How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

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Major Reports Archive

Mathematical Models vs. Real-World Data: Which Best Predicts Earth's Climatic Future?: How well are today's climate models able to predict what will happen to earth's climate in the years, decades and centuries to come if the atmosphere's carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration continues to rise as a result of mankind's continued burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil? In this document this question is broached via a thorough and careful scrutiny of the pertinent scientific literature that has addressed this topic as it pertains to several important climatic phenomena.

Stewardship and Sustainable Development in a World of Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentration -- A Biblical Perspective on Humanity's Relationship to the Biosphere: Protecting the environment has become a key consideration in almost all that we do; for it is put forth as a self-evident fact that being good to the Earth is the only way to ensure that our children and grandchildren will inherit a world that provides equal or greater opportunities and resources than that in which we now live. But who decides what is right and what is wrong in this regard? For a sizable segment of earth's population, such answers are found in the Bible. Comprised of writings dating back thousands of years, this sacred book serves as an ethical compass for people of numerous faiths. It records historical events that reach back to the world's beginnings, and contains prophetic writings that foretell the world's future. But does the Bible cast any light on society's stewardship role with respect to the environment and the other forms of life with which we share the planet? This question must be seriously considered; for if it does, that light would be incredibly important, as it would have to be acknowledged as coming from God Himself. And who is better qualified to settle differences among earth's many life forms than He who created and placed them here?

Extreme Weather Events: Are they Influenced by Rising Atmospheric CO2?: Multiple climate models project that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will increase the frequency and/or severity of a number of extreme weather events. This projection has been accepted as fact by numerous scientific organizations and government agencies, including the U.S. EPA. Such claims, however, often fail to stand up against appropriate scientific scrutiny. When key principles of scientific inquiry are adequately addressed and followed, the model projections are consistently seen to conflict with real-world observations, indicating it is highly unlikely that increasing temperatures-whether or not they are driven by rising atmospheric CO2-will increase the frequency and/or magnitude of severe weather events. In fact, most evidence to date suggests an opposite effect, where rising temperatures would produce less frequent and less severe extreme weather.

The Positive Externalities of Carbon Dioxide: Estimating the Monetary Benefits of Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations on Global Food Production: Several analyses have been conducted to estimate potential monetary damages of the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration. Few, however, have attempted to investigate its monetary benefits. This study addresses this discrepancy by providing a quantitative estimate of the direct monetary benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on both historic and future global crop production. Results indicate that the annual total monetary value of the increase in the air's CO2 content (since the inception of the Industrial Revolution) for world crop production grew from $18.5 billion in 1961 to over $140 billion by 2011, reaching the staggering sum of $3.2 trillion over the 50-year time period from 1961-2011. And projecting the monetary value of this positive externality forward in time reveals that it will bestow an additional $9.8 trillion on crop production between now and 2050.

The State of Earth's Terrestrial Biosphere: How is it Responding to Rising Atmospheric CO2 and Warmer Temperatures?: Climate alarmists have long suggested it is in dire straits. Real-world observations, on the other hand, reveal that vegetative productivity and growth have been significantly increasing over the past century or more.

Estimates of Global Food Production in the Year 2050: Will We Produce Enough to Adequately Feed the World?: Government leaders and policy makers should take notice of the findings of this important new analysis of the world food situation; for doing what climate alarmists claim is needed to fight global warming will surely consign earth's human population to a world of woe, while doing next to nothing in terms of altering the current warm phase of the planet's surface temperature.

Carbon Dioxide and Earth's Future: Pursuing the Prudent Path: The only truly objective method to evaluate climate model projections is by comparing them with real-world data. In this report we conduct just such an appraisal, comparing real-world observations against ten of the more ominous model-based predictions of what will occur in response to continued business-as-usual anthropogenic CO2 emissions: (1) unprecedented warming of the planet, (2) more frequent and severe floods and droughts, (3) more numerous and stronger hurricanes, (4) dangerous sea level rise, (5) more frequent and severe storms, (6) increased human mortality, (7) widespread plant and animal extinctions, (8) declining vegetative productivity, (9) deadly coral bleaching, and (10) a decimation of the planet's marine life due to ocean acidification. And in conjunction with these analyses, we proffer our view of what the future may hold with respect to the climatic and biological consequences of the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content, concluding by providing an assessment of what we feel should be done about the situation.
2 February 2011.

CO2, Global Warming and Coral Reefs: Prospects for the Future: The ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content has been predicted to play havoc with earth's coral reefs in two different ways: (1) by stimulating global warming, which has been predicted to dramatically enhance coral bleaching, and (2) by lowering the calcium carbonate saturation state of seawater, which has been predicted to reduce coral calcification rates. We evaluate the likelihood of such claims in a new major review paper.
12 January 2009

Public Comment to the Environmental Protection Agency. A Public Comment (in PDF format) submitted to the EPA in response to the Environmental Protection Agency's Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the Clean Air Act, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318.
24 November 2008

Carbon Dioxide and Global Change:
Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion
. A critique of the 26 April 2007 testimony of James E. Hansen made to the Select Committee of Energy Independence and Global Warming of the United States House of Representatives entitled "Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate"
6 June 2007

Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World
5 November 2003

The Specter of Species Extinction:
Will Global Warming Decimate Earth's Biosphere?

29 July 2003