A new study published in early February seems to indicate that many prior claims about the alleged acidification of ocean water dramatically exaggerated the process’s effect on fish and other marine life.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the study was published on February 3rd in PLOS Biology, and reviewed 91 different studies of the effects that acidification allegedly had on the behavior of fish. Many of these studies claimed that this would lead to a significant decrease in the fish population, as affected fish would be less likely to evade predators in the wild.
But the new comprehensive report claims that the studies with the highest quality found the effects on fish behavior were much smaller than previously described, making almost no impact on their overall habits. The few studies that claimed a dramatic shift in the behavior of such fish had smaller sample sizes, reducing their reliability.
The authors of the new study noted that, nevertheless, the more sensational studies were “published in high-impact journals and have a disproportionate influence. We contend that ocean acidification has a negligible direct impact on fish behavior.”
This latest survey appears to further confirm the trend of climate alarmist studies suffering from a “replication crisis,” where its findings are often not repeated when tested multiple times after the initial study. This is a common problem in many social sciences, as well as certain biological sciences such as cancer research.