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THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby jedrider » Fri 04 Sep 2020, 16:39:07

How China’s Massive Fishing Fleet Is Transforming the World’s Oceans
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/beijing-fishing-fleet-subsidies-north-korea.html

The tragedy of the commons seems alive and well and one of the factors preventing us from powering down.

Too much wealth (even if most of it is in the form of trickets, mostly made in China, but designed in the USA.)

The Coronavirus is teaching us what it's like to power down, but will we learn?

Anyone see any learning we are getting from that experience? I don't see any.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby dissident » Fri 04 Sep 2020, 17:23:22

The vast majority of humans will never make any sacrifices if they are not forced to do so. For now, the world can delude itself that resources will be there as needed and that the toilet for pollution and waste consisting of the atmosphere, the oceans and land is infinite. But in the coming few decades this bubble of delusion will be ruthlessly burst by reality. Then we will have most likely some insane scramble that will achieve nothing. I expect lots of scapegoating and pass the buck posturing. Not that many choices will be available then to deal with the problem. Even if by some magic we could stop current entropy maximizing economic activity, we have already dug a hole deep enough to screw us over in the coming centuries. But we will keep on digging until it is well beyond too late.

The economy is a combustion process. Regardless of the political system. I doubt some solution will be found to have the sustainable system that people are calling for. Humans only had something like it when they were just another animal species surviving with very primitive tools. Looks like that is what some survivors of modern civilization will be forced to go back to.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 10 Sep 2020, 10:03:34

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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby jedrider » Thu 10 Sep 2020, 14:05:14

The ocean is the chief reservoir of heat on Earth just as the polar ice is the chief reservoir of cold on Earth.

La Nina is here, threatening even bigger blazes and storms
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/La-Nina-is-here-threatening-even-bigger-blazes-15556516.php
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 10 Sep 2020, 15:59:55

Yes, it's been soaking up 90 some percent of the heat from gw, and about a quarter of the CO2.

We will eventually, one way or the other, stop dumping vast extra quantities of waste CO2 into the atmosphere, iirc.

And if (very big if indeed) other CO2/methane feedbacks haven't powerfully kicked in by then, and atmospheric CO2 and heat begins to stabilize, the ocean will become a source of both heat and CO2, extending our global warming forcings far far into the future after we are (likely) long gone
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby REAL Green » Fri 25 Sep 2020, 06:44:39

“With global warming, marine heatwaves like 'The Blob' could be commonplace”
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/0 ... 600971855/
https://cdnph.upi.com/svc/sv/i/81416009 ... nplace.jpg

“Sept. 24 (UPI) -- In 2015, a marine heatwave dubbed "The Blob" expanded across the Northern Pacific. At its peak, the mass of warm water extended more than 2,000 miles in length, measured 1,000 miles wide and extended several hundred feet beneath the ocean surface. According to a new study, anthropogenic climate change has made extreme heatwaves like the Blob more likely. In fact, the study's authors claim human-caused global warming is directly to blame for the Blob. The Blob would not have occurred in a world without climate change," lead study author Charlotte Laufkötter, a marine scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, told UPI in an email. The Blob was the largest and longest heatwave in the last half-century, covering a few million square miles of ocean and lasting more than 350 days.”
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Re: Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plast

Unread postby REAL Green » Fri 09 Oct 2020, 05:19:02

“We estimate up to 14 million tonnes of microplastics lie on the seafloor. It’s worse than we thought”
https://theconversation.com/we-estimate ... ght-146403

“Nowhere, it seems, is immune from plastic pollution: plastic has been reported in the high Arctic oceans, in the sea ice around Antarctica and even in the world’s deepest waters of the Mariana Trench. But just how bad is the problem? Our new research provides the first global estimate of microplastics on the seafloor — our research suggests there’s a staggering 8-14 million tonnes of it. This is up to 35 times more than the estimated weight of plastic pollution on the ocean’s surface… Most of the plastic dumped into the ocean likely ends up on the coasts, not floating around the ocean’s surface or on the seafloor. In fact, three-quarters of the rubbish found along Australia’s coastlines is plastics… Scientists in the US have shown microbial communities, such as bacteria, can inhabit this marine “plastisphere” — a term for the ecosystems that live in plastic environments. The microbes weigh the plastic down so it no longer floats. We also know mussels and other invertebrates may colonise floating plastics, adding weight to make them sink. The type of rubbish will also determine whether it gets washed up on the beach or sinks to the seafloor… For example, in a previous study we found cigarette butts, plastic fragments, bottlecaps and food wrappers are common on land, though rare on the seabed. Meanwhile, we found entangling items such fishing line, ropes and plastic bags are common on the seafloor. Interestingly, in our new study we also found the number of plastic fragments on the seafloor was generally higher in areas where there was floating rubbish on the ocean’s surface. This suggests surface “hotspots” may be reflected below.”
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Re: Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plast

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 10 Oct 2020, 00:13:28

REAL Green wrote:“We estimate up to 14 million tonnes of microplastics lie on the seafloor. It’s worse than we thought”
https://theconversation.com/we-estimate ... ght-146403

“Nowhere, it seems, is immune from plastic pollution: plastic has been reported in the high Arctic oceans, in the sea ice around Antarctica and even in the world’s deepest waters of the Mariana Trench. But just how bad is the problem? Our new research provides the first global estimate of microplastics on the seafloor — our research suggests there’s a staggering 8-14 million tonnes of it. This is up to 35 times more than the estimated weight of plastic pollution on the ocean’s surface… Most of the plastic dumped into the ocean likely ends up on the coasts, not floating around the ocean’s surface or on the seafloor. In fact, three-quarters of the rubbish found along Australia’s coastlines is plastics… Scientists in the US have shown microbial communities, such as bacteria, can inhabit this marine “plastisphere” — a term for the ecosystems that live in plastic environments. The microbes weigh the plastic down so it no longer floats. We also know mussels and other invertebrates may colonise floating plastics, adding weight to make them sink. The type of rubbish will also determine whether it gets washed up on the beach or sinks to the seafloor… For example, in a previous study we found cigarette butts, plastic fragments, bottlecaps and food wrappers are common on land, though rare on the seabed. Meanwhile, we found entangling items such fishing line, ropes and plastic bags are common on the seafloor. Interestingly, in our new study we also found the number of plastic fragments on the seafloor was generally higher in areas where there was floating rubbish on the ocean’s surface. This suggests surface “hotspots” may be reflected below.”


In a weird way this could be a positive sign. As plastic detritus accumulates on the sea floor it will be incorporated into the floor silt layer, so if we stop adding fresh waste it will eventually all be sealed away in the anoxic deep sea floor environment where its future impact will be minimized.
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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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby Newfie » Thu 15 Oct 2020, 08:20:13

Arctic Climate change research completes.

https://gcaptain.com/ship-adrift-in-arctic-ice/
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby jedrider » Wed 21 Oct 2020, 18:15:30

Many of the earlier predictions of climate research have now become reality. The world is getting warmer, sea levels are rising faster and faster, and more frequent heat waves, extreme rainfall, devastating wildfires and more severe tropical storms are affecting many millions of people. Now there is growing evidence that another climate forecast is already coming true: the Gulf Stream system in the Atlantic is apparently weakening, with consequences for Europe too.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/new-studies-confirm-weakening-of-the-gulf-stream-circulation-amoc/
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby jedrider » Wed 21 Oct 2020, 22:24:40

I found a place to go:

Nova Scotia

They have a cooling trend.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby dissident » Mon 26 Oct 2020, 12:22:22

jedrider wrote:Many of the earlier predictions of climate research have now become reality. The world is getting warmer, sea levels are rising faster and faster, and more frequent heat waves, extreme rainfall, devastating wildfires and more severe tropical storms are affecting many millions of people. Now there is growing evidence that another climate forecast is already coming true: the Gulf Stream system in the Atlantic is apparently weakening, with consequences for Europe too.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/09/new-studies-confirm-weakening-of-the-gulf-stream-circulation-amoc/


But there will be no cooling trend in Europe or the Arctic Ocean since the net heat flux is still going up. The shut down of the Gulf Stream has become a trope. Everything else is ignored and that is not science. The Gulf Stream delivers only about 15% of the heat to the North Atlantic and will not fully shut down. It will become shallower and lose a lot of the haline component that acts to pump water and heat into the deep.

Thanks to loss of sea ice cover, the summer time heating of the Artic Ocean and the activation of currents via wind-wave action that was previously suppressed by persistent ice cover, the marginal losses of heat transport by the Gulf Stream are going to be more than offset by additional heating of the polar cap.

And the atmospheric component of this poleward heat flux is not shutting down. Even though there is another trope out there that claims that baroclinic adjustment will slow down. BS. The heat accumulation at low latitudes will be pumped to the high latitudes. That is the real adjustment since any heat accumulation at low latitudes increases the latitudinal (meridional) temperature gradient and the zonal winds through thermal wind balance (related to the Coriolis effect). This is a rich source of available potential energy for baroclinic instability.

The weakening of the polar front jet is not going to shut down the transport of heat into the polar cap as we have seen already. It will make it worse since it acts as a type of dynamical barrier (via the potential vorticity gradient) on baroclinic eddies. The engine for the tropospheric circulation is heating of low latitudes and cooling at high latitudes. That will not change.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby REAL Green » Tue 27 Oct 2020, 07:27:39

“Mythbusting: Five common misperceptions surrounding the environmental impacts of single-use plastics”
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-mythbusti ... pacts.html

“In reality, most of the environmental impacts of many consumer products, including soft drinks, are tied to the products inside, not the packaging…And when it comes to single-use plastics in particular, the production and disposal of packaging often represents only a few percent of a product's lifetime environmental impacts…"Consumers tend to focus on the impact of the packaging, rather than the impact of the product itself," said Miller, an associate professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability and director of the U-M Program in the Environment. "But mindful consumption that reduces the need for products and eliminates wastefulness is far more effective at reducing overall environmental impact than recycling…The five common misperceptions, along with Miller's insights about them, are: Plastic packaging is the largest contributor to a product's environmental impact. In reality, the product inside the package usually has a much greater environmental impact. The environmental impacts of plastics are greater than any other packaging material. Actually, plastic generally has lower overall environmental impacts than single-use glass or metal in most impact categories. Reusable products are always better than single-use plastics. Actually, reusable products have lower environmental impacts only when they are reused enough times to offset the materials and energy used to make them. Recycling and composting should be the highest priority. Truth be told, the environmental benefits associated with recycling and composting tend to be small when compared with efforts to reduce overall consumption. "Zero waste" efforts that eliminate single-use plastics minimize the environmental impacts of an event. In reality, the benefits of diverting waste from the landfill are small. Waste reduction and mindful consumption, including a careful consideration of the types and quantities of products consumed, are far larger factors dictating the environmental impact of an event…"Efforts to reduce the use of single-use plastics and to increase recycling may distract from less visible and often more damaging environmental impacts associated with energy use, manufacturing and resource extraction," she said. "We need to take a much more holistic view that considers larger environmental issues. Miller stresses that she is not trying to downplay environmental concerns associated with plastics and plastic waste. But to place the plastic-waste problem in proper context, it's critical to examine the environmental impacts that occur at every stage of a product's lifetime—from the extraction of natural resources and the energy needed to make the item to its ultimate disposal or reuse. Life-cycle assessment, or LCA, is a tool that researchers like Miller use to quantify lifetime environmental impacts in multiple categories, including climate change and energy use, water and resource depletion, biodiversity loss, solid waste generation, and human and ecological toxicity…Miller points out that the well-worn adage "reduce, reuse, recycle," commonly known as the 3Rs, was created to provide an easy-to-remember hierarchy of the preferable ways to lessen environmental impact. Yet most environmental messaging does not emphasize the inherent hierarchy of the 3Rs—the fact that reducing and reusing are listed ahead of recycling. As a result, consumers often over-emphasize the importance of recycling packaging instead of reducing product consumption to the extent possible and reusing items to extend their lifetime.”
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