From Yale University: Fish of Antarctica threatened by climate change
A Yale-led study of the evolutionary history of Antarctic fish and their “anti-freeze” proteins illustrates how tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions – and how today they are endangered by a rapid rise in ocean temperatures.
“A rise of 2 degrees centigrade of water temperature will likely have a devastating impact on this Antarctic fish lineage, which is so well adapted to water at freezing temperatures,” said Thomas Near, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and lead author of the study published online the week of Feb. 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The successful origin and diversification into 100 species of fish, collectively called notothenioids, is a textbook case of how evolution operates. A period of rapid cooling led to mass extinction of fish acclimated to a warmer Southern Ocean. The acquisition of so-called antifreeze glycoproteins enabled notothenioids to survive in seas with frigid temperatures. As they adapted to vacant ecological niches, new species of notothenioids arose and contributed to the rich biodiversity of marine life found today in the waters of Antarctica.
Notothenioids account for the bulk of the fish diversity and are a major food source for larger predators, including penguins, toothed whales, and seals. Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History has one of the most important collections of these specimens in the world.
However, the new study suggests the acquisition of the antifreeze glycoproteins 22 to 42 million years ago was not the only reason for the successful adaptation of the Antarctic notothenioids. The largest radiation of notothenioid fish species into new habitats occurred at least 10 million years after the first appearance of glycoproteins, the study found.
“The evolution of antifreeze was often thought of as a ‘smoking gun,’ triggering the diversification of these fishes, but we found evidence that this adaptive radiation is not linked to a single trait, but to a combination of factors,” Near said.
This evolutionary success story is threatened by climate change that has made the Southern Ocean around Antarctica one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. The same traits that enabled the fish to survive and thrive on a cooling earth make them particularly susceptible to a warming one, notes Near.
“Given their strong polar adaptations and their inability to acclimate to warmer water temperatures, climate change could devastate this most interesting lineage of fish with a unique evolutionary history,” Near said.
Yale-affliated authors of the study are Alex Dornburg, Kristen L. Kuhn, and Jillian N. Pennington.
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I have to wonder though, what warming/climate change in Antarctica?
Maybe they are thinking of the surface record on the peninsula, where the greatest concentration of research stations, people, and energy use is. The air temperature there shows an increase.
But sea temperature near the peninsula doesn’t seem to be on the rise:
Or maybe they’ve spent too much time looking at Eric Steig’s graph:
Real Climate’s Dr. Eric Steig’s version, 2009 – from the cover of Nature
Instead of the one from 2004 before the Mannian PCA team math was applied to it:
Of course we now know thanks to O’Donnell et al that the whole “Antarctica is warming” theme from Steig and the team was just another statistical fabrication of air temperature.
Condon and O”Donnell’s Antarctic temperature profile, 2010.
It seems all the warming is in the peninsula, in the air temperature record, where all the people and energy use to keep them warm is.
Antarctica as a whole is not warming much at the surface, and as the UAH lower troposphere graph shows, not at all above the surface.
Antarctic sea ice seems to agree, it has an upward trend:
Joshua Corning makes an excellent point in comments:
“tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions”
“A rise of 2 degrees centigrade of water temperature will likely have a devastating impact on this Antarctic fish lineage”
That is weird…one wonders how they survived the far greater temperature changes over the past 20 million years.
You know…when Antarctica melted then froze gain….(image from Wikipedia)
The anti-freeze in my car radiator keeps it from freezing(lowers the freezing point) and keeps it from boiling over(raises the boiling point).I’m not sure about these fish having that type of blood,but,it would seem to me that having blood like this they would be able to take colder and warmer temperatures.
Thanks for all the interesting articles and comments
That stuff in my radiator, which is 50% anti-freeze is referred to in the owners’ manual as “coolant”. Protects the engine from -40F to 210F.
Maybe, possibly, it could be, it is conceivable that the fish might be able to adapt to a 2 degree warming, or, possibly, swim to cooler water. I’d boil a couple and find out.
Uhm, I’m sure this is thirteen different sorts of politically incorrect, but even assuming that this is so, and even assuming that 2 degrees of ocean warming is a reasonable thing to speculate about (coughCoughBSCoughcough), do I have to care about every obscure branch of every species that might produce a dead end that can’t adapt to change? I understand that ecosystems are complicated, but that doesn’t mean they are made of delicate glass that will completely and irrevocably shatter at the slightest disruption either. Many alarmists appear to cling to this fundamental conviction that if people exhibit too much flatulence after a good meal, the whole house of cards will come tumbling down – how is it possible that this planet has sustained life for so many millions of years if it were that unstable?
~grumblegrumblegrumble~ end rant
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst2/charts_files/temp_out_hadsst2.png shows current Sea Surface Temperature anomalies. Seems to be a mixed bag near Antarctica, looks more blue (cold) than red (warm) to me though.
Let’s just cut to the chase and save ourselves a lot of money and hand-wringing.
Homo Sapiens endanger everything, everywhere, all the time. Reccomend extermination of this aggresively invasive species.
” … a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions”
So, what caused these “newly formed polar conditions”? Did someone stop burning coal? Did the cavemen stop driving around in SUV’s?
Isn’t this the real question? If climate change is unusual, what caused it to change in the past? Where is the evidence that what changed the climate in the past is somehow not at work today?
What caused antarctic to freeze 36 million years ago? What caused it to melt 26 million years ago? What caused it to refreeze 12 million years later? If you don’t know the answer, you can hardly begin to suggest the same process isn’t at work today.
What is causing the antarctic freeze/thaw cycle every 10-12 million years? It has now been 14 million years since the freeze, so we are overdue for a thaw. Shouldn’t scientists be worried that the thaw is overdue by 2 million years?
Anthony, you’re not being fair posting all of those temperature graphs. This guy is an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. How is he supposed to know anything about the actual temperatures of the area that he’s making claims about?
Need to cross breed them with the Lamprey…an Atlantic parasite fish which managed to make it’s way all the length of the St. Lawrence seaway in the 50’s and 60’s ..to Lake Superior. I believe the temperature contrasts would be +/- about 20 C, and the lamprey, bless it’s little blood sucking heart(s) had NO problem thriving as long as it had food. (Whoops, when food became, instead of 500 lbm sea bass, 15 lbm lake trout, it killed them…dang!)
I know this is a bit off topic, but I did see a reply that mentioned Gore’s Magical Mystical Tour to Antarctica. Did anyone happen to see this story?
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/02/13/celebrities-shamed-for-partying-at-clive-davis-soiree-while-whitney-houstons/
Richard Branson was at a pre-Grammy party on Sunday night…how much carbon did that little jaunt expel? Or has he given up on the cruise after talking to Burt Rutan?
Ian H says:
February 14, 2012 at 2:53 am
Not much chance of an urban heat island effect going on there I’d say.
On the contrary, where do you think the temperature recording stations are located? Are they located near the settlements so that they can be serviced, or are they located hundreds of miles away? Are they serviced by reptiles or warm-blooded creatures using fossil fuel based machinery kept considerably warmed than ambient temperatures?
Like the frogs dying from contamination by scientists measuring them, the Antarctic record is contaminated by the scientists seeking to measure Antarctica. The Uncertainty Principle in action. Measurement changes the object being measured. Any you cannot be certain of your measurements to determine how much it has changed.
“Given their strong polar adaptations and their inability to acclimate to warmer water temperatures, climate change could devastate this most interesting lineage of fish with a unique evolutionary history,”
However strange, they did survive all previous climate change…it’s just any future climate change is assumed will “devastate” this “most interesting” of fish. Personally, they are not very appetizing in appearance.
Just another example of trash science grant funded in the name of “climate change.” Of course no mention of oxygen content as a function water temperature.
What would it take to increase the water temperature 2C a few meters below the surface in the Antarctic? A rise in surface temperatures of 20C? For the few months of a year with sunshine?
Try swimming in Lake Superior in summer, that is, try shoving your feet down (midgets excempted from this test). It is COLD five feet down, despite surface-air temps of 30*C. In a temperature climate.
The unreality of such statements, implying that somehow water temps could rise 2C in the Antarctic from atmospheric warming of 2C globally, shows how narrow thinking these “scientists” are. They aren’t scientists when they say such things, they are small-imagination, bureaucratically programmed, linear proles with slide rules in their hands. They are the children of the ones who said back in the 60s, smoke a joint today and a year from now you are mainlining heroin.
Ian H says:
Not much chance of an urban heat island effect going on there I’d say.
ferd berple says:
On the contrary, where do you think the temperature recording stations are located? Are they located near the settlements so that they can be serviced, or are they located hundreds of miles away? Are they serviced by reptiles or warm-blooded creatures using fossil fuel based machinery kept considerably warmed than ambient temperatures?
These are science stations – places whose very reason for being is science – staffed by scientists who are not fools. These are not neglected poorly thermometers at an airport. I really doubt that these thermometers are poorly sited. Do you have any reason at all for supposing that they are or are you just spinning stories out of nothing? In any case why would only the thermometers in the stations sited on the peninsula suffer from this heat contamination, while the thermometers at the dozens of other science stations in the Antarctic do not?
I would think that the deep sea vents and under sea volcanoes near Antarctica would be more of a threat than any tiny amount of climate change.
A Yale-led study of the evolutionary history of Antarctic fish and their “anti-freeze” proteins illustrates how tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions – and how today they are endangered by a rapid rise in ocean temperatures.
…the study published online the week of Feb. 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
SciencesThe Holy Hockey Stick.“It’s Peer Reviewed!”
A physicist says:
February 14, 2012 at 6:36 am
No. In fact, DOUBLE NO! It is NOT obvious.
Do you have any evidence that benthonic temperatures are getting warmer? And if so, to what degree? And what are the verifiable consequences? Or are you just into throwing stupid buzzwords and phrases around like “sustained trend of warming termperatures” and “devastate the global population of …” yada yada yada. And then you even have the gall to threaten “climate change skeptics” when you know for a fact that’s a red herring (or will you also claim that’s yet ANOTHER threatened species)? There will always be “skeptics” as long as there are true “scientists”. If you aren’t one, then you aren’t a real scientist.
Indeed, A, you’re regurgitating EXACTLY what what a lot of people here are complaining about. But I can do you a THOUSAND times better and sit here all day and list a THOUSAND “what if’s” that you can’t refute, you can’t argue, and you can’t justify–and make threats, too, if you want parity. But it’s a waste of time, just as your comment is a waste of time.
Besides, it is YOUR side of the argument that’s collapsing, and it shows in your rant. That’s right–RANT Climate on Earth has been Changing since Earth was formed. And it will continue long after we’re all gone. That’s the Status Quo your side has hijacked.
See, it’s so stupid to think that animals can’t adapt. They’ve been adapting by the millions in the past 4.6 billion years. And they will continue to adapt for the next 4.6 billion years. And those that do, do, while those that don’t, don’t. It is what it is.
By the way, King Crabs have ALWAYS threatened seafloor life anywhere they live, including Antarctica. That’s their nature, and it isn’t caused by a temperature increase of 0.008 degrees.
Ian H says:
February 14, 2012 at 8:43 am
Neither of you have any substantive evidence either way, Ian.
Facts have absolutely nothing to do with climate change. This is a religion we are dealing with.
They also don’t like the fact that Polar Bears survived periods of an ice free central Arctic ocean during the last ~11,000 years.
References:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.08.016
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP11A0203F
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/227
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/30/new-peer-reviewed-paper-says-there-appear-to-have-been-periods-of-ice-free-summers-in-the-central-arctic-ocean/
And people wonder why countries, like Canada, are firing their climate researchers. No mystery to me. These leeches are giving us terrible science for premium pay. GK
A rise of 2 degrees centigrade of water temperature
Wow! Just for discussion sake, what increase in air temperature would it take to cause this rise in water temperature?
Mass of oceans is 1.4 x 10^21 kg;
Specific heat capacity of ocean water is about 4 kJ/kgK
IF we for the moment assume the ocean temperature were to potentially go up by 2 degrees C, and IF we then assume ALL this heat comes from the air, how hot does the air have to be?
Mass of air is 5 x 10^18 kg;
Specific heat capacity of air is 1 kJ/kgK
Assume a 2 C rise in ocean temperature.
Using mct(air) = mct(ocean), I get an answer of 2240 C is the increase in the temperature of the air.
Oh, I forgot. Someone mentioned here “few meters below the sea level”. They are deep sea creatures.
Their habitat is 200-800 meters below, http://www.guppies.za.net/spiny-icefish-chaenodraco-wilsoni-fish-profile.aspx
That is why they need antifreeze in their blood.
Global warming at those depths – pleeeeze…
Johanna, with respect, perhaps “they” (but who is “they”?) merely have a sense of the biosphere?
* Accelerated warming of the Southern Ocean and its impacts on the hydrological cycle and sea ice
Also, when the seawater temperature drops from one degree above the freezing temperature of flesh, to one degree below that freezing temperature … well … isn’t that a pretty big difference two-degree difference, just by plain everyday common-sense?
As for your broad point regarding shame versus pride, Johanna, most folks (skeptic and nonskeptic alike) *do* appreciate that excessive confidence, that is not founded upon rationality, is not particularly deserving of pride.
Ian H says:
…
In any case why would only the thermometers in the stations sited on the peninsula suffer from this heat contamination, while the thermometers at the dozens of other science stations in the Antarctic do not?
RockyRoad says:
Neither of you have any substantive evidence either way, Ian.
Yeah but I am not the one making extravagant claims.
People are stating on the basis of absolutely NO EVIDENCE that the measurements are UHI contaminated. The original article merely insinuated this, which was merely irritating. Now we have people in the comments actively asserting this which is starting to get seriously annoying. Effectively this is an allegation of incompetence levelled against the scientists in those stations whose job it is to measure those temperatures. It is ridiculous to make such claims on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.
Furthermore this would require us to believe that not only was there incompetence but there was a widespread and mysteriously coordinated pattern of incompetence whereby scientists based on the peninsula incompetently failed to protect their instruments from environmental heat contamination while those based elsewhere did not. That idea completely fails my smell test.
Come on people. Are you sceptics or a mindless cheerleading squad. Think for yourselves. Use your brains. Anthony clearly got carried away here with his own rhetoric and took his argument just one unsupportable step too far. I don’t blame him for that. The man writes an awful lot and it is very hard to do that and not make mistakes. But I can’t believe all these people leaping to defend a clear error on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
Ahem… not fools?
There are only 6 surface stations in the West Antarctica area used in Steig et al. paper and somehow they managed to mess up with Harry, the station that showed the highest upward trend. Harry was installed in 1994 but, misteriously, Steig paper reports data for Harry prior to 1994.
Only 6 stations and they managed to screw up the data of the one that shows the highest trend, They even publish their results on Nature. Way to go, Nature reviewers, where did you review the paper? at the local pub?
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature07669.html
http://climateaudit.org/2009/02/03/gavins-mystery-man/
Last night I heard a show on the Progressive Radio Network about environmental tipping points. I had heard of some of them but others just blew my mind, like declining ocean salinity and the shrinking of the Sahara. I thought shrinking deserts would be a good thing but it just shows how everything on the planet is connected. Here’s the link http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/progressive-commentary-hour/2012/2/6/progressive-commentary-hour-020612.html