Ocean News

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by ImaginaryNumber, Oct 8, 2015.

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  1. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

  2. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    Climate change threatens world's largest seagrass carbon stores | EurekAlert

    In the summer of 2010-2011, Western Australia experienced an unprecedented marine heat wave that elevated water temperatures 2-4 degrees Celsius above average for more than two months. The loss of seagrass at Shark Bay after the 2010-2011 marine heat wave released up to 9 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere over the three years following the event. This amount is roughly the equivalent to the annual CO2 output of 800,000 homes, two average coal-fired power plants or 1,600,000 cars driven for 12 months.

    "This decrease [in seagrass cover at Shark Bay] is significant because seagrass meadows rank among the most intense CO2 sinks in the biosphere, giving them the name 'Blue Carbon ecosystems.' They take up and store CO2 in their soils and biomass through biosequestration. The carbon that is locked in the soils may remain there for millennia if seagrass ecosystems, which offer physical protection to these stocks, remain intact" explains Professor Carlos M. Duarte, professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and co-advisor to the Ph.D. thesis of the lead author.
     
  3. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    Google Timelapse

    Featuring select locations around the Earth.
    Miami, Brisbane, Las Vegas
    Mountain glaciers, Antarctic glaciers
    Logging in California, Solar Farm in China
    Aral Sea, Dead Sea
    etc

    [​IMG]
     
  4. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    The Arctic’s carbon bomb might be even more potent than we thought | Washington Post

    Scientists had predicted that most of the greenhouse gases released from the carbon-rich, frozen soils of the Arctic would be less-potent carbon dioxide, rather than more-potent methane. Research published in Nature Climate Change suggests that waterlogged wetland soils, where oxygen is not prevalent, will produce a considerable volume of methane. Previous studies had not examined warming waterlogged Arctic soils over a long period of time. This study discovered that it took three years or more for the methane-generating microorganisms to really start producing.
     
  5. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    Land degradation may affect 3.2 billion people globally | Economic Times of India

    Worsening land degradation caused by human activity is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity, driving species to extinction and intensifying climate change, says the world's first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation and restoration. Produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES),
    land degradation cost the equivalent of about 10 per cent of the world's annual gross product in 2010, through the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The report estimates in just over three decades 4 billion people will live in drylands, and 50 million-700 million people will be forced to migrate by 2050.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2018
  6. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    The Sahara is growing, thanks in part to climate change | Washington Post

    Earth’s largest hot desert, the Sahara, is getting bigger, a new study finds. Yet it is not just the spread of the Sahara that is frightening, the researchers say. It’s the timing: It is happening during the African summer, when there is usually more rain. But the precipitation has dried up, allowing the boundaries of the desert to expand.

    The study was published in the Journal of Climate.

    [​IMG]
    Son, one day all this will be yours.
     
  7. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    Study reveals potential stability of ocean processes despite climate change | PHYS.org

    The complexity of ocean biochemical processes makes it difficult to accurately simulate how the ocean absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere and how it stores this carbon as global conditions change.
    In a new study, published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, a more realistic representation of the marine ecosystem indicated that the ocean will take up and store carbon at similar rates regardless of global changes in physical properties, like temperature, salinity and circulation.This means that an increase in temperature and the associated reorganization in ocean circulation, for instance, has less of an effect on the marine ecosystem's ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in the subsurface layers of the ocean.
     
  8. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    Big increase in Antarctic snowfall | BBC

    Scientists have compiled a record of snowfall in Antarctica going back 200 years. The study shows there has been a significant increase in precipitation over the period, up 10%.

    The effect of the extra snow locked up in Antarctica is to slightly slow a general trend in global sea-level rise. However, this mitigation is still swamped by the contribution to the height of the oceans from ice melt around the continent.

    [​IMG]
     
  9. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    Stronger evidence for a weaker Atlantic overturning | PHYS.org

    The Atlantic overturning—one of Earth's most important heat transport systems, pumping warm water northward and cold water southward—is weaker today than any time before in more than 1000 years. Sea surface temperature data analysis provides new evidence that this major ocean circulation has slowed down by roughly 15 percent since the middle of the 20th century, according to a study published in the highly renowned journal Nature by an international team of scientists. Human-made climate change is a prime suspect for these worrying observations.

    "The specific trend pattern we found in measurements looks exactly like what is predicted by computer simulations as a result of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream System, and I see no other plausible explanation for it," says Rahmstorf. It is in fact not just the pattern in space that matches between computer simulation and observations, but also the change with the seasons.

    "If we do not rapidly stop global warming, we must expect a further long-term slowdown of the Atlantic overturning. We are only beginning to understand the consequences of this unprecedented process—but they might be disruptive."



    [​IMG]
    The Atlantic overturning circulation, also known as the Gulf Stream System, brings warm waters from the South to the North where it sinks into the deep and transports cold water from the North to the South. A weakening of this major ocean circulation can have widespread and potentially disruptive effects.
     
  10. gonzo
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    gonzo Senior Member

    Does this article indicate the pilot charts are wrong? They don't show this change.
     
  11. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    Can you post an example of whatever it is you're talking about?
     
  12. gonzo
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    gonzo Senior Member

    Pilot charts show currents, wind, temperatures, etc. for the oceans. The data has been compiled since the late 18th century. They are the longest comprehensive compilation of weather data. They predict weather patterns based on the historical trends. The pilot charts of decades ago are not significantly different from the ones published this year.
     
  13. SamSam
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    SamSam Senior Member

    I think he meant something like an actual comparison of actual pilot charts as opposed to just your say so.
     
  14. ImaginaryNumber
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    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

    You will need to be more specific.

    What type of information are you expecting to find on pilot charts? Do pilot charts indicate the Sverdrups of the Gulf Stream? A Sverdrup is a term used in oceanography to measure the volumetric rate of transport of ocean currents, and equals 1 gigaliter per second (GL/s).

    What years are you comparing? The NOAA analysis is from 1870 to 2016.

    Which regions are you interested in? Some places haven't changed much at all. Off the US eastern seaboard surface temperatures have increased. South of Greenland surface temperatures have decreased.

    What do you mean by "significant difference"? Is a 1°K change in 140 years significant to you? Is a 2°K change in 140 years significant to you? Is a 3°K change in 140 years significant to you?

    [​IMG]
    The image at left shows the sea surface temperature trends in the North Atlantic using the NOAA CM2.6 climate model.
    The image at right shows the observed trends during the period 1870-2016.
    Regions showing cooling or below-average warming are shown in blue;
    regions that show above-average warming are shown in red.
    Image credit: L. Caesar et al. 2018
    Reconstruction of Major North Atlantic Circulation System Shows Weakening https://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/press_release/pr2018/scispot/ss1803/

    [​IMG]
    Shown are the time series of the SST anomaly in the subpolar gyre region, the SST anomaly in the Gulfstream region (create from CM2.6_2xCO2_SST_MONTHLY_GLOBAL_121_200.nc) and the AMOC time series (CM2.6_AMOC_RAPID.xlsx) for the 2xCO2 run of the CM2.6 model. The anomalies are received by subtracting the corresponding time series of the CM2.6 control run (create from CM2.6_CONTROL_1860_SST_MONTHLY_GLOBAL_121_200.nc). The inlet shows the subpolar gyre region (sg_grid.txt) and the Gulfstream region (gs_grid.txt). The files give the mean coordinates of the 1° lat.x1° lon. grid cells.
    Source Data: Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~caesar/AMOC_slowdown/
     

  15. gonzo
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    gonzo Senior Member

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