Monday, July 12: Ocean acidification findings for Puget Sound to be announced

 

WHAT: Learn where Puget Sound waters have particularly low pH values compared to what is normal for ocean waters and what proportion is probably the result of man-made carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. View a buoy and sleek University of Washington-built Seaglider on board the ship that is about to deploy them off the Washington coast. They will be used to monitor ocean water, destined to end up in Puget Sound, for such things as acidification.

SPEAKERS: Oceanographers with the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory

WHEN: 10 a.m. Monday, July 12

WHERE: Applied Physics Laboratory dock, Eastlake Avenue East, under the University Bridge

DETAILS: NOAA and UW scientists will announce findings that are about to be published about acidification in Puget Sound and the outlook for the Sound’s waters if carbon dioxide continues building in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide gas dissolving in seawater lowers the pH and makes it more difficult for organisms to get the substances they need to build their skeletons and shells. Scientists are working to determine the effects on everything from single-celled organisms to oysters, mussels and crabs. To learn more, the most sophisticated array of instruments ever put in Washington waters will be deployed on a buoy and Seaglider off the coast near La Push, Wash., in water that typically makes its way into Puget Sound. The instruments also will keep tabs on ocean and atmospheric conditions that can lead to toxic algae outbreaks along the coast as well as low-oxygen waters, like those that have plagued Hood Canal in recent years.

Researchers will also discuss:

• How carbon dioxide sensors on the Space Needle since spring are helping citizen scientists learn about emissions.
• How local conservation groups, government and university scientists, those who fish for a living, shellfish aquaculturists and Native Americans have come together to support a comprehensive ocean acidification research and monitoring program in Puget Sound.

Sandra Hines, Vince Stricherz. University of Washington News, 8 July 2010.

Media advisory: Ocean acidification findings for Puget Sound to be announced  via Ocean Acidification

Technorati Tags: ocean acidification

113 governments agree to conserve endangered sharks – Peter Garrett declines on behalf of Australia

Peter Garrett, what a disappointment he’s been as Environment Minister.

MANILA, Philippines, February 17, 2010 (ENS) - A landmark agreement to protect shark species threatened with extinction was reached Friday as 113 countries signed up to a United Nations-backed wildlife treaty to conserve migratory sharks.

Government representatives signed the shark protection agreement in Manila at a meeting of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, CMS, a treaty administered by the UN Environment Programme.

They agreed to include seven shark species in the agreement - the great white, basking, whale, porbeagle, spiny dogfish, shortfin and longfin mako sharks.

The sharks are to benefit from better international protection by fishing nations by reduction of illegal fishing and trade through the enforcement of existing laws. …

According to the 2010 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, 17 percent of world's 1,044 shark species are threatened with extinction. At present, human knowledge of about 47 percent of shark species is too limited to even assess if they are threatened.

UNEP cites studies showing that shark populations collapsed in both in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Mediterranean Sea by 90 percent, and by 75 percent in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean within the past 15 years.

The human appetite for shark fin soup and shark meat has led to the collapse of shark populations.

By signing the agreement, the delegates recognized that sharks are at risk of over-fishing, fisheries by-catch, illegal trade, habitat destruction, depletion of prey species, pollution with a high risk of mercury poisoning, boat strikes and the impact of climate change on the marine environment. ...

Nevertheless, Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett says his government will not adhere to the protection of the porbeagle, longfin mako and shortfin mako species under the CMS treaty, but instead would pass a law to remove these sharks from the country's list of protected species. …

Shark conservationists are worried about Australia's new shark policy.

"Australia is a longstanding signatory of the Convention for Conservation of Migratory Species and has committed to protect listed species with Australian legislation - applying the EPBC act to those species as they migrate through our waters," said Glenn Sant, who serves as Global Marine Programme leader of TRAFFIC and a vice-chair of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group.

"We are deeply concerned that the Australian Government has decided not to offer these species any increased protection despite the fact that they have been internationally listed under the CMS and recognized as globally Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List." …

113 Governments Agree to Conserve Endangered Sharks

Technorati Tags: fish decline,overfishing,ocean overexploitation,Australia

Stanford: Geoengineering will not help oceans

“Geoengineering” experiments proposed to reduce global warming by blocking sunlight with atmosphere-injected particles may cool the world but still leave carbon dioxide levels dangerously high, Stanford scientists say.

Sunlight-blocking particles would fail to solve the problems of ocean acidification and dying corals, two significant repercussions of climate change, according to a study by Ken Caldeira of Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution, Damon Matthews of Concordia University, and Long Cao of the Carnegie Institution. Atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in ocean water, making it more acidic and difficult for animals to build their shells or skeletons, especially corals.

Proponents of geoengineering have called for injecting small, reflective particles into the atmosphere to partially block sunlight and cool the earth, just as ash from an erupting volcano does. The resulting carbon-dioxide-rich climate would cause land plants to grow more vigorously, hold onto more carbon and release less to the ocean. But the difference would not be enough to fundamentally alter the plight of coral reefs, Caldeira said.

The researchers used computer models of the Earth’s climate system and biosphere to simulate the effect of sunlight-reflecting particles on climate and ocean chemistry. Such geoengineering methods “might be able to address some of the climate effects of carbon dioxide but they don’t fundamentally address the chemical effects posed by carbon dioxide,” Caldeira said.

“Instead of taking till 2050 until there’s no place left in the ocean where corals can survive, it might be 2053. The carbon cycle effects of the geoengineering might delay that outcome in the ocean by a few years but wouldn’t prevent those outcomes from occurring,” he said. The scientists’ work was published in Geophysical Research Letters. …

Global warming tactic cools climate but won’t help corals, say Stanford researchers

Technorati Tags: ocean acidification,geoengineering

EPA evaluates ocean acidification as a threat to water quality under Clean Water Act

 Action Marks First Step Toward Regulation of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Under the Clean Water Act

The United States Environmental Protection Agency announced steps to protect U.S. waters from the threat of ocean acidification under the Clean Water Act. Today, EPA issued a notice of data availability to be published in the Federal Register that calls for information and data on ocean acidification that the agency will use to evaluate water-quality criteria under the Clean Water Act.

The notice responded to a formal petition and threatened litigation from the Center for Biological Diversity that sought to compel the agency to impose stricter pH criteria for ocean water quality and publish guidance to help states protect American waters from ocean acidification. EPA’s notice marks the first time that the Clean Water Act will be invoked by the agency to address ocean acidification.

“Ocean acidification is likely the greatest threat to the health of our oceans and is occurring at a frightening rate,” said Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program. “The federal government has finally acknowledged that ocean acidification is a threat; now it must take the next step and fully implement the Clean Water Act to protect our nation’s waters from ‘the other CO2 problem.’ ”
EPA’s water-quality criteria are relevant to preventing ocean acidification because they are the measure against which many states gauge the need to impose regulations on pollution. The notice states that EPA’s “recommended criteria provide guidance to States and authorized Tribes in adopting water quality standards that ultimately provide a basis for controlling discharges or releases of pollutants.” Here, that could eventually translate into controls on CO2. …

EPA Evaluates Ocean Acidification as a Threat to Water Quality Under Clean Water Act

Technorati Tags: ocean acidification,carbon dioxide

Dramatic decrease of pelagic carbonate production by nannoplankton across the Early Toarcian anoxic event (T-OAE)

“Nanno-“? The spelling is correct, I checked. 

In this account we present estimates of nannofossil fluxes in four sections and one borehole all belonging to the Early Jurassic western Tethys. This study aims to map the distribution of pelagic carbonate production across the Early Toarcian anoxic event (T-OAE), and to understand which environmental parameters did control such production. Our results indicate important changes in carbonate production by nannoplankton occurring within the western Tethys and its variations through time. Nannofossil fluxes (specimens per m2 per year) are extremely low during the T-OAE in all the studied settings. Higher fluxes are encountered in the westernmost part of the Tethys Ocean before the T-OAE, whilst pelagic carbonate production shifted towards the northern margin of the Tethys after the recovery from anoxic conditions. The dramatic decrease in nannoplankton production during the T-OAE has been interpreted in previous works as a biocalcification crisis related to high pCO2 in the atmosphere/hydrosphere system. Although a high pCO2 may have lowered the carbonate saturation state of Early Jurassic oceans and finally hampered biocalcification, we speculate that the most important effects of CO2 increase were indirect, and affected pelagic producers via changes on climate and sea-level. Namely, it seems that precipitation/evaporation budgets and continental runoff that controlled nutrient levels and salinity in surface oceanic waters were important factors for pelagic biocalcifiers.

Mattioli, E., Pittet, B., Petitpierre, L. & Mailliot, S., 2009. Dramatic decrease of pelagic carbonate production by nannoplankton across the Early Toarcian anoxic event (T-OAE). Global and Planetary Change 65(3-4): 134-145. Article (subscription required).

Dramatic decrease of pelagic carbonate production by nannoplankton across the Early Toarcian anoxic event (T-OAE)

Technorati Tags: ocean anoxia,ocean acidification,carbon dioxide