Talk:Alkalinity

Inputs by non-oceanography people

I'm wondering if there is someone with a non-oceanography perspective on alkalinity who could contribute to this article - or is alkalinity purely a seawater issue ? Also, my contributions are pretty technical - it wouldd be nice if someone had some 'real world' experience to help relate alkalinty to the average readers. (Cheers, Piyrwq 04:08, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Various comments

Hello,

No, alkalinity is more general, also very important for porewater chemistry and hydrochemistry of aquifers. You need to know it for controlling your electrical charge balance and for geochemical calculations.

It could be worth to develop titration techniques such as Grant Titration. --193.190.187.220 16:36, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

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In a hvac system for a building, why test for m alkalinity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.52.179.197 (talk) 20:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

What is the tolerable level of alkalinity of drinking water,how many ppm's? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.238.232 (talk) 22:16, 26 July 2009 (UTC) thanks i missed a question on my test bc this told me wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.122.73.95 (talk) 19:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I came to this looking for information on "total alkilinity" versus simple pH in the context of hot tubs (spas). Yup, more general info would help.

Also, I don't understand "Alkalinity is typically reported as mg/L as CaCO3." Maybe "Alkalinity is typically reported as mg/L of CaCO3." I don't know enough to change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jo3sampl (talk • contribs) 17:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC) -- Looked it up; making the change.

Definition

This article is nearly incomprehensible to a non-scientist. The New Scientist article here defines alkaline as proton-poor if I am reading it correctly. Is this correct and might it be a helpful way of making it easier to understand? Dudley Miles (talk) 15:25, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree. It's incomprehensible even to scientists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbrennwa (talk • contribs) 07:50, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

This is remains a truly terrible article. "Quoting from page 52, ...." (in the simplified summary...) What is being quoted? The whole article is predomantly gibberish and requires serious rework. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A2800276 (talk • contribs) 06:32, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Want to download books Hibopydhj (talk) 05:08, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

I do agree. As a scientist the article is TERRIBLY written for both non-scientist (poor writing) and scientist (completely astray from topic 1/2 the time, and using terminology incorrectly). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:400:51F0:60EC:E90F:276E:96EC (talk) 22:57, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Quantity?

What does "The alkalinity is equal to the stoichiometric sum of the bases in solution." mean? What numbers are in the sum? Concentrations of the bases? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbrennwa (talk • contribs) 07:48, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Effects on aquatic life

Alkalinity of water is a determining factor of what kind of life will be found in different aquatic ecosystems. It is extremely important for fish, bottom feeders, frogs and most other aquatic life in that, it protects them by serving as a buffer to changes in the water pH levels. The most optimal pH levels for aquatic life is between 6.0 to 9.0. If it falls bellow that range the aquatic species that are not ready for the rapid change in pH will take heavy casualties or even disappear entirely . Alkalinity of higher percentages in surface water serves as a buffer to acid rain or discharges from other acidic sources. They also prevent rapid changes that can be harmful to aquatic life. Ljm186 (talk) 19:24, 3 February 2018 (UTC)louis ljm186

References

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Oceanic alkalinity section?

I was surprised to find such a long section on ocean alkalinity here. Is it good? Is it requiring updating (and linking with ocean acidification as well as ocean)? I am a little bit suspicious because I see with the tool "Who wrote that" that the entire section was added in one go here in 2011 by a Wikipedian who made no other edits than that one. So perhaps someone who knows about this topic could take a look and see if it's any good or if it needs updating? E.g User:ASRASR and User:Epipelagic. EMsmile (talk) 13:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

In my estimation, the scope and citations of that section are very good. More detail, better linking, and better explanations of jargon would be helpful. The citations, though sparse and unnecessarily repetitive, include several seminal papers in the field and many of the most important TA researchers. Whoever Kzab was, they knew what they were talking about. I'll see if I can put a bit of work into it. OHClNaMg (talk) 18:43, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I've shown this article to an ocean chemistry expert called Tim Jickells. Here is his feedback: "The alkalinity article you highlighted looks pretty good and accurate but seems to be written from a freshwater perspective mainly. In freshwaters, particularly those on non- limestone terrains, alkalinities are low and involve a lot of ions. In the ocean alkalinity is completely dominated by carbonate and bicarbonate plus a small contribution from borate. In the alkalinity article the ocean section seems like a bit of an add on and to be a bit vague. A link to the ocean, ocean acidification and effects of climate change on the ocean articles would probably be sensible, although the route of ocean to climate change to ocean acidification articles is a bit long winded."

With that feedback in mind, I've just made a few changes now. I felt that a section title called "oceanic alkalinity" doesn't really work well as seawater is also mentioned in other places of the article. Also, we don't have an equivalent section on "freshwater alkalinity". So I have changed it to "changes in oceanic alkalinity" which is what I think it's about. I've also shortened it a bit. Tim has also sent me content about ocean alkalinity that should be added to ocean and/or to ocean acidification. Once that's done I will also link to there from here. EMsmile (talk) 15:48, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for reaching out to Dr. Jickells. I know his work and appreciate his input. I look forward to contributing to an improved Alkalinity article with the structure you've put forward. OHClNaMg (talk) 15:48, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi OHClNaMg, I got some replies and inputs from Tim Jickells last month and have been updating various articles (namely alkalinity, ocean, sea, seawater, pH) accordingly with pH and alkalinity information. Could you check if you think this now all fits quite well together? In particular the section "changes in oceanic alkalinity" in the alkalinity article compared to the "alkalinity" section in the ocean article? There is a little bit of duplication but hopefully not too much. Do you think it now works well like this or do we need to streamline it further? EMsmile (talk) 14:04, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Need help confirming a proposed rewording is correct

From the 2nd paragraph "In freshwater, particularly those on non-limestone terrains, alkalinities are low and involve a lot of ions." I think this means that what alkalinity there is due to small quantities of a wide variety of ion types. Is that correct? I think it is easy to misinterpret 'a lot of ions' as meaning 'a high concentration of ions'. Please comment whether this agrees with your understanding. Ike9898 (talk) 14:02, 5 June 2024 (UTC)