We take time out from our coverage of the meltdown on college campuses to check in with the meltdown of the climatistas’ thermageddon scenarios. This week’s New Scientist magazine covers a new study published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that calls into doubt the familiar thesis that ocean acidification from human CO2 emissions will kill coral reefs:
Acidic water may be a sign of healthy corals, says a new study, muddying the waters still further on our understanding of how coral reefs might react to climate change.
Andreas Andersson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, and his colleagues carefully monitored a coral reef in Bermuda for five years, and found that spikes in acidity were linked to increased reef growth.
“At first we were really puzzled by this,” says Andersson. “It’s completely the opposite to what we would expect in an ocean-acidification scenario.”
Yeah, don’t they know the science is settled? Worse, the coral reefs may add to acidification:
The team found that coral growth itself made the water more acidic as the corals sucked alkaline carbonate out of the water to build their skeletons. The corals also ate more food during these high-activity periods and pumped more CO2 into the water, increasing acidity further.
You can find the abstract to the PNAS study here, though the full article is behind a subscription paywall.
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