How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

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Millennial-Scale Climate Change in the Eastern Arabian Sea
Reference
Singh, A.D., Kroon, D. and Ganeshram, R.S. 2006. Millennial scale variations in productivity and OMZ intensity in the eastern Arabian Sea. Journal Geological Society of India 68: 369-377.

What was done
The authors studied high-resolution microfaunal records (absolute abundances of planktic foraminifera and pteropods, plus the relative abundance of G. bulloides by means of the G. bulloides/G. rubber percentage ratio) and geochemical (CORG) proxy records in a well-dated ocean sediment core (SK-17) obtained from the present day Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) in the western continental margin of India (15°15'N, 72°58'E), in order to determine the variability of oceanic productivity there - which is known to be driven by monsoon variability - during (1) the late glacial period, (2) the deglacial interval and (3) the subsequent Holocene.

What was learned
Describing their sediment core as "the first well-dated core from the eastern Arabian Sea" (which "well-datedness" gives added significance to their findings), Singh et al. report that it provides "high-resolution records for the last 30,000 years showing a variability of primary productivity and intensity of the OMZ at millennial scale [our italics]." What is more, they note that "major changes in the productivity proxy records occurred during the cold glacial periods equivalent to the North Atlantic Heinrich Events and in the Late Holocene." In addition, they state that the chronology of North Atlantic millennial-scale cycles "indicates that they are synchronous [our italics] with such events recorded in the western Arabian Sea."

What it means
The findings of this study help to demonstrate the global nature of the millennial-scale climatic oscillation that pervades both glacial and interglacial periods alike; and these two aspects of the phenomenon suggest that it likely has an extraterrestrial origin, most probably centered in the sun. The existence of this spatially- and temporally-pervasive climatic oscillation provides strong support for a global Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, which is something climate alarmists are generally loath to acknowledge; for the development and demise of these two extreme climatic states over a period of relative constancy in atmospheric CO2 concentration suggests that the recently-established Current Warm Period may well have nothing to do with the historical rise in the air's CO2 content but likely everything to do with the unrelated phenomenon that produced the analogous Medieval Warm Period and antithetical Little Ice Age.

Reviewed 18 July 2007