Hogwash!

At one of my regular blog stops, Watts Up With That, its most recent entry explores the surprising role that diatoms play in regulating the temperature of our planet. This was discovered at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany. This gist of the article is in the first paragraph:

Diatoms play an important role in water quality and in the global climate. They generate about one fourth of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere and perform around one-quarter of the global CO² assimilation, i.e. they convert carbon dioxide into organic substances. Their light receptors are a crucial factor in this process. Researchers at the Leipzig University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research have now discovered that blue and red light sensing photoreceptors control the carbon flow in these algae. These results have been recently published by the scientists in the well-known online trade journal, PLOS ONE

For the scientifically inclined, to explore the details of this new discovery further see: Watts Up With That.

Moreover, there is one comment on this post that I found particularly interesting and it was written by Willis Eschenbach. He stated on October 20, 2014 at 3:59 pm:

A most excellent post, Anthony. I’ve long held that the ocean conditions don’t determine life, it works the other way around—life determines the ocean conditions.

In addition to making lots of oxygen, phytoplankton (microscopic floating ocean plants) have some hidden effects. 

First, where there is no phytoplankton, the water is clear, and all of the absorbed solar energy is converted into heat. But when there is a lot of phytoplankton, much of the absorbed solar energy is not converted into heat. Instead, it is used in the making and breaking of chemical bonds, and in growing plant mass. 

Now, to be sure, this energy is eventually reconverted into heat, it’s the nature of entropy … but that may not happen at the surface of the ocean. It may happen, for example, in the abyss. In the abyss, there is a constant rain of organic stuff, bits and pieces of everything from phytoplankton to zooplankton to small fish to whales. When this organic detritus decomposes, it releases the energy it contained, energy it absorbed near the surface … but it releases it at the bottom of the ocean. In addition, some of the energy is used to create gases (including both oxygen and CO2) that leave the ocean entirely. So when that oxygen rusts a bit of iron at a later date, the energy is released on land rather than in the ocean. 

Next, phytoplankton significantly change the vertical thermal structure of the ocean. Phytoplankton are plants, so as one might expect, they are all in competition for the light. As a result, they are thickest right at the surface. This means that instead of the solar energy warming the lower part of the mixed layer, it is absorbed right at the surface. So plankton make the surface warmer and the subsurface cooler. 

Next, he ability of ocean diatoms to utilize both red and blue light, while surprising, is logical. Every diver knows that the blue light penetrates deeply, but the red light is absorbed nearer the surface … so much so that if you cut yourself at depth, you bleed green. Since the competition is at the surface, we’d expect to find the diatoms using the abundant red light. But of course they need to be able to survive the times when they are deeper and get only blue light. The article says that in blue light they photosynthesize but they don’t grow … so they are “hibernating” when they are down deeper. Another unknown aspect of this marvelous world. 

Finally, an oddity. Plankton emit dimethylsulfide (DMS). This, in turn, forms cloud condensation nuclei, which favors the formation of clouds … how curious, that the smallest plants in the ocean should be able to affect the rate of cloud formation. And of course, the more light striking the surface, the warmer it is, the more DMS is produced … another lovely example of thermal regulation by emergent phenomena, in this case the emergent phenomenon we call “life”. There’s a good discussion of DMS and plankton here. To me, this is the best part of the extremely young and unsettled science of climate. There is something new to be learned every day. 

My best to all, w.

And for those climate prelates among us who are constantly proselytizing and who usually start their sermons by saying that climate change is “settled science,” I have but one word.

Hogwash!