Talk:Ocean acidification/Archive 2

An image has original research in speculation of future appearance of shells. SEWilco (talk) 22:37, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Do you mean this image?:

. 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)

Hi SEWilco: I've removed the image now. EMsmile (talk) 21:39, 30 October 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)

Looks like there are no objections so I am putting this task on my to-do list now. EMsmile (talk) 13:30, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

I've completed this change now. This article now only uses the long ref style. EMsmile (talk) 22:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

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)

We've used the term "organisms that rely on calcium carbonate shells and skeletons, like mollusks, oysters and corals" in the lead. I am wondering if there is a scientific term for them all together? Is it perhaps Crustacean? EMsmile (talk) 08:36, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Any organism that builds a shell out of calcium carbonate is called a calcifier. Crustaceans are a more specific taxon. 67.165.176.3 (talk) 20:23, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

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 don't think they would be known under another term so redirecting to marine biogenic calcification is fine for the time being. 67.165.176.3 (talk) 16:09, 16 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

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)

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"
• The reports "Ocean Acidification Summary for Policymakers 2013" and the IPCC approved "Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate" from 2019 describe research findings and possible impacts.
• A study conducted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in January 2018 showed that...
• A 2010 study from Stony Brook University suggested that
• A study in 2008 examining a sediment core from the North Atlantic found that EMsmile (talk) 21:52, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Further comments:

• 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)

I've made all those changes now that I mentioned above. EMsmile (talk) 22:20, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

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)

Today I will incorporate the text edits for the lead that Gabby Kitch (NOAA) submitted. One paragraph at a time. Dtetta (talk) 20:29, 29 September 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)

In the interest of

WP:COI disclosure guidelines, I want to give notice that I am being paid to edit this article as part of a communication project regarding SDGs 6, 13 and 14. Dtetta (talk

) 14:17, 5 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)

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)

Hi

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-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