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Death Bloom of Plankton A Warning on Warming
Vanishing Arctic sea ice brought on by
climate change is causing the crucially important microscopic marine
plants called phytoplankton to bloom explosively and die away as never
before, a phenomenon that is likely to create havoc among migratory
creatures that rely on the ocean for food, Stanford scientists have
found. 
A few organisms may benefit from this disruption of the Arctic's fragile ecology, but a variety of animals, from gray whales to seabirds, will suffer, said Stanford biological oceanographer Kevin R. Arrigo.
"It's all a question of timing." Arrigo said. "If migratory animals reach the Arctic and find the phytoplankton's gone, they'll have missed the boat."
Phytoplankton throughout the world's oceans is the crucial nutrient at the base of the food web on which all marine life depends; when it's plentiful, life thrives and when it's gone, marine life is impossible.
Arrigo and his colleagues gathered 10 years of observations from six NASA satellites to study changes in the evidence of chlorophyll - a key to measuring the annual abundance and disappearance of phytoplankton blooms - at the surface of the oceans. The satellite network has also recorded the yearly appearance and disappearance of vast expanses of sea ice and the increasing areas of open ocean all around the Arctic, an indication of how climate change is taking hold in the northern reaches of the globe.
A report of their findings is to appear in the current issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Unwelcome changes
The annual deep freeze that has covered much of the northern seas with ice around the polar regions was once a regular event, but what has been normal for millennia in the High Arctic is no longer the case. As global climate change has warmed the world's oceans, warmer water has moved into the frigid Arctic, causing changes in the once-regular appearance and disappearance of sea ice over vast areas.
The result is a shift in when explosive blooms of phytoplankton appear and disappear, Arrigo's team has found.
"It's a complex system," Arrigo said in an interview, "but as the changes in ice cover throw the timing of phytoplankton abundance off, then the birds and animals whose brains have long been programmed to migrate north at specific times of the year will have missed the boat if there's no nourishment for them when they get there."
Every spring and summer, phytoplankton in the Arctic blooms richly in explosive pulses, nourished by nitrogen and phosphorous in the seawater, and when those chemicals are consumed, the blooms end, Arrigo said.
Lower sea ice
The summer of 2007 experienced "by far the lowest sea ice cover ever recorded," Arrigo and his colleagues said. The ice cover was an unprecedented 23 percent lower than the previous low recorded only two years earlier, according to a recent report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
As a result of all that open water, "primary production" of phytoplankton in the open ocean of the Arctic reached a peak of more than 10 million tons last year, compared with only 700,000 tons in 2006, Arrigo found.
Most of the explosive increase in plant production was due to the longer growing season made possible by the increasing extent of ice-free open ocean - particularly in the shallower waters of the continental shelves that surround the entire north polar region.
But plankton is short-lived, and when its chemical nutrients run out and the plants disappear, the marine life that depends on it is threatened.
"Continued reductions in Arctic sea ice and the associated increase in primary production (of phytoplankton) are almost certain to impact marine ecosystems ... and could precipitate profound ecological shifts," Arrigo wrote in his team's report.
Some fish and other creatures in the far north that serve as prey for animals higher in the food chain may benefit from increases in phytoplankton, but many migratory animals like gray whales and all the seabirds that shuttle to the Arctic at fixed times are bound to lose out if the timing of the phytoplankton cycle changes, Arrigo said.
His colleagues in this report are Gert van Dijken, the project's technical expert, and Sudeshna Pabi, a geophysics graduate student at Stanford.
- Posted in
11 Comments so far
Show AllAnother one down, another one gone, and another one bites the dust.
One by one the supports for life in the current biosphere are weakening and crumbling.
And the one species that can do anything about it sits on its fat ass and figures that it will just turn up the air conditioning if things get too warm.
As they used to say when the atomic bomb was in vogue, bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.
I think maybe the mantra this time should be drill baby drill (a la air head Palin)
"...causing the crucially important microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton to bloom explosively and die away as never before,"
Well not exactly "as never before".
Thats how all the oil deposits were formed in the frst place.
"CRUDE - The incredable journey of oil"
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/
Soooooo! that means we are making new oil. YEAH YEAH YEAH! We're saved.
NOT
Here is the rambling climate post. For your entertainment and comment.
Sometimes it's helpful to make a few observations and see where they take us. The following may seem too simple, or over the top, but consider:
The IPCC ice core data charts, and the same as seen in Gore's Book printed, so it can be studied, show us that there have been about 6 ice age cycles in the last 650ky. We are on the up-swing of a temp/CO2 spike now, with GHGs now well out of historical norms. This begs the questions---What weather phenomenon has defeated and reversed the previous spikes, yet not drastically lowered the mean planetary temp? ---What is the trigger? temp, CO2, other? Obviously, the reversals occurred before the ice caps melted appreciably, otherwise there would be no data to harvest...Is, then, the reversal of our spike immanent, or even, overdue (tipping point)?---When does the ice of an ice age build up? All at once or gradually, as the temp/CO2 decreases? ---How is the atmosphere supplied with the moisture and energy necessary to transfer so much water to the poles as snow and ice? ---What role does methane play as it is released from tundra and the oceans? ---Was there massive methane release during the previous cycles? Or did the reversals act to put the methane back to sleep, so to speak, before it could compound the greenhouse effect? ---There were humans present during the previous cycles, how and where did they survive the reversals? ---What can the paleo-geologic record found in the magnetic striping of the mid-Atlantic ridge tell us about tectonic plate movement and possible, or sudden, volcanic warming of the oceans? ---Is it possible that the mass of melt water transferred to the equatorial bulge would be sufficient to change the angular momentum of the earth enough to tweak the plates into movement? ---Does USGS data show increased activity along plate boundaries that might be a "forcing of the forcings" related to shifting water mass or rising landmass?
The answers to these questions are not hard to compute. The answers dictate the type and intensity of response that is called for. The answers have probably been known for some time, by some people who have the connections and means to respond. The answers demand a change to the status quo, a change from "growth and consumption" to sustainability and survival. Look at the tops of the spikes and decide if we have any more time to dally around with any energy sources that add heat or GHGs to the ecosphere. Coal and oil are out. Nukes and geo-thermal are out. NG, too, even though it's cleaner. The grid has to change. Wealth has to be used in different ways. It's a different game, and we're all in the same boat.
We can have just as much fun surviving with wind and sun, as with burning and consuming---let's do it!
Additionally:
Subjectively, one of the main characteristics of a spike is that everything is relatively normal, until it isn't. We are getting lots of clues now.
The emerging scenario seems to be: rising temp melts land-borne ice along with sea ice. Fresh water disrupts the thermo-halyene circulation of the gulf stream and if we're lucky, that's as far as it goes--an ice age cycle of normal proportions is initiated and technologically enabled civilization is disturbed, but maybe not destroyed.
If ice melts at such a rate as to enhance the above, another scenario might unfold: Land-borne ice melt flows to the equatorial bulge (the planet is not a perfect sphere-it bulges at the equator because of centrifugal force) thus changing the mass distribution and angular momentum of the earth and putting enough pressure on the tectonic plates to start a geotectonic event that would activate the ring of fire and the mid-Atlantic ridge. The resulting undersea volcanism, (not to mention the earthquakes, and worst case, the popping of the Yellowstone magma dome,) would flash heat the oceans. That seems to be the hidden key to how and when an ice age starts, and how it gets the moisture and enough energy to move that much water back to the polar latitudes, forming the glaciers, part of which slide on down around Cincinnati, melt and recede over the next 110,000 years.
Apparently planetary methane has been sequestered for a very long time--dinosaur time. It would be very bad for us to loose enough heat into the mix to stir up the methane. The previous ice age cycle/reversals evidently have occurred soon enough to keep the methane down under frozen tundra and cooled ocean water. An additional factor related to tectonics gleaned from USGS info is that land masses such as Greenland, relieved of the weight of the ice, tend to rise, actually float higher on the magma. National Geog had an article on the mechanics of the melting that is shaping up on Greenland---flows of melt water form surface streams which drop through the thousands of feet of ice to the land surface, creating a layer of slush under incredible pressure. The next dot in that progression is: earth tremor, separation and departure of a largish section of that ice cap which, worse case, might produce a tsunami out into the Atlantic. Or worst case, a chain reaction of tsunamis as some of the crumbling islands in the east Atlantic loose a mountain or two (PBS).
A serious multi-disciplinary approach, including even rogue generalists seems called for.
So…amazing deductions, pseudo-science in prose, or story board for “The Day After The Day After Tomorrow”?
Global Warming lifts all boats!
One question I haven’t seen addressed yet is the reduction of the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere. Oxygen is a natural resource since we use it for combustion and we harvest it for pure oxygen for many modern uses as well and to breathe. Carbon dioxide increase and ozone depletion has been in the forefront for the changing atmosphere. Increasing wildfires, increased fossil fuel consumption, more tree disease, disappearing coral, and pH changes in the oceans and water bodies in the world all reduce oxygen replenishment. Doesn’t most of the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from the aquatic phytoplankton in the ocean? Sea plants are being wiped out and less photosynthesis to generate oxygen.
And how long before Homo Sapiens, turned into Homo Stupidus, will become Homo Extinctus?
Write to Homo Cleverass, he'll tell you...
The news isn't all bad, but of course we never hear this side of the story here at Common Dreams.
http://www.adn.com/news/environment/story/555283.html
Sioux Rose
Two images come to my mind when I read this. First, the Star Trek film where Kirk's crew must return to the past to recover the last whale as ITS SONG is necessary to keep the probe from destroying the earth. Only the whale's song can communicate with this high tech space item.
Second, in the book "Mutant Messages from Down Under" written by a woman who travels with the Aborigine in Australia, she's told that tribes such as their own are on spiritual planes making the decision to leave earth. This planet emanates such intense signals of war, some literal--as the explosions over Iraq and Afghanistan, and on the ground in Congo and Palestine and other inflamed regions... and many expressing through angry thoughts and acts of everyday vengeance.
I like to think the imprint of all these amazing creatures remains inviolate, stored into the fabric of time, kept coded in the ethers the way our computer chips hold vast quantities of data. In my sci-fi dreams I imagine with access to these genetic codes, these amazing beings can be brought back at some later date. But then I wonder if the same long lineage of evolution, century upon century is the requirement to resurrect living sentient beings of such beauty and wonder? It is wise to prize and love well that which may ere be gone.
Sioux,
You might look at this analysis of the book "Mutant Message from Down Under":
http://www.west.com.au/reviews/morgan%27s-mutant-fantasy.html
It seems that the book was made up, and does not contain any actual message from any Aboriginal people.
Of course Star Trek makes no claim to be reality. i think i remember seeing that movie, was it the very first Star Trek movie? It's been many years since i stopped going to movies.
By the way, did you see where scientists believe that with preserved DNA they will be able to intervene in elephant reproduction to recreate extinct mastodons?
i'm with you on most of your political analysis; i admit i'm pretty skeptical of your astrological, karmic and mystical thinking.