The EPA and Ocean Acidification

Green Car Congress informs us that the EPA has proposed stronger air quality standards for SO2.

For the first time in nearly 40 years, EPA is proposing to strengthen the nation’s sulfur dioxide (SO₂) primary air quality standard to protect public health. Power plants and other industrial facilities emit SO₂ directly into the air. Exposure to SO₂ can aggravate asthma, cause respiratory difficulties, and result in emergency room visits and hospitalization. People with asthma, children, and the elderly are especially vulnerable to SO₂’s effects.

EPA is taking comment on a proposal to establish a new national one-hour SO₂ standard, between 50 and 100 parts per billion (ppb). The existing primary standards were 140 ppb measured over 24-hours, and 30 ppb measured over an entire year. The Agency also is taking comment on alternative levels for the 1-hour standard up to 150 ppb.

Source: EPA.

US SO2 emissions by source sector in 2005.

The EPA’s short term strategy is a proposed rule to protect public health. GCC tells us that the EPA “will address the secondary standard—designed to protect the public welfare, including the environment—as part of a separate proposal in 2011.”

GCC further informs that SO2 is one of a group of highly reactive known as “oxides of sulfur,” or SOx.

The largest sources of SO2 emissions are from fossil fuel combustion at power plants (66%) and other industrial facilities (29%). Smaller sources of SO2 emissions include industrial processes such as extracting metal from ore, and the burning of high–sulfur fuels by locomotives, large ships, and non-road equipment.

In terms of air pollution, the global shipping sector has gone largely unregulated. Yet, diesel engines on oceangoing vessels such as container ships, tankers, bulk carriers, and cruise ships are significant contributors to air pollution in many of our nation’s cities and ports. Ultra-low Sulfur Diesel will be required for marine diesel engines in 2014 and for locomotives in 2015. In addition to contributing to destruction of the ozone layer and ocean acidification, SOx emissions are a main component of unhealthy smog in port cities.

Human activity—from coal-fired power plants to car tailpipes—is responsible for nearly 30 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide wafting into the atmosphere yearly. We know that roughly 15 billion metric tons remains in the atmosphere for a century or more. A portion of the rest ends up in the ocean—acidifying saltwater and making the oceans inhospitable to calciferous marine life.

When this blog last took looked in depth at ocean acidification, the conclusion was that the world is much closer to the ocean acidification tipping point than we want to recognize. Writing for Energy Wise Bill Sweet now informs that “even though the oceans are continuing to absorb ever larger quantities of carbon dioxide, the fraction of human emissions they’ve taken up may have dropped by as much as 10 percent since 2000.” This recent information comes from a report, published in Nature and reproduced on the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory’s website.

“The study reconstructs the accumulation of industrial carbon in the oceans year by year, from 1765 to 2008,” explains the Earth Institute’s Kevin Krajick, in a lucid press release. “[Lamont Doherty's Samar] Khatiwala and his colleagues found that uptake rose sharply in the 1950s, as the oceans tried to keep pace with the growth of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. Emissions continued to grow, and by 2000, reached such a pitch that the oceans have since absorbed a declining overall percentage, even though they absorb more each year in absolute tonnage. Today, the oceans hold about 150 billion tons of industrial carbon, the researchers estimate–a third more than in the mid-1990s.”

This video produced by Columbia University’s Earth Institute
shows concentrations of industrially produced CO2 increasing
in the world’s oceans over the past 2 1/2 centuries.

Related AG Posts

Seas Grow Less Effective at Absorbing Emissions (nytimes.com)

This entry was written by jcwinnie, posted on 2009-11-20 at 9:32 pm, filed under chemistry, environment, health, standards and tagged coal, electric power, emissions, oceans, standards. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

3 Comments

jcwinnie

Posted 2009-11-24 at 6:22 pm | Permalink

Green Car Congress relays word from the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) that “atmospheric concentrations of the main Greenhouse Gases set new highs in 2008.”

Atmospheric levels of major greenhouse gases continue to increase, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) 2008 Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. The latest analysis of observations from WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Programme for 2008 shows that the globally averaged mixing ratios of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) reached new highs with CO₂ at 385.2 ppm, CH₄ at 1,797 ppb and N₂O at 321.8 ppb—higher than those in pre-industrial times (before 1750) by 38%, 157% and 19%, respectively.

According to the NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), the total radiative forcing by all long-lived greenhouse gases has increased by 26.2% since 1990 and by 1.3% from 2007 to 2008. These latest figures confirm the continued trend of rising atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases since 1750, WMO said.

Source: WMO.

Relative contribution of major greenhouse gases to the overall change in radiative forcing between 1979 and 1984 (a) and from 2003 to 2008 (b). The importance of CO₂ has increased
substantially. Whereas the contribution from CFCs and halons has turned around and now is negative, the contributions from HCFCs and HFCs are increasing rapidly.
- CO₂. The globally averaged mixing ratio of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in 2008 was 385.2 ppm, an increase of 2.0 ppm from the previous year, continuing the tendency of exponential increase. CO₂ is the most important human-emitted greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, contributing 63.5% to the increase in overall radiative forcing since 1750. Its atmospheric abundance was nearly constant at about 280 ppm before industrialization.
  
  During the time period 1979-1984 , CO₂ contributed 56% of the increase in radiative forcing caused by long-lived greenhouse gases. Since then CO₂ has gained importance and during the five-year period from 2003 to 2008 CO₂ was responsible for 86% of the increase in radiative forcing, which is more than four times superior to all other long-lived greenhouse gases combined. Since 1750, atmospheric CO₂ has increased by 38%, primarily because of emissions from combustion of fossil fuels, deforestation and land use change.
- Methane. The globally averaged mixing ratio of methane (CH₄) in 2008 was 1,797 ppb, an increase of 7ppb from the previous year. While the concentration of CH₄ was stable for seven years (from 1999 to 2006), both 2007 and 2008 show a significant increase. Methane contributes 18.2% to the increase in overall global radiative forcing since 1750. 60% of CH₄ emissions come from anthropogenic sources such as ruminants, rice agriculture, fossil fuel exploitation, landfills and biomass burning.
  
  Before the industrial era, atmospheric methane was about 700ppb. Increasing emissions from anthropogenic sources are responsible for the 157% increase in the CH₄ concentration since 1750.
- N₂O. The globally averaged mixing ratio of nitrous oxide (N₂O) in 2008 was 321.8 ppb, 0.9 ppb higher than in 2007, and 19% above the pre-industrial level. N₂O contributes 6.2% to the increase in the overall global radiative forcing since 1750. The atmospheric abundance of N₂O prior to industrialization was 270 ppb. N₂O is emitted into the atmosphere from natural and anthropogenic sources, including oceans, soil, biomass burning, fertilizer use and various industrial processes.
- Halocarbons. The combined radiative forcing by halocarbons is nearly double that of N₂O. Some halocarbons such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), previously used as refrigerants, as propellants in spray cans and as solvents, are decreasing slowly as a result of the phase-out of these compounds through the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. However, concentrations of other gases such as HCFCs and HFCs, which are used to substitute chlorofluorocarbons, are increasing rapidly. These two classes of compounds are very potent greenhouse gases and together with sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆) they contributed 8.9% to the increase in radiative forcing from 2003 to 2008, which is more than the contribution from N₂O during this period.
jcwinnie

Posted 2009-12-10 at 1:43 pm | Permalink

“The world’s oceans absorb about a quarter of all carbon dioxide emitted by humans each year.” Which is causing a dangerous imbalance. The water is becoming so acidic that “it could start dissolving some cold water corals,” a recent warning from marine biologists.

The oceans are acting as a giant storage locker for the main gas causing global warming, but at a cost to all marine life, said a report from the European Project on Ocean Acidification.

More acidic seas could weaken shells and damage creatures that build them, block chemicals that fish use to find their homes and make life noisier for dolphins as some sounds travel better in water that has soaked up carbon — among other effects researched by scientists in recent years.

“It is a global phenomenon that will be felt hardest and first in the polar regions but this doesn’t mean that warm water (regions) will not be affected,” Carol Turley from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory told a news conference on the sidelines of climate talks in Copenhagen.

Seas are already about one third more acidic than they were at the start of the Industrial Revolution and will become more so as emissions increase. The changes are believed to be the fastest for 55 million years, the report said.

Turley said, “A substantial and urgent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is the only solution. Referring to large-scale projects proposed to limit warming without capping carbon dioxide emissions, “There is no geo-engineering that will help,” she said.

Oceans are often left out of climate talks, or have a lower profile, because the science is less well-known and perhaps because humans live on land and focus on their immediate surroundings, said Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the marine programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

But changes now cannot be undone for generations.

“It will take tens of thousands of years for the carbon dioxide to disappear, essentially to be buffered by the ocean chemistry and sediments. So it is not a short-term problem,” Turley said.

Scientists say increasingly acidic oceans are disrupting the process of calcification used by sea creatures to build shells as well as coral reefs.

For example, tiny amoeba-like animals called foraminifera, which live on the ocean’s surface, play a major role in trapping CO2 and transporting it to the ocean depths where it can be locked away for decades or centuries.

The Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica is the largest of the ocean carbon sinks and disruption of the shell-building process could have a major impact on the ability of oceans to soak up CO2.
jcwinnie

Posted 2009-12-13 at 9:18 am | Permalink

Via Climate Progress this video is from House testimony early this month by from Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States’ leading climate office. You can find the full hearing online here.

Part 2 of the Lubchenco testimony:

After Gutenberg