Global Warming

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Implications for the Ocean

Recently, a sign of climate change was seen in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence. There was not enough ice to provide necessary habitat for thousands of baby harp seals, and nearly 100% of all pups born this year drowned. In Tasmania over the past 50 years, 20-80% of the east coast kelp forests have disappeared as they're surrounded by warmer, nutrient-poor waters. Scientists recently predicted that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the only biological structure that can be seen by the naked eye from space, will be virtually dead within 30 years. As mentioned earlier, Arctic polar bears are facing extinction due to dramatic reductions of Arctic ice, a problem that will also threaten all Arctic wildlife. These terrible events, as they say, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

Bigger, more terrifying events are taking place. For example, corals are already under serious threat right now due to “bleaching” due to the seas growing warmer. A coral is a living animal, 80% of its energy is generated by photosynthesis via tiny algae within its body known as zoozanthellae. If environmental conditions change, the coral’s defense is to expel the algae, which results in death of the coral. But this is not the only "hot water" corals face.

Global warming may also impact ocean life and life on earth by altering the ocean's circulatory patterns and the flow of surface currents and local areas of upwelling and downwelling, which can affect nutrient and oxygen delivery over large areas. As Arctic ice melts, it dilutes the deep nutrient-rich ocean currents that move throughout the Atlantic and reduces their ability to sink, a process necessary for the normal circular path of these deep currents which transfers 85% of the world’s heat around the world. If melting continues at an alarming rate, the Atlantic Ocean’s ability to maintain the weather as we know it might collapse. Giant storms, breeding in unstable conditions, could grow in intensity and numbers as they pummel the coastlines of Northern Europe and North America.

Scripps Researchers Find Clear Evidence of Human-Produced Warming in World's Oceans - Climate warming likely to impact water resources in regions around the globe

Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and their colleagues have produced the first clear evidence of human-produced warming in the world's oceans, a finding they say removes much of the uncertainty associated with global warming.

Discuss Global Warming in the Plankton Forums »

Human Impact on Climate Change
Whether or not the planet is warming at accelerated rates, likely caused by human activity, is no longer a topic of debate. The data can no longer be disputed.

The terms "global warming" and "climate change" are used interchangeably. However, "global warming" implies the warming of our planet due to a direct human influence while "climate change" is more accurately used to describe changes in climate due to natural fluctuations, such as the processes that produced the Ice Ages.

The scientific evidence in support of global warming continues to mount and the media is increasingly highlighting the topic to inform us of the very real dangers involved in global warming. Common media images include polar bears that are no longer able to find enough ice to survive and often drown in search of food. Glaciers in the Arctic and Greenland are breaking apart at unprecedented speed, causing sea levels to rise. The ocean's temperature is rising; as a result, we are witnessing marine species forced to migrate from habitats they have lived in for at least thousands of years in search of more hospitable areas.

Recently, some island nations and communities have actually begun evacuation procedures as rising seas flood their homes and land. Rising sea levels caused by the expansion of sea water as it warms and the melting of glaciers has caused a one mm increase in sea level, which translates to a shoreline retreat of about 1.5 m. This has been seen in the U.S. along the Atlantic Coast where erosion has narrowed beaches and washed out houses. In other countries, such as the Tuvalu Islands in the Pacific, communities are planning their moves as their homelands are slowly submerged. Other currently threatened nations include the Cook and the Marshall Islands, where one island (Majuro) has lost up to 20% of its beachfront already.

Scientists have recently discovered that the basic chemistry of the ocean is being altered by excess carbon dioxide absorption, which threatens marine organisms by increasing acidification. Acidification is caused by a reaction between CO₂ and H₂O, which forms carbonic acid (H₂CO₃). Carbonic acid increases the acidity of ocean waters by lowering the pH which inhibits the reaction organisms (e.g., coccolithophores - one of the most abundant phytoplankton in the ocean, corals, foraminifera, echinoderms, crustaceans, and some mollusks, especially pteropods) use to secrete skeletal structures and shells made of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). With increasing acidity, every marine species that constructs skeletons and shells of CaCO₃ will find it more difficult to survive in the future. The impact of such a widespread decline in shell-producing marine organisms could be disastrous for nearly all ocean ecosystems. Increasing acidity will also undoubtedly affect numerous reproductive and/or physiological processes in other marine species with unknown consequences.

Scientists Launch First Buoy To Monitor Ocean Acidification, Exchange Of Carbon Dioxide, Oxygen And Nitrogen Gas - 6/12/2007

Global Warming News [ScienceDaily]

Optical properties of the Antarctic system and new radiation information
In a new study, measurements were made during three Austral summers to study the optical properties of the Antarctic system and to produce radiation information for additional modeling studies. The system has an important part in the global climate due to its size, its high latitude location and the negative radiation balance of its large ice sheets.

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape
Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers -- began their precipitous slide to extinction.

Sustainable farming may help maintain healthy climate
Sustainable farming, initially adopted to preserve soil quality for future generations, may also play a role in maintaining a healthy climate, according to researchers.

Paleontologists find extinction rates higher in open-ocean settings during mass extinctions
Researchers have uncovered a strikingly pattern for ancient mass extinctions: extinctions rates during mass extinctions were significantly higher in open-ocean-facing settings than in epicontinental seas, indicating that open-ocean settings were more susceptible to the mass-extinction-causing agents.

Oceans' uptake of human-made carbon may be slowing
The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions -- a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate.

Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica
A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.

Diatoms reveal climate changes
Some 500 years ago there was a change in the circulation in the atmosphere over Scandinavia. This probably led to increased amounts of winter precipitation in northern Sweden for a period.

Dozen lesser-known chemicals have strong impact on climate change
A new study indicates that major chemicals most often cited as leading causes of climate change, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are outclassed in their warming potential by compounds receiving less attention.

Monsoon model indicates potential for abrupt transitions
A self-amplifying effect presently sustains monsoon winds, but it could also disrupt the circulation over land and sea. The periodical rainfall could stop from one season to another or for months within seasons. High air pollution could lead to the disruption. Global warming increases the risk of abrupt monsoon transitions from high-precipitation to dry periods.

Research challenges for understanding landscape changes identified
Nine research challenges and four research initiatives that are poised to advance the study of how Earth's landscapes change were unveiled by the National Research Council.

Fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions up by 29 percent since 2000
The strongest evidence yet that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions continues to outstrip the ability of the world's natural "sinks" to absorb carbon has just been published.

New water management tool may help ease effects of drought
Continued improvement of climate forecasts is resulting in better information about what rainfall may look like months in advance. A researcher has now developed an innovative water management framework that would take advantage of these forecasts to plan for droughts or excess rain in order to make the most efficient use of an area's water resources.

How much water does the ocean have?
The calculation of variations in the sea level is relatively simple. It is by far more complicated to then determine the change in the water mass. A team of geodesists and oceanographers have now, for the first time succeeded in doing this. The researchers were able to observe short-term fluctuations in the spatial distribution of the ocean water masses. Their results are, amongst others, important for improved climate models.

Ancient high-altitude trees grow faster as temperatures rise
Increasing temperatures at high altitudes are fueling the post-1950 growth spurt seen in bristlecone pines, the world's oldest trees, according to new research. The pines near treeline have wider annual growth rings for the period from 1951 to 2000 than for the previous 3,700 years. Regional temperatures, particularly at high elevations, have increased during the same 50-year time period. The finding is another example of changes in high-elevation ecosystems that are linked to warming temperatures.

Sea stars bulk up to beat the heat
A new study finds that a species of sea star stays cool using a strategy never before seen in the animal kingdom. The sea stars soak up cold sea water into their bodies during high tide as buffer against potentially damaging temperatures brought about by direct sunlight at low tide.

Alternative animal feed part of global fisheries crisis fix
Finding alternative feed sources for chickens, pigs and other farm animals will significantly reduce pressure on the world's dwindling fisheries while contributing positively to climate change, according to researchers.

Link between climate change and cattle nutritional stress examined
A group of researchers has found that any future increases in precipitation would be unlikely to compensate for the declines in forage quality that accompany projected temperature increases.

New climate treaty could put species at risk, scientists argue
Plans to be discussed at the forthcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen to cut deforestation in developing countries could save some species from extinction but inadvertently increase the risk to others, scientists believe.

Penguins and sea lions help produce new atlas
Recording hundreds of thousands of individual uplinks from satellite transmitters fitted on penguins, albatrosses, sea lions, and other marine animals, the Wildlife Conservation Society and BirdLife International have released the first-ever atlas of the Patagonian Sea -- a globally important but poorly understood South American marine ecosystem.

Lab machine to study glacial sliding related to rising sea levels created
Researchers have created a glacier in a freezer that could help scientists understand how glaciers slide across their beds. That could help researchers predict how climate change accelerates glacier sliding and contributes to rising sea levels.

[ScienceDaily Global Warming News...]

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