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THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 30 Jan 2020, 13:29:57

The Pacific Ocean is so acidic that it's dissolving Dungeness crabs' shells




https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/27/us/p ... fOGsWjHIEE
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Thu 30 Jan 2020, 19:43:08

Lord save us from idiots. The average PH of the Pacific Ocean is 8.1.
As a reminder to those who probably skipped that lesson in basic chemistry a PH of 7.0 is neutral. Generally liquids are not assumed to be acidic until PH is <= 5.
So like the Atlantic and every other ocean on planet Earth the Pacific is quite alkaline.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby aspera » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 00:31:57

rockdoc123 wrote:...The average PH of the Pacific Ocean is 8.1. ...the Atlantic and every other ocean on planet Earth the Pacific is quite alkaline.

Rock: You have the chemistry correct (as expected), but you have not contextualized it correctly.

The issue primarily is not the current pH level (e.g., whether it's classified as alkaline, neutral, or acidic). More significant is the change in pH level that is occurring, and the rate of that change. Increasing seawater CO2 levels is tracking increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. The increasing seawater CO2 levels have caused a decline in seawater pH. From about pH of 8.11 in 1990 to about 8.07 in 2010.

Since the pH scale is logarithmic, this is a serious change in the hydrogen ion concentration. Consider that since the start of the industrial revolution, the average pH of surface ocean water has decreased by 0.11, which corresponds to about a 30% increase in the hydrogen ion concentration.

Biological systems need to adapt to the change in pH and can be particularly affected by the rate of that change. Many have evolved built-in buffering capacity, but that capacity has limits and may be overwhelmed. Nice NOAA site that discusses the impacts on ocean biology from climate change is at https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Wha ... ication%3F

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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 01:16:32

The increasing seawater CO2 levels have caused a decline in seawater pH. From about pH of 8.11 in 1990 to about 8.07 in 2010.


This is very misleading based on a localized occurrence. As a contrary example, we have a study from the Western Pacific which shows a wild fluctuation annually in PH anywhere from 7.7 to 8.4 but no overall change from 1850 through to 2015 let alone any change from 1950 onwards.

Wei, G, et al, 2015. Decadal variability in seawater pH in the West Pacific: Evidence from coral d 11 B records. Jour Geoph Res, 120 (11), DOI: 10.1002/2015JC011066

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Notwithstanding the fact all of the suggested effects of decreasing PH are based on poorly controlled laboratory experiments that have variable outcomes we have the more important observation:

McElhany, P. 2017. CO2 sensitivity experiments are not sufficient to show an effect of ocean acidification. ICES Journal of Marine Science, V74, pp 926 -928

The ocean acidification (OA) literature is replete with laboratory studies that report species sensitivity to seawater carbonate chemistry in experimental treatments as an “effect of OA”. I argue that this is unintentionally misleading, since these studies do not actually demonstrate an effect of OA but rather show sensitivity to CO2. Documenting an effect of OA involves showing a change in a species (e.g. population abundance or distribution) as a consequence of anthropogenic changes in marine carbonate chemistry. To date, there have been no unambiguous demonstrations of a population level effect of anthropogenic OA, as that term is defined by the IPCC
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby aspera » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 01:42:20

rockdoc123 wrote:This is very misleading based on a localized occurrence.

Well Rock, the article you cite is a good one. It's focus is on plugging a gap in our knowledge of regional variation in ocean acidification. But such regional variations do not alter the reality of the documented global decline in seawater pH.

I'm sure that you saw that the same article you cited makes clear reference to the global decline in seawater pH caused by increasing CO2 emissions (NB the highlights).
The rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations as a result of post-Industrial era anthropogenic emissions has increased CO2 dissolution in oceanic surface waters, resulting in a reduction in seawater pH [Caldeira and Wickett, 2003; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes, 2007]. Ocean acidification is predicted to reduce the saturation state of carbonate minerals in seawater [Feely et al., 2004; Orr et al., 2005; Scottet al., 2009] and potentially threaten the existence and development of many marine calcareous organisms,such as calcareous microorganisms and corals [Langdon and Atkinson, 2005; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007]. Model calculations have indicated an overall decrease in global seawater pH of 0.1 relative to the pre-Industrial era value, and a further pH reduction of 0.2–0.3 over the next century [Haugan and Drange, 1996; Caldeira and Wickett, 2003]. The currently available worldwide ocean CO2-pH time series covering the past 20–30 years have shown a trend of acidification of the surface ocean, with OA rates varying from 20.001360.0003 yr21 to 20.002660.0006 yr21 [Bates et al., 2014, and references therein], which is in good agreement with the anticipated OA rates from model predictions [Caldeira and Wickett, 2003].

Wei, et al. (2015) Decadal variability in seawater pH in the West Pacific: Evidence from coral d 11 B records. Jour Geoph Res, 120 (11), DOI: 10.1002/2015JC011066
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ... 15JC011066
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby jawagord » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 11:35:41

Average pH is rather meaningless, like average temperature, the earth’s flora and fauna rarely experience average. Ocean pH along coastal areas where most sea life exists is highly variable (as low as 7 and as high as 8.4 see reference), much more variable than the small changes coming from increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Ocean pH varies by region, it varies by temperature, it varies by season, it varies by depth, it varies by salinity.

Add a small amount of “acidification” and some areas become less habitable to a few species while other areas become more hospitable, life goes on, life is adaptable, life is tenacious.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... 28983.g002


http://www.abeqas.com/connections-betwe ... -ocean-ph/
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 12:16:21

I'm sure that you saw that the same article you cited makes clear reference to the global decline in seawater pH caused by increasing CO2 emissions (NB the highlights).


What marine species are exposed to "global" pH levels? The answer is absolutely zero. They all live and adapt to local or regional pH. Previously on this site I've posted about a bit of research conducted some time ago that demonstrated within a very short distance ocean pH changed considerably. In the forereef, area pH was measured as being much lower than in the backreef area. Averaging a bunch of pH values from different environments (restricted, open etc) around the world is rather meaningless if you are worried somehow about the impact on various species. And the important piece is the other document I pointed to which indicates there is absolutely no observations in the real world that lead to conclusions regarding ocean waters becoming less alkaline. The very fact that Scleractinian corals have been a dominant reef builder for the past 240 million years during half of which CO2 was higher than present (as high as ~600 ppm), and through the mid-Cretaceous where CO2 was less than 200 ppm points to the adaptability of major marine life to changes in seawater chemistry.

Note: by definition, the oceans aren't becoming more "acidic" since they aren't at all "acidic" to begin with. They are becoming less alkaline.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby aspera » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 16:03:35

Rock: You're wrong. Despite regional variations, seawater pH is declining globally. And these declines have negative biologic effects. Check out the NOAA site. Or the Woods Hole site at https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/oc ... dification

rockdoc123 wrote:...the other document I pointed ...

You and I can cherry-pick individual articles all we want. And have some fun sniping at each other. But no one article makes the grade. Wei, et al. (2015) is a good find by you because (1) it cites multiple sources, and (2) it's exploring the gap in data concerning regional variations. But they start off their article by clearly acknowledging ocean acidification. But nonetheless, its the collection of articles documenting a changing situation that matter. Hence, referring to NOAA, or Woods Hole, etc.

rockdoc123 wrote:Note: by definition, the oceans aren't becoming more "acidic" since they aren't at all "acidic" to begin with. They are becoming less alkaline.

Now that's just being silly. You've got to know that. Acidic, Neutral and Alkaline are human constructs. They have no meaning to biologic systems. The negative logarithm of the hydrogen ion concentration is a continuous function; there are no discontinuities at, below or above 7.0. Even though you and I agree that the phrase "becoming less alkaline" only makes sense for pH levels above 7.0, that doesn't mean there is some singular life-relevant effect when it becomes 7.0, or drops slightly below that level. Life doesn't care for our semantics. Life has evolved ways of adapting to various ranges of pH. But survival can be affected by changes and particularly by rapid rates of change. I know that you know this...

Rock, it's easy to be disingenuous here, purposely confusing "the ocean is becoming acidic" with "ocean acidification." We're talking about ocean acidification: the process of lowering the oceans’ pH. Discussed here as the result of climate change. The chemistry was predictable long ago. That there will be a biological impact is also predictable. It's the details of that impact that is an active area of research.

The ocean is not acidic, and the changes to seawater pH caused by CO2 emissions are not projected to make it acidic. No reputable researcher would make such a claim. Again, this is well covered in the article that you cited, the total pH decrease from per-industrial levels through to 2100 is predicted to be 0.3-0.4 (Haugan & Drange, 1996; Caldeira & Wickett, 2003). The change discussed in the article you cited is ocean acidification. This change will not make the oceans acidic (and no one made such a claim). This change will have biologic effects.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 16:12:23

^. GREAT post!
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 19:25:47

Rock: You're wrong. Despite regional variations, seawater pH is declining globally.


Obviously I’m not wrong. By saying “it is declining globally” you are suggesting that everywhere in the world pH is declining and it isn’t as the paper by Wei et al points out. You can’t measure a “global” pH , it is slightly different at any given time in every ocean in the world and the variation over the entire day can be more extreme than the long term changes predicted. The “global” decrease is based on lumping a bunch of measurements together, taking mathmatical averages etc…the fact you have some areas which are remaining relatively alkaline constant means this is a meaningless number. Not only that but you must have noticed that every one of the articles that talks about declining pH uses a graph with a starting point somewhere around 1990. Why is that? Why is the data not shown prior to that? Maybe because in the longer records (Wei et al being one of them) when you look at a longer history that late decline looks like noise given there are several time periods where pH rose and fell and rose again by equal amounts. Now if you are arguing that such and such basin has seen a decrease in alkalinity recently, well fine. The corals in Fiji don’t give a stuff what the pH is in the north Atlantic, they might be concerned with the pH around the atoll or inside on the reef flats but that remains to be seen (no proof at this point).

Now that's just being silly. You've got to know that. Acidic, Neutral and Alkaline are human constructs. They have no meaning to biologic systems. 


Use the terminology correctly. The only reason “acidification” is being used is the fact it carries a scary connotation to those who don’t understand the system is still strongly alkaline. Using a term like "declining alkalinity" obviously wouldn’t generate the kind of panic that seems to be desired.

That there will be a biological impact is also predictable. 


Now, who is being disingenuous? The article I pointed to indicates that there is zero evidence in the real world for any biological impacts. Instead there are a number of observational studies noting many calcium secreting species that are living quite healthy in waters where pH is locally much lower than regionally (eg. shellfish near ocean floor volcanics which are quite happy living in pH just above 7.0). Laboratory experiments (which have yielded a wide range of results due to poor constraints on test environment etc) are not a valid means of describing what will happen in the real world which is much less controlled. There is a host of publications that point to a significant adaptation of shell bearing species to wide ranges in pH but somehow that never makes it into the press. Wonder why?

The fact of the matter is on a daily basis many ocean species are subjected to swings in pH that are much higher than is being projected “globally” over the next 80 years. As an example work on the Great Barrier reef demonstrates that Heron reef sees fluctuations in pH from 7.7 to 8.3 on a monthly basis throughout the year and there has been zero impact on the viability of coralline species.

Kline, D.I., et al. 2015. Six month in situ high-resolution carbonate chemistry and temperature study on a coral reef flat reveals asynchronous pH and temperature anomalies. PLoS ONE 10: e0127648, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127648

And, once again, the scleractinian coral story indicates the overall adaptability of ocean species (CO2 from around 200 ppm to 600 ppm).
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby aspera » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 19:35:52

rockdoc123 wrote:Use the terminology correctly. The only reason “acidification” is being used is the fact it carries a scary connotation to those who don’t understand the system is still strongly alkaline. Using a term like "declining alkalinity" obviously wouldn’t generate the kind of panic that seems to be desired.

So Rock, you are claiming that NOAA, and Woods Hole, and other scientific institutions of good repute are trying to instill panic by using the term "ocean acidification." If you truly believe that, then it becomes harder to accept what else you bring to this particular discussion.

I have and continue to accept and respect your expertise in the petroleum field.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 21:10:54

So Rock, you are claiming that NOAA, and Woods Hole, and other scientific institutions of good repute are trying to instill panic by using the term "ocean acidification." If you truly believe that, then it becomes harder to accept what else you bring to this particular discussion.


Lets see each one of these have used the term "climate deniers" at one time or another so....yes they use the language they need to make a "climate emergency". If not then why use the term "acidification" when "reduced alkalinity" is accurate? And I am by no means the first scientist to point this out.

I have and continue to accept and respect your expertise in the petroleum field.


and I have and continue to care very little what you think. I can get my information from the literature.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby careinke » Fri 31 Jan 2020, 23:38:59

rockdoc123 wrote:
So Rock, you are claiming that NOAA, and Woods Hole, and other scientific institutions of good repute are trying to instill panic by using the term "ocean acidification." If you truly believe that, then it becomes harder to accept what else you bring to this particular discussion.


Lets see each one of these have used the term "climate deniers" at one time or another so....yes they use the language they need to make a "climate emergency". If not then why use the term "acidification" when "reduced alkalinity" is accurate? And I am by no means the first scientist to point this out.

I have and continue to accept and respect your expertise in the petroleum field.


and I have and continue to care very little what you think. I can get my information from the literature.


In the meantime, the dungeness population in the lower puget sound (area 13 which is everything south of the Narrows Bridge) has collapsed. In 2017 we were adding dungeness crabbing days because the population was growing quickly. In 2018, 2019, and it looks like this year, there were/will be NO crabbing days allowed. As far as I can find out talking to state and tribal biologists no one has a very good explanation on why the crash.

On the other hand the oyster population has dramatically increased.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 09 Feb 2020, 14:15:56

Excess fresh water effects in Beaufort Gyre.

https://m.phys.org/news/2020-02-arctic- ... rents.html
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Sun 09 Feb 2020, 22:59:49

there is also a well-known problem with competition from other non-indigenous crab species that have been introduced. It's complex. The whole west coast is a very complex marine environment. Even without the overfishing by commercial enterprises, you have historically had periods where salmon and shellfish are under stress and face massive die-offs. Well before anyone was worried about climate change we saw ups and downs in ocean and sea-run freshwater sport fishing for periods of a few years at a time. It can be due to all sorts of things so pretty hard to just blame one culprit (although we always blamed the commercial boats). I have friends who own an oyster "farm" on Vancouver Island. Some years they get a plentiful harvest, others not very good. This is why marine science is such an immense and interesting field of endeavor.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby Heineken » Mon 10 Feb 2020, 06:54:08

The fact is that the oceans are changing rapidly in every department, from the behavior of the currents to the state of the smallest organisms like coral polyps. The waters are warming, acidifying, and rising. Plastic garbage is a huge new component of the ocean environment, with 8 million metric tons added (permanently) each year. Coral reefs are vanishing or have vanished, increasing the vulnerability of populated coastlines to storm damage. Fish populations are relocating, shrinking, and becoming impoverished with respect to quality species. Ocean mammals and reptiles are in rapid decline; many other species are simply disappearing. Apologists like Rocdoc will always be there trying to deny or minimize all this, but we can apprehend the changes with our own senses if they are open and not closed.
I don't understand the motivation behind denial unless, of course, the denier is profiting from status-quo economic activity. Maybe it's like someone being told he has cancer but refuses to believe it until it's got him by the throat.
All the denialist verbiage is garbage, just like the mountains of plastic and other pollutants dumped into the world ocean.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 10 Feb 2020, 08:13:48

Yes, the denial is hard to pin down in cause. I know relatively normal, I tell event, sympathetic folks who are deniers. But then again I also know folks who claim to support climate change but who really don’t understand it and can’t comprehend its depth. So the situation is complicated.

I think part of the problem is the scale and time frame of CC is very difficult for our brains to process. Kind of like imagining a world of 13 dimensions, really hard.

The profit motive surely makes it more difficult to accept. But I think there are few, on a personal basis, who can conceptualize the effects who deny them simply for profit motive. Not so much in a corporate basis, there the dynamics are different.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Mon 10 Feb 2020, 14:28:46

The fact is that the oceans are changing rapidly in every department, from the behavior of the currents to the state of the smallest organisms like coral polyps. The waters are warming, acidifying, and rising. Plastic garbage is a huge new component of the ocean environment, with 8 million metric tons added (permanently) each year. Coral reefs are vanishing or have vanished, increasing the vulnerability of populated coastlines to storm damage. Fish populations are relocating, shrinking, and becoming impoverished with respect to quality species. Ocean mammals and reptiles are in rapid decline; many other species are simply disappearing. Apologists like Rocdoc will always be there trying to deny or minimize all this, but we can apprehend the changes with our own senses if they are open and not closed.


Coral has shown to be particularly resilient to ocean change. Coral community damage caused by a period of warm ocean waters near the Great Barrier Reef has largely recovered through new coral growth and community expansion. When the large El Nino event in 1998 caused large spread ocean warming and greater than 90% mortality in reefs off Seychelles the reefs recovered largely in a decade and now after a decade and a half they are 2 -3 times larger in areal extent. We also know that the main coral community of today comprised of the Order Scleractinia has been around in abundance since the Triassic, a period of about 230 MM years during which the oceans have been warmer and colder and have seen periods of lower and higher pH. This is all published information.

Fish populations, as I have stated previously have been affected mainly by overfishing, something that is easily controlled but little attempts have been made. A recent study has demonstrated that CO2 levels 3 times higher than current have a negligible impact on the behavior of fish where observed near coral reefs. A year ago a paper (Henkes, G.A. et al, 2018. Temperature evolution and the oxygen isotope composition of Phanerozoic oceans from carbonate clumped isotope thermometry, Earth and Planetary Science Letter, 490, pp 40-50) noted that benthic ocean life thrived at temperatures 10 C higher than current levels and when CO2 in the oceans was much higher near the end of Paleozoic.

Ocean mammals and reptiles are in rapid decline? Which ones? References, please? Paul Voosen in a paper published last year (Vossen, P, et al, 2019. Project traces 500 million years of roller-coaster climate. Science 24, 364, pp 716-717) points out that 450 million years ago ocean waters were more than 20 C warmer than today and yet marine life thrive and diversified. And we even see some of the ancestors of that marine life today (Coelacanths, saltwater crocs, etc) And when the big evolution in modern mammals occurred temperatures were much warmer than at present.

What precisely am I denying? That people have thrown all sorts of crap including plastics and anything else they didn’t want into the ocean? That famous climate change warriors like Suzuki have homes that dump untreated sewage into the ocean? These are facts. But you are over the top on your hand-wringing claims that the oceans are dying due to climate change….there is no evidence for that and much evidence to the fact ocean life tends to be somewhat resilient.

My view is that people like to blame something they can’t control for all the world's problems. In this case, rather than stopping actual hard pollution of the oceans which I have witnessed in 4 separate oceans over the last 4 or so decades (something that individuals can have a huge impact on) they sit back and prefer to blame it on the climate which of course is all due to oil and gas companies and not their fault.
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby dohboi » Thu 13 Feb 2020, 20:35:45


The Blue Acceleration


https://news.mongabay.com/2020/02/the-b ... o-the-sea/

Paper: https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(19)30275-1

"
Humanity has depended on the ocean for millennia. Today, however, the rush to the sea is occurring with unprecedented diversity and intensity, propelled by population growth and demand for diminishing terrestrial resources.

A study published in January in the new journal One Earth analyzed 50 years of data on 18 kinds of marine resource claims, broadly grouped as food, material and space. The authors, from the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, captured the results in a series of graphs showing the amount of activity since 1970 in areas such as marine aquaculture, shipping, deep hydrocarbons, and offshore windfarms. The graphs all show sharp upticks in the past 20 to 30 years.

The authors call this race for the sea the “blue acceleration.”

“The current narrative is that we are about to move into the ocean as the new frontier,” lead author Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, a Ph.D. candidate in sustainability science, told Mongabay. “However, when you look at the graphs, it has started already.”
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Re: THE Oceans & Seas Thread pt 3

Unread postby Azothius » Tue 28 Apr 2020, 10:17:10

Seabed fossils show the ocean is undergoing a change not seen for 10,000 years

https://theconversation.com/seabed-foss ... ars-136804

Changes in ocean circulation may have caused a shift in Atlantic Ocean ecosystems not seen for the past 10,000 years, new analysis of deep-sea fossils has revealed....

The effects of the unusual circulation can be found across the North Atlantic. Just south of Iceland, a reduction in the numbers of cold-water plankton species and an increase in the numbers of warm-water species shows that warm waters have replaced cold, nutrient-rich waters. We believe that these changes have also led to a northward movement of key fish species such as mackerel, which is already causing political headaches as different nations vie for fishing rights.

Further north, other fossil evidence shows that more warm water has been reaching the Arctic from the Atlantic, likely contributing to melting sea ice. Further west, a slowdown in the Atlantic conveyor circulation means that waters are not warming as much as we would expect, while furthest west close to the US and Canada the warm gulf stream seems to be shifting northwards which will have profound consequences for important fisheries.
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