dowsett et al., 1994;
Rahmstorf, 2007). Oceans were then about 25m higher than they are today. We are already seeing important effects from
global warming; the effects of another 3°C. (5.4°F.) increase are hard to predict. However, such a drastic change would,
at the very least, put severe pressure on civilization as we know it.” This Author’s Note: However,
no one living now and none of humankind’s infrastructure existed 3 million years ago. Consider the marinas, first
3 floors, the basement and the cellar levels of high rise buildings all over the world on coastlines such as Miami, NYC, Boston,
San Francisco, Los Angeles, and all the high rise buildings that have transportation systems and utility and telecommunications
systems directly below their grade level stores such as in New York CIty, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc.
[3] B.M. Jones (USGS), C.D. Arp (USGS), M.T. Jorgenson (ABR. Inc.), K.M. Hinkel (University of Cincinnati), J.A. Schmutz
(USGS), and P.L. Flint (USGS). “Increase in the rate and uniformity of coastline erosion in arctic Alaska,”
Geophysical Letters, Feb. 14 2009 and B.M. Jones (USGS), K.M. Hinkel (University of Cincinnati), USGS “Modern Erosion
Rates and Loss of Coastal Features and Sites, Beaufort Sea Coast, Alaska,” Geophysical Letters, December 2008.
Available in part at http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0903/2008GL036205.
[ii] The Arctic is especially sensitive to black carbon emissions from within. Available at:
https://phys.org › Earth › Earth Sciences/Aug 14, 2013: When black carbon is deposited on snow and
ice, the soot-covered snow or ice absorbs more sunlight, leading to surface warming. Due to the large amount of snow and ice
in the Arctic—which has warmed twice as fast as the global average over the past century—the region is
likely to be especially sensitive to black carbon.
To investigate how sensitive the Arctic is to black carbon emissions from within the Arctic compared to those transported
from mid-latitudes, Sand et al. conducted experiments using a climate model that includes simulation of the effects of black
carbon deposited on snow. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2013-08-arctic-sensitive-black-carbon-emissions.html#jCp. When
black carbon is deposited on snow and ice, the soot-covered surfaces are more prone to melting because of the color black
on top of the ices surface. The researchers have found that most of the Arctic warming effect from black carbon is more devastating
that the Arctic from mid-latitudes is more likely to remain at higher altitudes. Explore further: Cutting soot emissions:
Fastest, most economical way to slow global warming.
[iii] 3 Emerging [Research]Questions: The Arctic in the Anthropocene: Emerging Research Questions, Chapter 3: available
at: https://www.nap.edu/read/18726/chapter/3. Coastal zone issues cut across the emerging research questions in this chapter:
the Evolving, Hidden, Connected, Managed, and Undetermined Arctic. Less than 10 percent of Alaska has contemporary shoreline
data. In Chapter 5, the focus on the effects of Arctic change on the Arctic system itself. Further, the Arctic cryosphere,
or “frozen Arctic,” is composed of permanent and seasonal sea ice, ... Ecosystems of the northern latitudes
are most vulnerable to a changing climate. These discharges and fluxes impact land fast ice and coastal dynamics as well as
bacterial and algal production and carbon cycling.
[4] USGS News Release Northern Alaska Coastal Erosion Affecting the in the Laptev, Eastern Siberian and Beaufort Seas,
February 18, 2009, in Geology, available at www.geology.com.
[5] Kundis, Robin Craig Article: “Coral Reefs, Fishing, and Tourism: Tensions in U.S. Ocean Law and Policy Reform
January, 2008”, 27 Stan. Envtl. L.J. 3, Introduction, www.lexisnexis.com.
[6] William G. Howell, co-Author is associate professor of government at Harvard University and, Kenneth R. Mayer, co-Author
is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, ”The Last One-Hundred Days,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 no. 3 (September c. 2005 Center for the Study of the Presidency), pages 533 –
553.
[7] Quote of Dr. Charlie Vernon, Australian marine scientist and scuba diver, appears in Kolbert, Elizabeth, “The
Acid Sea,” p. 34 – 35, National Geographic Magazine, April, 2011, Volume 219 #5. c. 2011 National Geographic
Society, Washington, D.C. 20036 USA.
[8] B.B. Dias1, M.B. Hart2*, C.W. Smart2 and J.M. Hall-Spencer.3 “Modern seawater acidification: the response
of foraminifera to high-CO2 conditions in the Mediterranean Sea,” Laboratório de Oceanografia Costeira, Departamento
de Geociências, CFH Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopólis-SC, Brazil 88040-900. 2 School of Geography, Earth
& Environmental Sciences; University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK; 3 School of Marine Science &
Engineering, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK *Corresponding author (e-mail: mhart@plymouth.ac.uk),
Journal of the Geological Society, September 2010, V. 167, No. 5, pages 843 – 846, doi.10.1144/0016-76492010-050,
c. 2010 Geological Society of London, U.K.
[9] Hannah L. Wood,1* John I. Spicer,2 and Stephen Widdicombe,1 PMCID: PMC25877981Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect
Place, West Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK2Marine Biology and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological Sciences, University
of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK*Author for correspondence (Email: hawo@pml.ac.uk),”Ocean acidification may increase
calcification rates, but at a cost,” Proceedings of the Royal Society in Biology, August 7, 2008 Volume 275 Issue
1644, pages 1767 – 1773. Proceedings of Biological Science, 2008 August 7; 275(1644): 1767–1773. I.D.
Published online 2008, May 6. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0343.
[10] Hutchings, P.A., Kingsford, M.J. & Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2008). The Great Barrier Reef: Biology, Environment and
Management. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, and Israel, A. & Hophy, M. (2002). Growth, photosynthetic properties and Rubisco
activities and amounts of marine macroalgae grown under current and elevated seawater CO2 concentrations. Copyright Global
Change Biology, 8, 831–840.
[11] Kolbert, Elizabeth, Kolbert, Elizabeth, “The Acid Sea,” p. 34 – 35, National Geographic
Magazine, April, 2011, Volume 219 #5. c. 2011 National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. 20036 USA., p. 116.
[12] Kolbert, Elizabeth, Ibid., p. 121.
[13] BBC News Broadcast January 30, 2009. 150 leading marine scientists met for a Symposium in October 2008 in Monaco,
drafted the Monaco Declaration and delivered to Prince Albert II of Monaco. The Declaration noted the urgent concern of the
scientists that ocean acidification caused by climate change CO2 production from fossil fuels was causing extreme concern
and alarm within the scientific community. The Declaration urged immediate action on the part of all governments. Declaration
drafted by Dr. James Orr, Chairman of the Symposium and Another signatory, Patricio Bernal, Executive Secretary of the UN
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission: "The questions are now: how bad will it be and how soon will it happen."
[14] Caldeira K, Wickett M.E., “Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH.,” Nature, c. 2003; Volume 425:Iss.
365. doi:10.1038/425365a. Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology.
[15] “Finding deaf Nemos: Clownfish are growing up with impaired hearing 'caused by fossil fuel emissions’,”
Daily Mail Reporter, U.K.: Science and Technology Section, www.dailymail.com, last updated at 12:28 PM on 1st June 2011 online.
[16] Davison, Ben, Undercurrent.org Magazine interviewed William Cline, Founder of The Cline Group, a consultancy to the
scuba industry, gave this figure. Between the four agencies, PADI, NAUI, IANT and TDI/SDI, there are certified 3.5 million
scuba divers of whom it is estimate 1.2 million are actively diving with ≥5 dives per year. (+/- 15% error margin),
© May 2007, Volume 22 #5. Copyright © 1996-2011 Undercurrent (www.undercurrent.org) 3020 Bridgeway, Ste. 102, Sausalito, Ca
94965, USA, All rights reserved.
[17] ScubaBoard.com has estimated there are 10 – 12 million trained and certified scuba divers worldwide. July
12, 2010. www.scubaboard.com/forums/archive/index…t/263672.html.
ARTICLE TEN
"EARTH’S DEEP OCEANS: A BAROMETER
FOR OUR PLANET’S WELLBEING”©
Diane A. Davis, M.S., Ph.D. Cand.
Series Author
Copyright Claimed June 28, 2011
As we approach the mid-point of
the 21st Century, there are two major challenges facing us in North America, especially the USA, as well as worldwide. These issues are of special concern to scientists spanning the broad spectrum of
human biological, medical, physiological, animal veterinary, avian and marine species. Specifically, these challenges concern
the health of the great oceans as a barometer for the present and near-term wellbeing of our entire Planet.
Precious in its uniqueness, Planet Earth
is the only planet in our solar system that is capable of sustaining life even in the smallest form – the one-celled
amoeba. This is due to the fact that >70% of the Earth’s surface is
covered in water – expansive deep bodies of water containing thousands of delicate marine species and their ecosystems
that sustain us here on land with food, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines and livelihoods. Therefore the continued environmental degradation of these
great deep bodies of water are of special concern to scientists worldwide.
In the work of the first monograph
in the series, Fusion
Energy ~ The Public’s Guide Volume I Averting Human Extinction: Energy Policy and Environmental Degradation, as well as the science articles posted on this website, all have cautioned about the hastening of environmental
degradation and our need to move onto clean-green self-sustainable fuels to support our energy needs and economies worldwide.
Both number and frequency of disrupting environmental and meteorological events that were predicted in the above-referenced
monograph (published late 2008) have progressed much faster than what scientists had originally believed was occurring –
“about ten times faster,” as the most recent data has revealed to us.
Essentially, these challenges –
a dire concern to scientists worldwide - may be categorized into two problems we are now facing:
1. Climate change causally-related to global warming as a result of unabated
continuance of burning fossil fuels worldwide, and that which scientists
refer to as:
2. “the other problem”: the CO2 problem sinking into
the great bodies of deep ocean waters from burning fossil fuels worldwide 24/7/365 unabated.
Challenge 1 will be written about in greater detail
in follow-on Article Eleven. Challenge 2 will be discussed here in Article Ten. Both
are large areas of information and recent study.
In Article
Ten we will discuss the environmental toxic pollutants as greenhouse gases (GHG) entering the world’s great deep oceans
and how this is quickening the effects of climate change, the acidification of the great oceans, destruction of coral reefs
as the architecture upon which thousands of marine species live, the deterioration of the permafrost coastlines of the Northern
Alaska region, along with the thinning of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica.
Further
in Article Eleven we will discuss the environmental toxic pollutants entering our great bodies of water and how this is quickening
the effects of global climate change, the ENSO Cycles El Niño/LaNiña causing extreme meteorological events in quick succession,
loss of income, loss of crops and livestock, loss of land mass, loss of personal, family and municipal real property assets,
displacement and break up of families in various part of North America and throughout the world when they must evacuate their
homes and collection of belongings.
The Need For Immediate Grassroots Action:
The above-referenced monograph discussed at great length the etiology of global
warming and climate change explaining environmental degradation science basics
of environmental degradation. In more recent studies by researchers worldwide,
it has been found that environmental degradation has progressed quickly and is about ten times worse than originally
believed by scientists spanning all disciplines of science the world over. This is of grave concern to all of us.
Of special note is the recently identified condition referred to as “black
soot” or “carbon soot” within the ambient air stream emitted close to ground level that is now known to
be hastening climate change and the melting of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica, while warming the deep ocean
bodies.
This black carbon soot is a function of the Carnot Combustion Cycle (although
engineers have tried to improve its performance, >70% efficiency of completed combustion process has never been attained)
which leads to partially-burned particulate matter and aerosols of carbon black soot (e.g. sub-micron particles ranging in
size from 0.001 to 1.0 microns). These “fines” and “superfines,” being released into the ambient air stream
only a few hundred feet above ground level through gas waste stacks from process and power plants and tailpipes from passenger
vehicles, light trucks, diesel-fueled 16-, 18-wheeler flatbed and container trucks that haul manufactured products and fresh
produce from one end of the U.S. to another. Through these waste stream
sources the black carbon soot enters the ambient air stream within the atmosphere’s first few hundred feet above ground
level – where it is most injurious. This is the same air stream that you
and I breathe - 24/7/365.
The black carbon soot contains PCBs, CFCs, greenhouse gases (GHG): carbon dioxide
(CO2) and especially methane (CH4) gas, [the same gas which is produced from garbage landfills], of
all the greenhouse gases it is the most harmful to our delicate marine ecosystems.
In the above-referenced monograph, a dedicated chapter discussed in-depth the
important significance of these great deep ocean bodies encircling the globe and their unique role in governing the temperature
and seasonal stability of our planet, bringing to us the temperate Gulf Stream as an example.
Volume
I explained the etiology behind global warming and climate change. Explained
were the ENSO Cycles causally-related to the El Niño/La Niña syndromes - non-traditional meteorological events responsible
for bringing the extreme weather conditions: hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, simultaneous extreme droughts and
extreme flooding in various contiguous regions of the world with resultant reduction in available land mass on which to grow
food, graze livestock, for humans to live on, and specie ecosystems to exist within, as well as loss of coastal areas due
to sea level rise.
Additionally, Volume I discussed in-depth the socio-economic, medical
commercial and political aspects that healthy deep oceans provide to humans: i.e. food, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines,
livelihoods for humankind, as well streams of government tax revenue that build, maintain and support the infrastructure of
the U.S. and all organized societies worldwide.
In the Epilogue Chapter of Volume I, the overwhelming research across
the board of all life and science led me as author, to make a prediction: that the horrific Hurricane Season of 2005 was just
the beginning of a quickening climate and meteorological trend that we would all witness becoming more aggravated worldwide
if we didn’t stop burning fossil fuels.
Simultaneous with the publication of Volume I in October 2008, a Symposium
Conference of 150 marine scientists, on the dire condition of deep ocean acidification caused from climate change due to fossil
fuel burning worldwide. Convened in Monaco, the meeting produced “The Monaco Declaration,” delivered to Prince
Albert II of Monaco urging that he deliver their concerns to the World Climate Change Summit in December 2009.
On January 30, 2009 the BBC announced the Symposium and “The Monaco Declaration”
demanding that world governments take proactive measure to cut back on fossil fuel burning.
In the winter of 2009 in Article Nine of this series, the most recent scientific studies and their findings on the
advanced thinning of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica were discussed, noting the growing concern which had led
Team TARA of scientists and researchers from universities worldwide, and the Royal Navy researchers to voice their
cautions in articles, online bulletins, documentaries and letters to various government agencies in the free world. These more recent findings are noted herein and further in Article Eleven.
New
Evidence Presented:
The following two studies are of
great significance as it is now believed that the black carbon’s effect on climate change is responsible for the rapidly
advanced thinning of the ice shelves, erosion of the Arctic and northern Alaskan coastlines as well as quickening acidification
of the world’s deep oceans. The
sudies revealed that the effect of the black carbon soot depends on the altitude at which the soot is occurring.[i] Black carbon soot is now believed to be
among the largest anthropogenic contributor to global warming and climate change because it absorbs solar radiation, reacting
with the UV rays of the sunlight and heat in the atmosphere. The heat and black
carbon soot then becomes trapped close to the surface of the Earth, acting as a heat inversion blanket.
To prove-disprove this theory, a
megaton of black carbon was uniformly distributed around the globe at different altitudes in the atmosphere. Researchers found that the addition of black carbon near the surface of land or oceans caused the surface
to heat. As the altitute of the black carbon increased, the warming effect of
the land decreased. Finally when black carbon soot was released into the atmosphere,
it came back down on the ice shelves throughout the Arctic and Antarctica forming an insulation barrier due to its black color. Whereas the white ice shelves and white snow reflect off the ice shelves the warming
sun’s UV rays back in to the atmosphere. This insulation barrier therefore
increases the temperature of the surface of the ice shelves as the sun shines on the ice, causing the shelves to melt even
faster – ten times faster, as it is now understood. In addition to temperature
changes, black carbon soot also had varying effects on precipitation. It
increased precipitation in the lower atmosphere and decreased it in the upper atmosphere, as a result of changes in atmospheric
stability.
This study provides several
reasons accounting for the heightened melting of the ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica as well as historically unprecidented
rapidity of erosion of the permafrost coastlines of the northern Alaskan region, together with the rise in temperature of
the great ocean bodies of water. It is at the immediate lower atmosphere that
this black carbon soot is most dangerous to all forms of life, but especially to the coral reefs that form the infrastructure
architecture in and on which thousands of delicate marine species live, nourish and reproduce to the next generation. These
reefs as well as the rich biodiversity of marine life they support is now at serious risk.
This must needs be a grave concern to scientists of all disciplines as well as it should be to all of us worldwide.
Based on the results of the foregoing
ice shelf study, it is now believed that the black carbon’s effect on climate change depends on the altitude at which
the soot is occurring.[ii] Black carbon soot is released close to
the ground (within several hundred feet) into the lower atmosphere from waste
gas stacks and tail pipes. The black soot becomes part of the ambient air stream
rising slightly, due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (a more concentrated [hot] stream of air will naturally seek
a lower concentrated [colder] stream of air). As the black soot rises somewhat
from its point of emittance at the stack or tailpipe becoming a component of the forming dust clouds.
Clouds form as they collect
the dust drifting along within the winds, hanging over us, sometimes forming acid
dew or acid fog when differential temperature conditions are optimized immediately above the ground surface, or when the clouds
release their contents coming back down to the ground’s surface as acid
rain, acid snow, acid hail containing the toxic polluting contents of the black carbon soot: greenhouse gases, especially
CO2, SO2, CH4, PCBs and CFCs. (methane is worse than carbon dioxide because it has 20 - 30%
more insultative capabilities. See Article Fourteen.)
Further, these toxic pollutants
leach into the ground’s precious aquifers that contain our drinking water. Below
the ground’s surface where there is no UV sunlight, the PCBs and CFCs will not break down. At this point, these toxic
pollutants become an injurious component in human – especially pregnant women - and mammalian animal blood streams because
they alter estrogen sensitivity. (See Volume I in the monograph series for a detailed explanation and clinical studies.)
Data in two further studies recently
published revealed that Northern Alaskan coaslines respond to climate change with increased erosion, causing an average of
about half a meter per year. The effects are most severe in the Laptev, Eastern
Siberian and Beaufort Seas, where coastal erosion rates reach more than 8 meters (~ 24’-0”)
per year in some areas. More importantly, more and more coastlines are being exposed to the effects of climate change and this carbon black soot. Two-thirds of these coastlines are composed of frozen substrate called permafrost, which is much more
susceptible to erosion than rock. Scientists have recently concluded that these
effects will cause substantial changes for Arctic and Alaskan ecosystems near the coast as well as human populations living there.[iii]
Gas Physics of Black Carbon Soot:
The black carbon soot aerosols released into the immediate lower atmosphere
become components of clouds that are carried by the “horse” and “trade" winds traveling around the
Earth’s circumference, eventually being carried out to sea, spreading out over the large expanse of the deep oceans
that cover 70.8% of the Earth’s surface.
The air and water of the oceans are constantly exchanging gases through evaporation
and condensation, so whatever we emit into the air eventually comes down into the great ocean bodies of water. Being acidic in their chemistry due to holding the greenhouse gases, when the clouds become too heavy,
their contents fall into the great oceans as acid snow, acid rain, forming acid dew and fog. The waste gas aerosols emitted
into the atmosphere from waste gas stacks containing that black carbon soot eventually release the GHG acidic
toxic pollutants containing the harmful PCBs and CFCs are released into the deep oceans as a result of rain.
The carbon dioxide (CO2) in the black carbon soot of GHG waste gases
mix with the naturally alkaline water to produce carbonic acid, thus changing the water chemistry from alkaline to acidic
over time reducing the hydrogen ions available for the marine species that need the hydrogen to produce their shells. These large expanses of oceans essentially act as an expansive heat sink as well as a carbon
storehouse. This accounts for the change from an alkaline base ≥8.3 neutral
into a more acidic chemistry of ≤8.1, as it is presently. Of note, our ground soil is now 5.6 pH, or the chemistry of brown vinegar.
The change also places all marine ecosystems and the thousands of marine species that these ecosystems support at risk
because these species need an alkaline ecology in which to thrive and reproduce.
The pH Scale which measures acidity in terms of the concentration of hydrogen
ions, runs from 0 – 14. At the low end of the scale are strong acids,
such as hydrochloric acid that releases hydrogen readily (e.g. more readily than carbonic acid does). At the high end are strong bases such as lye. A neutral pH
of 7.0, is the standardized basic requirement for all drinking (potable) water throughout the world. Normal seawater should be slightly basic toward the alkaline end, around 8.3+pH providing enough hydrogen
ions to the fragile ecosystems within the marine ecology. To date, CO2
emissions have reduced the pH by 0.1 down to the present 8.1 as seawater has been presently tested. This may not seem like a lot, but like the Richter Scale, the pH Scale is logarithmic, so even small numerical
changes represent large effects. A pH drop of 0.1 means the water has become
30% more acidic.
In her April 2011 article, “The Acid Sea,” Ms. Kolbert writes: “If
present trends continue, surface pH will drop to 7.8 by 2100. At that point,
the water will be 150% more acidic than it was in 1800. The acidification that
has occurred so far is probably irreversible.”
These great bodies of water
provide 90% of the Earth’s water. Currently these oceans absorb 30 – 33%
of human-created CO2 emissions, roughly 22 million tons a day, or 8,030 trillion tons per year
worldwide – as yet, unabated – essentially acting as an expansive carbon storehouse.
Most marine ecosystems and the thousands of species supported by these ecosystems
thrive best in an alkaline ecology >8.3 – 13pH.
Scientific projections based
on these numbers show that by the end of this century, continued greenhouse emissions could reduce ocean pH by another 0.5
units. This drastic change in water chemisty from alkaline to acidic places
at risk not only the coral reefs but also the rich biodiversity of thousands of marine species worldwide.
Our Ocean’s Precious Coral Reefs:
‘The Mother Ship’ of All Marine Life
Coral reef ecosystems have been termed “the rainforests” of
the great ocean bodies, and as such perform very important functions within
the Earth’s planetary physics. Their significance to the health and wellbeing
of Planet Earth cannot be underestimated or overstated.
"Coral reef ecosystems are some of the most
productive ecosystems on the planet, often
compared to rainforests in terms of biodiversity.
In addition, coral reefs provide a variety of valuable
ecosystem goods and services, including food
production services, biodiversity services, coastal
protection services, and the raw materials for
medicines.
Coral reefs are also some of the most imperiled
ecosystems on the planet. Recent evidence suggests
that twenty percent of the world's coral reefs have
been destroyed in the past few decades, while
another 50% are ailing or verging on collapse.’
Coral reefs are imperiled for a number of reasons,
including pollution, physical destruction, coastal
development, and disease. Global
climate change
will only exacerbate the destruction of coral reef
ecosystems, as a result of both increasing sea
temperatures, which cause coral bleaching, and
the acidification of the oceans as they absorb
increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon
dioxide, which dissolves corals' calcium carbonate structures. Indeed,
in the United States, the
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, also
known as NOAA Fisheries) recently listed two
species of Acropora coral for protection under
the Federal Endangered Species Act.”
Background:
In the late 1800s, optimal carbonate was available for the growth of coral. But with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in 1850 – 95, the practice
of burning fossil fuels en masse for all residential and commercial space needs, industrial and smaller smith manufacturing
processes called for burning of charcoal and coal in furnaces, and wood in fire places.
In the early 1900s fossil fuel burning was compounded by the invention, standardization
and necessity of those buying the passenger vehicle - the Ford “Model T” car of 1902-1903 - which most efficiently
ran on the petroleum derivative, leaded gasoline.
Post-WWII, when Robert Moses designed
the concept of the “suburb,” once-urban dwellers were in need of the car for transportation to and from work back
and forth to the city and around the suburb. As America gained wealth, the two-car family became the norm and in the 1980s
and 1990s the very popular SUVs and light trucks, great for the family’s driving safety, but which guzzled gasoline
with no Congressional mandate for meeting minimum fuel efficiency standards, further compounded the rate of fossil fuel consumption
with consequential GHG emissions, ten times greater presently 22 million tons of GHG (i.e. CO2, SO2,
CH4, N2O, SF6, CHCs: HFCs, PFCs) being dumped into the great ocean bodies every day or 8,030
trillion tons every year!
By year 2000, the carbonate level in the great ocean bodies is now considered
to be low. At current trends, by 2050 it will be extremely low, dropping substantially
near the Poles. And, by 2100 the carbonate composition of the great ocean bodies
may be too low even in the tropics for coral reefs to survive, taking with them the biodiversity of thousands of marine species
– representing at least 25% of the world’s total species.
Status of Coral Reefs Worldwide:
Without a healthy coral reef ecosystem worldwide, the underwater marine “rainforests”
cannot perform their very important function of keeping the great oceans temperate, vital and teaming with thousands of species
of healthy marine life that provide food, livelihoods, pharmacological and homeopathic medicines for humans, as well as the
R&R enjoyment of scuba divers (an estimated trained and certified 6 million in the U.S.A. alone with another 10 –
12 million worldwide) who dive as an R&R adventure to witness the majestic beauty of unique marine colors, marine species
and marine ecosystems that do not exist on land.
Hawaii is
composed of several islands, each with its own coral reef forming
an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. In April 2006, President Bush and his wife viewed a screening of the documentary film “Voyage
to the Bottom of the Sea.” On April
4, 2008, the Marine Environmental Protection Committee
of the International Maritime Organization
warned that the collective coral reefs of Hawaii representing 200 square miles (518 km2) were becoming endangered,
on their way to becoming extinct. In his last one-hundred days of office, President George H. Bush (43rd) together
with the U.S. Congress declared Hawaii’s collection of reefs as an endangered
specie, reclassifying the reefs collectively as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral
Reef Ecosystem Reserve, both National Treasures
and protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. This protected the collective
reefs from tourism’s over-fishing, stripping, poaching or coral stripping in any way. The preserve is guarded by the
National Fish and Wildlife agents for the U.S. Government. Because of this act
of conservation, today both the corals that provide the infrastructure on which the reef ecosystem is built are now teaming
with thousands of healthy vibrant corals and thousands of thriving marine species.
A great turn around for the fragile Hawaiian underwater ecology. While it is possible at this point in time, the window of opportunity to proactively preserve our natural
resources is coming quickly to an end. Scientists have estimated that we may only have another two decades in which
to accomplish this conservation before the window closes forever.
Consider the following two examples of reefs in the world. One is Australia’s
Great Barrier Reef, which divides the Continental Shelf from deep oceans. The
reef has many thousands of species. The ribbon of white coral all around the
east coast of the Great Barrier Reef is 1400 miles long. The reef houses 70
biological zones. However, among scientists such as Dr. Charlie Vernon, Australian
marine scientist and scuba diver, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is considered to exist “in a state of fragility,
… I fear what lies ahead,”
he recently stated. His cautioning is well-taken here.
But some reef systems around the world have not been so lucky. While the Great
Barrier Reef still has a vital, healthy architecture in its corals, providing the infrastructure within which all other marine
species are able to feed, thrive, and reproduce, there are other reefs which have not been as lucky and have biologically
ceased to function.
One such reef is the Castello Aragonese, a tiny island that rises straight out of
the Tyrrhenia Sea like a tower, it is located 17 miles west of Naples, it can be reached from the larger island of Ischia,
Italy via a long narrow stone bridge. The sea around Castello Aragonese provides a window onto the great oceans of 2050 and
beyond. Sadly, clumps of brown algae lie at the bottom of the reef and bubbles of CO2 rise from volcanic vents
on the seafloor and dissolve to form carbonic acid. There is no longer a vital coral reef in Castello Aragonese.
“When you get to the extremely high CO2, almost nothing can tolerate
that,” stated Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist from Britain’s University of Plymouth who cited the Castello
Aragonese case that offers a natural analogue for an unnatural process: the acidification that has taken place off its shore
is occurring more gradually across the world’s oceans as they absorb more and more of the carbon dioxide that’s
coming from tail pipes and smoke stacks.
Coral reefs the world over are already threatened and in a fragile state of survival. For example, between 1977 and 2001 coral cover in the Caribbean declined 80%.
For vitality, health and wellbeing
of the coral reefs worldwide, the worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide
and greenhouse gases interact with the briny. By studying the historical records, present day science has established that
the sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate
shells or skeletons. These are not all as familiar as shrimps and lobsters, yet species like krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures,
play a crucial part in the food chain: kill them off, and you may kill off their predators, whose predators may be the ones
you enjoy eating. Worse than missing your favorite foods being available, you may destabilize an entire ecosystem.
That is also what acidification does to coral
reefs, especially if they are already suffering from overfishing, overheating or GHG
toxic pollution. Many are, and most are therefore gravely damaged. Some scientists believe that coral reefs, home to a quarter
of all marine species, may virtually disappear within a few decades – an end to the rainforests of the seas.
How Will the Extinction of the "Rainforests
of
the Seas" Occur?
This
can easily occur by the unmaking of shells and skeletons, snails, barnacles,
sea urchins, crabs, lobsters, starfish, even the tiny shelled snail-like Pteropod, upon which all other marine species feed,
including the great whale, begins with this acidification that drops into the surface waters of the great oceans.
Many corals actually get most of their food from algae that live and photosynthesize
inside the reefs they live on; when corals bleach, it’s because stress has prompted the polyps to expel those dark symbiants. Each polyp surrounds itself with a protective cup-shaped exoskeleton of calcium carbonate
that contributes to the collective skeleton of the whole colony. To make calcium carbonate, corals need two ingredients: calcium
ions and carbonate ions. Acids react with carbonate ions, in effect tying them
up. So as atmospheric CO2 levels rise, carbonate ions become scarcer
in the water, and corals have to expend more energy to collect them. Under laboratory
conditions, coral skeleton growth has been shown to decline pretty much linearly as the carbonate concentration drops off.
Slow growth may not matter much in the laboratory, but in the ocean though, reefs
are constantly being picked at by other organisms both large and small. “A
reef is like a city,” said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who used to direct the One Tree Island Research Station and now heads
the Global Change Institute at Australia’s University of Queensland. “You’ve got construction firms and
you’ve got demolition firms. By restricting the building materials that
go into the construction, you tip the balance toward destruction, which is going on all the time, even on a healthy reef. In the end, you wind up with a ‘city’ that destroys itself.”
The acidification of our great ocean bodies is unlimited in the devastation and destruction
of marine species. For example, the beautifully colorful black, orange and white
striped Clownfish reared in acidified water can’t recognize the chemical signals that guide them to their universal
home – the tentacles of an n anemone. Some are even drawn to the scent
of predators. Without their natural defense mechanisms, they will not live long enough to thrive
and reproduce to the next generation perpetuating their specie.
mullosks and crustaceans make their hard shells by combining calcium and carbonate
ions they get from the water they live in. When atmospheric CO2 levels go up, as they are now, the organism’s supply of essential carbonate goes down, thus
thinning their shells giving the marine animal within less protection from its predators.
Further, it is now well known that this acidification of the ocean waters interferes
with reproduction in some species and
with the ability of others – the so-called “calcifiers” – to form shells and stony skeletons of
calcium carbonate. At this point in time, it is not clear to researchers if
these effects will mean the ultimate extinction of the marine specie. Further study is ongoing.
For this reason, the group of >150 leading researchers met in Monaco and issued
The Monaco Declaration, stating that they were “deeply concerned by recent, rapid changes in ocean chemistry,”
which could, within decades “severely affect marine organisms, food webs, biodiversity and fisheries.” Warm-water
coral reefs are the prime worry.
But in cold water the impact may actually show up first closer to the Poles. Scientists
have already documented significant impact on the Pteropods – tiny swimming snails that are an important food for fish,
whales, and birds both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Experiments
have shown that Pteropod shells grow more slowly in acidified sea water. This
is because the hydrogen ions that are needed to grow their shells are inhibited in the higher chemical acidity of the marine water
ecology.
Not only is the destruction of coral and shelled species by acidification of the great
ocean waters in question, but it has been found that “by changing the basic chemistry of seawater, acidification is
also expected to reduce the water’s ability to absorb and muffle low-frequency sound by up to 40%, making some parts
of the ocean noisier.” Some species without shells may not be able to adjust or adapt to such an environmental
stressor, thereby rendering them unable to find their usual sources of food and like the beautiful black, orange and white
striped Clownfish, actually be drawn to their predator’s without their normal defense mechanisms in place, as such defense
mechanisms should be.
For those of us who love to explore first-hand the underwater marine world by scuba diving, the destruction of the coral reefs means a loss of that majestic unique beauty
and teaming vitality, of witnessing thousands of healthy species very busy in “the coral city.” But also, lost
is the opportunity to take an adventure to a new part of the world and explore the various different species indigenous to
those particular ecosystems.
For the 6 million certified scuba divers in the U.S.A., the rest and
relaxation of many scuba divers the world over who travel
to the reefs as part of their holiday R&R would be denied the enjoyment of those beautiful colors and marine species,
the enjoyment of taking underwater photos and sharing their travel exploration adventures and photos with their friends and
other divers would be lost. While the cost of such a loss could be partially
quantified including the travel to and from the dive site, the hotel, food, car and boat accommodations, air tank refills
and other necessary equipment rentals, together with time away from one’s job duties as the tangible costs, the intrinsic
value is not so easy to quantify. The intrinsic value of being spiritually uplifted, of being renewed both psychologically and physically by the rest and relaxation
of an adventure to a new environment, the experience of seeing first-hand all those uniquely beautiful underwater colors and
biodiversity of the uniquely majestic species (~ 5,000 per coral reef) within
“the coral city” that one does not see on land, cannot be quantified – it is truly priceless.
Once gone, it will not be within the power of humankind to bring back to life
those thousands of species or the vital thriving coral city that once supported their ecosystems.
Your Role-
Stopping This Needless
Environmental Destruction:
As a Representative-style
Democracy our elected representatives are sent to Washington on our behalf to undertake the legislative actions that “We, The People,” want and desire.
Our bicameral Congressional representatives care about our votes and therefore about what we want them to do as a self-determined,
self-governed people. You, as a member of the General Electorate demands (a
population of 320 million), making your thoughts and desires for legislative action to your representatives by contacting
them as one of their Constituents, telling them how you want them to vote and allocate funding of U.S. Federal Tax Treasury
on your behalf. After all, we all pay taxes! It’s your money that Congress is entrusted with.
We each have one vote and a voice to be heard. That is power! Every elected
representative wants to know what his/her Constituent wants. It is well within our own power to preserve our coral reefs right
now. We must stop ocean acidification. We must stop burning fossil fuels, now
by bringing online clean-green self-sustainable thermonuclear fusion energy.
Here’s how: on this website,
a sample letter and contact information is provided for you to write to your respective U.S. Congressional Senators
and House Representatives, telling them that you want to bring online for powerplant generation of clean-green electricity,
together with the by-product production of clean-green fusion energy as alternative transportation fuels (representing 87%
of all fossil fuel burning), allowing us to stop burning fossil fuels now, conserving our great deep Oceans and the coral
reefs and their ecosystems they support .
While you are here, online, in three
easy mouse clicks, you can take immediate proactive action and make your voice heard today.
I cannot urge you strongly enough to exercise your electoral privilege and duty and write to your Congressional Representatives
right now.
Here’s how:
1. Click on Write Your Representatives
2. Pull
down the letter you will see, then Click on Contact Your Elected Representatives, go to the state by state listing for the 111th Part A U.S. Congress. Fill in the
contact information. Save the letter.
3. Click on the email address and send the letter
off immediately to your Senate and House Representative’s office in Washington.
Or, print the letter and mail it via first class mail.
Of course, you can always compose your own letter and send it, but still
use the contact information as provided at Contact Your Elected Representatives.
Just tell your representatives that you want to arrest this vicious cycle of extreme weather patterns and acidification
of the great ocean bodies caused by global climate change by:
· bringing
online green-clean self-sustaining fusion energy for electricity generation and the production of by-product clean-green self-sustainable
hydrogen now!
and
. stopping all fossil
fuel burning in America for electricity generation and passenger and vehicles
fuels (municipal vehicles, passenger and light trucks), while replacing 87%
GDP with clean – green self-sustainable by-product fuels generated from thermonuclear fusion energy power plants).
If you think that writing a letter to your elected
representatives in Washington is hard or not worth the time and effort, consider the alternative of not making your voice
heard in Washington:
· Congress will continue business as usual and protect the
cash-rich Petroleum and Gas Institute Lobby with tax subsidies.
· The amount of ocean acidification
will continue to escalate logarithmically, and in another two decades you would be living in a world without
the coral reefs, the food, livelihoods and medicines that their ecosystems and species gives to humans on land.
· Living in a world without your favorite
seafood to eat.
· Leaving your children and grandchildren
trying to live together in a world without all the unique majestic beauty of thousands of species living and feeding and reproducing
their next generation of their specie on healthy teaming coral reefs worldwide!
· No opportunity for your grandchildren to discover the
sheer joy of seeing the spinner dolphins spin in mid-air.
· No opportunity for your grandchildren
to discover the sheer joy of swimming with sea turtles and the dolphins!
· No opportunity for you to see the joy of your grandchildren’s smiles
and the light in their eyes at having the experience of swimming with the sea turtles and the dolphins!
Is this what you want to leave to your children and grandchildren? We can preserve what we have, but once lost, it is not within humankind’s power to bring it back.
Now is the time to act proactively.
~ ~ ~
This article filed and registered with U.S. Library of Congress, office of Copyrights
Protection, Washington, D.C. 20559 in June 2011 by author. All copyrights domestic
and international claimed by author.
Author, Diane A. Davis, M.S., Ph.D. Cand., Founder and CEO, The International
Institute For Thermonuclear Fusion Energy Education, R&D, Regulation, Technology and Public Policy, Inc.
ß Article Nine
Article Eleven
Andy Ridgeway and Daniela Schmidt, University
of Bristol, U.K., “An Ominous Warning On The Effects of Ocean Acidification”
Natural Geosciences Journal. Authors
stated this is almost unprecedented event in history. About 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species
occurred. This time it is due to burning of fossil fuel may portend a new wave
of die-offs. There is 10 times more hydrogen ions in a pH5 than in a pH6 and 100 times more than pH7. February 7, 2010. The JOIDES Resolution by scientists worldwide.
B.M. Jones (USGS), C.D. Arp (USGS), M.T. Jorgenson
(ABR. Inc.), K.M. Hinkel (University of Cincinnati), J.A. Schmutz (USGS), and P.L. Flint (USGS). “Increase in the rate
and uniformity of coastline erosion in arctic Alaska,” Geophysical Letters, Feb. 14 2009 and B.M. Jones (USGS), K.M.
Hinkel (University of Cincinnati), USGS “Modern Erosion Rates and Loss of Coastal Features and Sites, Beaufort Sea Coast,
Alaska”, Geophysical Letters, December 2008. Available in part at http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl0903/2008GL036205/.
Kundis, Robin Craig Article: “Coral Reefs, Fishing, and Tourism: Tensions in U.S.
Ocean Law and Policy Reform January, 2008”, 27 Stan. Envtl. L.J. 3, Introduction, www.lexisnexis.com.
B.B. Dias1, M.B. Hart2*, C.W. Smart2 and J.M. Hall-Spencer.3 “Modern
seawater acidification: the response of foraminifera to high-CO2 conditions
in the Mediterranean Sea,” Laboratório de Oceanografia Costeira, Departamento de Geociências, CFH Universidade Federal
de Santa Catarina, Florianopólis-SC, Brazil 88040-900. 2 School
of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences; University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK; 3 School of Marine Science & Engineering, University of Plymouth,
Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK *Corresponding author (e-mail: mhart@plymouth.ac.uk), Journal of the Geological Society, September 2010, V. 167, No. 5, pages 843 – 846, doi.10.1144/0016-76492010-050,
c. 2010 Geological Society of London, U.K.
Hannah L. Wood,1* John I. Spicer,2 and Stephen Widdicombe,1 PMCID: PMC25877981Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, West Hoe, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK2Marine Biology and Ecology Research Centre, School
of Biological Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK*Author for correspondence (Email: hawo@pml.ac.uk),”Ocean acidification may increase calcification rates, but at a cost,” Proceedings
of the Royal Society in Biology, August 7, 2008 Volume 275 Issue 1644, pages 1767 – 1773. Proceedings
of Biological Science, 2008
August 7; 275(1644): 1767–1773. I.D. Published online 2008, May 6. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0343.
Hutchings,
P.A., Kingsford,
M.J. & Hoegh-Guldberg,
O. (2008). The Great Barrier Reef: Biology, Environment and Management. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, and Israel, A. & Hophy, M. (2002). Growth, photosynthetic properties and Rubisco activities and amounts of marine
macroalgae grown under current and elevated seawater CO2 concentrations. Copyright Global Change Biology, 8, 831–840.
BBC News Broadcast January 30, 2009. 150
leading marine scientists met for a Symposium in October 2008 in Monaco, drafted the Monaco Declaration and delivered to Prince
Albert II of Monaco. The Declaration noted the urgent concern of the scientists
that ocean acidification caused by climate change CO2 production from fossil fuels was causing extreme concern
and alarm within the scientific community. The Declaration urged immediate action on the part of all governments. Declaration
drafted by Dr. James Orr, Chairman of the Symposium and Another signatory, Patricio Bernal, Executive Secretary of the UN
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission:"The questions are now how bad will it be and how soon will it happen."
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