Huge Phytoplankton Bloom Found Under Arctic Ice 99
ananyo writes "Researchers have been shocked to find a record-breaking phytoplankton bloom hidden under Arctic ice. The finding is a big surprise — few scientists thought blooms of this size could grow in Arctic waters. The finding implies that the Arctic is much more productive than previously thought — researchers now think some 25% of the Arctic Ocean has conditions conducive to such blooms (abstract). The discovery also helps to explain why Arctic waters have proven such a good carbon dioxide sink."
Re:shocked? (Score:1, Insightful)
Because scientists are often full of themselves.
Re:shocked? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How is plankton a good carbon sink? (Score:5, Insightful)
They DO get buried away for millions of years. Where do you think petroleum and coal come from?
Re:How is plankton a good carbon sink? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Sequestering" carbon in any way is about the same as "squestering" trash by burying it in the dump. Just gets it out of sight for awhile, you gotta think about the future.
There's a huge difference between having to deal with global warming now (especially the catastrophes claimed by some) than a slightly elevated CO2 a few millennia or longer from now. Getting it out of sight for a while may well be the difference between being a problem now and never being a problem.
Re:How is plankton a good carbon sink? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>"Sequestering" carbon in any way is about the same as "squestering" trash by burying it in the dump. Just gets it out of sight for awhile, you gotta think about the future.
Disagree.
The carbon was VERY well sequestered for ~700 million years..... until humans came-along and start digging it out of coal mountains/oil wells and burning it. If humans had not done that, the carbon would still be sequestered under the ground and GW not an issue.
Re:shocked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, it is interesting...tut tut....vis a vis....ergo, ERGO! VIS A VIS!!!
Seriously though, it is interesting. For instance, someone people (maybe you) believe that the "radicals" are the climatologists instead of the people who created these billboards:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/may/04/heartland-institute-global-warming-murder
I mean, that shit doesn't even make sense.
Of course, you'll come back with the lame, intellectually weak "both sides do it" crap. That's how it works these days. You can be on the team represented by millions of dollars of corporate propaganda that in the most nasty of ways paints the entire climatology community as a sinister lying bunch of mooching conspirators--while on the other hand, science can have one or two people who made honest mistakes that don't really affect the big picture of whether AGW is real--and you'll say, uh, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Sorry, you can't split the difference between reasonable and batshit stupid / evil and call it a wash. Face the music. You're a mark. And you did not disappoint the ones who played you. Congrats.
Re:shocked? (Score:2, Insightful)
Most people are full of themselves. Only the unlucky ones need transplants, and then they need all sorts of nasty medicines to keep themselves healthy. Thank you, I'd rather be full of myself than that.
You are completely right about that, I was prescribe amphetamine to treat my ADD, I became a douche as a side effect and learned that being full of oneself rocks. I got more promotion in the last year of medicinal amphetamine than I got in that interval : [started working, started taking l-lysine-d-amphetamine], I got to assfuck my gf for the first time in 5 year, bought a sport car and renovated my house. Yeah being a douche, full of myself, rocks !
Re:How is plankton a good carbon sink? (Score:4, Insightful)
But when the plankton die and rot, the carbon is released back into the air.
Doesn't always happen, especially on a seafloor. Oil and coal come from organisms that didn't rot.
Re:shocked? (Score:2, Insightful)
I have never seen a knowledgeable critique of global warming on /.
I've seem people spout ignorance, use logical fallacies, repeat lies, but never a scientifically valid critique. There have been several in mainstream science, but they where looked at and proven not to actually be valid when compared with the data. That's science.
On /.? it's just republican rhetoric repeated with worse spelling.
Re:Don't You Love Posts Like This? Who knew? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you like the smell of smog? I would hazard a guess that you do not. Fine, you don't believe in global warming. I disagree with you, but won't bother to argue the point. Maybe you should jump on the green bandwagon for the better quality environment it provides you? Stuff like smog, acid rain, and the hole in the ozone layer have become less of a problem because we implemented 'sweeping policy changes' and 'engineering measures' to solve the issue.
Oil is going away, shouldn't we figure out what to do next?
Isn't energy efficiency better that waste?
What exactly about the global warming policies do you disagree with that wouldn't lead to a cleaning, smarter, stronger future?
Re:shocked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the reporters want to sell headlines, and a scientist saying "huh, that's funny" doesn't sound as newsworthy as "I AM SHOCKED!"
(Also, the scientists probably look a bit googly-eyed during the interview, and the reporter doesn't realise that's just because of the coffee-fueled all-nighter instead of the bemusement.)
Re:How is plankton a good carbon sink? (Score:5, Insightful)
An organism that's been selected over hundreds of millions of years to survive in the current climate. Like, I don't know, humans.
Sure, nothing is objectively better about an oxygen-rich atmosphere than a carbon-dioxide one. An anaerobic organism of the archean era would likely prefer it. But I breathe oxygen. How about you?