Borrowing a phrase from NSIDC’s Dr. Mark Serreze, Phytoplankton are now apparently in a “Death Spiral”. See Death spiral of the oceans and the original press release about an article in Nature from a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University, which started all this. I’m a bit skeptical of the method which they describe in the PR here:
A simple tool known as a Secchi disk as been used by scientists since 1899 to determine the transparency of the world’s oceans. The Secchi disk is a round disk, about the size of a dinner plate, marked with a black and white alternating pattern. It’s attached to a long string of rope which researchers slowly lower into the water. The depth at which the pattern is no longer visible is recorded and scientists use the data to determine the amount of algae present in the water.
Hmmm. A Secchi disk is a proxy, not a direct measurement of phytoplankton. It measures turbidity, which can be due to quite a number of factors, including but not limited to Phytoplankton. While they claim to also do chlorophyll measurements, the accuracy of a SD measurements made by thousands of observers is the central question.
From the literature: The Secchi disk transparency measurement is perhaps one of the oldest and simplest of all measurements. But there is grave danger of errors in such measurements where a water telescope is not utilized, as well as in the presence of water color and inorganic turbidity (source: Vollenweider and Kerekes, 1982). I’ll have more on this later. – Anthony
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Phytoplankton need cap and trade
By Steve Goddard
Yesterday, Joe Romm reported :
Nature Stunner: “Global warming blamed for 40% decline in the ocean’s phytoplankton”
“Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic.”
That sounds scary. Does it make any sense? Phytoplankton thrive everywhere on the planet from the Arctic to the tropics. One of the primary goals of this year’s Catlin expedition was to study the effect of increased CO2 on phytoplankton in the Arctic. They reported:
Uptake of CO2 by phytoplankton increases as ocean acidity increases
That sounds like good news for Joe! We also know that phytoplankton have been around for billions of years, surviving average global temperatures 10C higher and CO2 levels 20X higher than the present.
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide.htm
Phytoplankton growth/reduction in the tropics correlates closely with ENSO. El Nñio causes populations to reduce, and La Niña causes the populations to increase.
During an El Niño year, warm waters from the Western Pacific Ocean spread out over much of the basin as upwelling subsides in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Upwelling brings cool, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean up to the surface. So, when upwelling weakens, phytoplankton do not get enough nutrients to maintain their growth. As a result, surface waters turn into “marine deserts” with unusually low populations of phytoplankton and other tiny organisms. With less food, fish cannot survive in the surface water, which then also deprives seabirds of food.
During La Niña conditions, the opposite effect occurs as the easterly trade winds pick up and upwelling intensifies, bringing nutrients to the surface waters, which fuels phytoplankton growth. Sometimes, the growth can take place quickly, developing into what scientists call phytoplankton “blooms.”
The phytoplankton must be loving life now!
The author of this study (Boris Worm) also reported last year “if fishing continued at the same rate, all the world’s seafood stocks would collapse by 2048”
So we know that phytoplankton have survived for billions of years in a vast range of climates, temperatures and CO2 levels. Apparently they have become very sensitive of late – perhaps from all the estrogens being dumped in the oceans? Or maybe they have been watching too much Oprah?
The standard cure for hyperventilation is to increase your CO2 levels by putting a bag over your head.
Charles S. Opalek, PE says: at 1:03 pm
…You forgot coral-island-gate, and coral-reef-gate.
An Auckland University researcher has offered new hope to the small island nations in the Pacific which have loudly complained their low-lying atolls will drown as “global warming” boosts sea levels. Geographer Associate Professor Paul Kench has measured 27 islands where local sea levels have risen 120mm – an average of 2mm a year – over the past 60 years, and found that four had diminished in size.
Working with Arthur Webb at the Fiji-based South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission, Kench used historical aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite images to study changes in the land area of the islands. They found that the remaining 23 had either stayed the same or grown bigger, according to the research published in a scientific journal, Global and Planetary Change.
“It has been thought that as the sea level goes up, islands will sit there and drown,” Prof Kench told the New Scientist. “But they won’t. The sea level will go up and the island will start responding”.
One of the highest profile islands – in a political sense – was Tuvalu, where politicians and climate change campaigners have repeatedly predicted it will be drowned by rising seas, as its highest point is 4.5 meters above sea level. But the researchers found seven islands had spread by more than 3% on average since the 1950s.
One island, Funamanu, gained 0.44 hectares or nearly 30% of its previous area. And the research showed similar trends in the Republic of Kiribati, where the three main urbanised islands also “grew” – Betio by 30% (36ha), Bairiki by 16.3% (5.8ha) and Nanikai by 12.5% (0.8ha).
Webb, an expert on coastal processes, told the New Scientist the trend was explained by the fact the islands mostly comprised coral debris eroded from encircling reefs and pushed up onto the islands by winds and waves. The process was continuous, because the corals were alive, he said. In effect, the islands respond to changes in weather patterns and climate – Cyclone Bebe deposited 140ha of sediment on the eastern reef of Tuvalu in 1972, increasing the main island’s area by 10%.
With the cold in the southern hemisphere seas, for sure fitoplankton will die if they not receive a donation of sweaters….
“1 soft science study and the impulse reaction is to panic. ”
The impulse is to try to exploit the finding to create a life-long career and hopefully new government-funded science research field, with corresponding university departments and government agencies, which will exist in perpetuity until the federal funding dries up.
Does not pass the laugh test.
TSI and satellite results were adjusted to please global warmers…however it is too late now, the Sun decided to adjust itself all the way down to compensate for the lies and so we are already enjoying an avg. 2 degrees less of min. and max. temperatures in the SH.
What I find horrifying is seabed vacuuming to obtain fishmeal for fish farms.
It needs 8lbs of meal to produce 1lb of farmed fish.
The problem with fish is not global warming but the excessive overfishing encouraged by the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy.
Given the pipeline leak in Michigan, why hasn’t the administration shut down all pipelines until they can be proven 100% safe?
Sounds like he’s actually detecting a decrease in turbidity. Water is becoming clearer. Less polluted water tends to be clearer. What is he actually measuring, and is the change good or bad?
Are they taking glasses into account?
I know that things look much murkier when I’m not wearing mine. I posit that many more people are wearing glasses now, and that many of the people that took readings in the past would have measured a different level of turbidity if they had been wearing modern glasses.
Brian
I saw this post from the media more recently and remembered the era defining the complete collapse of the ecosystem due to ozone “holes”.
Yet, if Stewardship isn’t the promise, explain to me why we “should” dump waste without regard?
This is a 101 Bio teach and the consequence will end badly unless we can promote the fix instead of the “diatribe”?
http://dalnews.dal.ca/2010/07/28/photoplank.html
The researchers found that the number of phytoplankton has been decreasing by a rate of about one per cent per year, for the past 110 years. While this might not seem like a large number, this translates into a decline of about 40 per cent since 1950. In total, just under half a million observations were compiled to be able to estimate phytoplankton levels through the years.
CHEECH: Hey man ! Glad we caught this death spiral in time.
CHONG: Its really cool man… just like those poor small little cuddly critters.
CHEECH: We´ll be real famous man!
CHONG: Yeah! Really cool. The first men in 110 years to play music underwater.
CHEECH: Hey man! What you doing with my Grateful Dead CD?
CHONG: Easy man! Just playing those poor little critters some real cool vives…
CHEECH: But I can’t hear the music man!
CHONG: Just snort some of this through a rolled up grant application.
CHEECH: WOW Man! Thats better… I can see everything so clearly now!
I didn’t know the dollhouse was a university.
I thought it was a chain of gentleman’s clubs.
Well maybe the same sort of activity is taking place.
Go figure.
The Pope Elopes – Global Warming Citied!
From the abstract in Nature:
“We conclude that global phytoplankton concentration has declined over the past century; this decline will need to be considered in future studies of marine ecosystems, geochemical cycling, ocean circulation and fisheries.”
Send more grant money.
I’m also wondering how many SUVs there were in 1899, the start date for the ‘data’, to cause the decline in phytoplankton levels from then.
The low summer ice years in the middle of this decade led to a tremendous explosion of life all the way up the food chain. Gray whales stayed longer and ate more in the high Arctic. Calf production increased. Bowhead whales (Arctic dwellers) had so much food that researchers suggested that the bowhead could have exceeded the carrying capacity of the environment based on pre-exploitation population estimates.
The commercial bowhead hunt occurred in the 17th to 19th centuries while the Arctic was coming out of the Little Ice Age and there was much more ice that is normal for the Holocene Interglacial.
Got that? Less ice, more plankton, more life.
However, there are some areas where plankton abundance has declined: the gyres, where all the ocean garbage collects. The stuff floating at the surface blocks sunlight from the photic zone. Clean up the ocean; plankton increases; phytoplankton sucks up more CO2; everybody’s happy.
cite> Kate says:
July 30, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Charles S. Opalek, PE says: at 1:03 pm
…You forgot coral-island-gate, and coral-reef-gate.
Wasn’t Anthony asking for suggestions for other topics to gather in one place similar to the arctic ice page?
Well, how about IPCC howlers??
A list of the disproven catastrophes that were supposed to befall us?
Isn’t one of the reasons why the Peruvian fishermen so carefully tracked the El Ninos was because the fish populations dropped during those times? And didn’t science show that the reason why the fish dropped during El Ninos was that the cool upwelling from the deep ocean floor reveresed itself? And wasn’t this known before the 1950’s? So what’s new in this “new” study?
The other side of this story, for the “Science” community, is the realization that computer modeling is being used as a benchmark for the extinction of species by the Fishing Industry.
I’d be happy to post research results from kids under the oversight of teachers who still care (as far north as Alaska) — delivering insightful results based on field research.
But, it would break your heart to see what “Science” has lost and the real cost?
If 40% of the phytoplankton were dying off, the impact would felt in the entire eco-system of the oceans in dramatic fashion.
This, like every other fear mongering effort of AGW promoters, will turn out to be wrong.
But what if the Phytoplankton survive and they mutate into a deadly poisonous bloom and destroy everything in all the oceans. It’ll be much, much worse than anyone thought. Our only protection might be to build unshielded nuclear power stations to potentially cause all other life to mutate to safety. This could be our only hope. Earth calling, earth calling…..
Just admit it, Tony — you hate phytoplankton and you want to see it all dead.
Phytoplanktophobe.
Whales eat this plankton. I suspect they can find it and the warmistas aren’t looking very hard. Big fat wales with a lot of blubber.
the trick behind these obscure claims is that they suspect most people will believe them and many people that don’t won’t travel to sea to check themselves.
I suspect these authors have very little time on the water directly looking at plankton.
Surely the results of the Secchi disc test must vary according to the eyesight of the people doing the test?
I have an odd idea. Let someone actually measure the phytoplankton population rather than the turbidity of salt water. Proxies seem so convenient for alarmists.