Conservation & Environment

January 12, 2015 — Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Maine remained unusually high this fall, according to the newly released Gulf of Maine Region Quarterly Climate Impacts and Outlook. Warmer temperatures in the Gulf have ripple effects throughout the marine ecosystem, and the latest issue of Outlook describes some of the impacts that scientists are seeing on phytoplankton and fisheries.

This quarterly snapshot of recent weather events, anomalies and impacts is issued by the binational Climate Network of the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment. Outlook incorporates meteorological data generated by Environment Canada and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It's the product of an ongoing collaboration between the two agencies sparked by the Gulf of Maine Council, a regional partnership that has worked for 25 years to sustain the environmental health of the Gulf of Maine and its watershed.

For December through February, Environment Canada is predicting an increased chance of above-normal temperatures for Nova Scotia.

Read the full story from The Yarmouth County Vanguard

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — January 9, 2015 — Scientists who have reported that the Great Lakes are awash in tiny bits of plastic are raising new alarms about a little-noticed form of the debris turning up in sampling nets: synthetic fibers from garments, cleaning cloths and other consumer products.

They are known as "microfibers" – exceedingly fine filaments made of petroleum-based materials such as polyester and nylon that are woven together into fabrics.

"When we launder our clothes, some of the little microfibers will break off and go down the drain to the wastewater treatment facility and end up in our bodies of water," Sherri "Sam" Mason, a chemist with the State University of New York at Fredonia, said Friday.

The fibers are so minuscule that people typically don't realize their favorite pullover fleece can shed thousands of them with every washing, as the journal Environmental Science & Technology reported in 2011.

Over the past couple of years, Mason and colleagues have documented the existence of microplastic litter – some too small to see with the naked eye – in the Great Lakes. Among the particles are abrasive beads used in personal care products such as facial and body washes and toothpastes. Other researchers have made similar finds in the oceans.

A number of companies are replacing microbeads with natural substances such as ground-up fruit pits. Illinois imposed a statewide ban on microbeads last year. Similar measures were proposed in California and New York.

Read the full story from The Associated Press at The New Jersey Herald

January 7, 2014 — The overall health of the Chesapeake Bay is improving, but runoff from farm and urban areas continues to be a trouble spot in ongoing restoration efforts, according to a new report from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

In Virginia, especially, the CBF is urging Gov. Terry McAuliffe and other state leaders to hasten efforts to reduce agricultural and urban/suburban pollutants as well as help strengthen and rebuild the oyster fishery.

Overall, the group says, it gives bay health an index score of 32 out of a possible 100, or the equivalent of a D+. It's the same ranking from the last bay report in 2012.

"While we can celebrate water quality improvements, we must also acknowledge that many local rivers, streams and the Chesapeake Bay are polluted," CBF's president William C. Baker said in a statement releasing the report Monday. "They remain a system dangerously out of balance."

To compile the 2014 State of the Bay Report, CBF scientists examined data for 13 indicators in three broad categories: pollution, habitat and fisheries.

Read the full story at the Newport News Daily Press

Especially to the Alaska pollock, which NOAA's FishWatch website describes as "one of the largest, most valuable fisheries in the world." Pollock don't like really warm or really cold temperature extremes, and their food source, small shrimp, do not fare well in heat.

The biggest state in America, home to more ocean coastline than all others combined, has just set another record. This one, however, is nothing to cheer.

For the first time in recorded history, temperatures in Anchorage did not drop below zero once in an entire calendar year. In comparison, Alaska's largest city had 14 days below zero in the 2013 calendar year and 32 days in 2012. The average is 29 days.

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For the record

Jan. 3, 10:22 a.m.: An earlier headline on this article incorrectly said Alaska had a record-warm year. The state's largest city, Anchorage, set a record for above-zero temperatures. Seven other cities in the state had record-warm temperatures as well.

At midnight Wednesday, Anchorage closed the book on its warmest year since 1926, according to the National Weather Service. The lowest temperature recorded in 2014 was zero degrees Fahrenheit on Feb. 11.

Sea ice has been disappearing. Polar bear populations have dropped. The state's storied dog race was a musher's mess, spurring headlines that fretted: "Warm weather, treacherous conditions — is the Iditarod in trouble?" The Bering Sea saw its warmest summer on record.

"I didn't put my downhill skis on at all last winter, and at the moment I'm still hoping for this winter, but the prospects are not good so far," said Henry Huntington, who lives in an Anchorage suburb and serves as senior officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts' international Arctic program.

Read the full story the Los Angeles Times

January 5, 2015 — Kingma encourages consumers to “Buy local. We know our fish populations, we know how much we’re taking, and where our fish go. Our fishermen are fishing in an environmentally friendly manner” — which may not be true for imported fish.

It’s 5:30 a.m., the moon is a sliver, and a cool wind is blowing at fifteen knots. We are standing in the thirty-eight-foot Radon Naomi K. as Layne Nakagawa starts up the diesel engines, sending shivers through the boat. My stomach flutters with excitement. Catching fish is one of the purposes for today’s excursion; the other is to change the satellite beacon on a fish aggregation device. Known as FADs, these structures float on the surface, attached by anchors to the ocean floor, creating habitat where small fish tend to congregate — attracting the larger fish that eat them.

“FADs don’t necessarily make fishing easier,” says Eric Kingma, “but they make it more efficient, by reducing search time and trolling costs.” Kingma coordinates the National Environmental Policy Act for the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (WESTPAC), established by Congress to promote environmentally responsible fishing. In 2011, WESTPAC placed a couple of FADs in the waters off Kahului. One of them is where we’re heading.

Nakagawa reverses the boat into Kahului Harbor and shouts over the engine. “Floyd and Doris are so committed to sustainable fishing. When they asked me to show you the fish aggregation setup, I told them, ‘No problem.’”

Read the full story at Maui No Ka ‘Oi magazine

 

 

December 23, 2014 — The following was released by NOAA:

A record number of sea turtles have stranded after being cold-stunned this fall. The Sea Turtle Stranding Network is bringing them in from the cold.

To learn more, please listen in on this podcast featuring NOAA Fisheries Kate Sampson.  Kate coordinates the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office Sea Turtle Stranding Network.  She shares what she and many others have been doing to help save these vulnerable species.

Sea Turtles Rescued from the Cold

 

December 24, 2014 — Scientists studying the distribution of four commercial and recreational fish stocks in Northeast US waters have found that climate change can have major impacts on the distribution of fish, but the effects of fishing can be just as important and occur on a more immediate time scale.

The four species studied – black sea bass, scup, summer flounder, and southern New England/Mid-Atlantic Bight winter flounder – have varied in abundance and have experienced heavy fishing pressure at times over the past 40 years.

Scientists examined the distribution of the four species using Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) research trawl survey data collected between 1972 and 2008. Generalized additive models were used to determine if the distributions of the four species had changed over time, and if these changes reflect changes in temperature or fishing pressure.

The researchers found that black sea bass, scup, and summer flounder exhibited significant poleward shifts in distribution in at least one season.

The shifts in black sea bass and scup were related to temperature, while the shift in summer flounder was related to a decrease in fishing pressure and an expansion of the population age structure. The southern New England/Mid-Atlantic Bight stock of winter flounder showed no change in distribution.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

December 26, 2014 — If you're still a climate change denier even at this point, it's probably best if you don't talk to anyone with any knowledge of ocean climate and fisheries management in the Northeast.

That's because these researchers are throwing themselves headlong into the questions of what is going on out there and what, if anything, we can possibly do about it. And they are sounding alarms.

Fisheries reporters get a lot of e-mail from NOAA, bringing new research reports to our attention. And to be honest, a lot of that material may get published in science and industry publications rather than in a general interest newspaper.

But let me tell you about one or two of the more recent ones. The first arrived last month about the early spring-late fall phenomenon that has profound implications for the fish, and the second one last week, which stated unequivocally that climate change has indeed messed with the distribution of fish along the Eastern Seaboard.

These two reports from the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole fall broadly in the category of "the more we know, the less we know."

The first of those two declared that monitoring of ocean temperatures at various depths revealed a dramatic warming. This year, the arrival of spring temperatures was among the earliest times recorded in the last 30 years. By 2100, the data point to a consistent three to four week shift in the arrival of the summer season, and the same amount added to the other end. The fall transition that's now in November will shift to December.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

December 22, 2014 — Some of the consequences of climate change are obvious — shrinking polar ice caps, rising sea levels, more damaging floods — and some are subtle. Among the latter, we can now add bad-tasting seafood.

So concludes a team of researchers led by Sam Dupont of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, recently published in the Journal of Shellfish Research. They tested shrimp raised for three weeks in seawater of average pH versus shrimp raised in acidic waters, similar to conditions that may prevail as the continued emission of excess carbon dioxide turns the oceans more acidic.

They found that acidic conditions make the shrimp distinctly less palatable to human tasters. The researchers offered each of a panel of 30 local Swedish connoisseurs a plate of shrimp prepared by a professional chef, and asked them to rank the shellfish. Shrimp from the normal waters were more likely to be judged the best on the plate, while those from acidic waters were more likely to be judged the worst.

Read the full story from the Los Angeles Times

December 16, 2014 — Surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific Ocean have exceeded El Nino thresholds for several weeks and there is a greater than 70 percent chance of the weather pattern emerging, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said on Tuesday.

The BOM had earlier projected at least a 70 percent chance of El Nino arriving by February 2015. The weather event occurs every four to 12 years and can trigger drought in some parts of the world while causing flooding in others.

“Typically, after the ocean has exceeded thresholds for an extended period, an El Nino is considered to be underway,” the BOM said in a statement.

Read the full story at Marine Insight