Vital California kelp forests vanishing due to global warming
Mary Papenfuss By Mary Papenfuss Updated June 21, 2016 04:48 BST
A harbor seal swims in a kelp forest off the California coast near San Diego, California. Kyle McBurnie of California
Just as climate change and pollution are triggering a massive destructive bleaching of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, global warming and a fundamental alteration in the Pacific Ocean ecology are destroying the nutrient-rich underwater kelp forests off America's west coast.
Large tracts of the giant seaweed along hundreds of miles of coast have vanished in the past few years in a transformation so rapid that it has startled scientists. Aerial surveys of kelp north of San Francisco from 2008 to 2014 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) revealed a 93% decline — and quickly growing even worse. The seaweed forests are considered among the most productive ecosystems on the planet.
Corals are dying worldwide to triple threat of overfishing, pollution and ocean warming Great Barrier Reef: Powerful images reveal utter devastation of once-pristine corals Tides of dead and dying red crabs inundate California beaches
The kelp, home to some 700 ocean species, has been devoured by the ubiquitous spiky purple urchin whose predators have been eliminated by illness in an increasingly toxic Pacific or driven away by what scientist refer to as an unprecedented "warm blob" of water off the coast from Mexico to Alaska that further increased in temperature during El Nino conditions.
Thanks, puddle. Sometimes I just despair because the oligarchs and the corporations will not stop raping the environment until it is too late for all of us. Greed is killing our planet and then it will kill our people - all the planet's people.
The warming water is also directly harmful to the kelp because it interferes with the normal upwelling of nutrient- rich cold water, which helps the seaweed grow. In recent years, the kelp has produced far fewer fronds, diminishing reproductive capability and making the seaweed more susceptible to destruction by waves — and more vulnerable to purple urchins.
Researchers describe the newly desolate ocean tracts as "urchin barrens." But the kelp stalks have been so stripped by the urchins that even they are now starving.
Kelp forests are routinely impacted, but this sudden, severe destruction is unusual. "You just don't see the whole forest up and down the entire North Coast go away," said Cynthia Catton, an environmental scientist with the CDFW in Bodega Bay, who sees the kelp destruction as a consequence of a "perfect storm" of negative environmental factors.
The disappearing kelp has already severely impacted the red Abalone population as well as red sea urchin, sought by commercial operations for sushi, notes Catton.
It's one more troubling sign of an imploding Pacific coastal ecology that has witnessed a plummeting fish population, higher ocean acid levels, toxic algal blooms and increasing numbers of stranded starving and dead sea lion pups — all largely attributed to the rising temperatures of the coastal waters.
Scientists are still tracking the pace of the vanishing kelp, and uncertain if it can replenish itself quickly in the right conditions.
One California organisation is taking aggressively action to help the underwater forests by destroying purple urchins. Staffers and volunteers working in a kelp restoration project for the Santa Monica Bay Recovery Foundation in Southern California have killed 3.3 million purple urchins, clearing 142,000 square meters of seafloor of the animals. As a result, the kelp has begun to bounce back.
The project's main goal is to kill enough urchins to restore more than 600,000 square meters of seafloor off California's Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles, where the kelp canopy has decreased by 75% due to "development, pollution, over-fishing and a changing ocean climate," according to an organisation statement.
"Our underwater kelp forests are a lot like tropical rainforests or redwood forests, providing a lot of the same life-giving benefits," said Tom Ford, director of marine programs for the foundation. "Just as our land-based forests need to be protected by controlling the bark beetle, we are doing the same in the underwater forests."
Speaking as someone who has been the actual writer for a number of research journal articles on type 2 diabetes: It has been known for decades that many, but far from all, cases of type 2 diabetes are associated with obesity. And that is some cases weight loss and/or exercise can reverse the disease. What's new seems to be that this remains true even six years after the original diagnosis.
"The most stunning way Trump's lies differed from our participants', though, was in their cruelty. An astonishing 50 percent of Trump's lies were hurtful or disparaging. For example, he proclaimed that John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey, all career intelligence or law enforcement officials, were "political hacks." He said that "the Sloppy Michael Moore Show on Broadway was a TOTAL BOMB and was forced to close." He insisted that other "countries, they don't put their finest in the lottery system. They put people probably in many cases that they don't want." And he claimed that "Ralph Northam, who is running for Governor of Virginia, is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities."
The Trump lies that could not be coded into just one category were typically told both to belittle others and enhance himself. For example: "Senator Bob Corker 'begged' me to endorse him for reelection in Tennessee. I said 'NO' and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement)."
and also:
"By telling so many lies, and so many that are mean-spirited, Trump is violating some of the most fundamental norms of human social interaction and human decency. Many of the rest of us, in turn, have abandoned a norm of our own — we no longer give Trump the benefit of the doubt that we usually give so readily."
The Latest News From Planet Nine![Click] Maybe in a year or two we will know whether it exists or if the observed gravitational effects are from swarms of Kuiper Belt objects.
Beautiful photo.
ReplyDeleteWow! I hadn't heard about this:
ReplyDeleteNorthern California: sudden kelp die-off [Click]
--Alan
Can't read it, Alan. It's yet another site that requires that you turn off your ad blocker and that's just never going to happen for me.
DeleteVital California kelp forests vanishing due to global warming
ReplyDeleteMary Papenfuss
By Mary Papenfuss
Updated June 21, 2016 04:48 BST
A harbor seal swims in a kelp forest off the California coast near San Diego, California. Kyle McBurnie of California
Just as climate change and pollution are triggering a massive destructive bleaching of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, global warming and a fundamental alteration in the Pacific Ocean ecology are destroying the nutrient-rich underwater kelp forests off America's west coast.
Large tracts of the giant seaweed along hundreds of miles of coast have vanished in the past few years in a transformation so rapid that it has startled scientists. Aerial surveys of kelp north of San Francisco from 2008 to 2014 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) revealed a 93% decline — and quickly growing even worse. The seaweed forests are considered among the most productive ecosystems on the planet.
Corals are dying worldwide to triple threat of overfishing, pollution and ocean warming
Great Barrier Reef: Powerful images reveal utter devastation of once-pristine corals
Tides of dead and dying red crabs inundate California beaches
The kelp, home to some 700 ocean species, has been devoured by the ubiquitous spiky purple urchin whose predators have been eliminated by illness in an increasingly toxic Pacific or driven away by what scientist refer to as an unprecedented "warm blob" of water off the coast from Mexico to Alaska that further increased in temperature during El Nino conditions.
Thanks, puddle. Sometimes I just despair because the oligarchs and the corporations will not stop raping the environment until it is too late for all of us. Greed is killing our planet and then it will kill our people - all the planet's people.
DeleteThe warming water is also directly harmful to the kelp because it interferes with the normal upwelling of nutrient- rich cold water, which helps the seaweed grow. In recent years, the kelp has produced far fewer fronds, diminishing reproductive capability and making the seaweed more susceptible to destruction by waves — and more vulnerable to purple urchins.
ReplyDeleteResearchers describe the newly desolate ocean tracts as "urchin barrens." But the kelp stalks have been so stripped by the urchins that even they are now starving.
Kelp forests are routinely impacted, but this sudden, severe destruction is unusual. "You just don't see the whole forest up and down the entire North Coast go away," said Cynthia Catton, an environmental scientist with the CDFW in Bodega Bay, who sees the kelp destruction as a consequence of a "perfect storm" of negative environmental factors.
The disappearing kelp has already severely impacted the red Abalone population as well as red sea urchin, sought by commercial operations for sushi, notes Catton.
It's one more troubling sign of an imploding Pacific coastal ecology that has witnessed a plummeting fish population, higher ocean acid levels, toxic algal blooms and increasing numbers of stranded starving and dead sea lion pups — all largely attributed to the rising temperatures of the coastal waters.
Scientists are still tracking the pace of the vanishing kelp, and uncertain if it can replenish itself quickly in the right conditions.
One California organisation is taking aggressively action to help the underwater forests by destroying purple urchins. Staffers and volunteers working in a kelp restoration project for the Santa Monica Bay Recovery Foundation in Southern California have killed 3.3 million purple urchins, clearing 142,000 square meters of seafloor of the animals. As a result, the kelp has begun to bounce back.
The project's main goal is to kill enough urchins to restore more than 600,000 square meters of seafloor off California's Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles, where the kelp canopy has decreased by 75% due to "development, pollution, over-fishing and a changing ocean climate," according to an organisation statement.
"Our underwater kelp forests are a lot like tropical rainforests or redwood forests, providing a lot of the same life-giving benefits," said Tom Ford, director of marine programs for the foundation. "Just as our land-based forests need to be protected by controlling the bark beetle, we are doing the same in the underwater forests."
Jared Kushner in the Middle East[Click] Sounds pretty bad…
ReplyDeleteRadical diet can reverse type 2 diabetes, new study shows[Click]
Maintaining the reduced weight is the kicker, surely. But with adequate motivation and support, maybe it can be done.
—Alan
Speaking as someone who has been the actual writer for a number of research journal articles on type 2 diabetes: It has been known for decades that many, but far from all, cases of type 2 diabetes are associated with obesity. And that is some cases weight loss and/or exercise can reverse the disease. What's new seems to be that this remains true even six years after the original diagnosis.
Deletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-liar-20171208-story,amp.html
ReplyDeleteFrom the article:
"The most stunning way Trump's lies differed from our participants', though, was in their cruelty. An astonishing 50 percent of Trump's lies were hurtful or disparaging. For example, he proclaimed that John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey, all career intelligence or law enforcement officials, were "political hacks." He said that "the Sloppy Michael Moore Show on Broadway was a TOTAL BOMB and was forced to close." He insisted that other "countries, they don't put their finest in the lottery system. They put people probably in many cases that they don't want." And he claimed that "Ralph Northam, who is running for Governor of Virginia, is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities."
The Trump lies that could not be coded into just one category were typically told both to belittle others and enhance himself. For example: "Senator Bob Corker 'begged' me to endorse him for reelection in Tennessee. I said 'NO' and he dropped out (said he could not win without my endorsement)."
and also:
"By telling so many lies, and so many that are mean-spirited, Trump is violating some of the most fundamental norms of human social interaction and human decency. Many of the rest of us, in turn, have abandoned a norm of our own — we no longer give Trump the benefit of the doubt that we usually give so readily."
The Latest News From Planet Nine![Click] Maybe in a year or two we will know whether it exists or if the observed gravitational effects are from swarms of Kuiper Belt objects.
ReplyDelete—Alan