World-News

Two studies say global warming is responsible for a shifting coastline and visits from Arctic seals.

By Geoff Pingree and Lisa Abend
Correspondents of The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0914/p07s02-woeu.html

MADRID

The jellyfish arrived first, swarming Spain's Mediterranean beaches and stinging tens of thousands of sun-loving vacationers. Confused Arctic seals came next, washing up on Spanish coasts thousands of miles from home.

If any Spaniards still wondered whether they were seeing evidence of climate change, two recent scientific studies confirmed it: Not only has global warming already significantly altered Spain's natural environment, it is likely to continue to do so.

Years of drought here have suggested that something isn't quite right with Iberia's ecology. But this summer's changes have been more dramatic. "We're seeing evidence everywhere on the planet that climate change is a reality," says Arturo Gonzalo Aizpiri, the Environment Ministry's Secretary General for Climate Change, "but in Spain, it is manifesting itself with greater intensity."

During June and July, white flags with menacing blue blobs flew over many Spanish beaches to warn visitors of the fleets of jellyfish. The jellyfish, most Pelagia noctiluca, stung tens of thousands of bathers nonetheless, according to the Spanish Red Cross, forcing a temporary closure of some beaches.

The phenomenon, says Josep-María Gili, a professor at the Institute of Ocean Science at Spain's Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, had two causes. "The first is overfishing - with fewer sea turtles, tuna, and swordfish, the jellyfish has very few predators."

This allowed the jellyfish population to grow rapidly. The second cause, says Professor Gili, is climate change that has warmed the waters.

Warmer waters may also help explain why the Arctic seals made their way to Spanish coasts. While these seals normally reside in the waters between Canada and Greenland, at least 12 have been spotted this summer in Spain, including four in the northwestern region of Galicia.

The seals' arrival is not unprecedented; in 2001, six reached Spain. But their dispersion so far south is highly unusual, says Alfredo López, president of La Coruña's Center for the Study of Marine Mammals. Mr. López suggests that rising temperatures up north may have played a large role. "We think that because temperatures in the areas where young seals normally grow are higher, they go looking for colder waters further at sea," he says.

The invasions of sea creatures are not confined to Spain. Jellyfish have plagued Italian and French beaches as well this summer, and López reports Arctic seals sightings in Morocco and Mauritania.

But a study by the Center for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) in Great Britain and Munich's Technical University says that Spain is feeling the effects of global warming more than other European countries. Using data - compiled by scientists in 21 nations - that track the flowering rates of
561 plant species, it found that in Spain, spring comes two weeks earlier and lasts nine days longer than it did 30 years ago.

"We found an average net change of six to eight days in Europe," says Tim Sparks, the scientist at CEH who helped conduct the study, which covered
1971-2000. "But in Spain the change was very strong. Spring temperatures there rose about 3 degrees C., which is an astonishingly rapid increase."

Mr. Sparks says he is not sure why the increase is so dramatic. "It may have something to do with Atlantic currents," he says. "We found that, in general, temperature increases were greater on the western coast of Europe than in the central part."

The change is already having repercussions. "Areas of the country that traditionally aren't dry are suffering heat waves and fires," Spark says. "And there have been changes in birds - particularly the white stork - that normally migrate to Africa; they're staying in Spain for the winter."

Last week, the Environment Ministry also released a study conducted by scientists at the University of Cantabria demonstrating that Spain's coastline is shrinking as sea levels rise an average of 2.5 millimeters a year. By 2050, beaches will have receded some 49 feet.

"I wouldn't buy a house in La Manga [a beach likely to be heavily affected]," Raúl Medina, director of the report, told the press. "I doubt my children will be able to enjoy it."


Informant: binstock

NASA
September 13, 2006

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/sep/HQ_06315_sea_ice.html

NASA data shows that Arctic perennial sea ice, which normally survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrunk abruptly by 14 percent between 2004 and 2005. According to researchers, the loss of perennial ice in the East Arctic Ocean neared 50 percent during that time as some of the ice moved from the East Arctic to the West.

The overall decrease in winter Arctic perennial sea ice totals 280,000 square miles--an area the size of Texas. Perennial ice can be 10 or more feet thick. It was replaced by new, seasonal ice only about one to seven feet thick that is more vulnerable to summer melt.

The decrease in the perennial ice raises the possibility that Arctic sea ice will retreat to another record low extent this year. This follows a series of very low ice-cover years observed over the past four summers from active and passive microwave satellite data.

A team led by Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., used NASA's QuikScat satellite to measure the extent and distribution of perennial and seasonal sea ice in the Arctic. While the total area of all the Arctic sea ice was stable in winter, the distribution of seasonal and perennial sea ice changed significantly.

"Recent changes in Arctic sea ice are rapid and dramatic," said Nghiem. "If the seasonal ice in the East Arctic Ocean were to be removed by summer melt, a vast ice-free area would open up. Such an ice-free area would have profound impacts on the environment, as well as on marine transportation and commerce."

The researchers are examining what caused the rapid decrease in the perennial sea ice. Data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Boulder, Colo., suggest that winds pushed perennial ice from the East to the West Arctic Ocean (primarily located above North America) and significantly moved ice out of the Fram Strait, an area located between Greenland and Spitsbergen, Norway. This movement of ice out of the Arctic is a different mechanism for ice shrinkage than the melting of Arctic sea ice, but it produces the same results - a reduction in the amount of perennial Arctic sea ice.

Researchers indicate that if the sea ice cover continues to decline, the surrounding ocean will get warmer, further accelerating summer ice melts and impeding fall freeze-ups. This longer melt season will, in turn, further diminish the Arctic ice cover.

Nghiem cautioned the recent Arctic changes are not well understood and many questions remain. "It's vital that we continue to closely monitor this region, using both satellite and surface-based data," he said.

This is one of three study results being released today by NASA. The findings are the result of a new study by NASA; the U.S. Army Cold Region Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, N.H.; and the National Ice Center, Washington, D.C. Study results are published in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

For more information about QuikScat, visit:
http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index.cfm

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov


Informant: NHNE

say scientists

· Katrina-like storms could become more common
· Effect 'can't be explained by a natural cycle'

Ian Sample, science correspondent Tuesday September 12, 2006 The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1870267,00.html

Hurricane breeding grounds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are being warmed by greenhouse gases, raising fears that more intense and devastating storms will be unleashed on nearby coastlines, scientists warned yesterday.

Climate researchers found that emissions from burning fossil fuels and other industrial activities were to blame for driving temperatures upwards in tropical waters where hurricanes form. They predict warmer ocean waters will energise hurricanes and make them more powerful. If sea temperatures continue to rise, scientists fear that category four and five hurricanes, such as Katrina, which battered New Orleans last summer, will become more commonplace.

The scientists, led by Ben Santer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, used 22 climate models to investigate the possible causes of a rise in sea surface temperatures of up to 0.67C in the Atlantic and Pacific tropics from 1906 to 2005. Each computer model was run several times to work out how much sea surface temperatures would have warmed with and without rising levels of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

They found that tiny particulates from volcanos and sulphates from industrial plants blocked the sun, and so cooled the oceans. But the effect was swamped by the rise in greenhouse gases, which led to warmer oceans. The study appears in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nathan Gillett, a co-author of the study at the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia, said: "We know the oceans have been warming in these regions and some scientists have said it was because of natural events. But this study confirms that it cannot be explained by a natural cycle."

Hurricanes form in tropical waters when evaporating water is sucked up into storms. As the vapour rises, it condenses, releasing energy that fuels the storm. The warmer the ocean surface, the more energy is pumped into the hurricane. "The study suggests that with increasing sea surface temperatures, we can expect more intense hurricanes," Dr Gillett added.

Although the rise in ocean temperatures is slight, it is expected to have a dramatic effect on the intensity of hurricanes. In March Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claimed that while sea temperatures had increased by only about half a degree during the past 30 years, the power of hurricanes had doubled.

Tom Wigley, another scientist on the study, at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, added: "The best explanation for these increases has to include a large human influence. We expect global temperatures and sea surface temperatures to increase more rapidly over the next century."


Informant: binstock

Climate Change Seen Pushing Plants to the Brink

Thousands of plant species are being pushed to the brink of extinction by global warming, and those already at the extremes are in the greatest danger, a leading botanist said on Tuesday. Botanists are on target to have sorted and stored seeds from 10 percent of the world's plant species by 2010 in a race against time as global temperatures rise due to burning fossil fuels.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/091206EA.shtml

September 12, 2006

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/science/12ocean.html

Rising ocean temperatures linked by some studies to tropical storms are very likely a result of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research.

The lead author of the new study, Benjamin D. Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of the Energy Department, said the findings suggested that further warming would probably make hurricanes stronger in coming decades.

But while environmentalists and some researchers have asserted that storms like Hurricane Katrina were already measurably stronger because of warming caused by humans, Dr. Santer said his study did not address that issue.

The study was published online yesterday by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers compared a century of observed temperature changes with those produced in more than 80 computer simulations of how oceans respond to natural and human influences on the climate. The simulations were generated on 22 different computer models at 15 different research centers.

The simulations correctly mimicked the cooling caused by plumes from volcanic eruptions, which temporarily block the sun. At the same time, the authors said, the only warming influence that could explain the changes in the oceans was the buildup of heat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases in the air.

Earlier studies concluded that greenhouse gases from human activities were warming the oceans, but this analysis was the first to examine thoroughly trends in particular tropical regions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that serve as nurseries for the destructive storms.

Several climate experts said that while debate persisted about the role of warming in pumping up hurricanes, there was little doubt about the long-term trend should warming continue as projected.

“Even under modest scenarios for emissions, we’re talking about sea surface temperature changes in these regions of a couple of degrees,” Dr. Santer said. “That’s much larger than anything we’ve already experienced, and that is worrying.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company


Informant: binstock

At the Australian premiere of his film on climate change, Al Gore said that global warming "threatens the future of human civilization, and Australia, in many ways, is more at risk than any other nation." Australia is particularly vulnerable to water shortages, changed rainfall patterns and an increase in fires and cyclones. Gore also criticized the Australian government for not joining the Kyoto agreement.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/091106EB.shtml

Scientists worried about spread of brucellosis

JOHN THOMPSON

http://www.nunatsiaqnews.com/news/nunavik/60908_02.html

[foto] Beluga testicles, shown here below the animal’s penis, become bloated and filled with cysts from a disease called brucellosis, which appears to be on the rise in Arctic waters. Researcher Ole Nielson with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans says stress caused by climate change could be responsible for the four-fold increase in infected narwhal and beluga he’s observed over the last four years. (PHOTO COURTESY OF OLE NIELSON

Global warming could cause diseases to flourish in the Arctic’s whale populations, causing dramatic die-offs, warns a researcher with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

One such disease is brucellosis, which is caused by bacteria and exhibits itself as nasty cysts in the flesh of animals. The disease also causes fevers, weakness and other symptoms.

Over the last four years, Ole Nielson, a DFO biologist, has examined samples from diseased whales provided by hunter and trapper organizations around the Canadian Arctic.

“In some of the communities, half of the whales are... positive for brucellosis,” Nielson said on Tuesday. “It looks like a four-fold increase since 2002.”

Eating raw, infected meat could spread the bacteria to people.

So when hunters in Grise Fiord caught a narwhal several years ago with such cysts, they threw the carcass away, Nielson said. “That’s probably the smart move.”

Just as people are more susceptible to picking up the common cold or flu when they’re stressed out and tired, marine mammals may be more open to infections as they adapt to warmer ocean temperatures, Nielson suggests.

“It’ll put considerable stress on the animals. The ecosystem is changing,” he said.

That’s good news for bacteria and viruses, which could discover a wider range and more hosts to live off. But it’s bad news for marine mammals, and for people who hunt them.

Nielson said he’s particularly concerned of how brucellosis-infected whales have “huge cysts” in their genitals.

“I’m not a veterinarian, and I don’t know just how much this would affect reproduction, but this can’t be good for them, to have these huge cysts on their reproductive organs,” he said.

Nielson fears this could lead to a slow, steady decline in populations. But he also worries another disease, distemper, could cause far larger, and far quicker, die-offs in whale populations.

Just as distemper infects dogs, causing symptoms such as vomiting, fevers and seizures, a similar variety of the virus also infects marine mammals.

Distemper caused some 20,000 seals to die in the North Sea during the late
1990s, Nielson said. “Half of them actually died, in three or four months.”

Carriers of the disease could be none other than Canadian harp seals that had migrated to the area, Nielson said.

Several years later a different variety of distemper infected dolphins and porpoises in the same area.

Ring seals in the Canadian eastern Arctic are also known to carry the disease. “That’s a good thing,” Nielson said, explaining that because the animal is exposed to the virus, that means the seals also have some immunity – an ability to beat the virus.

But tests have shown no signs of past distemper infections with Arctic whale populations, he said, and he finds that worrying – because that means these whales should have little resistance to the disease. “I didn’t find any at all, that were even remotely positive,” he said.

Distemper has been found in pilot whales on the east coast of Canada, and common dolphins on the west coast. Warmer surface waters could bring these mammals farther north, just as fish like capelin are doing in the eastern Arctic, and salmon in the western Arctic.

If Arctic beluga and narwhal do become infected, Nielson predicts the animals could have their populations cut in half.

“You can expect die-offs of 50 per cent,” he said.

Such a drop could have a big impact on the quota levels set for populations already struggling, and strike a big blow to such beluga populations as the one in Ungava Bay, which is thought to be nearly extinct.

Some 72,000 to 144,000 belugas live in Canadian waters, according to DFO.

Not much can be done to prevent mammals from migrating, said Nielson. But more research, to keep track of the spread of diseases, could be important to accurately set hunting quotas.

Otherwise, “there wouldn’t be any warning until a year later, when there just aren’t any of them to hunt. That’s my worry,” Nielson said.

“They’re just going to disappear under the briny blue depths.”


Informant: binstock