dohboi wrote:Also, how much do we know about the sea bed in ESAS. Is it utterly lifeless? If not, might there be some burrowing creatures there which may become more active as things warm? And even if it is now (which I doubt), might not new creatures be migrating into these newly warmed waters (I'm quite sure they are), some of which may be active burrowers? Couldn't these provide pathways for warm water to get directly down to deeper layers of sediment without having to depend on slow radiative transfer?...Just some thoughts that waft about in my feverish brain...
Among the participants on board for this leg of the trip was Kim Howland, a research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, who joined C3 to continue a DNA sampling study that has been part of the expedition's science mission since its voyage began in June.
Unlike the easy-to-spot passengers from the Crystal Serenity, the visitors that Dr. Howland is most concerned about are hidden invaders that could soon be arriving in these waters as climate change opens the doors to increased maritime traffic.
Dr. Howland's focus is on the invasive species that can travel across oceans in the ballast water of commercial ships and that have a devastating impact when they arrive in places where they don't belong.
"The Arctic hasn't had to face this problem until now," said Dr. Howland, who is part of DFO's Arctic Research Division, based in Winnipeg. "But with ongoing warming and declines in sea ice making these waters more navigable – and more hospitable – it's a real concern."
The DNA study Dr. Howland and her colleagues is conducting is aimed at giving scientists and officials a fair warning about precisely what is coming to Canada's northern seas. Rather than look for individual specimens of an invading species which may or may not be present, the study scoops up free-floating DNA from the water, searching for genetic traces of animals that are not native to the region. Because the C3 ship is making one continuous trip through the Arctic from east to west, it can provide a snapshot of where things stand in each region and how those regions compare.
For those who live along the Great Lakes, where zebra mussels have been a scourge since they arrived in the 1980s, the problem of invasive species is not new. Similarly, Atlantic Canada has been coping with its share of interlopers. They include the European green crab, a tenacious predator that out-competes native species and can have a destabilizing effect on intertidal ecosystems – all to the detriment to local fisheries. Another threat is the common periwinkle, a type of sea snail that also originated in Europe, and which the strains the marine food chain by eating all the algae in sight, as well as transmitting a parasite that affects fish.
Historically, these and other creatures were not deemed a threat to Arctic waters, as it was presumed the harsh conditions there would prohibit their growth. But Dr. Howland has just co-authored a modelling study which suggests that this is no longer the case for some potential invaders, and it will become less so as time goes on.
"The motivation was to try to understand the threat of the arrival of new species in a region where we don't have too much information," said Jesica Goldsmit, a postdoctoral researcher with DFO and lead author of the study, which was accepted for publication last week in the journal Biological Invasions.
In the study, the researchers looked at how eight invasive species might fare in the Arctic 50 years from now based on climate forecasts. The result: "We're predicting that all the species we modelled would survive," Dr. Howland said. While the degrees to which the species are likely to migrate northward vary, all of them would find a suitable habitat somewhere in the Arctic by the end of the 50-year run, the model shows. And all of them pose a threat to the ecosystem and traditional ways of life.
One of the locations at highest risk is the relatively warmer Hudson Bay, which is considered an Arctic ecosystem even though it dips well below the Arctic Circle. Another is the Beaufort Sea, above the coast of Alaska and Western Canada, which is open to shipping coming up through the Bering Strait.
Less clear is what will happen among the maze of channels and islands that makes up the central portion of Canada's High Arctic – also known as the Kitikmeot region – where the marine biology is far less explored. This is part of what has motivated Dr. Howland and other researchers who are participating in the C3, as well as others who are conducting studies in the area. And it's clear there is little time left to gather the baseline data before region is further transformed by warming temperatures and increased shipping traffic.
Sea and land alike are affected by climate change. Jeff Saarela, a botanist and director of the Canadian Museum of Nature's Centre for Arctic Knowledge and Exploration, was also on the C3 last week, armed with a permit to collect plants as part of the expedition. Taking advantage of the ship's frequent stops in places that few scientists have ever been able to access, he spent much of the voyage with his knees in the dirt, trowel in hand, extracting specimens.
"We know the Arctic is the fastest-warming part of the planet, and we know that species are responding," Dr. Saarela said. "To document when something has moved, you have to know what was there before."
Along the voyage there were hints of the transformation to come. After leaving Cambridge Bay, expedition leaders nosed their ship west and south to the now uninhabited hamlet of Bathurst Inlet.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
You were part of the ESAS bomb crowd that predicted imminent mass gas release. You had no basis for your gut feelings.
Ward buys into the instant extinction from the impactor theory. He says nothing about the thick layers of pink limestone that overlap the thin irridium layer. The anoxic regime is a CH4 and H2S emission regime associated with warming of the oceans and not with any cooling, as opposed to the regular CO2 emission regime. For both regimes the process is remineralization of detritus rain. So life does not shut down in the upper ocean layer, which remains oxic.
The image on the right shows warm water from the North Atlantic arriving near Svalbard. How warm is the water beneath the surface of the Arctic Ocean? The image below gives an indication, showing how much warmer the water was from October 1, 2017, to December 30, 2017, at selected areas near Svalbard, where warm water from the North Atlantic dives under the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean, carried by the Gulf Stream.
onlooker wrote:Given all the other mass extinction events associated with warming, the land is no refuge during warming events.--- Sorry to intervene your technical discussion but this relates to me what I read about hydrogen sulfide and it's role in poisoning land life after the oceans experience this Ocean anoxi and die off. I post this article that points to this dynamic as central to the Mass Extinction Event
Just curious to hear more expert elaboration from Dissident who in my layman opinion sounds the most knowledgeable and credible in his assessment of this topic https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 063957.htm
onlooker wrote:Also, would not die off of plankton reduce dramatically oxygen levels for land creatures?
dohboi wrote:Yes, 'scientific reticence' sometimes drives me crazy.
dohboi wrote:GLOBAL MEAN NEAR SURFACE TEMPERATURES ARE INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... p_activity
YouTube predictions from februari last year.....bit outdated!Early snow retreat on the West Siberian Plains warms air temperatures, amplifying Rossby waves, causing a ridge and warming over Laptev Sea (thus rapid Arctic ice loss). Large cyclones, now stronger and lasting longer cause sea ice spreading with more melt. Strong Antarctic Circumpolar Ocean Currents, driven by stronger winds cause increased upwelling in places (depending on bathymetry) reducing overturning circulation (downwelling). Sea ice rheology, surface melt ponds, filaments and mesoscale eddies are all messed up.
Newfie wrote:Not exactly climate chaos but somewhat related.
I’m in Florida. We have our small apartment building in Philly. Oil heat. Philly like much of the country is getting a prolonged cold spell.
It ran out of oil Thursday night. It took the oil company until 5pm to get someone there. They sent a technician who apparently put in 5 gallons and left. That didn’t make it until midnight.
The oil company service desk is swamped, half hour on hold to talk to someone. And all she can do is take messages because no one in the company will talk to her. This is a big oil delivery company. She can tell me just about nothing. Apparently the supervisors are all out running delivery trucks.
The point, yes this is extreme cold, but not some major shift in the climate. People can’t deal with even minor changes. The system is very fragile and marginal. I could find no news of oil delivery problems on google. Yet my building manager and the oil company are telling me many, many, many households are without heat.
I’m starting to wonder if the oil companies are having difficulty obtaining oil?
How would we react if there was some truely significant shift in the climate?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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