Tag: Ocean

This chart of ocean heat is terrifying

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The Gulf is now the hottest it’s been in the modern record, according to Brian McNoldy, a climatologist at the University of Miami, who produced the chart. Taking a dip would feel like a bath: The average temperature of the surface is close to 90 degrees, according to recent measures of sea surface temperature.
“This is out of bounds from the kinds of variability that we’ve seen in [at least] the last 75 years or so,” Ben Kirtman, director of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, a joint initiative of the University of Miami and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), told Vox. “That can be scary stuff.”

These record temperatures are just one signal of a more widespread bout of warming across the North Atlantic that ramped up last year. It’s still not entirely clear what’s causing it, though scientists suspect a combination of factors including climate change — which raises the baseline ocean temperature — as well as lingering effects of El Niño, natural climate variability, and perhaps even a volcanic eruption.”

https://www.vox.com/climate/368324/hurricane-season-2024-gulf-mexico-ocean-warming

Killer whales keep ramming and sinking boats. Scientists now may know why, report says.

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Overall the incidents have mostly involved juveniles, who are “more playful and courageous in approaching boats,” said Zerbini, who also chairs the International Whaling Commission’s scientific committee.
He imagines a young orca butted its head against a boat’s rudder one time and when it moved the orca thought, “This is fun.” After ramming it a few times, a piece of the rudder broke off and that was even more fun because there was something to play with.

“There’s documented evidence of the orcas then playing with the pieces,” he said.

Orcas, which are also called killer whales, are not actually a whale species but are instead the largest member of the dolphin family.

This type of behavior isn’t surprising, given that orcas have culture, exhibit coordinated behavior, share knowledge and have long memories, said Rose.

“It’s a very sophisticated thing to do something for no purpose other than that it amuses you,” she said.”

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“Killer whale groups, especially younger individuals, are known for their fads and idiosyncrasies.

In the Pacific Northwest, one group of killer whales suddenly got into the habit of carrying dead salmon around on their heads in 1987. The fad arose and spread widely among the group that summer.

The salmon hats craze began with adolescent orcas but then spread, said Rose.

“By the end everyone was wearing them, including the adults,” she said.

Then the fashion dropped out of style as quickly as it had begun.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/killer-whales-keep-attacking-sinking-090349442.html

It’s even hot underwater

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Hotter surface water can slow upwelling, a phenomenon that brings nutrients from deep in the water like nitrogen and phosphorus compounds toward the surface, feeding the plankton that form the foundation of the food pyramid. Roughly half of the fish in the world are caught in upwelling zones.

Hotter water also holds onto less oxygen, which can suffocate sea life. Earlier this year, thousands of dead menhaden fish washed up on the shores of Texas, due in large part to high water temperatures. The water itself becomes more acidic as it heats up, which can disrupt coral formation. And when the temperature rises too high, coral will expel the symbiotic algae that live in their tissues, turning completely white. This is called coral bleaching. All these effects of hotter water temperatures can then make coral more vulnerable to disease.

Sargassum, a type of algae, has seen massive and growing blooms in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean in recent years, but there’s been a record quantity this summer, enough to be seen from the sky, washing up on beaches from South America to Florida. As it rots, it emits smelly, toxic hydrogen sulfide gas. Higher water temperatures are likely a factor here as well.

It’s not clear yet exactly how the alarmingly hot waters of the Caribbean will affect seafood catches, but scientists warn that extreme marine heat has proven devastating to fisheries in the past.”

The world’s oceans are extremely hot. We’re about to find out what happens next.

Posted on by Lone Candle

“it’s not just the Atlantic; oceans all around the world are seeing stunningly high average temperatures right now. On the other side of the globe, the Pacific Ocean surface is also heating up as it enters the El Niño phase of its cycle. Together, these phenomena are poised to push the planet’s temperature to new highs.”

What’s killing the world’s biggest fish?

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The largest fish on Earth is a shark. Capable of reaching a length of up to 60 feet — roughly the height of a four-story building — whale sharks, named for their size, are so large that they make great whites look like minnows.

But even giants can disappear. Over the last several decades, more than half of all whale sharks have vanished from the ocean. Some populations have fallen by more than 60 percent.”

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“A study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that cargo ships are likely a leading cause of whale shark deaths. Often, where you find high densities of these endangered fish, you also find shipping traffic, the authors found, and ships are already known to strike and kill these animals.”

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“Whale sharks are not the only roadkill. Vast cargo vessels harm many species of marine giants, such as the endangered North Atlantic right whales, and some smaller creatures, like sea turtles. Ships also emit loud noises that disrupt marine life and spew planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“Shipping is a serious problem for giants of the sea,” said Robert Harcourt, a marine ecologist at Macquarie University in Australia who was not affiliated with the study. “We have an economy that’s derived from moving things around the world in a way that’s not taking into account the cost to the environment.””

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“A good step toward decreasing collisions is figuring out where animals are most at risk, and that’s where this new whale shark study comes in. Large ships are required to report their locations, and the authors compared those points to the movement of hundreds of whale sharks, which they had previously tagged with satellite trackers. (This is no easy feat: “You’ve gotta have some nice long fins, a good pair of lungs, and sprint after it underwater,” said David Sims, a marine ecologist at the University of Southampton and a study co-author.)

The results revealed just how vulnerable these fish are: More than 90 percent of the ocean’s surface area that whale sharks use overlaps with the routes of tankers, passenger ships, and fishing vessels. Whale sharks tend to congregate near the coast, where shipping is especially busy”

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“many of the sharks’ tracking devices stopped working when the animals entered busy shipping lanes, perhaps because they were killed by ships. (Some trackers even showed sharks swimming into dense shipping routes and then sinking slowly to the seafloor — “the smoking gun for a lethal ship strike,” as Womersley and Sims wrote in The Conversation.)”

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“Making oceans safer for marine giants is conceptually simple, and one option is to route ships away from animal hot spots.”

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“Even just slowing ships down can make a huge difference. The chance that a cargo ship will kill a whale falls to below 50 percent when it’s moving at around half speed (10 knots, or 11.5 miles per hour), compared to nearly 100 percent when it’s moving more quickly, according to one 2006 study.”

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“there’s a big drawback to ships slowing down or going on a different route: It takes longer to deliver goods. That’s one reason studies like this don’t always translate into shipping restrictions. That drawback also makes alternative approaches, such as designing quieter ships or adding wildlife deterrents or propeller guards, appealing (although the benefits of these technologies aren’t well established).”

Climate change is already making parts of the world unlivable

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Global average temperatures have already risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius, roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit, leaving perilously little room for meeting the targets of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The accord set a goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius/3.6 degrees Farenheit compared to average temperatures before the industrial revolution in the 1800s. The agreement also set a more ambitious target of staying below 1.5°C/2.7°F.

Global warming has already raised global sea levels by 9 inches. It has left a distinct mark on extreme weather too, worsening heat waves, storm surges, and rainfall. Scientists can even quantify how much human-linked emissions of heat-trapping gases have made these events worse.”

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“The natural world is passing some of the hard limits of what it can handle from climate change right now, leading to irreversible changes like extinction of species. “Ecosystems already reaching or surpassing hard adaptation limits include some warm water coral reefs, some coastal wetlands, some rainforests, and some polar and mountain ecosystems,” according to the report. Humans who are dependent on these ecosystems are deeply affected as well.”

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“Sea level rise is forcing residents of small islands to permanently evacuate. At least five islands in the Pacific Ocean have been lost to higher water levels. Rising temperatures are changing rainfall patterns and melting snowpacks, limiting freshwater for drinking and agriculture. This is driving migrations around the world.”

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“As bad as the situation is right now, climate change can still get much worse. Rising temperatures mean that many more areas of the world, spanning some of the most populated regions, will experience times when it’s too hot to survive.”

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“More than 150 million people currently live on land that will be below the high-tide line by 2050.”

Sea Level To Rise One Foot by 2050, Says NOAA

Posted on by Lone Candle

“since 1968 the U.S. government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has been subsidizing a significant number of its policyholders to build and live in flood-prone areas. As a result of losses outstripping its premiums, the NFIP is $20.5 billion in debt. In a recent article in Regulation, Peter Van Doren, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, points out that the often highly concentrated nature of flood disasters would require private insurers to charge premiums amounting to 5 to 9 times the average claim in order to remain solvent. Few people would buy such expensive policies.

Last fall the NFIP launched its Risk Rating 2.0 program which is raising the rates for nearly 75 percent of its policyholders. Premiums may increase by as much as 18 percent per year for owner-occupied homes and 25 percent for second homes. Over time, such increases will incentivize people to move away from areas where the sea is engulfing their homes and businesses.

A growing body of research suggests that at least some Americans are beginning to factor sea level rise into their purchases of beachfront property.”