Oceana: It all changes here

There have been a number of articles about the oceans over the past few months, mostly discussing the inexorable decay that appears to be happening around us, quietly, like some form of creeping doom that will one day rise up and bite us in the arse after it is too late.

Is this really the case, and if so can we do anything about it?

Consider the permafrost. The vast Arctic region in the north encompasses land on three continents that has been deeply frozen since the last ice age. A thin layer thaws each summer. By mid-century, half of it will thaw to 10 feet, according to computer models of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, and long-trapped greenhouse gases will be released.

Already, the melting in Siberia is releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, that had been buried for 40,000 years, feeding a cycle of more warming and more melting.

“That’s a serious runaway,” Scanbos said. “A catastrophe lays buried under the permafrost.”

Or consider the ocean currents. The weather in the Northern Hemisphere is controlled by the temperature of currents that circulate on a giant treadmill, in which water cooled at the icy poles sinks to the bottom, and moves slowly toward the equator, where it heats and rises to flow northward again, mixing the seas. That is why Europe’s climate is relatively moderate.

As the Arctic ice melts and ice shelves collapse in the Southern Ocean, vast areas of open water are exposed. The water absorbs heat from the sun that until now was reflected by the ice. As that heat warms the seas, the treadmill is expected to slow, the IPCC has reported. In the worst case, it could stop. The previous time that happened, 15,000 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was plunged into a brief and brutal ice age, apparently within decades.

“It’s like having a pool of warm water sitting in the middle of what is supposed to be the air conditioner of the north,” Scanbos said. “And it will be within our lives, not our grandchildren’s.”

“Things are on more of a hair trigger than we thought.”

OK – so there’s a big problem out there, but as the first 2 articles suggest it may not be a direct result of global warming and may be part of “natural events”. After all, nothing in nature is linear – there are always fluctuations, variations, corrections. The Earth wobbles on its axis, the orbit around the sun is not circular, weak gravitational pulls flex the surface of the earth as the moon makes its daily orbit, and other bodies affect our planet constantly, invisibly.

However, it is also clear from the articles that man has made an incontrovertible mark on the situation and while not necessarily directly responsible for the causes, through his own irresponsibility for the environment has managed to magnify their effects to the point of catastrophe.

We need to find a way to help restore the balance – to be carbon negative (ie put back more than we are taking out so that we get back to point sometime in the past where balance was in evidence) – and find it quickly, and ethically. Some of the suggestions are radical and have unknown consequences. We need to apply common sense to the solutions and if they don’t stack up, retire them and move on.

For example, if the oxygen levels in the oceans are dropping to levels where mass extinction events are a possibility, what would happen if we mix up the oceans to release deep minerals in an attempt to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide? My gut feel is that it would accelerate the decline in oxygen in the oceans; not a good thing. We also need to protect the natural food chains, so that reptiles such as the leatherback continue to thrive and so reduce the jellyfish populations naturally, instead of putting our own selfish pleasures above the ability of the ecosystem to sustain us.

A little altruism would not go amiss about now in our evolution!

Below are the 4 articles used as reference for this piece, including a brief synopsis of each and a link to the original material for reference.

The spineless menace: Jellyfish overwhelm the sea
16th February 2008: Link (Source: The Independent)

For years, Mediterranean beaches have been plagued by jellyfish. Now scientists are reporting that the problem is far worse than they had feared – and that a new generation of the poisonous creatures is poised to overwhelm the sea.

In essence the warming sea has allowed the jellyfish populations to grow in the winter as well as the summer. This has lead to a constant influx of jellyfish inshore and a growing “plague” around the Mediterranean. The jellyfish’s main predator – the leatherback turtle – is almost extinct because the beaches where it lays its eggs have been overrun by tourists seeking the sun and secluded places.

“Jellyfish are a natural part of the marine environment, but the scale of what’s happening now is a warning that something’s going very wrong,” says Dr David Santilo, a marine biologist for the Greenpeace research laboratories at Exeter University.

Do we then face a return to primeval slime? “A lot of pressures are pushing in that direction,” says Dr Santilo. “The mechanisms are there to make that happen. Ecosystems are flexible up to a point, but no one knows when elasticity breaks into a different sort of ecosystem and you get an irreversible shift. This plague of jellyfish is a like hazard warning light. It’s a wake-up call.”

Scientists fear tipping point in Pacific Ocean
15th February 2008: Link (Source: Seattle Post)

Where scientists previously found a sea bottom abounding with life, two years ago they discovered the rotting carcasses of crabs, starfish and sea worms, swooshing from side to side in the current. Most fish had fled — and those that didn’t or couldn’t joined the deathfest on the sea floor.

Extraordinarily low oxygen levels were to blame – swept up from the deep ocean into normally productive waters just off the Pacific Northwest coast by uncharacteristically strong winds.

Strong winds and low oxygen levels have persisted for eight summers now, leading scientists to conclude that the ocean may be “poised for significant reorganization” – their way of saying an ecosystem gone awry.

Melting Occurring at Alarming Rate
22nd October 2007: Link (Source: Washington Post)

For scientists, global warming is a disaster movie, its opening scenes set at the poles of Earth. The epic already has started. And it’s not fiction.

The relentless grip of the Arctic Ocean that defied man for centuries is melting away. The sea ice reaches only half as far as it did 50 years ago. In the summer of 2006, it shrank to a record low; this summer the ice pulled back even more, by an area nearly the size of Alaska. Where explorer Robert Peary just 102 years ago saw “a great white disk stretching away apparently infinitely” from Ellesmere Island, there is often nothing now but open water. Glaciers race into the sea from the island of Greenland, beginning an inevitable rise in the oceans.

At the South Pole, ancient ice shelves have abruptly crumbled. The air over the western Antarctic peninsula has warmed by nearly 6 degrees since 1950. The sea there is heating as well, further melting edges of the ice cap. Green grass and beech trees are taking root on the ice fringes.

The scenario is not new. What is most alarming to the scientists is the speed at which it is unfolding. A decade ago, melting at the poles was predicted to play out over 100 years. Instead, it is happening on a scale scientists describe as overnight.

The polar regions have been regularly described as the canaries in the coal mine of global warming: remote bellwethers that could give mankind a heads-up when important changes are coming.

Mixing the oceans proposed to reduce global warming
26th September 2007: Link (Source: Nature)

Could mighty pumps be installed in the ocean to mix up the waters and cool the planet? At least some scientists and businessmen believe so — but the idea is controversial. In a letter to the editor published in Nature, James Lovelock and Chris Rapley suggest that this deus ex machina could be an “emergency treatment for the pathology of global warming”.