Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Lake Michigan is changing faster than researchers are able study it.
Scuba diving researchers are finding what sounds like scenes right out of Jurassic Park. Strange new primitive plant life. Carpets of mussels starving out native species in the lake.
Scientists are saying the ecology of the lakes are being upended.
Fishermen are hauling up stinky E. coli bacteria and botulism spored mats of algae. Algae that stretches from Chicago to the Straits of Mackinac. The expanse can be seen from boat decks and hilltops.
Scientists are afraid this “lake moss”, coined by fishermen, is also contributing to the deaths of migratory birds, which are wide spread.
Thousands of migratory birds have died from Type E Botulism poisoning from Lake Michigan, but they didn’t get it from eating canned goods.
Scientists are blaming invasive populations of zebra mussels and round gobies.
Zebra mussels are also plaguing Lake Erie. The invasive attack of aquatic mollusks has tripled in the last 3 years and the mussels are adapting to colder and deeper waters.
The great lakes aren’t the only place these devils are being found. In the warmer waters of California reservoirs the same zebra mussels are multiplying like rabbits.
The California Fish and game department doesn’t know if they came from Lake Erie or some other affected waterway, but their problems are the same as those in the great lakes as a result of this invasive species.
$1.5 billion in damages have occurred across 23 states. Adding insult to injury these creatures also spew phosphorous which contributes to yet more dead zones and toxic algae.
The population of Quagga mussels, larger than the Zebra mussels are contributing to the crashing populations of small fish like smelt. They are snatching the food right out of their diets. No smelt means no Salmon. The salmon feed on the smaller fish.
The quagga has spread through the Colorado River Aqueduct to several Southern California reservoirs. The measles are known to clog pipes and California can ill afford to have one drop of water cut off worsening its already ‘crisis’ water situation.
California of course has an education campaign; “don’t move a mussel” reminiscent of the 90’s j-walking campaign “don’t get caught red handed” that was popular in the streets of San Francisco.
The adaptability of these invasive creatures to thrive in deep cold waters as well as warm waters is really disturbing. I keep asking myself what kinds of problems these upstarts have caused in the areas in which they are native.
Cameron Davis, president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes says, “The ecological balance of the Great Lakes is at a tipping point.”
The Quaggas colonize the sandy bottoms and deeper portions of the Lakes while the well known Zebra mussels like to attach themselves to smoother objects like rocks and man-made structures like water pipes.
These species suck water in and press it out taking nourishment from the tiny little creatures in the water. This constant, ceaseless filtration of the water is making the water so crystal clear that sunlight can penetrate far deeper than ever before. This sunny situation allows a certain type of algae (cladophora) to run rampant. Now it grows in waters twice the depth as it once did just a decade ago.
These species are starving out the bigger fish by eating the plankton and iporeia which are at the bottom of the lakes food chain.
Henry Vanderploeg from NOAA says …”The mussels are really messing up the food chain.” Shakespeare couldn’t have said it better himself.
Photo thanks: Ron Dermott, Zebra mussels
Botulism dead bird Michigan DNR
Labels: Dead zones, Great Lakes, NOAA, Zebra Mussels, migratory birds
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Lake Michigan goes Jurassic.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Huge patches of algae are cropping up throughout the Chesapeake Bay.
Oceans aren’t the only bodies of water feeling the affects of bad runoff.
Mike Naylor from the state Department of Natural Resources told the Baltimore Sun, “We have a lot of people in these watersheds and very little forest cover left.” “So our waters have more nutrients than they should, and they’re warmer than they should be, so these things combine to allow algae to thrive.”
The Chesapeake Bay is known for it’s blue crabs. The crab population already in jeopardy has dropped below last years levels which were already alarmingly low.
Last years harvest of the crabs was the lowest recorded since 1945. NOAA fisheries biologists believe the population cannot be sustained at the past rates of exploitation. Maryland announced it would end the season for catching female crabs about 2 months early.
One local man said the only other time he can remember conditions being this bad were when there was a fertilizer seep from a nearby farm into the cove in which he crabs. The crabs have been dying in the water, suffocated from a lack of oxygen.
Watermen are disputing the NOAA report. They say they are finding more blue crabs this year than in the past 15 years. The watermen say they couldn’t be overfishing the crab stocks because more fishermen leave the water every year. They are disputing that the NOAA survey is accurate.
NOAA’s surveys are said to be highly accurate in predicting the population of the blue crabs.
Scientists and fisherman are at odds.
NOAA says if strict regulations were not put into place that nearly 7 out of every 10adult crabs would be harvested. The population cannot withstand that kind of pressure. Now the algae blooms.
So which came first?
Are the harvests down because the population of the crabs is down, or are the harvests down because the population of the fishermen is down?
One thing is certain. If the algae blooms had been on the Eastern Shore of the bay instead of in the wealthy Baltimore County area there wouldn’t be so much public outcry. This area is littered with expensive homes along the water. When the algae gets thick enough to clogs the boat intakes the phone starts ringing off the hook.
One community resident says he can smell the mildew from the dying algae when he comes into the neighborhood at night.
Meanwhile…
Could runoff from well maintained and fertilized lawns, gardens, and car exhaust could be contributing to the problem?
People aren’t the only invasive species troubling the Chesapeake Bay either. Scientists say there are now more than 150 exotic species (not native) in the bay, many of which hitchhike in on ships from Asia and Europe.
Plans to test ultraviolet light, filters and some types of chemicals to see how effective they are at destroying exotic larvae and other creatures are already underway aboard a ship in Baltimore.
Four years ago, the Coast Guard began requiring large ships crossing the oceans to stop 200 miles off American shores and dump their ballast water and replace it with ocean water. The Salt water from the open ocean kills some kinds, but not all, of fresh water organisms that stow away in the ballast waters and travel from port to port.
Photo Thanks: Maryland Department of Natural Resources Aug.8 2008
Labels: Chesapeake Bay, Dead zones, NOAA
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Dead Zones in Chesapeake Bay.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
NOAA predicted the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will grow to be 8,800 square miles this summer. Forecasters think this summers dead zone will be the largest since 1985.
Nutrients from the fields of the Midwest flow into the Mississippi River which then flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The nutrients are what contribute to hypoxia which is low-oxygen content.
Dead zones are triggered by more than agricultural run-off. Sewage, combustion emissions as well as fertilizers contribute to feeding phyto plankton. River flooding is one natural way dead zones can also be produced.
This year the flooding fields along the Mississippi river are going to contribute to this summer’s anticipated increased dead zone in the Gulf. Sediment records match up with historic flooding.
Slapping myself in the forehead…
“Record corn harvests throughout the Midwest are clearly adding to the problem”, says Eugene Turner. Turner is a scientist with LSU. Turner says there’s “an awful lot of corn and soybeans,” being planted.
Corn and soybeans are both being used in the production of biofuels. Soybean biodiesel has been shown to produce 41% less greenhouse gases. Studies have sown that soybean biodiesel, while having less of an impact on the environment also nets a much higher energy benefit than corn grain ethanol. Soybean biodiesel returns 93% more energy than is used to produce it. Corn; not so much. Corn grain ethanol provides only 25% more energy than is used in its production.
So where does this leave the dead zones?
If farmers stopped planting corn and soybeans yesterday it would take years for to inure any benefits as it relates to the Gulf. Nitrogen leaches from the soil for many years.
soybeans require much less nitrogen fertilizer than does corn.
Meanwhile…
Global warming may increase the cases of Kidney Stones! Kidney stone formation increases in warm climates. Sweating removes fluid, which increases salt levels in the urine (which goes to the sewer which may flow into the ocean, adding to the problem of dead zones).
It’s almost like playing 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. Everything is related.
And, much to my surprise there is a “kidney stone Belt” in America. Roughly the same area is also the “stroke belt” of the United States. One more piece of, that renewable resource, irony these areas also mess into the “bible belt” America…
Yikes.
Holding what may be a world record for kidney stone production could be one man from Ontario, Canada. The kidney stones this organ passed ranged in size from a grain of sand to a dried pea! The kidney had to be removed but at its peak production it was producing 22 stones in 24 hours.
Photo thanks: KMOX St. Louis
Guinness Medical Record Breakers
Labels: Corn, Flood, Global Warming, Kidney Stones, Mid-west, NOAA, SoyBean, biofuels, fertilizer, ocean dead zone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Drought and flooding. Corn, kidney stones and 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Friday, June 27, 2008
The oceans are currently uptaking 22 million tons of CO 2 daily which is making a significant and exponential change in the ocean’s chemistry.
In 2004, it was projected that the pH balance of the oceans would be lower in the middle of this century than they had been for more than 20 MILLION years.
There was a spike in methane release last year from the thawing Arctic permafrost too. Scientists are concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm and the permafrost thaws a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise will add to the reverberating feedback cycle…In April Ed Dlugokencky from NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab said, “It’s too soon to tell whether last year’s spike in emissions includes the start of such a trend.”
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That was just 2 short months ago. Now the grim news is that for the first time in human history the ice at the North Pole will disappear entirely if it continues its current rate it will be gone by summer’s end. Science is placing the odds at 50:50. About 70% of the sea ice this spring was new ice formed over last winter. New ice melts faster than the old ice.
Inuit natives, near Baffin Bay, are reporting the sea ice is breaking up much earlier than normal this year. They have also seen wide cracks appearing where the ice normally remains stable.
The rate of Arctic land warming is 3.5 times greater than the average 21st century
warming rates predicted in climate models; more feedback cycles. So much so that
Science News is reporting over the past century the leading edges of conifer forests
have crawled from 20-60 meters of the mountains and have begun to overrun the tundra.
There are now conifers growing where no living tree has grown in the last 1,000 years. The greening of the Arctic is something we don’t want. The albedo, or the extent of which light from the sun can be reflected will be decreased more and more as the ‘green’ of the plant material continues to advance toward the Arctic.
The cycle continues to compound as the tundra thaws and releases methane. Scientists think between 1/3 and 1/2 the CO 2 that has been produced by humans since
the industrial revolution is now in the ocean. Water that is upwelling today is water that was exposed to 1958 CO 2 concentrations. 50 years from now the water being upwelled will be that exposed to the methane and carbon dioxide levels of today…
So, the last thing the Bush Administration wants getting out is a 250 page report by the EPA giving detailed alternative approaches of how to regulate greenhouse gases!
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Did you ever hit that nasty ’send’ button on an email, and wish you could bring it back?
You aren’t alone. It generally happens to me after I’ve had a little too much wine. I’m not suggesting that’s the problem at the White House, but if the cork fits…
The White House demanded that an email the EPA had ’sent’ be ‘recalled’. If, however, the pesky ’send’ button has already been hit, then the White House has its own simple and fairly elegant solution to news it just doesn’t want to see. Just don’t open the email.
That won’t work either.
The EPA apparently had 250 pages of ‘detailed alternative approaches’ to regulate greenhouse gases from fuels, cars and some industry. But, no; the White House doesn’t want anything to do with solving problems. It appears, as is widely speculated, this administration is all about creating problems. Speculated is a generous term in this case. The time for speculation, in regard to the intentions of this administration, has long past.
The Supreme Court had already tried to set the White House straight when it ruled carbon dioxide is an air pollutant, and the Clean Air Act gave the EPA the power to start mandating that new vehicles to reduce their pollutants.
If we do have the technology and the money to regulate greenhouse gases it seems apparent those in power don’t want us to know about them.
Photo Thanks: NOAA
Labels: Acid Ocean, Arctic, Arctic Ice, Baffin, CO2, EPA, Methane, NOAA, North Pole, Ocean, Speak no Evil, Tundra, carbon dioxide, cover-up
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Learn To Take Your Drinks ‘neat’; We’re running out of ice, among other things.
Friday, May 2, 2008
April 14, Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for NOAA said, more than 600 quakes he was listening to off the Oregon coast were unlike anything scientists have heard in the 17 years they have been listening to underwater rumbles.
On April 18, people in the normally ’stable’ Midwest were jolted out of bed with the strongest earthquake they’ve had in 40 years. That quake was felt as far away as Chicago. The quake centered just 40 miles outside of Evansville Indiana. The quake rattled people from Alabama to Michigan.
Since February, people in Reno have had their nerves tested with nearly 350 quakes. This pattern of quakes is also causing scientist to wonder what’s going on. Usually an earthquake is followed by a string of smaller aftershocks. In Reno the quakes have been building in strength. Tom Rennie, a seismic analyst with the Nevada Seismological Laboratory says no single fault line has been identified with these quakes.
Last night the Aleutian Islands were rocked by a hefty 6.5 earthquake. This area is no stranger to earthquakes, but after the past couple of months I’m wondering what our Mother Earth has in store for the coming months.
The U.S. is already standing on shaky ground metaphorically, now the earth is literally shaking under our feet. Stay tuned, and fasten your seat belts, we could be in for a bumpy ride.
Labels: Aleutian Islands, Mid-west, NOAA, Oregon Earthquake, Reno, earthquake
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
U.S. Standing on Shaky Ground; Literally! Unusual Earthquakes Rocking the U.S. As nerves and teeth rattle, scientists are baffled.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Scientists using the Navy’s SOSUS, SOund SUrveillance System, hydrophones have been continuously listening to underwater sounds since 1991. That’s when the Navy program designed for Anti-Submarine Warfare was declassified. Since the early 1950’s, acoustic sensors installed across the ocean bottom at key locations have been doing sentry duty.
Since the end of the cold war and the advent of quieter submarines, designed to evade the pointed ears of the SOSUS, the hydrophones have been listening in on the underwater sounds such as volcanic eruptions, landslides, marine mammal and fish vocalizations, even weather. This swarm of latest earthquakes is another thing scientists are able to hear using this technology.
Click on this link to listen to earthquake sounds recorded by the SOSUS hydrophones. At this link you will also be able to hear the undersea sounds of volcanoes, both large and small ships, several types of Whales and explosives.
In the nearly 2 decades they have been listening scientists haven’t heard anything quite like what they are hearing recently. The 5.9 earthquake that may have kick off this latest swarm could be the one that happened on March 15Th. This quake, like the latest swarm happening over the past 10 days was also relatively shallow happening about 6 miles down.
Photo Thanks noaa.gov spectrogram of earthquake
Labels: NOAA, Oregon Earthquake, SOSUS, undersea sounds
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Swarms of Earthquakes Off Oregon Coast. More than 600 quakes in 10 days. What’s going on?
Sunday, March 23, 2008
26 members of the 180-foot Alaska Ranger have been rescued from life boats. The Seattle based fishing boat started taking on water after losing control of its rudder This morning around 3a.m.
The boat was about 120 miles off Alaska.
Komo TV Seattle is reporting all 47 crew members abandoned ship and made it safely to life rafts. No injuries have been reported so far. The rafts are in 6 to 8 foot seas being pushed by approximately 25 knot winds which is said to be rough weather for life rafts, but it could be worse.
The boat was about 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The boat is a catcher-processing vessel operated by the Fishing Company of Alaska.
The Alaska Ranger’s sister ship, the Alaska Warrior was nearby and is helping the Coast Guard in the rescue.
According to a report at NOAA, in 2001-2004 the Fishing Company of Alaska, through its agents, committed numerous violations, including: tampering with or destroying observer’s samples and equipment; failing to provide observers a safe work area; failing to notify observers prior to bringing fish aboard to allow sampling of the catch; failing to provide reasonable assistance to observers; and interfering with or biasing sampling procedure employed by observers.
The fine for these actions, which came in 2006, was $254,500.00 for violations of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The fishing vessel Alaska Juris’s 3 captains were also assessed a protion of that civil penalty. The charges were a result of a multiple-year investigation conducted by special agents in the Alaska division of NOAA Fisheries Service’s Office of Law Enforcement.
Read more about this here!
Read about a successful appeal by the Fishing Company of Alaska in relation to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act here!
We wish the crew and rescue persons safety.
Photo: Alaskan Ranger, Yahoo news
Labels: Alaska, FV Alaska Ranger, Fishing Company of Alaska, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, NOAA, Rescued, Ship sinking, marine mammals
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Alaska Ranger Sinking. 47 Crew Being Rescued Near Alaska.
Friday, March 21, 2008
The White House’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 restored a bit of good news for 3 of 5 key climate instruments crucial in tracking earth changes. CERES, a sensor to measure the Earth’s radiation, another instrument that tracks solar irradiance and the OMPS-Limb instrument (Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite) all received a sentence commute in the proposed 2009 budget.
The death sentence handed down to 2 other instruments intended to measure sea-surface temperatures and wind directions over the oceans were left twisting in the wind.
Given the fact that scientists, on a whole, generally behave in an unflappable manner hearing words and phrases such as; ‘alarm bells’, ‘borders on criminal negligence’,'devastating’, ‘grave jeopardy’ and ‘blinding’ do not evoke feelings of confidence in the future. Since blowing winds and sea-surface temperatures are two key ingredients increasing the dead zones in our oceans.
A panel of scientists at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Boston last month reported…Climate change is rapidly transforming the world’s oceans by increasing the temperature and acidity of seawater, and altering atmospheric and oceanic circulation…
In the past ocean dead zones could be attributed to fertilizers, farm run-off, and sewage which over fed phytoplankton which are eaten by bacteria when they die that use up the oxygen in the water. These dead zones in the past were more likely to be found in places where rivers run into the oceans like the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico, but more dead zones are being found in the open oceans.
We need to have more ability to observe these growing dead zones, not less.
Image NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio
Labels: AAAS, Global Warming, NOAA, NPOESS, Ocean, Phytoplankton, ocean dead zone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Ocean Dead Zones Observation Left Twisting In The Wind.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that in Japan Sushi Chefs have been driven to experimenting with meats other than tuna to make their delectable. Horse meat anyone?
Tadashi Ymagata, vice chairman of Japan’s national union of sushi chefs puts it this way: “It’s like America running out of steak.”
Blue fin tuna are slow-maturing fish. They simply cannot keep up with demand. Fewer Bluefins are driving the prices out of reach for the average sushi eater.
One wholesaler in a Tokyo fish market said 3 years ago he sold 2 or 3 bluefins everyday, this year he can only find 2 or 3 everyday, this year he can only find 2 or 3 per month to sell.
The fact that NOAA is celebrating its 200th year of service in and of itself is mind boggling. Their website boasts 200 years of science, service and stewardship. Regardless of NOAA’s recommendations, warnings and reports somewhere stewardship of the oceans has fallen through the cracks.
More than 60 countries and the European Commission are engaged in ‘global monitoring network’ Great idea. While chicken little runs around screaming at the top of his lungs ‘the sky is falling, the sky is falling.’ who will participate in devising a method to hold up the sky?
We know the ocean is dying. Who will hold up the ocean?
Labels: Bluefin Tuna, Japan, NOAA, Ocean
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Japan fuels Tuna Panic: Southern Bluefin Horse?
