Monday 23 January 2012

"Oceans have acidified more in the last 200 years 'than they did in the previous 21,000 years'..."

... screams the headline in The Daily Mail.

As Goldenboy of Tunbridge Wells points out in the comments:

"Oceans are not acid, they are all alkaline. The use of the word acid is designed to be emotive because saying that oceans are less alkaline does not create the same impact or alarm. I note that the article says "Direct observations only date back 30 years, which is not long enough to reveal a meaningful trend" So this a pointless article based on pure speculation and solely designed to emote on the global warming theme. Bring back proper journalism."

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually they went more neutral

Oceans went more like pure water!

AC1

A K Haart said...

As usual with these CO2-linked games, there is no evidence that current ocean pH values are abnormal and no evidence that changes in pH are not natural.

Bayard said...

FFS, what do you expect? it's the Daily Mail, those past masters at making a story out of nothing.

What's more, the academic they quote has a similar distate for letting the truth stand in the way of a good story. "In some regions, the man-made rate of change in ocean acidity since the industrial revolution is 100 times greater than the natural rate of change between the Last Glacial Maximum and pre-industrial times" which neatly ignores the following: i) he cannot be sure that the recent changes are man-made, ii) he himself made up the figures for Last Glacial Maximum and iii) there is no evidence that the "natural rate of change" was constant over those 21000 years and that there could have been periods when the pH of the oceans changed more and more rapidly than it has recently.

Rob said...

So if I got for a paddle in the sea my legs aren't going to dissolve down to skeletal stumps? Phew!

The Mail has been dangerously alarmist here. Think of the effect on the house prices in seaside towns!! I'm furious!

diogenes said...

Rob

Don't fall into the trap of thinking acid = bad and alkali = good.

Sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) can be every bit as damaging as nitric acid.

Mark Wadsworth said...

AC1, correct.

B, he's doing what I now refer to as 'diagonal comparisons' (and those between made-up figures).

R, indeed. I think compensation for Hardworking Hardpressed Homeowners is due.

Diog, I think you overlooked Rob's tags.

Bayard said...

"B, he's doing what I now refer to as 'diagonal comparisons' (and those between made-up figures)."

The whole thing is actually quite impressively fact-free.

JuliaM said...

If anyone does bring back proper journalism, does anyone think it'll be in the 'Mail'..?

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, I'm used to fact free.

JM, oh it's all right is the Mail, the spin they put on stories is fairly predictable and if you read their articles to the end, they usually give you all the relevant facts and figures, e.g. headline "Britain swamped by immigrants" then blah blah blah and right at the end it'll tell you "300 immigrants came to Britain last year"

Bayard said...

Reduce the width of your mind with the Daily Mail's low-fact journalism!