Plankton Counts Collapsing, Warming Sign All Along Pacific Coast

[hatrack]

SAN FRANCISCO — Marine biologists are spotting ominous signs all along the Pacific Coast this year: higher nearshore ocean temperatures, plummeting catches of groundfish, an explosion of dead birds on coastal beaches, and perhaps most disturbing, very few plankton the tiny critters that form the basis of the ocean's intricate food web. From California to British Columbia, unusual weather patterns have disrupted the marine ecosystem, scientists say. The normal northerly winds failed to show up this year, preventing the usual upwelling of colder water that sustains the plankton, and in turn, many other species from anchovies to cormorants to whales.

Is this just a strange year, or is this what global warming looks like? Few scientists are willing to blame the plankton collapse on the worldwide rise in temperatures attributed to carbon dioxide and other gases believed to trap heat in the earth's atmosphere. Yet few are willing to rule it out. If these patterns continue, it could show that something in the atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean has permanently changed, with serious consequences for coastal birds, fish and marine mammals.

"These natural changes can teach us a lot about what might happen if global warming came along," said Francisco Chavez, an oceanographer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. "That global change is going to affect the ocean is a given. We just don't know how or what the effects will be." It may be just an unusual year. Similar ecological signs have appeared during El Nino years, when increased sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific alter weather patterns worldwide. But scientists say the West Coast hasn't had El Nino conditions this year.

EDIT

Seabirds are clearly distressed. On the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco, researchers this spring noted a steep decrease in nesting cormorants as well as a 90 percent drop in Cassin's auklets the worst in more than 35 years of monitoring. The relatively rare birds, which feed mostly on krill, have since returned, but came too late for successful breeding this year, said Jaime Jahnke, a researcher at Point Reyes Bird Observatory. "We don't know what's going on," Jahnke said. "If this is the result of some kind of large climate phenomenon that we don't know about, it's important to document it and understand what's causing it." More disturbingly, researchers have reported a sharp increase in dead birds washing up on the shores of California, Oregon and Washington. Along Monterey Bay in Central California, there are four times as many dead birds such as Cassin's auklets, common murres and Brandt's cormorants than in most years, said Hannah Nevins, a marine scientist at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. "The bottom has fallen out of the coastal food chain, and there's just not enough food out there," said "They're basically dying. They're way stressed out."

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http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2977527,00.html

[Erika]

1. Excellent article

I hope the article will be spread everywhere. People need to know what is happening to our environment. Even if it's too late.

[cornermouse]

2. I suggest you try ot get a look at the government's

environmental reports before the Bush Corporation "adjusted" the figures and conclusions in them.

[mcscajun]

3. More doom...

...and that's no joke.

Over the past two years, I've been reading, collecting and collating articles on worldwide environmental damage. What follows are just some excerpts relevant to the OP.

November 2002:
When naturalists first hiked through Glacier National Park more than a century ago, 150 glaciers graced its high cliffs and jagged peaks. Today there are 35.

Around the globe, sea level is about 6 inches higher than it was 100 years ago, due primarily to warmer sea water, along with glacier melting, and the rate of rise is increasing.

Scientists have identified a few suspects behind the Earth's sudden weight gain around the Equator: glacial melt and shifting ocean mass.

August 12, 2004
...what scientists call the Dead Zone. Researchers think the appearance of such an area that cannot sustain life may be a sign of a fundamental change in the Pacific.

Two years ago when local fishermen started hauling up pots filled with dead crabs, scientists figured out that a huge mass of sub-Arctic water with very low levels of oxygen and high levels of nutrients had welled up from the ocean's depths and settled in for the summer on the Continental Shelf off central Oregon.

"What I think we are seeing is a tipping of the balance of the ecosystem," said Jack Barth, a professor of oceanography at Oregon State. "We don't fully understand what the cause of that is. We have some good ideas that it is related to some fundamental changes in circulation and the source of water for the Oregon Continental Shelf."

Oct. 11, 2004
An unexplained and unprecedented rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for two years running has raised fears that the world may be on the brink of runaway global warming. Scientists are baffled why the quantity of the main greenhouse gas has leapt in a two-year period and are concerned that the Earth's natural systems are no longer able to absorb as much as in the past.

July 8, 2005 St. John's, Newfoundland -- Ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic hit an all-time high last year, raising concerns about the effects of global warming on one of the most sensitive and productive ecosystems in the world.

And from just this past week in the UK Herald:

Scotland Glasgow Fair a washout, rain, cloud, cold.
Southern England Hosepipe ban, waders threatened by drought.
France, Spain, Portugal Drought, tinder-box conditions, big forest fires.
Switzerland, eastern France Hailstones the size of walnuts.
Romania Deadly floods.
Italy Bathers flee toxic algae.
Mexico Hurricane Emily.
Taiwan/China Typhoon Haitang.
Niger Drought threatens thousands with starvation.
Bangladesh Record floods.

============
When the marine ecosystem collapses, we are SO totally fucked.

[wli]

14. any CO2 data from around the Permian-Triassic extinction event?

That one made fungus the dominant form of life on earth for 25 or 30 million years or some such, so it's a good yardstick for the depth of the doo doo.

[Dr.Phool]

4. Gulf of Mexico temp is 93 degrees at Clearwater Beach

TV Meteorologist Dick Fletcher said in over 25 years he's been doing the weather here, he's never seen the Gulf hit 90.

[NNadir]

5. Holy shit. It sounds like you need a hurricane to move that heat out.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Pretty damn scary... I cannot see any point in waiting to see IF this

happens next year. We better start correcting it yesterday..or we are certainly doomed. :cry: :cry: :cry:

[tanyev]

7. Soylent Green.....

[Erika]

8. As the fish go, so do we.

Fatalistic, but reality.

Worse, there is little hope as long as the corporations control the planet as they do now.

[NNadir]

9. Don't be so pessimistic. Depletion of oxygen might kill 6 billion of us.

This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[Erika]

11. Good one!

Can you imagine how beautiful the planet must have been before man decided to plunder it?

It looks like we may have just begun a long slow suicide.

[kestrel91316]

10. Our Mother Earth is dying .....................

shame on us ALL.

I am so glad I decided not to have children. But I fear for my niece and nephew's futures.

[dcfirefighter]

12. Earth aint dying

we're just making it unsuitable for human habitation.

[kestrel91316]

13. We are making it unsuitable for everything down to plankton, too .........

That only leaves bacteria and algae.

Oh, ok. Guess there's no problem after all.

[RONSTOO]

15. the marine eco-system collapsing?

can anyone explain to me in laymens terms, the cause and effect or scenario or simple chain of events that happens as a result of the marine eco-system collapsing? does it involve only the food chain or do missing links in the food chain affect weather etc. I realize the earth is a whole body organism but I need to see a larger picture.