Tag Archives: oceans warming

Cost of Climate Change, Rivers & Oceans

50 years of data reveals true extent of climate change impacts on kelp forests

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Originally published on UVic News

New research from the University of Victoria (UVic) has found that some kelp forests around Vancouver Island were disappearing far earlier than scientists previously thought, highlighting that climate change has been altering our ecosystems long before most people were aware anything was wrong.

“Most research has focused on recent kelp forest losses resulting from well-known marine heatwaves, like the record-breaking ‘Blob’ heatwave that hit our coast a decade ago,” says Brian Timmer, a UVic PhD student, National Geographic Explorer and lead author of the study, recently published in Ecological Applications.

“These recent changes to our kelp forests have been intense. But our research shows that some areas of the BC coast have been warming much faster than the global average, and associated kelp declines began decades ago. We’ve been underestimating the magnitude of ocean-warming impacts for years.” —Chris Neufeld, co-author and senior aquatic ecology at LGL Limited

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Cost of Climate Change

The Suicidal Ordinary – The Quadra Project

The ordinary is not ordinary. We become accustomed to it because it is what we experience and do everyday, so it usually evades careful examination and evaluation. The normal is supposed to be normal. And yet, from the perspective of our human history and our planet’s biophysical history, what is happening now is unprecedented in almost every regard. Our knowledge is rising at a rate unparalleled in our past, while our influence on the ecosystems that have kept our planet stable and reliable for our purposes is being transformed by our activity.

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Cost of Climate Change

The Quadra Project – Warming Oceans

The close connection that exists between the atmosphere and the ocean is not surprising considering that 70% of the planet is covered by water—about 360 million km2—and the few dozen km of air is extremely thin compared to the 12,750 km diameter of Earth. This means that about 90% of the atmospheric heating caused by rising concentrations of CO2 is transferred to the oceans.

In approximate terms, about one-third of the carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels stays there for centuries, about one-third is captured and sequestered in various land forms such as forests, soils and vegetation, although one recent United Nations study suggests the terrestrial sequestration may only be about 25%, possibly because forest and plant cover is being diminished by agriculture and fires, and because a higher global temperature is reducing the photosynthesis process by which plants process carbon dioxide into carbon, sugars and oxygen. Much of the remaining one-third of our CO2 emissions that is not absorbed by marine algae dissolves in the oceans to form carbonic acid.

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Rivers & Oceans

UN manifesto pitches preservation of critical microscopic creatures

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Plankton, the key ingredient of the primordial ocean soup that allows all life to flourish, are central to a new U.N. manifesto highlighting the big role microscopic creatures can play in tackling the globe’s triple threat. 

Plankton are largely ignored in international discussions around preserving the planet from the climate crisis, biodiversity collapse and pollution, said Vincent Doumeizel, senior advisor on the oceans to the United Nations (U.N.) Global Compact.

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Cost of Climate Change, Rivers & Oceans

The Quadra Project – Deep Water

When we think about environmentalism, we tend not to consider the oceans because we don’t live on or in them, and they are just there as they have always been, defining the edge of the land that we occupy. Of course, oceans provide us with most of our fish, but in the popular understanding, they are mostly experienced as vast spaces of waves and wet that separate the faraway continents that we visit. So we tend to give much more importance to landscapes that we occupy. And because we live within the thin layer of air that girdles the globe, weather is also a concern to us. But we generally don’t consider that much of our climate and weather is determined by what happens in the oceans.

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