By Jim Steele

Card stacking is a “propaganda technique where an organization may use media to favorably show one side of an issue or an argument, while simultaneously downplaying the other side.” NOAA is clearly guilty of card stacking as seen in NOAA’s iconic Ocean Acidification illustration (graphic #1) commonly accompanying their articles warning about ocean acidification.

First, notice only CO2 entering from the atmosphere is emphasized. NOAA’s graph ignores the fact that the oceans contain 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere. CO2 first entered some deep ocean water hundreds to thousands of years ago. While surface waters are not corrosive with a pH 8.1 (graphic #7), corrosive conditions are more likely where deeper ocean water with 2X to 3X more CO2 and pH 7.6 are upwelled.

Second, NOAA suggests disastrous effects from acidification for marine life by showcasing the disintegration of a dead sea butterfly (snail) shell in 7.8 pH water. NOAA cherry-picked a sea butterfly shell as a climate indicator because its shell is extremely thin and the world’s most easily dissolved snail shell. Furthermore, the dissolvable calcium carbonate crystals that make shells hard in living animals are prevented from dissolving by a protective insoluble organic layer (#5). Using a dissolving dead shell to suggest life-threatening conditions is a scam!

Third, NOAA’s equation (highlighted by my red rectangle in #1) is backwards and does NOT reflect reality! When CO2 enters the water, it first results in carbonic acid that immediately breaks down to form a bicarbonate ion (HCO3-) and an H+ ion. Indeed, added H+ ions will “consume” carbonate ions, but that’s how carbonate ions buffer seawater and prevent rapid acidification. Equally important, reduced carbonate ions in seawater does NOT impede calcification. Shell makers never absorb carbonate ions from sea water. All shell makers absorb the very abundant bicarbonate ions and then produce carbonate ions internally! Thus, the real calcification equation should be the one I inserted.

Because the public is not familiar with sea butterfly shells, fear is easily evoked. People are more likely familiar with larger thicker-shelled garden snails (#2). Sea butterflies however evolved to float in the ocean, mostly between 5- and 50-meters depth to capture sinking organic matter and thus require an extremely light-weight shell. Sea butterflies are extremely tiny (#3), and their shells are so thin, its thickness is beyond the human eye’s capability to measure. The shells thickness is measured with Scanning Electron Microscopes (#5).

For people unfamiliar with microns as a measurement, illustration #4 shows a pencil point equals one millimeter, which equals 1000 microns. The width of a human hair is about 50-70 microns in diameter. Pollen or mold spores are less than 10 microns. The sea butterfly’s shell thickness is even smaller (#5) with the prismatic and crossed lamellar layers of calcium carbonate ranging from 2 to 4 microns thick.

Finally, NOAA states, “When carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce seawater pH, carbonate ion concentration, and saturation states of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals.” While it is true that ocean pH affects carbonate ion concentrations, NOAA is engaging in more card stacking.

Ocean pH is highest near the surface where atmospheric CO2 is first absorbed, and pH then decreases with depth. In sunlit surfaces where photosynthesis utilizes CO2 to produce and store organic matter faster than digestion and decay can release CO2 from that matter, pH remains high, around 8.1 (#7) and shell dissolution is rare. As organic matter is digested while sinking to greater depth, pH then falls.

When ocean water is classified as saturated with calcium and carbonate ions, the calcium carbonate of dead shells is unlikely to dissolve. When the water becomes unsaturated, shells begin to dissolve. So, NOAA argues “continued ocean acidification is causing many parts of the ocean to become undersaturated” and then fear mongers “Lower environmental calcium carbonate saturation states can have a dramatic effect on some calcifying species, including oysters, clams, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals, and calcareous plankton,” that more than a billion people worldwide rely on for food. However most marine life lives at depths where the water is supersaturated with no threat to the world’s food supply!

The depth at which ocean chemistry switches from saturated to unsaturated is the saturation horizon and varies around the world as seen in illustration #6. It also varies with the variety of calcium carbonate minerals, such as aragonite that sea butterflies use being more susceptible. For most of the world’s ocean, waters remain super-saturated from 0 to 1000-meter depths. In most of the north Atlantic, waters remain supersaturated even between 2000 and 4000 meters. The saturation horizon does fall below 750 meters along the west coast of the Americas due to the upwelling of low pH water (#6). But upwelling low pH water brings nutrients and CO2 into the sunlit surfaces making those waters the most biologically productive in the world.

So, beware NOAA’s card stacking!