National Geographic is poor with stats
… or at least with their headlines. From an article at National Geographic this week, comes this headline:
Oceans Ten Times More Acidic Than Thought
If this were true then the expected pH of the Ocean at about 8 would probably be acidic enough to eat through most anything. Though exactly what a 10 times increase in acidity would measure at is difficult since:
The pH scale is not an absolute scale; it is relative to a set of standard solutions whose pH is established by international agreement.
The article does go on to clarify that what they actually meant was that the acidity has grown ten times faster than expected, translating to a 30% increase in the past 200 years. What’s strange is that the Wikipedia article on Ocean Acidification mentions a change from 8.179 to 8.104 (a change of -0.075) over the past 250 years - not nearly 30%.
But who actually reads articles past the first paragraph? Certainly not me.
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