Tag Archives: climate change

Texas May Be Feeding its Red Drum Fish More Than They Need, Say Researchers

By Guest PostSeptember 24, 2013Scienceaustin, breeding season, capital breeders, climate change, cynthia faulk, effects of pollution, environmentally friendly, fuiman, lee fuiman, marianna grenadier, migratory patterns, natural population, port aransas, red drum fish, reproductive cycle, spawn, survival rate, university of texas

Austin, TEXAS — It’s not the chicken or the egg, but marine scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have answered a basic question about red drum fish and their eggs that may eventually help save the state of Texas a lot of money in hatcheries management and make fish farming more environmentally friendly.

Every year the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department spends millions of dollars breeding red drum, a popular game fish, releasing between 20 and 30 million hatchery-raised fingerlings into eight different bays and estuaries along the coast. In order to maximize the numbers that survive to adulthood, the practice has been to provide adult fish a diet rich in fatty acids for nine months before breeding season. During breeding season, in order to save money and resources, the diet is less rich. (more…)

Movement of marine life follows speed and direction of climate change

By Guest PostSeptember 15, 2013Environmentbering sea, biological data, british columbia, changes in temperature, climate change, climate data, climate velocity, daniel pauly, direction, geological features, gulf of alaska, jorge sarmiento, malin pinsky, marine life, movement, ocean temperature move, predictions, princeton university, Rutgers University, simon levin, speed, survey data, temperature change, united states, university, warmer oceans

Scientists expect climate change and warmer oceans to push the fish that people rely on for food and income into new territory. Predictions of where and when species will relocate, however, are based on broad expectations about how animals will move and have often not played out in nature. New research based at Princeton University shows that the trick to more precise forecasts is to follow local temperature changes.

The researchers report in the journal Science the first evidence that sea creatures consistently keep pace with “climate velocity,” or the speed and direction in which changes such as ocean temperature move. They compiled 43 years of data related to the movement of 128 million animals from 360 species living around North America, including commercial staples such as lobster, shrimp and cod. They found that 70 percent of shifts in animals’ depth and 74 percent of changes in latitude correlated with regional-scale fluctuations in ocean temperature. (more…)

Effects of Climate Change on West Nile Virus

By Guest PostSeptember 11, 2013Environment, Healthandrew comrie, brain, canada, cdc, changes in climate, climate change, climate change models, climate-driven, cory morin, culex quinquefasciatus, effect, encephalitis, immune response, infectious cycle, inflammation, meningitis, mosquito population model, mosquito populations, North America, precipitation, southern us, species, temperature, united states, university of arizona, virus carrying mosquitoes, west nile vector, west nile virus

A study projects how climate change may affect virus-carrying mosquitoes across the southern U.S. Changes are expected to vary with region, and the southern states should see a trend toward longer seasons of mosquito activity and smaller midsummer mosquito populations

The varied influence of climate change on temperature and precipitation may have an equally wide-ranging effect on the spread of West Nile virus, suggesting that public health efforts to control the virus will need to take a local rather than global perspective, according to a study published this week in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)

First global atlas of marine plankton reveals remarkable underwater world

By Guest PostAugust 11, 2013Naturebacteria, c more, chaetoceros decipiens, climate change, computer model, data for plankton, diazotrophs, foraminifera, global atlas, hastigerina digitata, impact, jellyfish, maredat, marine biodiversity, marine biota, marine plankton, marine plankton diatom, nitrogen fixing bacteria, ocean acidification, ocean field data, predict, scott doney, South Pacific, Southern Ocean, subtropical ocean gyres, whoi, yawei luo

Under the microscope, they look like they could be from another planet, but these microscopic organisms inhabit the depths of our oceans in nearly infinite numbers.

To begin to identify where, when, and how much oceanic plankton can be found around the globe, a group of international researchers have compiled the first ever global atlas cataloguing marine plankton ranging in size from bacteria to jellyfish. The atlas was published on July 19, 2013, in a special issue of the journal Earth System Science Data. (more…)

Nighttime heat waves quadruple in Pacific Northwest

By Guest PostAugust 7, 2013Environmentcascade mountains, climate change, historical record, history books, karin bumbaco, kathie dello, nicholas bond, nighttime heat waves, nighttime low temperature, oregon, oregon climate service, oregon state university, pacific northwest, predictions, quadruple, seatac airport, summer temperatures, temperatures on record, trend, triple digit, university of washington, western washington

Nighttime heat waves are becoming more frequent in western Washington and Oregon.

And if you don’t sleep well in hot weather, this might be a good time to buy a fan, since records show that on average heat waves tend to strike around the last week of July.

University of Washington research shows that the region west of the Cascades saw only three nighttime heat waves between 1901 and 1980, but that number quadrupled to 12 nighttime heat waves in the three decades after 1980, according to a paper published in the July issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. (more…)

Scientists solve a 14,000-year-old ocean mystery

By Guest PostJuly 30, 2013Environmentabundance of isotopes, amoeba like foraminifera, bering sea, carbon dioxide, chaetoceros diatom, China, climate change, element, fossil record, ggc 37, iron hypothesis, kamchatka peninsula, ken buesseler, last ice age, loess plateau, melting glaciers, neodymium, north pacific ocean, norway, ocean mystery, ocean with iron, pacific, perfect storm, phoebe lam, phytoplankton, post ice age, russia, sediment cores, spore, strontium, university of bergen, university of bristol, whoi

At the end of the last Ice Age, as the world began to warm, a swath of the North Pacific Ocean came to life. During a brief pulse of biological productivity 14,000 years ago, this stretch of the sea teemed with phytoplankton, amoeba-like foraminifera and other tiny creatures, who thrived in large numbers until the productivity ended—as mysteriously as it began—just a few hundred years later.

Researchers have hypothesized that iron sparked this surge of ocean life, but a new study led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists and colleagues at the University of Bristol (UK), the University of Bergen (Norway), Williams College and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University suggests iron may not have played an important role after all, at least in some settings. The study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, determines that a different mechanism—a transient “perfect storm” of nutrients and light—spurred life in the post-Ice Age Pacific. Its findings resolve conflicting ideas about the relationship between iron and biological productivity during this time period in the North Pacific—with potential implications for geo-engineering efforts to curb climate change by seeding the ocean with iron. (more…)

Outlook is Grim for Mammals and Birds as Human Population Grows

By Guest PostJuly 16, 2013Environment, Naturebirds, birth rate, climate change, congo, data, death rate, democratic republic, ecosystem, erica chambers, extinction, grim, human population, human population footprint, jeffrey mckee, julia guseman, mammals, outlook, population density, prediction, projection, united states

Average Growing Nation Can Expect 10.8 Percent More Threatened Species by 2050

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The ongoing global growth in the human population will inevitably crowd out mammals and birds and has the potential to threaten hundreds of species with extinction within 40 years, new research shows.

Scientists at The Ohio State University have determined that the average growing nation should expect at least 3.3 percent more threatened species in the next decade and an increase of 10.8 percent species threatened with extinction by 2050.

The United States ranks sixth in the world in the number of new species expected to be threatened by 2050, the research showed. (more…)

New Approach to Measuring Coral Growth Offers Valuable Tool for Reef Managers

By Guest PostJuly 13, 2013Environmentbiscayne national park, calcification, calcium carbonate, climate change, coral growth, coral health, dry tortugas, ecosystem, environmental information, florida keys, fowey rocks, growth pattern, ilsa kuffner, level of precision, marathon, marine organisms, massive starlet coral, miami, national park, ocean water, ph, reef managers, scuba diver working, shell, siderastrea siderea, skeleton, suzette kimball, U.S. Geological Survey, us virgin islands, usgs scientist, water quality

Finds surprising growth patterns in the Florida Keys

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A new more sensitive weight-based approach for monitoring coral growth in the wild has been developed by U.S. Geological Survey researchers leading to more definitive answers about the status of coral reefs.

Corals and other marine organisms build their skeletons and shells through calcification, the biological process of secreting calcium carbonate obtained from ocean water. This new approach to measuring corals can provide finer-scale resolution than traditional linear measurements of coral growth. (more…)