January 13, 2012 | 11:46 AM | By Heather Goldstone
Washington state invokes Clean Water Act for ocean acidification
willapalens / flickr
Oysters - particularly babies - are exquisitely sensitive to ocean acidification.
In the fall of 2010, the EPA issued a memo stating for the record that the Clean Water Act covers ocean acidification, as well as more traditional types of pollution. While widely hailed as an historic call to action, the memo was full of qualifiers and caveats. First and foremost, few states would be expected to have the data necessary to request an “impaired” listing. Perhaps more daunting, such a listing would trigger legal requirements for corrective action – essentially an impossible standard to meet since nothing a state could do on its own would even touch the global phenomenon of ocean acidification.
So was this just political grandstanding destined to go nowhere? Maybe not.
In their latest report to EPA, the state of Washington has listed Puget Sound as “waters of concern” based on the impact of ocean acidification on the local shellfish industry. That’s a strategy that takes advantage of a work-around explicitly mentioned in the memo – demonstrating biological or ecological impacts attributable to ocean acidification, rather than documenting the subtle and slow-moving chemical phenomenon itself. It will be interesting to see whether other states follow suit; it could prove more difficult in areas with less pristine waters facing multiple impacts.
But back to the listing, itself. As explained in a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, it’s kind of a half-way move:
In its new assessment, Washington again declined to identify coastal waters as “impaired” by acidification — a classification that would have required steps to curb carbon pollution causing acidification. Instead, only Puget Sound was put on the “waters of concern” list, a less urgent category.
This listing may not match the urgency that shellfish growers in the area feel, but it does at least give the problem some official standing.
FILED UNDER: Ocean Change, EPA, ocean acidification, oysters
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January 12, 2012 | 11:24 AM | By Heather Goldstone
“Essentially all” baby harp seals dying for lack of ice
You’ll find no heart-wrenching photo of a fluffy white baby harp seal with big, pathetic brown eyes here. That’s not out of any journalistic integrity policy, but because I want to talk about words.
Compare these three statements regarding North Atlantic harp seals:
- “According to Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans department, as many as 80 percent of seal pups born in 2011 may have died because of a lack of sea ice.”
- “Climate change may have killed 4 out of 5 seal pups in 2011.”
- “Entire year classes may be disappearing from the population in low ice years. Essentially all of the pups die.”
All three describe the same study, recently published in the journal PLoS ONE. And, in fact, they all say approximately the same thing. What’s interesting to me is the different reactions elicited by the phrases “80 percent” (impressive, but dry), “4 out of 5″ (yikes!), and “essentially all” (!!!).
Actually, what’s really interesting is where I found these. The first came from a brief summary of the study published on Yale’s Environment 360 website – a highly reputable, straight-up-the-middle kind of outlet. The second came from Chris Mim’s post on Grist – a site where you might expect to find a bit more hype. But – and here’s the kicker – the last came directly from the scientist who did the study.
Lessons learned? Wording is important (duh). And it’s not always scientists who pull out the dry technical language.
FILED UNDER: Fish & Wildlife, Ocean Change
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January 6, 2012 | 9:01 AM | By Heather Goldstone
How climate change is like walking the dog
Ever wondered (or tried to explain) why we can have cold spells in the midst of global warming? Or why one year isn’t necessarily warmer than the next? Hat-tip to Andrew Freedman for finding this nugget: a simple, one-minute video that demystifies trends and variation.
FILED UNDER: Ocean Change
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December 14, 2011 | 3:48 PM | By Heather Goldstone
Warming favors parasites who bend fish to their will
Those poor little fishies. It just goes from bad, to worse, to completely bizarre this week. Thanks to NY Times Green blog for calling my attention to this story:
It sounds almost like science fiction: A parasite manipulates a fish’s behavior to make it seek out warmer water, probably by altering its brain chemistry. In the warmer environment, the parasite’s growth — and its capacity to infect other hosts — kicks into overdrive.
In an eight-week study, tapeworms infecting three-spined sticklebacks grew four times (let me say that again: fourtimes) faster in 68ºF water than in 59ºF. To put that temperature difference in perspective, ocean temperatures around New England have risen 2-4ºF in the span of 40-ish years. We could easily see another 10ºF this century. That’s good news for the tapeworms, because larger worms are more successful at infecting birds (the next step in their life cycle) and produce more eggs once they’re in the birds’ guts.
University of Leicester
A three-spined stickleback and four parasites removed from its abdomen.
But back to the poor worm-eaten sticklebacks. They’re full of worms (those big white blobs in the photo all came out of that one little fish), they’re growth-stunted (not sure if that’s just from the heat, or if the parasites slow them down Lead author Iain Barber clarified: even uninfected fish grow slower at higher temps, suggesting they just don’t cope well with the heat), and they can’t reproduce. Not a recipe for success.
To add insult to injury, the parasites appear to modify the fishes’ behavior such that they actually prefer the warmer temperatures that are so detrimental to their health. In other words, while dozens of fish species are moving northward and offshore to avoid rising ocean temperatures, the authors of the study speculate that tapeworm-infected sticklebacks would be more likely to stay put or even seek out areas of extreme warming.
Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Ocean Change
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December 13, 2011 | 2:25 PM | By Heather Goldstone
Coming soon: Christmas Bird Counts (and some southerly transplants)
Dr. Thomas T. Barnes / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Seen one of these guys recently? For you non-birders, it’s a purple finch. And, according to Earth Gauge, your chances of seeing one of them in southern New England this time of year are far better now than they were a few decades ago, thanks to climate change.
Warmer winter temperatures are allowing the Purple Finch to winter 433 miles farther north than it did in the 1960s.
Here’s what that looks like in graphic format:
And purple finches aren’t alone:
gipoco.com
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gipoco.com
is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible
for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.