From the NOAA “Oceans and Human Health Initiative” website and press release, comes this warning that the algae, Moroccan dust, desertification, bacteria, bad seafood, heavy rainfall, old sewers, climate change is gonna get ya.
Climate projections show human health impacts possible within 30 years
New studies demonstrate potential increases in waterborne toxins and microbes
A panel of scientists speaking today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unveiled new research and models demonstrating how climate change could increase exposure and risk of human illness originating from ocean, coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems, with some studies projecting impacts to be felt within 30 years.
“With 2010 the wettest year on record and third warmest for sea surface temperatures, NOAA and our partners are working to uncover how a changing climate can affect our health and our prosperity,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “These studies and others like it will better equip officials with the necessary information and tools they need to prepare for and prevent risks associated with changing oceans and coasts.”
In several studies funded by NOAA’s Oceans and Human Health Initiative, findings shed light on how complex interactions and climate change alterations in sea, land and sky make ocean and freshwater environments more susceptible to toxic algal blooms and proliferation of harmful microbes and bacteria.
Climate change could prolong toxic algal outbreaks by 2040 or sooner
Using cutting-edge technologies to model future ocean and weather patterns, Stephanie Moore, Ph.D., with NOAA’s West Coast Center for Oceans and Human Health and her partners at the University of Washington, are predicting longer seasons of harmful algal bloom outbreaks in Washington State’s Puget Sound.
The team looked at blooms of Alexandrium catenella, more commonly known as “red tide,” which produces saxitoxin, a poison that can accumulate in shellfish. If consumed by humans, it can cause gastrointestinal and neurological symptoms including vomiting and muscle paralysis or even death in extreme cases.
Longer harmful algal bloom seasons could translate to more days the shellfish fishery is closed, threatening the vitality of the $108 million shellfish industry in Washington state.
“Changes in the harmful algal bloom season appear to be imminent and we expect a significant increase in Puget Sound and similar at-risk environments within 30 years, possibly by the next decade,” said Moore. “Our projections indicate that by the end of the 21st century, blooms may begin up to two months earlier in the year and persist for one month later compared to the present-day time period of July to October.”
Natural climate variability also plays a role in the length of the bloom season from one year to the next. Thus, in any single year, the change in bloom season could be more or less severe than implied by the long-term warming trend from climate change.
Moore and the research team indicate that the extended lead time offered by these projections will allow managers to put mitigation measures in place and sharpen their targets for monitoring to more quickly and effectively open and close shellfish beds instead of issuing a blanket closure for a larger swath of coast or be caught off guard by an unexpected bloom. The same model can be applied to other coastal areas around the world increasingly affected by harmful algal blooms and improve protection of human health against toxic outbreaks.
More atmospheric dust from global desertification could lead to increases of harmful bacteria in oceans, seafood
Researchers at the University of Georgia, a NOAA Oceans and Human Health Initiative Consortium for Graduate Training site, looked at how global desertification — and the resulting increase in atmospheric dust based on some climate change scenarios — could fuel the presence of harmful bacteria in the ocean and seafood.
Desert dust deposition from the atmosphere is considered one of the main contributors of iron in the ocean, has increased over the last 30 years and is expected to rise based on precipitation trends in western Africa. Iron is limited in ocean environments and is essential to most forms of life. In a study conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey, Erin Lipp, Ph.D. and graduate student Jason Westrich demonstrated that the sole addition of desert dust and its associated iron into seawater significantly stimulates growth and persistence of Vibrios, a group of ocean bacteria that occur worldwide and can cause gastroenteritis and infectious diseases in humans.
“Within 24 hours of mixing weathered desert dust from Morocco with seawater samples, we saw a 10-1000-fold growth in Vibrios, including one strain that could cause eye, ear, and open wound infections, and another strain that could cause cholera ,” said Lipp. “Our next round of experiments will examine the response of the strains associated with seafood-related infections.”
Since 1996 Vibrio cases have jumped 85 percent in the United States based on reports that primarily track seafood-illnesses. It is possible this additional input of iron, along with rising sea surface temperatures, will affect these bacterial populations and may help to explain both current and future increases in human illnesses from exposure to contaminated seafood and seawater.
Increased rainfall and dated sewers could affect water quality in Great Lakes
A changing climate with more rainstorms on the horizon could increase the risk of overflows of dated sewage systems, causing the release of disease-causing bacteria, viruses and protozoa into drinking water and onto beaches. In the past 10 years there have been more severe storms that trigger overflows. While there is some question whether this is due to natural variability or to climate change, these events provide another example as to how vulnerable urban areas are to climate.
Using fine-tuned climate models developed for Wisconsin, Sandra McLellan, Ph.D., at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences, found spring rains are expected to increase in the next 50 years and areas with dated sewer systems are more likely to overflow because the ground is frozen and rainwater can’t be absorbed. As little as 1.7 inches of rain in 24 hours can cause an overflow in spring and the combination of increased temperatures — changing snowfall to rainfall and increased precipitation — can act synergistically to magnify the impact.
McLellan and colleagues showed that under worst case scenarios there could be an average 20 percent increase in volume of overflows, and they expect the overflows to last longer. In Milwaukee, infrastructure investments have reduced sewage overflows to an average of three times per year, but other cities around the Great Lakes still experience overflows up to 40 times per year.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on urban infrastructure, and these investments need to be directed to problems that have the largest impact on our water quality,” said McLellan. “Our research can shed light on this dilemma for cities with aging sewer systems throughout the Great Lakes and even around the world.”
“Understanding climate change on a local level and what it means to county beach managers or water quality safety officers has been a struggle,” said Juli Trtanj, director of NOAA’s Oceans and Human Health Initiative and co-author of the interagency report A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change. “These new studies and models enable managers to better cope and prepare for real and anticipated changes in their cities, and keep their citizens, seafood and economy safe.”
On the Web:
Image Gallery: http://oceansandhumanhealth.noaa.gov/multimedia/ohh-climate.html
NOAA’s Oceans and Human Health Initiative: http://oceansandhumanhealth.noaa.gov
Georgia Oceans and Human Health Initiative at the University of Georgia: http://www.georgiaoceansandhealth.org
University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences: http://www4.uwm.edu/freshwater
Where are you seeing that? Weathebug shows a high of 37 for my neck of the woods (North Whidbey Island) on Thursday, with a low of mid to high 20s overnight.
Douglas DC says:
February 20, 2011 at 8:03 am
JeffT says:
February 20, 2011 at 3:43 am
“Few of the government scientists ever actually talk to or listen to people who have stood on the deck of a fishing boat , Or sit in the cab of a tractor or the saddle of a cow horse,(yes the old west ain’t dead yet.) ….”
That would be beneath them, as John Kerry would say.
Latitude says:
February 20, 2011 at 6:00 am
I thought someone was trying to put more iron in the oceans, so the oceans would take up more CO2………………..
More desert = more African/Saharan dust = more iron = more CO2 sequestered
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Ya know Latitude, that’s what makes this so much damn fun, the circular logic!
davidmhoffer says:
February 19, 2011 at 9:47 pm
SJB kinda beat me to it, but:
Because of global warming 2010 was the wettest year ever
So we should be preparing for global desertification?
Rain causes deserts?
So, by the warmists logic if we win the battle against global warming, we will have dry years and the deserts will turn to rainforests.
So what is the plural possessive form of y’all? I pondered this for 10 years while I lived in Texas. It often comes out pronounced as “yawls” and this sounds like a disease of cats. They also had quaint colloquial conjunctive phrases such as “global warming might could kill ya if y’all ain’t careful”.
Interestingly, one does not need exotic Moroccan desert dust to stimulate the growth of vibrio. Plain ol’ coastal sewage does the trick nicely. This is why one does not consume raw oysters in the summer. Oysters are best in the Fall and winter.
As I read the article the only thought going through my mind was how many millions of taxpayer dollars are these agenda driven bureaucratic fraudsters pounding down a rat hole?
While America slept for 30 years, these twisted socialist perverts have infiltrated and corrupted some of the most important institutions to our Democracy. God please dont let it take another 30 years to get rid of them.
Yes. It is very simple. They are making us an offer we can’t refuse. Pay up and do as we say, or you will all die. It is called extortion.
We’re back to the Sun God days but on a global scale.
Nice to know where your tax dollars are going.
smacca,
So for 36 years you and your fellow surfers have been going to a place where you say ENT and gastric conditions etc have become commonplace. Yet you keep coming back for more it seems. Are you dumb or exaggerating?
If you go way down south, in fact downunder, you’d be saying “youse” for the plural (not sure of the “e” is required, few using the ‘strine’ language actually write….). I’ve often wondered if the two languages should be merged, and produce something like “yousall”.
It is sharks you need to fear in the ocean:
http://www.uib.no/rg/mm/artikler/2009/01/viruses-and-bacteria
Viruses exist everywhere life is found, and also in the sea. An estimate of their abundance is 10^7 (10 million) viruses per mL sea water. Viruses have the capacity to infect everything from bacteria to blue whales and play therefore crucial roles in the processes going on. For example, they may be important in termination of algal blooms, and they are important in nutrient cycling. In the research group we have several ongoing projects related to viruses infecting algae.
Also bacteria are found everywhere in the ocean and in great quantity – roughly 105 to 10^7 cells per mL. And there is a great amount of diversity, and estimate is 1,000 to 10,000 types per mL seawater. However, only a tiny fraction seems to be active at a given moment. And different strains of bacteria thrive under different conditions.
We’re all doomed in 30 years? Oh no lets quickly let all school children know they have no future! Let’s even Tax those children’s parents for the next 30 years Oh no, Oh no!!
/sarc
Any good news from “climate change” lately? No! it’s all Crap.
“With 2010 the wettest year on record and third warmest for sea surface temperatures, NOAA and our partners are working to uncover how a changing climate can affect our health and our prosperity,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D.,
She better start to pay better attention to recent trends. Bob Tisdale today reports that recent SST’s adjacent to the US have dropped to lows not reached since 1972.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/
Her own website, NOAA’s CLIMATE AT A GLANCE now reveals that US winter temps have dropped at the rate of 30 degrees per century since 1998.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
I hope to see her discuss these recent results in front of congress.
Y’all just don’t git it. The models are right. Unless the global climate is EXACTLY as it was on September 22, 1973, everyone reading this post today will be dead within the next hundred years. If we have more rain, we’ll be dead. If we have more drought, we’ll be dead. If it gets colder or warmer, we’ll be dead. All of us. And when it happens, Gore will be really mad, ’cause it’s gonna really be hot for him. He’ll finally understand what a warm climate is. But we’ll all still be dead. Dang climate.
I see the public health community bending this stuff all the time….increased rates of Hantavirus transmission from infected rodents, geographic spread of malaria as the planet warms, etc. etc.
Dr. Richard Lindzen really nailed it when he addressed members of Congress on Nov. 17, 2009 during his testimony before the House Subcommittee on Technology and Science:
“Perhaps we should stop accepting the term ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. The current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible.”
“African dust keeps Amazon blooming”
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/news.2010.396.html
Basically this seabed dust from Lake Chad which may have minerals more accessible than sandy Saharan dust.
“A hypothesis we are investigating at the moment is that because it’s coming from the lakebed, this iron is going to be more bioavailable than if it were coming from the deeply weathered surface of the Sahara.”
So who says dust is bad? The amazon would suffer without it perhaps.
Note on use of “youse”
It seems that no waitress will be hired in Saint John (NB) unless she says “yez” to her customers, as in “What would yez like to order?” I have not encountered a waitress in 17 years who did not say it!
IanM
Dave Andrews says:
February 20, 2011 at 2:19 pm
smacca,
So for 36 years you and your fellow surfers have been going to a place where you say ENT and gastric conditions etc have become commonplace. Yet you keep coming back for more it seems. Are you dumb or exaggerating?
============================================================
Hi Dave!!!!
Neither. It has some of the best beach breaks going. You have to pick your time; for example I don’t surf it after heavy rains and currents and wind direction also play a part, but it is no guarantee. Personally I won’t surf there again until the treatment plant is upgraded to tertiary standard in 2012. Some others are a bit more enthusiastic about the place than me.
You can read a bit more about it here, just scroll down the page a bit.
http://www.cleanocean.org/
And here : http://www.cleanocean.org/index_general.asp?menuid=040.030
Cheers.
“Personally I won’t surf there again until the treatment plant is upgraded to tertiary standard in 2012. ”
What about the studies that show the increase in allergies may be caused by isolating children from infections. That exercise is good for the immune system, as it is for the body and mind.
Ear infections from swimming in salt water are very common, regardless of sewage. Mostly it is “swimmers” ear and easy to treat with topical alcohol and 1% boric acid, so long as you use it religiously.
We sailed with an ex military doctor that was tasked with keeping the navy divers operational. He said that in nam, swimmers ear took out way more divers than did the cong.
JER0ME at 2:32 pm:
“[Reply: ‘Y’alls’ is singular in Southern. All y’alls is plural.☺ ~dbs, mod.]” If you go way down south, in fact downunder, you’d be saying “youse” for the plural (not sure of the “e” is required, few using the ‘strine’ language actually write….).”
Just to add that “you’s” as in “you’s guys” was in common usage in the Dundalk area of Baltimore, Maryland, 30+ years ago. I grew up on the opposite side of Baltimore and no one ever used it there. If you heard someone say it, almost guaranteed they were from Dundalk.
“Increased rainfall and dated sewers could affect water quality in Great Lakes”.
The left loves to scold the rest of us on the topic of “sustainability”, yet their schemes to rescue society are never economically sustainable. Case in point: government’s approach to making sure that sewage infrastructure is economically sustainable so it never gets “dated”.
Government typically uses cash accounting and funds large sewer-related projects like it funds schools: the monthly costs are in one budget and supported by one set of direct taxation (like property taxes). Large capital projects, like a new sewage treatment plant or school building are financed with bond issues, thus kicking that can down the road and out of sight by shunting those costs into a different tax that is obscure to most voters.
So, screw up the sewers like you screw up the public schools, and then attempt use the failure that naturally comes as a means to make government even larger and more tax-grubbing. What a plan!
Governments do this on a massive scale. But when individuals do it they’re prosecuted. The government brooks no competition in the AGW scam.
jtom says:
February 20, 2011 at 7:30 pm
…”Unless the global climate is EXACTLY as it was on September 22, 1973, everyone reading this post today will be dead within the next hundred years.”….
Regardless, I think that with a few exceptions, we’ll all be dead within the next hundred years.
There’s potassium in that dust, too.
The very rainy island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands is one of the greenest places on earth. But without the annual addition of potassium carried in loess dust blown from northern China-Mongolia, it would be a bleak desert, and instead of filming ‘South Pacific’ there, it would have been a good set for ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’
There hasn’t been a case of cholera on Kauai for 100 years or so.
jtom says:
February 20, 2011 at 7:30 pm
…”Unless the global climate is EXACTLY as it was on September 22, 1973, everyone reading this post today will be dead within the next hundred years.”….
Regardless, I think that with a few exceptions, we’ll all be dead within the next hundred years.
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We will be dead ONLY if the climate is NOT exactly as it was on 9/22/1973. We all die if we don’t stablize the climate to the climate of that particular time. If the climate becomes wetter, people will be die. Drier, people die. Warmer, colder, people die. It doesn’t matter if people died in the past; it’s all due to climate change, now. That’s what my models show. Prove me wrong, denier.
(actually I had added sarc tags before and after, but put them between symbols that resulted in their being deleted).