Climate Change Gases Fundamental and Irreversible Ecology of Oceans and Sea Life Increase temp acidity oxygen levels food chain major currents

Tags: Climate Change Alters Oceans Well Beyond Popular Conceptions Including Temperature, acidity, oxygen levels, food chain killing Plankton, even direction of flow of major currents, distinct alteration of weather with just small temperature change.

Shells of crabs, lobsters, clams, among many are already dissolving due to increased acidity, Plankton depletion have already disrupted the food chain even up to some whales where fish have to migrate to obtain food.

Ironically the important Gulf Stream to warm the East Coast and Europe is already starting to slow because the warmer currents with lower density does not sink when it reaches the Northern Atlantic which will eventually stop this warm current and cause a cold Europe. Already the current for Europe has slowed by 30 percent which has not been publicized.

So we have a combination of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere making it warmer in summer and colder in the winter. I suspect that the Northeast USA will be colder this winter, a change from previous winters. Take the time to make your home more efficient including getting a generator in case the electricity goes out do to a much larger use of natural gas, the primary heating fuel used in the Northeast. That is the real reason for the blackout in the Northeast a few years ago. Lack of gas pipeline capacity for the sharp increase in use of electronic products.

Jim Kawakami, July 5, 2010, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/04/96966/report-oceans-deteriorating-health.html WASHINGTON — A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.

The report, in Science magazine, (premier weekly of new science findings) brings together dozens of studies that collectively paint a dismal picture of deteriorating ocean health.

"This is further evidence we are well on our way to the next great extinction event," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of the report. ...

• Nutrient-poor "ocean deserts" in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans grew by 15 percent, or roughly 2.5 million square miles, from 1998 to 2006.

• Oxygen concentrations have been dropping off the Northwest U.S. coast and the coast of southern Africa, where dead zones are appearing regularly. There is paleontological evidence that declining oxygen levels in the oceans played a major role in at least four or five mass extinctions.

• Since the early 1980s, the production of phytoplankton, a crucial creature at the lower end of the food chain, has declined 6 percent, with 70 percent of the decline found in the northern parts of the oceans. Scientists also have found that phytoplankton are becoming smaller. ...

One of the consequences could be a disruption of major ocean currents, particularly those flowing north and south, circulating warm water from the equator to polar regions and cold water from the poles back to the equator. Higher temperatures in polar regions and a decrease in the salinity of surface water due to melting ice sheets could interrupt such circulation, the report says.

The change in currents could further affect such climate phenomena as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation. Scientists just now are starting to understand how these phenomena affect global weather patterns. ...

There's growing concern about low-oxygen or no-oxygen zones appearing more and more regularly off the Northwest coast, Mantua said. Scientists are studying the California Current along the West Coast to determine whether it could be affected, he added.

(Deeper water currents travel to the Northwest coast from Southeast Asia is more depleted of oxygen because the warm oxygen rich surface waters do not sink. After months, the cooler Oregon waters, for example, provide oxygen and sea life gradually begins to thrive. Jim)

Richard Feely, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said the report in Science seemed so direct because one of the authors was Australian. ...

(Australians were the first scientists to realize that the heavy use of UVB sunscreens actually led to a sharp increase in melanoma skin cancer. UVA, the major component of sun radiation, is not stopped by UVB sunscreens and alters the DNA of the Melanin precursor below the outer skin. UVB stoppage also stops our production of vitamin D in the skin which has only recently been realized to cause many of the neurological illness epidemic such as MS and other diseases thought to be due to heredity. Jim)

"Australians come at you full-bore and lay it on the line," Feely said. ... (They have a lot at stake. Warm ocean currents mean less rain as we experienced in Southeast USA and Galapagos. Jim)

Report: Ocean acidification rising at unprecedented rate

Scientists: Global warming has already changed oceans

Report: Greenhouse gases imperil oceans' web of life

Oceans' growing acidity alarms scientists

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