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Indeed. When I prepared some of the information for this page, this more recent dataset was in construction. However, it does not, I believe, include a "pre-industrial" estimate of DIC. At least, not yet. The latter would help with understanding the scale of anthropogenic acidification. One could use the GLODAP v1 pre-industrial DIC with the GLODAP v2 "present day" DIC, but that's not ideal. Anyway, it would be good to update to this new dataset, but it's important to recognise its current limitations. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO16:11, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
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Impact of Ocean Acidification on the Behaviour of Organisms
This article was the subject of an educational assignment that ended on 22 March 2018. Further details are available here.
I'm a student at Imperial College London, participating in a Science Communications module. As part of this, I will be editing this article to include the impacts of ocean acidification on the behaviour of marine organisms.
Jbadcock (talk) 18:13, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
I have a question about these sentences in the lead: Between 1751 and 1996, surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14,[1] representing an increase of almost 30% in H+ ion concentration in the world's oceans.[2][3] Earth System Models project that, by around 2008, ocean acidity exceeded historical analogues[4] and, in combination with other ocean biogeochemical changes, could undermine the functioning of marine ecosystems and disrupt the provision of many goods and services associated with the ocean beginning as early as 2100.[5]. An external reviewer that I am currently working with asked two questions: "Does there need to be a reminder that the pH scale is logarithmic?". And regarding the statement about the year 2008: "I think this a typo, my reading of this article says the year is 2069". I don't have access to that article in Nature (it's behind a pay wall) so I can't check easily(edit on 14 July: "My mistake it is 2008, the figure of 2069 refers to temperature). Overall, I wonder if the lead is a good summary of the article, and if it has too many paragraphs now. - I came to this via a review of the article on ocean which uses an excerpt from this article. EMsmile (talk) 06:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
I'll add this: "Note the pH scale is logarithmic so a change of one in pH unit is equivalent to a ten fold change in concentration" EMsmile (talk) 12:56, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't think this long and outdated further reading list is helpful for the readers. I suggest to reduce it (or to cull it down to the bare minimum of current overview publications).
The article starts with these three sections: 1 Carbon cycle, 2 Acidification, 3 Calcification. I find that a bit confusing. Could we change it to section headings such as Causes, Mechanisms, Effects, Impacts, Predictions and alike? For me it's unclear whether "calcification" is already an effect or the mechanism of ocean acidification. EMsmile (talk) 03:22, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Some useful text blocks?
I removed this text block from Effects of climate change on oceans and am wondering if it could be incorporated here or if it's already there or too simplistic? That info about temperature and pH increase could perhaps be added to to the lead?
The rate at which ocean acidification will occur may be influenced by the rate of surface ocean warming, because the chemical equilibria that govern seawater pH are temperature-dependent.[1] Greater seawater warming could lead to a smaller change in pH for a given increase in CO2.[1] Oceans absorb a large portion of the carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.[2] Humans have drastically added to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels and the process of deforestation. Oceans work as a sink absorbing excess anthropogeniccarbon dioxide (CO2). As the oceans absorb anthropogeniccarbon dioxide (CO2) it breaks down into carbonic acid, a mild acid, this neutralizes the normally alkaline ocean water. As a result, the pH in the oceans is declining (ocean acidification).EMsmile (talk) 04:47, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Ocean acidification: mean seawater pH. Mean seawater pH is shown based on in-situ measurements of pH from the Aloha station.[1]
I've just added a new image about ocean pH and am wondering if it might be a better image for the lead. I find it very clear (and somewhat scary). See on the right. And I am baffled that so few people are taking part in this talk page (see my previous comments & questions above). Ocean acidification is such an important topic. Anyone else out there with an interest to improve this article in the coming months? EMsmile (talk) 12:24, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
Is ocean acidification an impact of water pollution?
For me, ocean acidification is an impact of water pollution. Therefore, I had included a reference to ocean acidification in the article on water pollution but this has been removed by another editor here. The definition of water pollution (first sentence of the article) is "Water pollution (or aquatic pollution) is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, in such a manner that negatively affects its legitimate uses". That makes ocean acidification either a type of marine pollution, or an impact from marine pollution, right? EMsmile (talk) 13:38, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
Readability of the lead, target group
I would like to propose that we take a critical look at the lead and have a think about our target group for the lead of this article (and the main body as well). Do we want to use language that is clear and easy to understand for the general public or is our target group scientists who want to learn more about ocean acidification? I think the former is the case. We had a similar discussion on the talk page of climate change, therefore a friendly ping to User:Dtetta and User:Femkemilene. I would like the first paragraph of the lead to be a little complete mini-article, meaning it should contain a short description of the phenomenon, the causes, the impacts and the possible solution. Why cram this all into the first paragraph? Because the first paragraph is likely to be transcluded as an excerpt in other articles. Also, Alexa, Siri etc. provide the first paragraph for people's search results. It is therefore very important, and - potentially - a low hanging fruit. EMsmile (talk) 13:32, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
General public should be the audience of the lede. Lede starts okay, but last part of first paragraph is too difficult. Is it an effect of climate change? It's not, right? But rather both caused by CO2 emissions. Femke (talk) 17:00, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
Yea, there are some pretty difficult sentences in the first paragraph of the lead. I am struggling to decide which of the details could be omitted or reworded to make it easier without losing important content. Wondering if someone can help with that. Regarding the effects of climate change I am not sure: In the article Effects of climate change on oceans it lists physical and chemical effects. Under "chemical effects" it lists ocean acidification. Would you say that is wrong? Strictly speaking it's an effect of increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. But when we say "effects of climate change on oceans", we actually mean "effects of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations on oceans"? Or "effects of greenhouse gas emissions" on oceans? I am confused now. EMsmile (talk) 22:01, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Honeybadgerdontcare.
Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 20 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mhogan170.
Can someone provide up to date data and references for this statement: "An estimated 30–40% of the carbon dioxide from human activity released into the atmosphere dissolves into oceans, rivers and lakes.[1][2]" Comment by User:Femkemilene was "that upper range is outdated, may be as low as 25%". EMsmile (talk) 09:59, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
If humans were to add a strong base like sodium hydroxide to the ocean (which, yes, I know, is derived primarily from salt, but there are non-acidic uses of chlorine), what effect would that have on ocean pH? Could a significant addition of such substances (megatons or gigatons) even impact the atmosphere-ocean equilibrium of dissolved carbon? Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:40, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Do you mean this image?: Shells of pteropods dissolve in increasingly acidic conditions caused by increased amounts of atmospheric CO2.. Please explain further what your concern is with this image? I think it tries to visualise what research has been saying fairly well, doesn't it? EMsmile (talk) 09:55, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
I've seen another image from a research paper that shows such shells with a less smooth surface and fissures; not smaller like the ones in this image so I guess this could be problematic. Should the image be deleted? Pinging also User:Elizajans who created the image. EMsmile (talk) 09:57, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
I have not found research which shows stunted shells which resemble what is in this image. Also be careful when reviewing photos, as at least one well-known set cites an article which does not include those photos, and the method of creating the photos is not stated. SEWilco (talk) 14:12, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
I am proposing to convert the references style in this article to long references. Currently it uses a mixture: most are in the long ref style but then there are 6 sources in the short ref style. It would be fairly easy to change it over and thus make it consistent (and easier for new editors who want to add new references). Does anyone object? EMsmile (talk) 21:03, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
A normally-protective shell made thin, fragile and transparent by acidification
Incidentally, the adjoining image, of a pteropod, is claimed to be a victim of acidification but the image is orphaned. The image's source seems to involve a Caribbean study which is difficult to locate, but has also been used in Arctic and Pacific papers without explanation of its acidification process. Technically, that image has a Flickr source but the source's source has vanished. SEWilco (talk) 14:48, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi SEWilco, do you mean this image (to the right)? What is your suggestion here, should we remove it? I find the image not vey clear - I don't really know what I am looking at. Do you have suggestions for better images? EMsmile (talk) 00:15, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
What is the scientific term for organisms that rely on calcium carbonate shells and skeletons?
Thank you, that's helpful! I found we didn't have a Wikipedia article called calcifier or calcifying organism yet. I think the closest we have is this one: Marine biogenic calcification. Therefore, I have just created a redirect from both of the other terms to Marine biogenic calcification. Is it possible that they are also known under another term? EMsmile (talk) 13:57, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I feel that the first paragraph of the lead needs to be clearer on the human-made causes of ocean acidification. Many readers won't read further than the first paragraph of the lead. Google results bring up the first paragraph of the lead in a preview box. Alexa and Siri read the first paragraphs out aloud. The recent changes by User:Dtetta had omitted the human part from the lead; I've added it back in by moving the sentences about climate change mitigation from the 4th paragraph to the first. But the original version had even more info on the human caused CO2 emissions in the lead. Compare with the 20 September version:
Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH value of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Modern ocean acidification is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. As the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean also increases.. I think the new version of the lead is nice and builds up the argument slowly. However, given my concern about the first paragraph being super important I think it needs a little bit of reordering. In my opinion, the first paragraph needs to be a bit like a mini summary of the entire article. It is the most important paragraph of the lead. EMsmile (talk) 08:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
P.S. do we need to distinguish between "pre human" ocean acidification and "modern" ocean acidification? The article is mostly about "modern ocean acidification", right? The 20 September version used the term "modern" but this is perhaps not a scientific term either. Better: human-induced ocean acidification? EMsmile (talk) 08:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
From WP:Lead "The first paragraph should define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being too specific. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it. If appropriate, it should give the location and time. It should also establish the boundaries of the topic; for example, the lead for the article List of environmental issues succinctly states that the list covers 'harmful aspects of human activity on the biophysical environment'". IMO this is not the same as a mini-summary of the entire article. But I will look at ways of having it more closely reflect the "human caused" language of the earlier version. Dtetta (talk) 20:57, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
OK, not a mini summary but the human-caused aspects are definitely key here and would fit the description "It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it." - This journal paper "The Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Ecosystems and Reliant Human Communities" here does a really nice job in introducing the topic of OA together with the human causes in their abstract. I think we should do it similarly in the lead of this article. I came across this journal paper while working on effects of climate change on oceans. It's open access and under a compatible licence which makes it very convenient to utilise content or even exact sentences from it. EMsmile (talk) 11:04, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
This is the first paragraph in the introduction of that paper which I was referring to on 18 October: Present-day (2020) atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels of more than 410 ppm are nearly 50% higher than preindustrial concentrations, and the current elevated levels and rapid growth rates are unprecedented in the past 55 million years of the geological record (1). The source for this excess CO2 is clearly established as human driven, reflecting a mix of anthropogenic fossil fuel, industrial, and land-use/land-change emissions (2). The concept that the ocean acts as a major sink for anthropogenic CO2 has been present in the scientific literature since at least the late 1950s, and multiple lines of evidence, including direct observations of increasing dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) inventories (3), support the finding that the ocean takes up roughly a quarter of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It is also well understood that the additional CO2 in the ocean results in a wholesale shift in seawater acid-base chemistry toward more acidic, lower pH conditions and lower saturation states for carbonate minerals used in many marine organism shells and skeletons (4). Extensive observational systems are now in place or being built for monitoring seawater CO2 chemistry and acidification for both the global open ocean and some coastal systems (5, 6).EMsmile (talk) 19:26, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
I've changed the first paragraph of the lead now so that it gives a fuller picture and explains everything briefly, especially the root cause of this problem. EMsmile (talk) 10:31, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
No need to mention authors explicitly
I think we should take out the explicit mention of authors or authoring organisations. Just state the facts and put the reference at the end but there is usually not need to say who authored the study. Even saying "a study found that" is a bit superfluous in many cases. Examples:
"The Royal Society published a comprehensive overview of ocean acidification, and its potential consequences, in June 2005"
I also found this sentence too long: Earth's most severe known extinction event, emphasizing that the 2 °C maximum temperature increase agreed upon by governments reflects too small a cut in emissions to prevent "dramatic impacts" on the world's oceans, with lead author Jean-Pierre Gattuso remarking that "The ocean has been minimally considered at previous climate negotiations. Our study provides compelling arguments for a radical change at the UN conference (in Paris) on climate change"."
And I wonder if the section on "Impacts on oceanic calcifying organisms" is overly detailed in places and ought to be condensed / some content be moved to sub-articles? (if a sub-article exists?) Some of it reads more like an academic literature review than an encyclopedic description for lay persons. EMsmile (talk) 21:52, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
Review by experts from the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) (August 2022)
Hi, a little while ago, I contacted some subject matter experts from the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) and invited them to review this article. They've sent me their comments in a marked up Google doc. Over the course of the next weeks, I'll implement their changes in the Wikipedia article (most of this work will happen only in September as I have a holiday coming up). Here is their overall statement: "The reviewers found that the article, while it was thorough to start, needed updates in order to reflect present scientific agreement and publications, particularly in the former "Geoengineering" section, now "Climate Intervention Section". In particular, a number of graphics were outdated and needed to be replaced with newer publications. The reviewers also removed redundancies that were prevalent in the document." (the names of the reviewers: Gabby Kitch, Libby Jewett, Richard Feely, Abed Hassoun, Katherina Schoo). EMsmile (talk) 13:46, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
I asked them specifically about the section on "climate intervention" and here is their answer: "Climate intervention techniques and ocean CDR currently have a lot of momentum behind them and we would be remiss to not discuss them as a means to mitigate OA. The recent National Academies report among others have brought further attention to the field. It is important we discuss all ocean CDR techniques that can potentially mitigate OA based on current research." EMsmile (talk) 13:50, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
They also told me: "NOAA is not endorsing ocean CDR in any way. NOAA is rather the agency that monitors carbon in the atmosphere and the oceans and ocean CDR would impact those carbon reservoirs." and "The recent National Academies report among others have brought further attention to the field. In addition, NOAA OAP in the last fiscal year funded research on ocean alkalinity enhancement and continues to develop funding opportunities for ocean CDR work. NOAA is currently working on releasing their own ocean CDR strategy. In addition, in the US and internationally ocean CDR has been supported by governments through introduced legislation and funding." EMsmile (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, great stuff. I really like how you've improved the readability for the lead, after inserting the changes by the expert. EMsmile (talk) 08:34, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
House keeping edit: this process of incorporating the reviewers' comments is now mostly completed (done by User:Dtetta). Some work remains to be done on the images and also to improve readability of the article. EMsmile (talk) 00:16, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Update: All the edits by the reviewers have now been incorporated. I am still in the process of clarifying some remaining questions around the CDR section and the images. And there is still a need to make the article easier to understand for lay persons. If anyone is good at making such readability improvements, please go ahead. E.g. convert quotes from the IPCC reports into flowing prose if you can. EMsmile (talk) 22:23, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
Reports from GOES Foundation
There's a lot of more recent stuff from the GOES Foundation. There are at least three different threats: ocean acidification, microplastics and sun-tan oil chemicals. See also their submission to COP26.
(At least we don’t need to worry about climate change!)
[3]https://www.goesfoundation.com/reports/
I leave it to somebody who knows more about this than I do to incorporate this. BioImages2000 (talk) 15:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
References about the geologic past
Hi User:Anteosaurus magnificus, I've just reverted your addition of two more refs about the situation in the geologic past here. I am no expert on this topic but it seemed to me that these refs were rather old (2004 and 2014) and that they were primary sources and that they were no better than the refs already in place. You had also added other references to the same article a few days ago which I reverted. I had also reverted your addition of references in the article effects of climate change on oceanshere. What is your reasoning for adding those particular references given the following policies: WP:overcite, WP:RS and WP:PST? EMsmile (talk) 11:24, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
I try to include more than one citation for specific scientific claims that aren't common knowledge and open to interpretation, such as about ocean acidification contributing to given mass extinctions, especially since the degree of contribution of ocean acidification to any of those events is debated. The WP:overcite guidelines state that 1-3 references are acceptable, and I didn't exceed that amount for any of those claims about acidification helping cause that specific extinction event.
As far as primary sources, while I'm aware they should be avoided in most subjects on Wikipaedia, in the realm of science, they're usually better than secondary source summaries of peer-reviewed research, which tend to be vaguer and less detailed, and the WP:reliable sources page lists them at the top of the list for reliable sources. Most references on the pages for end-Guadalupian, end-Permian, end-Triassic, and Cretaceous-Palaeogene extinction events are peer-reviewed studies. Anteosaurus magnificus (talk) 12:34, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
thanks for your reply. They still seem to be quite arbitrary to me. One from 2004 and one from 2014. Both are behind paywalls so our readers can only read the abstract. Looking at the abstracts I find it very hard to understand what is going on. If you want to help our readers why not look for additional sources that are not behind a paywall and that are easier to understand. I find that review papers are often easier to understand than primary sources. You could also look at the IPCC report AR 6 WG I to see what sources they use there. As an aside, I am currently talking to Gabby Kitch about this. She is from NOAA and a paleo-OA expert and said she can help review this section. She already helped with an earlier review process for this article so I look forward to getting more inputs from here on this. EMsmile (talk) 14:29, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
This text block was at sea. I think we already have the same content here but in case any of the wordings or refs are better and can be integrated, I am putting it here:
"One important element for the formation of skeletal material in marine animals is calcium, but calcium carbonate becomes more soluble with pressure, so carbonate shells and skeletons dissolve below its compensation depth.[1] Calcium carbonate also becomes more soluble at lower pH, so ocean acidification is likely to have profound effects on marine organisms with calcareous shells, such as oysters, clams, sea urchins, and corals,[2] because their ability to form shells will be reduced,[3] and the carbonate compensation depth will rise closer to the sea surface. Affected planktonic organisms will include the snail-like molluscs known as pteropods, and single-celled algae called coccolithophorids and foraminifera. All of these are important parts of the food chain and a diminution in their numbers will have significant consequences. In tropical regions, corals are likely to be severely affected as it becomes more difficult to build their calcium carbonate skeletons,[4] in turn adversely impacting other reef dwellers.[5]" EMsmile (talk) 09:48, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
^"Ocean acidification". Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population & Communities: Australian Antarctic Division. 28 September 2007. Archived from the original on 28 October 2014. Retrieved 19 April 2013.
I question this sentence, it seems to me a bit unclear; is it important, does it need to stay but be improved? This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2, which would cause further invasion of CO2 from the atmosphere to the ocean.[1] I came to this as I was searching about alkalinity content in this article. Have just added a para about alkalinity at ocean with the help of Tim Jickells. I have also worked on alkalinity recently and am currently thinking how to link or repeat content about alkalinity from here. Will also ask Tim about this. EMsmile (talk) 13:15, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
I've now deleted this sentence as I think it does not add value here and is just confusing. I had also checked this with Tim Jickells and this is what he wrote to me on e-mail: "If you can increase ocean alkalinity it can increase CO2 uptake so I think this has been proposed but as the OA article makes clear it is not simple, cheap or without side effects." EMsmile (talk) 11:54, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
I had added this sentence: "The total alkalinity in the ocean is however neither increasing or decreasing based on the gas exchange of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the seawater.[1]: 2252 ". Femke removed it with the words "better explained later (sentence was ambiguous, 'based on' often means "which we know based on measurements of"))". I don't understand why you removed it? Where is this issue about alkalinity explained later in the article?
The original wording in the IPCC report was this by the way, which is something I had added to alkalinity: "The total alkalinity in the ocean is "not affected by the exchange of carbon dioxide gas between seawater and the atmosphere".[2]: 2252 This means that the increasing carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere, due to greenhouse gas emissions, does not alter the alkalinity in the ocean even if it does result in a reduction in pH value (called ocean acidification).
So "based on" could be changed to "due to"? I had made it "based on" to avoid close paraphrasing from "affected by"...
EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
The new sentence I think you propose is: The total alkalinity in the ocean is however neither increasing or decreasing due to the gas exchange of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the seawater. This is ambiguous. It can mean:
Alkalinity would normally change, but it's not because of the exchange of gas
Alkalinity is unchanged, despite the existence of gas exchange
Neither of those reflects sufficiently well what the source says. Do we know that alkalinity is constant? It may be affected by other impacts. CO2 is not in gaseous form in the ocean, so that's a second minor misstatement.
I believe the following does accurately portray the source: the absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere does not affect the ocean's alkalinity. Note that I've simplified the gas exchange by absorbtion (the subset of exchange that's actually happening), made the sentence active rather than passive, and maintained the original meaning.
Of course, at this point the reader has no idea what alkalinity is or why it is relevant. Further down the page we have a similar statement: Ocean alkalinity is not changed by ocean acidification, but over long time periods alkalinity may increase due to carbonate dissolution and reduced formation of calcium carbonate shells. So the information was already in the article in a different format, in a section talking about alkalinity enhancement, so in context. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:25, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for these explanations. Your new wording of the absorbtion of CO2 from the atmosphere does not affect the ocean's alkalinity is indeed much better. I've have added that into the section of the article that explains the fundamentals, together with an explanation to the reader why alkalinity is relevant here, and a reference to the section where more about alkalinity enhancement will be explained. Do you think it's OK now like this? EMsmile (talk) 12:12, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
The first sentence is not quite correct. We're using a 2005 source to make time-travelling claims towards 2021. @Dtetta, who seems to have last played with the dates in this sentence. I tried to update this with the latest IPCC report, but they do not seem to make a statement around average pH. The statement from NOAA is more conservative In the 200-plus years since the industrial revolution began, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has increased due to human actions. During this time, the pH of surface ocean waters has fallen by 0.1 pH units. Possible solutions:
We can use: this 2023 ERL articlefigure 1. This source claims a drop from 8.15 to 8.05 since 1950, from the Copernicus Marine Service. I'm not sure if that's the gold standard (Copernicus does do ERA5, which is the gold standard for reanalysis of atmospheric variables).
We can use the NOAA source and say it's dropped by 0.1.
Have added the first paper. IPCC SPM has similar numbers in their graph from modelled pH measurements. I can't see a modern source with the data we have in the lead, so I think this will at least be a step forward. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:42, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes that’s a good catch. You need to reconcile it with a sentence later in the lead that also references those dates in pH levels. “The change in pH from 8.25 to 8.14 represents a nearly 30% increase in hydrogen ion concentration in the world's oceans. .” I think the change of .1 unit is more important than the absolute pH levels for most people. The article about acidification, not necessarily the relative alkalinity and pH of the worlds oceans. The 0.1 unit option also seems fine to me. Dtetta (talk) 16:49, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
I've reconciled it sort of (I'm saying "A drop of 0.11, rather than the drop). Can be done more elegantly if we get a source which converts a 0.1 drop to a percentage increase. It's important info for scicomm, so didn't want to remove it in the meantime. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:52, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
Per WP:AVRC, I don't think we need a source to do high school mathematics (I get that some may differ).
Another option would be to just change the dates so that the text and source are consistent. Not sure it’s all that important that we capture 2021 pH rather than 2005. Dtetta (talk) 16:52, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
The 2009 source we use for the conversion to 30% doesn't state the pH levels we're talking about at all. It just happened to be compatible with the removed 2005 source.. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
I am very pleased to see edits occurring as a result of discussion on talk pages. I wish it happened more often.
That said I have some concerns about the decisions reached. I was initially troubled by seeing a reference to 0.11 in the second paragraph in view of the fact that the second sentence talks about a change from 8.15 to 8.05. I see from the talk discussion that the second paragraph trying to make an illustrative point about the fact that a change in pH means a rather large change hydrogen ion concentration. However, if one is going to give an example, one option is to pick a round number value (such as 0.10) or a number relevant to the discussion (which coincidentally is also 0.10). While the value of 0.11 happens to correspond to values reported in this article 11 days ago 15 March 2023, Those values are no longer in the article. I am also concerned about rounding 28.8% to 30%. I do get that were trying to give a rough idea of what the numbers mean, but we should either find some way to explain why we are using 0.11 and then used two decimal places, 29%, or better yet use the number that happily is both a round number 0.10 and represents the difference in the reported numbers in the first paragraph and round 25.8925% to 26%.
I am also interested in the source of the change in pH. An earlier version of the article had values 8.25 and 2.14, corresponding two years 1751 and 2021, which was sourced to Jacobsen. (As a minor note that source didn't mention 2021, it referenced 2004, but that issue is moot if we're not going to use that reference)
Happy to go with the routine calculation. That makes more sense and leads to a more accurate conversion. The historical pH information is in figure 1f of the letter. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
I also have my doubts about this sentence Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. It's a very prominent sentence, very simple and clear sounding. I had copied it also to ocean and seawater. However, I am a bit concerned as those figures are not even mentioned in the abstract of the paper but we read them off from Figure 1f. Is this justifiable? Also, in this section: Ocean_acidification#Predictions_for_future_pH_and_rate_of_change later in the article we have a table that uses data from the WG 1 report (I had added the table after modifying or deleting a previous table that was in an earlier version of this article). These figures are taken from Figure TS.11 on page 75.
For the current pH value it says there 8.08 (so a bit higher than the 8.05 value). But I feel this is all a bit unsatisfying. Why do we have to read numbers off a graph (I've literally just printed out Figure TS 11 and used a ruler to read off the values. This can't be the best way of doing it.) If none of the publications that we cite give the actual pH values but only give graphs then perhaps this is telling us something. We probably need to point out to our readers that these are all just approximations. So rather than making it sound so simple "the pH value is currently 8.05" should we rather give a range? Or find a suitable publications that gives the numbers explicitly rather than in graphs? EMsmile (talk) 11:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
Maybe we could say it like this (this is how I have just changed it at ocean)?: The pH value at the surface of oceans (global mean surface pH) is currently in the range of 8.05[1] to 8.08[2]. - I think it would be good if we made it clear to people that there is no one correct figure but these are estimates and hence there can be a bit of a range. (and even small changes are very important) EMsmile (talk) 11:36, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
Makes sense to put less emphasis on it if you couldn't find the number explicitly either. Maybe only mention the 0.1 decline in the lead, and have the paper estimate in the body?
I'm impressed you managed to read that IPCC graph. I would put slightly less trust in such a zoomed-out graph, small errors in plotting may skew the result. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
I am really quite stumped about this all. Why do the other publications not give the pH values as text but only as graphs? Is it because of uncertainty? Strange. We also have the graph in the lead that shows the pH drop, it comes from Our World in Data here. When I click there on "sources" underneath the graph I get to this page which gives an error message:
Another aspect is the issue of "what is surface pH?". I have been talking to Tim Jickells about that over e-mail in connection with edits I am making at ocean about pH and alkalinity. The pH reduces naturally at depth. He wrote to me: "One important point which you do absolutely correctly note in the various sections, is that the big acidification issue at the moment is in the surface ocean waters, approximately the upper 100m. The average depth of the ocean is about 4km, so there is a large body of deeper water where the natural gradients from 8.2 to about 7.8 still exists and it will take a very long to acidify these waters, and equally a long time to recover from that acidification." - I am planning to include something about that in the ocean article, and maybe also here at ocean acidification (?). I am thinking like this:
"The definition of global mean surface pH refers to the top layer of the water in the ocean, up to 20 or 100 m depth (depending on the definition used) (??). The average depth of the ocean is about 4 km, and the pH value further down below (lower than 100 m) has not yet been affected by ocean acidification in the same way. There is a large body of deeper water where the natural gradients from 8.2 to about 7.8 still exists and it will take a very long to acidify these waters, and equally a long time to recover from that acidification. But as the top layer of the ocean is crucial for its marine productivity, any changes to the pH value of the top layer (or surface) can have many knock-on effects. (see also effects of climate change on oceans)" (refs would be the same that I've used for alkalinity there, i.e. textbook by Jickells Chapter 9 and textbook by Emmerson & Hedges Chapter 4; NB I don't have access to those textbooks but Tim said they would be correct to use as refs (?)).
Regarding the definition of "surface" this is what I wrote to him:
What is even the definition of “surface” in those graphs. You mentioned 100 m but I am guessing this is not formalized anywhere?
Sea surface temperature (SST), or ocean surface temperature, is the water temperature close to the ocean's surface. The exact meaning of surface varies according to the measurement method used, but it is between 1 millimetre (0.04 in) and 20 metres (70 ft) below the sea surface.
I didn’t even have a reference for that statement because I think Baylor Fox-Kemper gave it to me from his own knowledge. Do you have a reference for this?
I also checked the IPCC WG 1 glossary and it says this, i.e. no mention of how many metres:
Sea surface temperature (SST): The subsurface bulk temperature in the top few metres of the ocean, measured by ships, buoys and drifters. From ships, measurements of water samples in buckets were mostly switched in the 1940s to samples from engine intake water. Satellite measurements of skin temperature (uppermost layer; a fraction of a millimetre thick) in the infrared or the top centimetre or so in the microwave are also used, but must be adjusted to be compatible with the bulk temperature.
He has replied to me as follows:
"The text you have looks fine. The key issue in terms of the penetration of ocean acidification is the way the surface water mixes with deeper water which depends on the temperature - in the tropics the warm surface layer of about 100m is quite stable and doesn't mix much with deeper water, while near the poles winter cooling and storms makes the surface layer denser and it mixes to great depth and then stratifies again in summer, so there isn't a simple single depth. In the ocean wiki there is a discussion of the photic depth which again is about 100m and is related to this heated surface layer. You can't explain everything on a short wiki article so I think what you have seems fine."
So in summary: I think we do need to highlight to our readers that pH changes with depth and that this article is about surface pH. Some of the different measurements could be related to a different definition of "surface pH"? - And we need to adjust some of the "certain sounding" wording regarding current pH values in the second sentence of the lead. We could say "it's complicated because..." and give more of a range/approximation...
Perhaps we could also reach out to relevant IPCC authors from the chapter of the WG I report for their advice?
As part of the project that I am working on, we did reach out to people at several universities who referred as on to people at NOAA and so we had immensely useful inputs from Gabby Kitch from NOAA, see above on the talk page; Gabby helped us a lot to improve it (if anyone is curious: compare it with the version from say 6 January 2022 which is round about when I first started to edit this article)
Unfortunately, Gabby was pulled away to another work assignment so the last bit of improvements and modifications that needed doing didn't get completed in that round of editing (which took place around November last year). Thanks, Femke, for becoming involved recently! We needed that extra pair of fresh eyes and bright mind that you brought to the table. It's such an important article & topic; would be a pity it if would linger at low quality. EMsmile (talk) 11:51, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
Related to this, Tim Jickells also wrote to me this about stratification which we should perhaps highlight as well in one way or another (so far, we only mention ocen stratification once in the article): "As you say you can look at stratification as either keeping the problem in the upper layer and protecting the deep waters or as making the problem in the surface waters worse - its two sides of the same coin, but this stratification issue is an important fact of ocean behaviour."EMsmile (talk) 09:44, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
^Arias, P.A., N. Bellouin, E. Coppola, R.G. Jones, G. Krinner, J. Marotzke, V. Naik, M.D. Palmer, G.-K. Plattner, J. Rogelj, M. Rojas, J. Sillmann, T. Storelvmo, P.W. Thorne, B. Trewin, K. Achuta Rao, B. Adhikary, R.P. Allan, K. Armour, G. Bala, R. Barimalala, S. Berger, J.G. Canadell, C. Cassou, A. Cherchi, W. Collins, W.D. Collins, S.L. Connors, S. Corti, F. Cruz, F.J. Dentener, C. Dereczynski, A. Di Luca, A. Diongue Niang, F.J. Doblas-Reyes, A. Dosio, H. Douville, F. Engelbrecht, V. Eyring, E. Fischer, P. Forster, B. Fox-Kemper, J.S. Fuglestvedt, J.C. Fyfe, et al., 2021: Technical SummaryArchived 21 July 2022 at the Wayback Machine. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeArchived 9 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA (value taken from Figure TS.11 (d) on page 75)
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