A Sea Change: Blog

How Much Do You Know About Water And The Oceans?

Thursday, May 02, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

Let's play a little quiz game thanks to some of the Sierra Club Knowledge Cards, see how much you know about water and the oceans. I encourage you to to buy as presents these fun decks of cards, a good companion for road trips, both interesting and educational. They can be bought HERE.
(Answers at the bottom of the post)

1 What percentage of the Earth's surface is covered by water?
a. 40%
b. 50%
c. 60%
d. 70%

2 The ocean holds about 97 % of the waters on Earth. Where is the rest?
a. 80% is freshwater and 20% is ice
b. 60% is freshwater and 40% is ice
c. 40% is freshwater and 60% is ice
d. 20% is freshwater and 80% is ice

3 What percentage salts are in seawater?
a. 0.034 %
b. 0.34 %
c. 3.4 %
d. 34%

Swimming in the Dead Sea

4 Which ocean receives the outflow from most of Earth's great rivers?
a. Pacific
b. Atlantic
c. Indian
d. Antarctic

5 The fastest and most powerful of the world's ocean currents is the...
a. Agulhas Current
b. Benguela Current
c. Gulf Stream
d. South Equatorial Current

6 How many marine mammals are killed or injured each year by US commercial fishing operations?
a. 100
b. 1,000
c. 10,000
d. 100,000

7 What is the average depth of the Earth's oceans?
a. 1 mile
b. 2 miles
c. 3 miles
d. 4 miles

8 How long does the average iceberg stay around before breaking up and melting?
a. 4 months
b. 2 years
c. 4 years
d. 20 years

C19A iceberg in Antarctica, the largest existing iceberg

9 The most radical variation between high and low tide is found at the Bay of Fundy, in northern Canada. By what difference?
a. 10 feet
b. 50 feet
c. 100 feet
d. 500 feet

Alma, New Brunskwick, at high and low tide

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANSWERS:

1 d. Water covers 70% of the earth. Only 3% of that water is fresh and rivers hold only about a millionth of the earth's total water. Freshwater lakes hold about 100 times more water than the rivers and there are also 3,100 cubic miles up in the atmosphere and 2,000,000 cubic miles of groundwater.

2 d. That minuscule 3% of freshwater is mostly stored in the ice caps. 80% of all freshwater is there. Antarctica holds as much drinking water in solid form as the Atlantic does in liquid, with an average ice thickness of 7,000 feet.

3 c. Seawater is about 96.5% water and 3.4% salts. Salinity tends to decrease with depth and with proximity to the equator. If you let a cubic foot of seawater evaporate you would be left with roughly 2.2 pounds of salt. But because of their volume the oceans still manage to contain as much as 50 quadrillion tons of salt. Where we to extract all that salt and sprinkle it uniformly over the planet's land surface we would form a nice 40 story high crust.

Marakkanam Salts, in India

4 b. Most of the continental landmasses that surround the Atlantic are sloped "downhill" in its direction. Rivers such as Elbe, Loire and Rhine in Europe, the Niger and the Congo in Africa, the Mississippi and St. Lawrence in North America and the Amazon, Orinoco, Paraná and Uruguay in South America.

5 c. The Gulf Stream can flow North at a speed of 5 mph, moving 55 million cubic meters of water per second (300 times the flow of the Amazon River). It is about 45 miles wide and up to 1,500 feet deep, traveling 100 miles in a day.
Ocean currents are caused by the push of prevailing winds and are subject to the same Coriolis force that guides winds: to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.
The first person to chart the Gulf Stream was no other than Benjamin Franklin, back in 1770.

6 d. According to government calculations as many as 100,000 marine mammals are killed or injured each year by the US commercial fishing fleet. There are collisions with boats, entanglement in fishing lines and accidental hauling as "bycatch" in fishnets. One of the biggest problems occurs with spotted and spinner dolphins, which like to swim with schools of yellowfin tuna and are often harassed or killed by the tuna fleet. But even when fishing operations do not directly kill or injure marine mammals, they can indirectly harm species by depleting fish stocks these animals rely upon. Such is the case in Alaska, where overfishing of pollack and other groundfish has caused a 90% decline in the Steller sea lion population in the region.

7 b. Two miles. Overall, the Atlantic basin has the shallowest waters and the Pacific the deepest. If you dropped Mount Everest into the Mariana Trench its top would still be covered by more than a mile of water. The Mariana Trench's maximum-known depth is 6.831 miles at the Challenger Deep.

8 c. Icebergs have an average lifespan of about 4 years. For most of that time they remain fairly close to the area where they are calved. Once they drift into the shipping lanes (with warmer waters) they last about a year.
The largest existing iceberg up until now is C19A, renamed Melting Bob in 2008. It is an iceberg off Antarctica with an area of 2,200 square miles.
Scientists say the large icebergs calving from Antarctica in recent years are not related to global warming, but are entirely natural. The ice cap is 2 miles thick and moves each year about 1/2 mile towards the sea before it breaks off.

9 b. 50 feet. Oceanographers believe this is due to the bay's shape, with a broad mouth that lets a lot of ocean water into a relatively small container. Very different from the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico, where small areas of interface with the open ocean mean very small tidal variations.
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Painting Destruction By Numbers

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

1 In less than two weeks our good friend and Associate Producer Ben Kalina will be premiering his new documentary SHORED UP at the Monclair Film Festival. We are all equally proud and eager to watch the final result of over three years of work and dedication.
SHORE UP:
"Our beaches and coastline are a national treasure, a shared resource, a beacon of sanity in a world of constant change…and they’re disappearing in front of us.
Shored Up is a documentary that asks tough questions about our coastal communities and our relationship to the land. What will a rising sea do to our homes, our businesses, and the survival of our communities? Can we afford to pile enough sand on our shores to keep the ocean at bay? In Long Beach Island, New Jersey and the Outer Banks of North Carolina, surfers, politicians, scientists and residents are racing to answer these questions. Beach engineering has been our only approach so far, but is there something else out there to be explored? Our development of the coastlines put us in a tough predicament, and it’s time to start looking for solutions."

2 UCSB professor Debora Iglesias-Rodríguez and postdoctoral researcher Bethan Jones have discovered a line of marine organisms that in fact increase their calcification in waters with dropping pH levels. In the new study published by PloS ONE and funded by the European Project on Ocean Acidification they found that the unicellular marine coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi still manages to develop shells when exposed to waters with high CO2 levels.
Interview with professor Iglesias-Rodríguez:

SOURCE
MORE INFO

3 A new study by University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science researchers focuses on the effects of Ocean Acidification on cobia fish larvae. These large tropical fish are highly mobile as they mature and constitute a popular species among recreational anglers. After exposing the larvae to different levels of CO2 they discovered remarkable resistance consistency in growth, development and activity under probable end-of-the-century pH scenarios. The study also showed a significant change in otolith ("calcium carbonate structures within the fish's inner ear that are used for hearing and balance") size, up to a 58% increase in mass.

Photo: Cod Otoliths
When tested in a mathematical model of otolith function, the result showed an increase in hearing sensitivity and up to a 50% increase in hearing range.
The study is the first to report impacts of ocean acidification on a large, pelagic tropical fish species.
"Increased hearing sensitivity could improve a fish's ability to use sound for navigation, predator avoidance, and communication. However, it could also increase their sensitivity to common background noises, which may disrupt the detection of more useful auditory information," says University of Miami researcher Sean Bigmani.

SOURCE
The PNAS publication

4 There will be two Ocean Acidification meetings in Scotland this summer: The Third Annual Science Meeting of the UK Ocean Acidification Research Programme on 22-24 July, 2013, and the Second International Workshop of the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network on 24-26 July, 2013, both at the University of St Andrews, North Haugh.
MORE INFO
and REGISTRATION FORM

5 The University of California in Irvine is to host a conference on "Ocean Acidification: Science, Law and Governance" on May 3rd, 2013.
"The program will focus on issues surrounding ocean acidification and its major impact on the West Coast of the United States. The emphasis will be on options for preserving the precious aquatic habitat and the threatened shellfish industry. The problem is global, but the threats are compelling and urgent in the states of Washington, Oregon, and California."
The event is free, but requires RSVP. People interested in this event can fill out the form HERE
MORE INFO

6 The Ocean Cleanup Array is an innovative prototype designed to palliate one of the oceans' saddest problems: plastic pollution of the world's waters.

This design by aerospace engineering student Boyant Slat looks like a giant vacuum cleaner equipped with floating arms to direct plastic trash along the water surface to a central filtrating structure. The Ocean Cleanup Array project claims to be capable of collecting seven million tons of plastic a year with the use of solar and tidal power to run this vessel nonstop around the 5 ocean plastic gyres.
This is Boyan Slat's TED Talk on the issue:

SOURCE

7 The segment on Ocean Acidification in "Revolution", a new documentary about human beings and the planet can now be watched on Youtube:

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Overflow

Friday, April 12, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

How much is too much? When does a stream of information flow over and one more entry, article, news piece or documentary simply becomes redundant, numbing white noise, counterproductive annoyance? Searching online today, the 12th of April of 2013, for the term Ocean Acidification brings up 1.900.000 pages. Little compared to Climate Change's 73.600.000, that's true, but when it comes down to the repercussion either figure is having in our fight against environmental threats it seems strength does not exactly lie in numbers after all. Could be we just need to reach the 1.420.000.000 behind Oil or the 2.990.000.000 coming with Money. But we needn't despair yet, Love does still shines above all this with over 7.560.000.000 entries.*

Some of the results of looking for news on Ocean Acidification and the environment the last couple weeks:

≈≈≈≈USA Today video on Ocean Acidification:

And at the bottom of THIS link you can watch a second video on oyster farming at Oyster Bay and the threat of Ocean Acidification.

≈≈≈≈A second video on oyster farming, this one about Kathleen Nisbet and her father, Dave, two farm oysters in Washington's Willapa Bay that recently shifted some of their business to Hawai'i, after ocean acidification started killing baby oysters in local hatcheries.

SOURCE

≈≈≈≈A great PDF file to download HERE, filled with useful information, maps, images and graphics about Ocean Acidification and the US East Coast estuaries.
"What is at risk?
Key numbers for the East Coast Estuaries:
$497 million: The value of shellfish landings in Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern coastal states in 2010
$110 million: The annual value of East Coast shellfish aquaculture sales in 2011
$30 million: The dockside value of shellfish from Virginia's watermen-farmers, whose harvest has been nearly doubling each year"

≈≈≈≈"The path to Cape Flattery is a twisty, moss-carpeted tunnel underneath red cedar and Douglas fir trees that crowd Washington state’s rugged coastline. Micah McCarty scrambles down the forest trail to a shoreline below, leaping across tide pools and slippery rocks to a point where waves break on shellfish beds. We’ve reached the northwesternmost point of the U.S. mainland, a craggy tip of the Olympic Peninsula that belongs to the Makah tribe.
This group of Native Americans has been fishing and harvesting here for the past 2,000 years. McCarty, the tribe’s 42-year-old former chairman, pulls out a pocket knife and squats down to scrape a handful of mussels and barnacles into his hand. “We call them slippers and boots,” he says. “I’ll make them into a Makah paella tonight.”"

SOURCE (to keep reading)

≈≈≈≈Battery hybrid ships are soon to be a reality thanks to the Low Carbon Shipping project, set up by the Norwegian Research Council to identify the cost-effective GHG reduction potential in the world merchant fleet. Det Norske Veritas (DVN) and Grieg Star have carried out research that shows fuel savings of 30% and less than a year's payback time after installing lithium-ion batteries to assist with operations.
READ MORE

≈≈≈≈"Revolution", a new documentary about "saving the humans" that opens in theaters (in Canada, at least) today:

≈≈≈≈The thawing of Greenland's glaciers is enriching North Atlantic waters with iron, pretty much in the same style as all the geo-engineering proposals discussed or bullishly tested over the last few years:
"A melt of Greenland's ice is washing large amounts of the nutrient iron into the Atlantic Ocean where it might aid marine life in a rare positive side-effect of climate change, a study showed on Sunday.
Greenland's thaw, which is raising world sea levels, is also adding about 300,000 tonnes of iron a year to the North Atlantic, based on projections from the muddy melt water of three glaciers in the southwest, it said.
[…]Photo: Iceberg in Greenland
"We suggest that glacial runoff serves as a significant source of bio-available iron to surrounding coastal oceans," the scientists, mainly at the U.S. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience.
"We would expect this glacial contribution of iron to the North Atlantic Ocean to continue to increase under future warming scenarios," they added.
The findings show that "as glaciers and ice sheets melt there may be other effects than just increased sea level," said Maya Bhatia, who was leader of the study at WHOI and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."
CONTINUE READING from the SOURCE

≈≈≈≈A new study from the University of Washington reveals that Ocean Acidification will not only affect the shells of mussels, but also weaken the byssal threads that attach them to rocks. "The researchers found that in higher CO2 conditions, the common bay mussel (Mytilus trossulus) could be dislodged by forces 40 percent lower than mussels attached under current conditions. This is because the byssal threads become weaker and lose their ability to stretch as far."
SOURCE

≈≈≈≈Trailer for the documentary The Whale, a film about a young lost orca off the Alaskan shore:

≈≈≈≈In the story of losers, adapters and winners due to lowering pH levels in the oceans purple sea urchins could be amongst the lucky ones. According to Melissa Pespeni, evolutionary biologist at the University of Indiana, sea urchin larvae studied in her lab under a high CO2 environment showed few visible changes in growth and development, but some noticeable alterations in the abundance of certain genes. The changed genes are involved in promoting growth, producing minerals and keeping pH within a range that's tolerable to them.
"If any organism were able to adapt and evolve, it would be the sea urchins, because they live in an environment where they're experiencing daily changes in pH," says Pepsini.
The urchins are very long-lived and have more genetic variability than any other species — including humans, she added. Consequently, the urchins have a broad arsenal for responding to changes in their environment.
SOURCE

≈≈≈≈Crabs, crabs, crabs. For some reason three studies about crabs and Ocean Acidification showed up in the news over the last few days:
The first one is about the "effects of Ocean Acidification on Juvenile Red King Crab and Tanner Crab Growth, Condition, Calcification and Survival".
"At the end of the experiment, calcium concentration was measured in each crab and the dry mass and condition index of each crab were determined. Ocean acidification did not affect the calcium content of red king crab but did decrease the condition index, while it had the opposite effect on Tanner crabs, decreasing calcium content but leaving the condition index unchanged. This suggests that red king crab may be able to maintain calcification rates, but at a high energetic cost. The decrease in survival and growth of each species is likely to have a serious negative effect on their populations in the absence of evolutionary adaptation or acclimatization over the coming decades."
SOURCE
The second study by San Francisco State University indicates that Ocean Acidification may be harmful to porcelain crabs. Read MORE HERE

Photo: Porcelain Crab
Finally, the third one is about research published back in 2009 in the journal Geology by Justin Baker Ries (marine geologist at the University of North Carolina's Aquarium Research Center) and coauthored with Anne Cohen and Daniel McCorkle indicates that "higher levels of carbon in the ocean are causing oysters to grow slower, and their predators -such as blue crabs- to grow faster". The article points out that "Over the next 75 to 100 years, ocean acidification could supersize blue crabs, which may then eat more oysters and other organisms and possibly throw the food chain of the nation’s largest estuary [Chesapeake Bay] out of whack." Read MORE HERE.

*Sex: 1.600.000.000, Corruption: 105.000.000, War: 1.330.000.000, People: 5.370.000.000, God: 884.000.000, Facebook: 10.600.000.000 (!)
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100 Screenings in Chile

Thursday, April 11, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

About a year ago I traveled with our documentary to Chile for a series of screenings in Santiago, Valparaiso and Puerto Montt. While in Valparaiso I had the chance to meet with some of the local Natural History Museum staff, under renovation at the time. They liked the film for its environmental, didactic and human values and proposed to have it on daily rotation at their screening area when they reopened in December. It all went according to plan and that led me to thinking that by now A Sea Change might have screened over a hundred times in that decadently charming World Heritage town facing the Pacific Coast. It brings special joy to think that such crucial audiences as you see below have caught a glimpse, a few minutes or maybe watched our whole subtitled film, learning something about that ocean across the street, about the sword of Damocles of Ocean Acidification or about Norwegian-American grandparents and grandsons. If you know of a school, center or institution interested in doing something similar, please write to us at aseachangedocumentary@gmail.com to discuss it further.

Valparaiso from Pablo Neruda's eyes:
AMO, Valparaíso, cuanto encierras,
y cuanto irradias, novia del océano,
hasta más lejos de tu nimbo sordo.
Amo la luz violeta con que acudes
al marinero en la noche del mar,
y entonces eres -rosa de azahares-
luminosa y desnuda, fuego y niebla.
Que nadie venga con un martillo turbio
a golpear lo que amo, a defenderte:
nadie sino mi ser por tus secretos:
nadie sino mi voz por tus abiertas
hileras de rocío, por tus escalones
en donde la maternidad salobre
del mar te besa, nadie sino mis labios
en tu corona fría de sirena,
elevada en el aire de la altura,
oceánico amor, Valparaíso,
reina de todas las costas del mundo,
verdadera central de olas y barcos,
eres en mí como la luna o como
la dirección del aire en la arboleda.
Amo tus criminales callejones,
tu luna de puñal sobre los cerros,
y entre tus plazas la marinería
revistiendo de azul la primavera.
Que se entienda, te pido, puerto mío,
que yo tengo derecho
a escribirte lo bueno y lo malvado
y soy como las lámparas amargas
cuando iluminan las botellas rotas.

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Soon shall the winter's foil be here

Monday, March 18, 2013

By Walt Whitman

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Marching Through March

Friday, March 08, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

March 2013 is furiously peeling off days from the calendar, desperate to pass the torch on to other months, other seasons. Time these days feels radically non-linear, we better post some news about the oceans and acidification this very day:

•According to a new paper published in Nature Geoscience predators could play a role in CO2 emissions on freshwater ecosystems:
"Predators can influence the exchange of carbon dioxide between ecosystems and the atmosphere by altering ecosystem processes such as decomposition and primary production, according to food web theory. […] Here, we report experiments in three-tier food chains in experimental ponds, streams and bromeliads in Canada and Costa Rica in the presence or absence of fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and

invertebrate (Hesperoperla pacifica and Mecistogaster modesta) predators. We monitored carbon dioxide fluxes along with prey and primary producer biomass. We found substantially reduced carbon dioxide emissions in the presence of predators in all systems, despite differences in predator type, hydrology, climatic region, ecological zone and level of in situ primary production. We also observed lower amounts of prey biomass and higher amounts of algal and detrital biomass in the presence of predators. We conclude that predators have the potential to markedly influence carbon dioxide dynamics in freshwater systems."
SOURCE

•Ocean wave made of glass by Italian artist Mario Cerolli

•How US East Coast regions react to Ocean Acidification: A new large study conducted by scientists from 11 US institutions around the Eastern US and the Gulf of Mexico will help researchers understand how different bodies of water will be affected by changes in acidity.
"Before now, we haven't had a very clear picture of acidification status on the east coast of the U.S.," says Zhaohui 'Aleck' Wang, the study's lead author and a chemical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). "It's important that we start to understand it, because increase in ocean acidity could deeply affect marine life along the coast and has important implications for people who rely on aquaculture and fisheries both commercially and recreationally."
According to the survey different regions of coastal ocean will respond to an influx of CO2 in different ways. "If you put the same amount of CO2 into both the Gulf of Maine and the Gulf of Mexico right now, the ecosystem in the Gulf of Maine would probably feel the effects more dramatically," says Wang. "Acidity is already relatively high in that region, and the saturation of calcium carbonate—the mineral that many organisms need to make shells—is particularly low. It's not a great situation."
Wang goes on to explain that excess CO2 can enter coastal waters from a variety of different sources. One large source is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Another potential culprit is nutrient-rich runoff from land. Rainfall and other surface flows can wash fertilizers and other byproducts of human activities into river systems and ground water, and ultimately, into the coastal ocean, delivering an excess of nutrients and often an explosion of biological activity that can lead to decreased oxygen and increased CO2 and acidity. As he points out, 'this happens regularly in the Gulf of Mexico," says Wang. "The Mississippi River dumps enormous amounts of nitrogen and other nutrients into the Gulf, which spawns large algal blooms that lead to production of large amount of organic matter. In the process of decomposing the organic matter, the microbes consume oxygen in the water and leave carbon dioxide behind, making the water more acidic. If this process happens in the Gulf of Maine, the ecosystem there may be even more vulnerable since the Gulf of Maine is a semi-enclosed system and it may take longer time for low pH, low oxygen water to disperse."

After analyzing their data, Wang and colleagues found that, despite a "dead zone" of low oxygen and high acidity outside the mouth of the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico on the whole showed a high ratio of alkalinity to DIC, meaning it would be more resistant to acidification. As the team travelled farther north, however, they saw the ratio steadily decreases north of Georgia.
In the study the waters in the Gulf of Maine on average had the lowest alkalinity to DIC ratio of any region along the eastern seaboard, meaning that it would be especially vulnerable to acidification. While it's unclear exactly why the ratio of alkalinity to DIC is low in those northern waters, Wang believes part of the issue may be linked to alkalinity sources to the region. For example, the Labrador Coastal Current brings relatively fresh, low alkalinity water down from the Labrador Sea to the Gulf of Maine and Middle Atlantic Bight. If this current is the major source of alkalinity to the region it may mean that the Gulf of Maine's fate could be linked to changes in global climate that, through melting sea ice and glaciers, increase the flow of fresh water to the Gulf of Maine. However, whether this freshening is accompanied by a decrease in seawater alkalinity and "buffer" capacity remains unknown.
Since the waters of the northeast U.S. are already susceptible to rising acidity in Wang's opinion this raises big questions about how species of marine life will fare in the future. "For example, how are oysters going to do? What about other shellfish? If the food chain changes, how are fish going to be impacted? There's a whole range of ecological and sociological questions." There is a great need for need for more robust coastal ocean chemistry monitoring and coastal ocean acidification studies, he adds. A better understanding of the changing chemistry will help fisheries regulators to better manage the stocks.
SOURCE 1
SOURCE 2

•Get more than a penny for your thoughts: "The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, as part of a larger ocean health initiative, and in collaboration with The Oceanography Society, is offering a $10,000 prize for the most promising new science-based concept for mitigating environmental and/or societal impacts of ocean acidification.
In addition to the prize, the authors of highly ranked concepts will receive invitations to submit full proposals to the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation for funding consideration."
"The Foundation seeks concepts that would provide a better understanding of the impact of ocean acidification on different parts of the marine ecosystem and mitigation strategies that might reduce the environmental or societal impacts of ocean acidification. Concepts may focus on natural processes and/or human activities that benefit society. They can be global, regional, or local in scope, and may address a single species/activity or whole ecosystems/industries. While submissions must be firmly rooted in science and should include elements of new basic research, concepts must show a high probability of leading to future demonstrations of a new capability. Preference will be given to interdisciplinary efforts that seek to apply concepts across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Submissions may come from anyone, regardless of nationality or institutional affiliation, and may represent individuals or teams."
Download the Ocean Challenge Overview PDF HERE
Or read the details HERE

•Free seminar on Ocean Acidification on Wednesday, March 13, in Anacortes, WA. Taking place at the Seafarers' Memorial Park Building between 6 and 8 PM, members of the Puget Sound Partnership Ecosystem Coordination Board, Shannon Point Marine Center, Tailor Shellfish Farms and the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership will explain the problem of Ocean Acidification, talk about how shellfish are coping with it and offer recommendations, partnerships and actions.

More info HERE

•The California Academy of Sciences has put up a new Youtube video on Ocean Acidification:

•The Coastal America Partnership will be hosting its 4th Student Summit on the Oceans and Coasts from March 9-11 in Washington DC, bringing "students from around the US, Canada and Mexico to Washington, DC, to raise awareness of coastal issues and to promote stewardship of our ocean."
"The March 11th Student Presentation Day at the Smithsonian Institution’s National
Museum of Natural History’s (NMNH) Baird Auditorium is open to the public. To
amplify the learning opportunity, this event will also be made
public through a live webcast over the Smithsonian’s Institution’s
Ocean Portal at www.ocean.si.edu/CoastalAmericaStudentSummit" from 9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. EST. The webcast presents a unique
opportunity for students, educators and the public to watch from
locations throughout the world as these young students make
their voices heard in our nation’s capital."

SOURCE

•"The second U.S. Ocean Acidification Principal Investigators' Meeting will be held in Washington, DC at Gallaudet University's Kellogg Conference Center on September 18-20 2013. This three-day meeting will bring together the U.S. OA research community to assess the state of OA science nationally and to identify knowledge gaps and opportunities for collaborations that will accelerate OA research in the future.
This meeting offers an opportunity for the scientific community to help shape U.S. national OA research efforts as they develop. In addition to poster sessions to showcase scientific results, meeting activities include numerous panel, plenary, and breakout discussions designed to explore how current U.S. OA research and organizational support fit together, and to identify where greater synergies can be encouraged."
SOURCE and MORE INFO

•At least we have laughter to save us from despair when not insanity: "the Tea Party Manatee-Riding Patriots":

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

SOURCE
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Late February, Late Winter News

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

We cannot let the month end and watch the season slowly fade out without a postful of links, videos, news and photos on Ocean Acidification:

»The Oceanography Laboratory at Villefranche-sur-Mer (France) is deploying nine "mesocosms" (52 m3) over a 30 days period in order to cover the range of pCO2 anticipated for the end of the present century. These "mesocosms" are 15 meter deep plastic tubes closed at the bottom to collect organic matter and open at the top to remain in contact with the atmosphere. 25 researchers from six European countries are taking part in the tests, the second of their kind in the Mediterranean. While the first experiment, conducted in June/July 2012 in Corsica, was dedicated to the assessment of ocean acidification effects during the summer oligotrophic period, this second one will take place during the winter-spring phytoplanktonic bloom. Here is a "France 3" news piece on the story:

Une expérience de grande ampleur à Villefranche... por France3Nice
SOURCE

»"Taking Action against Ocean Acidification - A review of management and policy options". An interview with lecturer Ryan Kelly (Center for Ocean Solutions), Jean-Pierre Gattuso (Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche) and Raphaël Billé (IDDRI) in the monthly seminar "Séminaire du développement durable et économie de l'environnement" organized jointly by IDDRI, the Sustainable Development Center EDF at the Ecole Polytechnique, and the Columbia Global Centers Europe at Reid Hall. Held in Paris in December 2012.

»Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK) will host the 3rd Annual Sea Surface Ocean Acidification Meeting on April 11th, 2013.
MORE INFO

»Dr. Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology speaking at Stanford University. He discusses long-term perspectives and near-term actions relating to ocean acidification.

»Ocean Acidification may affect the Great Lakes in the same was it is altering the oceans, according to modeling the study of carbon cycles by Galen McKinley, Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin. It is clear this is a more complex environment, already severely affected by runoff from cities and agriculture and infested with invasive zebra and quagga mussels that absorb large amounts of calcium carbonate to build their shells.
“One potential area where we might get helped out with is impacts to quagga and zebra mussels,” says McKinley. “Evidence shows they do not like the lower pH.”
But nobody can guess the outcome of this mix of pollution, Acidification and invasive species until some research is done. “Right now we don’t have enough consistent and detailed measurements to accurately capture what the pH level even is and if it is permanently changing,” says McKinley.
NOAA has proposed to implement the network of preexisting mooring stations in the open waters of each Great Lake with carbon sensors and to study how local organisms respond to greater acidity to be able to model potential impacts to the food web.

Photo: NOAA
SOURCE

»"The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) announced last November that it would start releasing periodical monitoring information on ocean acidification, the first of its kind in Japan, along with global warming information using the long-term observational data gathered by its research vessels. The monitoring information will be available in a column of the "Oceanic Carbon Cycle" on JMA's website."

Photo: Japan Meteorological Agency
SOURCE

»On THIS link you will find a presentation on "Ocean Acidification / N2O" by Mr. Sakae Toyoda, from Tokyo Institute of Technology at Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium series of the National Academy of Sciences.

»"Ocean acidification and nitrous oxide"
By Michael Beman, University of California, Merced
"Human activities have fundamentally altered the chemistry of the atmosphere and ocean, ultimately pushing our planet into a new geological period known as the ‘Anthropocene.’ While human-driven increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations—and their strong connection with climate change—are well-known, atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O) concentrations have increased in parallel with CO2. N2O is both a strong greenhouse gas and the dominant destroyer of stratospheric ozone; the steady increase in N2O concentrations is driven primarily by agricultural fertilization, yet N2O is produced by multiple microbial groups that interact in complicated ways, and that may respond to other forms of environmental change. At the same time, climate change is not the only effect of elevated CO2: 25-33% of human-generated CO2 dissolves in the ocean, where it forms a weak acid and reduces ocean pH—a process known as ‘ocean acidification.’ pH is fundamental for ocean chemistry and ocean organisms, and changes in dissolved nutrients, metals, and forms of inorganic carbon are an expected consequence of future ocean acidification. Ocean pH is projected to decline by 0.3-0.4 units by the end of the century, producing wide-ranging effects that include reduced calcification in corals, shellfish, and phytoplankton; altered physiology in fish and other animals; and changes in ocean biogeochemical cycles. In this overview talk, I will present the drivers behind ocean acidification and increased N2O, the underlying dynamics of these changes, their projected effects, and their ultimate interactions."

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All Seas: INDIAN OCEAN

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

Simon Reeve's six-episode series titled Indian Ocean delivers a kaleidoscopic view of the world's third largest body of water, the one least studied by scientists. Starting in South Africa and ending in Australia, passing through rocky cliffs in Oman and the endless beaches of Orissa, each episode hides, disguised in the form of a travelogue, a study in the complexity and depth of our impact on the planet. The documentaries are recurrently environmental, but more by force than by choice. As Mr. Reeve describes the arch taking him East we are witnesses to our dependance on the seas for food, transportation, industry or leisure and we listen to local fishermen and concerned activists repeating a sad litany about the dwindling fisheries and devastating pollution. But none of the hour long episodes is intended to be a bummer nor does it try to sound preaching or condescending. Each one depicts the fantastic ethnic and social diversity of the region while the viewer constantly marvels and finds dream material with the numerous gorgeous postcards from tropical paradise and examples of the exhilarating vibrancy of nature.

Simon Reeve

Mr. Reeve walks like a real traveler, a man in the quest for beauty, but one that understands that discovery and knowledge, even when ugly and sad, are at the epicenter of any journey. Under those premises it does not feel strained to enjoy the luxurious atmosphere of an exclusive resort or a meal in a sub-aquatic restaurant in the Maldives to be taken in the following sequence through the burning, toxic dumpsters behind the curtain of the resorts that makes such a five star fantasy of Shangri-La possible. We get to see the baobab trees and the hopping lemurs of Madagascar, but the fake veil of film-making is for once dropped and one worriedly learns these are the exact same charming specimens that appear in every single nature documentary now that 90% of the island has been deforested. We are taught about the future of seaweed farming and sustainable fishing, see both the last pristine coral reefs and the prevailing coral cemeteries, hear about the deadly Somali pirates and later visit two of them in a small prison to realize their faces are thin and sad; reality is much more complex and ambiguous than we would all want.
Population growth and sustainability, the unquestionable power of progress, Chinese and Indian dominance in the region, the hidden price to our love for shrimp, global desire for luxury and dependance on world trade, the dirty fingers of the mining industry (hated but indispensable to modern life), the soup that will kill all sharks, the savage beauty of the Australian Kimberley region, a beach cemetery in Bangladesh where the mighty cargo boats of the world go to die, the hardship of fishing in an empty sea or colorful Indian celebrations in the rain, all of this makes Indian Ocean. That is why I think you should watch it, because it is beautiful, haunting and kaleidoscopic. HERE you will find how to do that.
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Eye Candy as Brain Food

Friday, February 01, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

Images of blue along each one of these videos and links:
≈≈≈A feel-good story on video: divers off the shore of Socorro Island in Mexico free a majestic whale shark from the thick anchor rope strangling its body.

≈≈≈Chances are you have seen one of Mark Tipple's iconic photographs of divers and swimmers ducking under white rolling waves along the pages of famous magazines or on the internet.
I took the liberty to make a small screenshot of the new Mare Vida project shots:

Aside from their breathtaking beauty, the images evoke and resonate with the thunderous, relentless power of the oceans, an element both foreign and familiar to us, deserving to be respected, but also ecstatically enjoyed. To the point our breaths allow we can be seals, and play. Here is a Vimeo video of the young artist talking about his better and also his lesser known work.

≈≈≈Read this detailed and technical article from Scientific Reports on "the natural ocean acidification and fertilization event caused by the submarine eruption of El Hierro"

"The shallow submarine eruption which took place in October 10th 2011, 1.8 km south of the island of El Hierro (Canary Islands) allowed the study of the abrupt changes in the physical-chemical properties of seawater caused by volcanic discharges. In order to monitor the evolution of these changes, seven oceanographic surveys were carried out over six months (November 2011-April 2012) from the beginning of the eruptive stage to the post-eruptive phase. Here, we present dramatic changes in the water column chemistry including large decreases in pH, striking effects on the carbonate system, decreases in the oxygen concentrations and enrichment of Fe(II) and nutrients. Our findings highlight that the same volcano which was responsible for the creation of a highly corrosive environment, affecting marine biota, has also provided the nutrients required for the rapid recuperation of the marine ecosystem."
HERE

≈≈≈BIOS, the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, does some fantastic work. One of their projects is the Explored Program, "designed to provide teachers and students with hands-on experience in marine science. Each year a new theme is chosen to highlight a current topic, and field trips, lesson plans and activites are produced."
BIOS Explorer 2013: Ocean Acidification

≈≈≈NPR audio piece on All Things Considered about plankton and its importance to the health of the planet:
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/30/162008302/a-tiny-ocean-world-with-a-mighty-important-future

≈≈≈New BBC documentary with the title Oceans: Blue Heart of the Planet. "Almost three quarters of the earth’s surface is covered in water and around 90% of all the living space on Earth is contained in the oceans.
These vast reserves cradled early life and continue to be home to a wealth of extraordinary creatures. At least 230,000 unique species have been documented, although as humans have only explored a small fraction of the depths, there may be as many as two million.
As well as being home to everything from whelks to whale sharks, the oceans offer a range of critical services, including acting as a source of food and regulating the atmosphere.
In particular, the oceans are also vital as sponges for green house gases, taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through two processes - dissolving straight into the water column and also through photosynthesis by phytoplankton.
Today, the oceans soak up around one third of all of human carbon emissions
But this comes at a terrible cost. The composition of the oceans is changing to become more acidic, threatening the tremendous diversity of creatures that call them home."

Watch the trailer HERE

≈≈≈EDF, the Environmental Defense Action Fund has launched a campaign to "thank Administrator Lubchenco for being an oceans advocate."
"During her time as NOAA Administrator, Jane Lubchenco took historic strides towards protecting our fisheries and ensuring ocean sustainability.
As her time at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association draws to a close, we'd like to show her our great appreciation for all she's done. Will you join us?"
You can do so by signing HERE

≈≈≈Thanks to a $2.7 million grant from the state Alaska will soon have a buoy network capable of feeding real time ocean acidity, temperature, conductivity and dissolved oxygen data into the Alaska Ocean Observing System.
The information will be available to both scientists and the general public.
SOURCE

≈≈≈"If you are interested in the Arctic Ocean and how science and policy work together, then Arctic Ocean Acidification conference organized by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) is a perfect venue to learn more this. The conference will take place in Bergen, Norway, 6-8 May 2013."
"The main topics to be covered are:
- results from observational, experimental and modelling studies of past, present and future ocean acidification,
- responses of marine organisms and ecosystem structure, functioning and biodiversity
- perturbations to biogeochemical cycling and feedbacks to the climate system, and
- the economic, social and policy challenges of ocean acidification."
Detailed information HERE

≈≈≈By clicking on THIS link you can download a complete e-lecture by Richard Feely and Scott Doney titled "Ocean Acidification:The Other CO2 problem".
"Lecture Summary:
The overall goal of this lecture is to provide an overview of the process and progress of ocean acidification in the global oceans and its impacts on marine organisms over time scales of days to centuries. Examples of acidification impacts on corals, shellfish, and zooplankton are given to show how acidification can affect different kinds of life processes. This lecture describes what we know and what we don't know about ecosystem responses to acidification and the socio-economic implications for our society. Finally, we discuss the future implications of increased CO2 levels on the health of our ocean ecosystems and related ocean-based economies."

≈≈≈3 year Postdoctoral position at HKU (University of Hong Kong) to study marine invertebrate response to climate change at proteomics or biomineralization or physiology levels.
More details about this work opportunity HERE

≈≈≈PhD position at the University of Bristol to study "the future of shelf ecosystems". More information at the University of Bristol website.
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January 2013

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

By Daniel de la Calle

Gone is 2012, the hottest or coldest year in recent history depending on where you live, gone too are the days of Ocean Acidification information famine. You can now watch videos deciphering the oceans, listen to songs about acidity, follow via tweets a research expedition to Antarctica, attend a seminar near you or listen to senatorial speeches on the threat poised by CO2 on life in this planet to name but a few. Enjoy… hmm, you know what we mean:

≈≈≈≈"Ocean Acidification: See Through My Eyes", by the Ocean Ark Alliance.

≈≈≈≈"Acidifying Waters Corrode Northwest Shellfish", a PBS News Hour piece published last December.

≈≈≈≈"Ocean Acidfication", by the RU Center for Digital Filmmaking.

≈≈≈≈"Ocean Acidification: Can Corals Cope?", a video from UCSD-TV from the Perspectives on Ocean Science series (check out the list with over 50 videos), to "hear Scripps marine biologist Martin Tresguerres describe research into the potential impact of ocean acidification on corals, and the mechanisms these amazing marine animals use to try to cope with the problem."
SOURCE

≈≈≈≈"Ocean Acidification", a song.

≈≈≈≈"An expedition to the icy waters of Antarctica has begun aboard the RRS James Clark Ross. The five-week mission will study the effect of ocean acidification in the Southern Ocean. The scientists will be contributing to a blog www.antarcticoacruise.org.uk
During the expedition, scientists will study the impact of the changing chemistry on marine organisms and ecosystems, on the cycling of carbon and nutrients in the sea and on how the sea interacts with the atmosphere to influence climate. This study is part of the UK Ocean Acidification research program UKOA. www.oceanacidification.org.uk/
Dr Geraint Tarling, from the British Antarctic Survey is leading the team of thirty scientists. He said: “This is the most comprehensive investigation into the response of the Southern Ocean ecosystem to ocean acidification yet mounted. The team will not only look at how different parts of the ecosystem respond in isolation but also see how effects interact to produce an ecosystem-level response.”"
SOURCE
MORE INFO

≈≈≈≈An interesting article on Scientific American (originally published at The Daily Climate titled "US Effort on Ocean Acidification Needs Focus on Human Impacts".
"A federal plan to tackle ocean acidification must focus more on how the changes will affect people and the economy, according to a review of the effort by a panel of the National Research Council.
"Social issues clearly can't drive everything but when it's possible they should," said George Somero, chair of the committee that wrote the report and associate director at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. "If you're setting up a monitoring station, it should be where there's a shellfish industry, for example.""
SOURCE

≈≈≈≈The 2013 Alaska Marine Science Symposium is taking place on January 21-24 in Anchorage. Federal fisheries scientists speaking out on king salmon and Ocean Acidification issues will be among the keynote speakers. The event is free and you can register HERE
MORE INFO

≈≈≈≈For those living in Washington State on January 24th (6-8PM) there will also be a free seminar at the Everett Station on Ocean Acidification. The event is hosted by the Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee.
"Terrie Klinger, University of Washington School of Marine & Environmental Affairs ecologist will present "What is Ocean Acidification?" Shallin Busch, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ecologist, will present "Food Web Implications of Ocean Acidification." Brad Warren, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership and National Fisheries Conservation Center Director of Global Ocean Health, will present "Recommendations, Partnerships and Actions.""
SOURCE

≈≈≈≈A couple work and study opportunities:
1 Post-doctoral fellowship in modelling the carbonate chemistry of the PETM ocean at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
2 Ocean Acidification Spring Research Apprenticeship at UW’s Friday Harbor Labs.

≈≈≈≈"Climate Change and Ocean Acidification", as delivered on the Senate floor by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:
"Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, there are many signs of the fundamental, measurable changes we are causing in the Earth's climate, mainly through our large-scale emission of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. These are irreversible changes, at least in the short run, so we should take them very seriously.
Over the last 250 years, the global annual average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 280 parts per million to 390 parts per million. That is a 30-percent increase. We have recent direct measurements that the carbon dioxide concentration increased by 15 percent since 1980 when it was 339. In 1980 it was 339 and now it is 390. That is just a dozen years in which the concentration of CO
2 in our atmosphere has increased by more than 50 parts per million. Fifty parts per million is a big shift if one is not aware of the scales we are talking about here. For 8,000 centuries--800,000 years--longer than homo sapiens have existed on the face of the Earth, we can measure that the carbon concentration in the atmosphere has fluctuated between 170 and 300 parts per million. A total range of 130 parts per million has been the total range for 8,000 centuries. We are now outside of that range up to 390, and we have moved 50 points since 1980, in a number of decades. So the consequences are going to be profound, and perhaps no consequence of that carbon pollution will be as profound as the increasing acidification of the world's oceans.
Science, of course, has known since the Civil War era, and most of us understand, that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates a warmer atmosphere known as the greenhouse effect. There is nothing new about that. But not all of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity--by our use of fossil fuels--stays in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is soluble in water and the oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth. Where the atmosphere is in contact with the oceans, a portion of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves into the oceans, reacts with the sea water to form carbonic acid and increases the overall acidity of the oceans.
There is sometimes quarrel and debate about complex modeling of climate and atmospheric projections, but evidence of ocean acidification is simple to measure and understand. Indeed, even the small noisy chorus of climate change deniers and corporate polluters is noticeably quiet on the issue of ocean acidification because they simply cannot explain away the facts.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists gauge that over the past 200 years, hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide have been absorbed into the oceans. NASA, which is able to put, for instance, a man on the Moon and a Rover on Mars and has reasonably good scientists working there who can accomplish those achievements, reports that:
“The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year.”
NOAA scientists say the oceans are taking up about 1 million tons of carbon dioxide per hour. So in more or less the time my remarks are concluded, the equivalent of more than the weight of the Washington Monument of carbon will have been dumped into our oceans. All of the extra carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the oceans has caused the global pH of the upper ocean water to change--a nearly 30-percent increase in the acidity of the oceans.
As my colleagues can see, the curve is not only moving upward but is steepening. Where is it headed? By the end of this century, it is projected we will have a 160-percent rise in ocean acidity. As we can see, not only are the oceans becoming more acidic, but they are becoming more acidic at a very rapid pace. The rate of change in ocean acidity is already thought to be faster than at any time in the past 50 million years.
I talk, when I give this weekly speech from time to time, about the 800,000 years our planet has had a carbon dioxide concentration between 170 and 300 parts per million and how long a time period that is compared to say humankind having the mastery of fire, humankind having engaged in agriculture, humankind even existing as homo sapiens. It is longer than all of those things. But that is just measuring in the hundreds of thousands of years. We are talking about a rate of increased carbon concentration and ocean acidity climbing faster than at any time in the past 50 million years.
What does that mean? Well, a paper published in the journal Science, which is a mainstream, non-crank publication, earlier this year concluded that the current rate of carbon dioxide emission could drive chemical changes in our oceans that are unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years. We are back into geologic time now since we saw that kind of an effect. The authors warn that we may be “entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.” Well, when our range of review is in the hundreds of millions of years and the authors are talking about entering unknown territory, that is really saying something.
Here is what Dr. Peter Brewer, the senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, has to say. Let me quote him:
“The outcome is very clear that we are in uncharted territory in the entire span of Earth history. The primary cause of this is simply the rate of CO2 change; we are changing Earth far, far faster than any recorded geologic shift ever.”
Repeat: “We are changing Earth far, far faster than any recorded geologic shift ever.”
What does this mean for marine life? Well, as the pH of sea water drops, so does the saturation of calcium carbonate, which is the compound found in the sea water that aquatic animals use for the construction of their shells and of their skeletons. Some sea creatures absorb calcium carbonate directly from the water; others ingest it as food and then through their bodies it works out to build their shells. At lower saturations of calcium carbonate, calcium carbonate is not as available to these species, and it becomes more difficult for them to make their shells; species such as oysters, crabs, lobsters, corals, and the plankton that comprises the very base of the oceanic food web. We have seen this happen in real life already with the disaster that befell the Pacific Northwest oyster hatcheries when acidic water came in and killed off all the juveniles that were being grown.
Over 1 billion people on this planet rely on marine protein as their primary source of protein, and then, of course, there are the countless jobs that depend on fisheries, on tourism, on restaurants, boat building, maintenance, shipping, and the list goes on. The Presiding Officer is from Maryland, which is another ocean State. He is clearly aware of the importance of that ocean economy.
As things get harder for the species to survive and thrive, sooner or later it will get harder for the economies they support. Let me give my colleagues a specific example: the tiny pteropod, a type of snail, which is about the size of a very small pea. It is also known as the sea butterfly because its foot has adapted into two butterfly-like wings which allows it to propel itself around in the ocean. These images show what can happen to the pteropod's shell when the creature's underwater environment is lacking in those compounds and becomes more acidic. That is not good for the pteropods.
Another study compared pteropods incubated in sea water with today's pH to pteropods incubated in water with the acidity and chemical conditions projected for the year 2100. The study found a 28-percent decrease in shell growth. Maintaining their shells against that acidity requires energy--energy that would otherwise go into other biologic processes such as growth or reproduction. So increasing ocean acidity is an external stress that makes it harder for species such as the pteropod to survive.
Who cares about the lowly pteropod? Well, salmon do. Forty-seven percent of the diet of some salmon species in the Pacific is pteropods. The salmon fisheries that support coastal jobs and economies also care about the salmon. Ocean fishing in the United States overall is a multibillion-dollar industry connected to hundreds of thousands of livelihoods, and we should care about our fisheries industry, even if one doesn't care about the salmon or the lowly pteropod.
These unprecedented changes in ocean acidity are not happening alone, unfortunately.
These changes come along with dramatically changing ocean temperature, which is also driven by the same carbon pollution. Just recently, NOAA proposed listing 66 species of coral as endangered or threatened, citing climate change as the driver of those species' three key threats: disease, warmer seas, and greater ocean acidification. When you add to those three conditions the preexisting stressors, such as nutrient pollution and destructive fishing practices, well, 35 percent of the world's reefs are classified as in a critical or threatened stage.
Scientific projections indicate that coral reef ecosystems could be eliminated in 30 to 50 years. The young pages who are on the floor of the Senate listening to this speech may very well live into a time when coral reefs and the ecosystems surrounding them are extinct. The death and decline of coral reefs, which are the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, in turn wounds hundreds of other species that call the reefs home. When a reef ecosystem collapses and does not recover, it quickly becomes dominated by algae, and the rich mix of species developed over hundreds of millions of years that was once present there then disappears.
Scientists think the coral reefs off the coast of Papua, New Guinea offer a window into future effects of ocean acidification because there are natural emissions of carbon dioxide which bubble up from the sea floor through the ocean and raise the concentration making the sea water more acidic. Researchers have found that many species, especially the more complex framework-building corals, which provide shelter to other organisms, do not thrive where the pH is lower.
These are two photographs taken in the same reef. We see how rich and vibrant this reef looks away from the carbon dioxide. Here, near the carbon, where the acidification is higher, it is a shadow of the healthy reef. The human-driven acidification of the ocean is capable of causing--indeed is destined to cause if we do nothing--a serious imbalance in the ocean's complex ecology. The external stress of carbon pollution will result in a new equilibrium in ocean ecosystems.
When we consider what this portends for our food security, for our planet's biodiversity and economically for ocean-based industries, we cannot afford to ignore these changes that are happening, that are measurable in our oceans.
Unfortunately, ignoring it is exactly what we are doing by failing to curb carbon pollution. There are high stakes involved. Our oceans cover 70 percent of the planet. We cannot change their chemistry without expecting profound consequences. It is time we realize we are, in fact, part of the very food chain being disrupted by the mounting acidification of the ocean.
The disruption of international fishing due to climate change and acidification threatens to destabilize local and global economies and compromise a major basic food source. How much? How much are we willing to sacrifice for the luxury of letting corporate polluters foul our planet with unchecked CO2 emissions? Carbon pollution from fossil fuels is depleting the health of the oceans as well as affecting the atmosphere. Unless we take serious action to reverse course, the consequences may be dire. We are sleepwalking through history. I implore my colleagues to heed the clear and persistent warnings that nature is giving us: to acknowledge the responsibility presented to us in this moment and to respond appropriately before it is too late.
I yield the floor."
SOURCE
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