onlooker wrote:dohboi wrote:A Horrifying New Study Found that the Ocean is on its Way to Suffocating by 2030
http://www.theinertia.com/environment/a ... g-by-2030/
(Thanks to Abel at rs's blog for this)
And so even as we incessantly debate our fate tepidly and with ambiguity, Nature, reality, science and events are alerting us that things are even worse than we imagined. I have an uneasy feeling that our timelines are way too conservative for much of the doom we discuss here.
kiwichick wrote:The Guardian reports that the Great Barrier Reef is suffering from it's worst ever coral bleaching............ the scientist that did the aerial survey is pessimistic about the prospects for recovery............the reef is one of the most popular destinations of tourists to Australia..........and a very important source of jobs for the local Queenslanders
Ecologist Lesley Hughes, who travelled to the reef with Flannery, wrote last month that degraded coral had become “the new normal” on the reef.
“Structurally, the reef appears intact, but the whole landscape is, well, subdued,” she said. “While pockets of brilliant blue staghorn remain, much of the coral that bleached earlier this year is dead, the white skeletons filmed over by greenish-brown filamentous algae.
“The fish community has also changed. Algae-eating species such as surgeon fish are doing well, but coral-feeders are hardly to be seen – I spotted only a single parrot fish in an hour of snorkelling. Meanwhile, the corals themselves seem to be showing symptoms of white spot and white band diseases, conditions associated with their diminished immune systems after the stress of bleaching.”
Both Australia’s Coalition government and the Labor opposition have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to addressing water quality and pollution issues on the reef, but Flannery says global action on climate change is the only measure that can prevent the reef from being destroyed.
“This isn’t just an Australian issue, it’s a global issue and it will take global action,” he said. “But Australia can play a leading role in that action. [Climate change] is the issue that will decide the fate of the Great Barrier Reef, and so far we have seen far-from-adequate action on the part of the Australian government to address that threat.”
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.
...a 1,000-foot mega-tsunami slammed into the island of Lanai.
The second time bomb is a mega-tsunami caused by a massive landslide as a large section of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands in the Eastern Atlantic, collapses into the ocean following a volcanic eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma. If (when) this occurs, modeling results indicate a wall of water up to 300 feet high would race across the Atlantic and reach the East Coast in about nine hours with devastating effects.
The annual king tides are beginning to rise in South Florida, submerging docks, flooding low-lying streets and spilling over seawalls.
The tides are not expected to peak until Monday, but offshore winds from Hurricane Nicole are causing local water to swell about a foot over predictions, giving the region a preview of the rising tides.
dohboi wrote:http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/traces-of-an-ancient-mega-tsunami/411970/
The Most Destructive Wave in Earth’s (Known) History
Geologists have discovered evidence of an ancient 560-foot mega-tsunami....a 1,000-foot mega-tsunami slammed into the island of Lanai.
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.
Scientists have discovered a "lake" in the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone, who enters this pool at the bottom of the sea will suffer horribly. Erik Cordes, associate professor of biology at Temple University, has researched the pool and described his findings in the journal Oceanography.
“It was one of the most amazing things in the deep sea. You go down into the bottom of the ocean and you are looking at a lake or a river flowing. It feels like you are not on this world", Cordes told Discovery News.
It feels like you are not on this world"
The water in the "lake within the sea" is about five times as salty as the water surrounding it. It also contains highly toxic concentrations of methane and hydrogen sulfide and can thus not mix with the surrounding sea.
For animals (and people) who swim into it, these toxic concentrations can be deadly. Only bacterial life, tube worms and shrimp can survive those circumstances.
MV Ocean Warrior – Sea Shepherd’s New Weapon in Fight Against Japanese Whalers
Photo credit: Paul Watson/Sea Shepherd
Photo credit: Paul Watson/Sea Shepherd
In January 2015, the controversial whale warriors Sea Shepherd Conservation Society won 8.3 million euro from the Postcode Lotteries in the Netherlands and UK to put towards the construction of a new custom-built patrol ship to battle Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean.
To build their dream ship, Sea Shepherd turned to Dutch shipbuilder Damen Group for a modified version of the Fast Crew Supplier. Just 18 months later, Sea Shepherd commissioned the Ocean Warrior, the fastest, most high-tech, efficient and capable vessel to ever join the fleet.
In September, the Ocean Warrior, rumored to cost $12 million, departed Antalya, Turkey on its maiden voyage to Australia, via Amsterdam and Italy, to participate in Sea Shepherds 11th Antarctic whale defense campaign in the South Ocean beginning this December.
Here’s a closer look at the vessel:
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.
The effects of ocean acidification (OA) on the structure and complexity of coastal marine biogenic habitat have been broadly overlooked. Here we explore how declining pH and carbonate saturation may affect the structural complexity of four major biogenic habitats.
Our analyses predict that indirect effects driven by OA on habitat-forming organisms could lead to lower species diversity in coral reefs, mussel beds and some macroalgal habitats, but increases in seagrass and other macroalgal habitats.
Available in situ data support the prediction of decreased biodiversity in coral reefs, but not the prediction of seagrass bed gains. Thus, OA-driven habitat loss may exacerbate the direct negative effects of OA on coastal biodiversity; however, we lack evidence of the predicted biodiversity increase in systems where habitat-forming species could benefit from acidification. Overall, a combination of direct effects and community-mediated indirect effects will drive changes in the extent and structural complexity of biogenic habitat, which will have important ecosystem effects.
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