Climate change Archives - Page 23 of 142

CALIFORNIA: Algae bloom fish kills prompt new Bay Area wastewater treatment plant requirements costing $11 billion

March 18, 2024 — Ten years. That’s how much time the Bay Area’s 37 wastewater treatment plants will have to reduce fertilizer and sewage in their water by 40%. The estimated price tag for the facility upgrades is $11 billion.

The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board plans to adopt the change as part of its new discharge permit requirement beginning June 12. Previous permits did not require reductions, according to Lorien Fono, executive director of the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies, which oversees the region’s wastewater treatment plants. She spoke from the Oro Loma Sanitary District in San Lorenzo on Thursday. The facility is considered a model for upgrades.

The regulatory change follows a damaging algae bloom in 2022 and 2023. A brown algae species called Heterosigma akashiwo, which feeds off the nitrogen in wastewater, infected the Bay and damaged aquatic ecosystems.

Read the full article at CBS News

Last month was hottest February ever recorded. It’s the ninth-straight broken record

March 9, 2024 — For the ninth straight month, Earth has obliterated global heat records — with February, the winter as a whole and the world’s oceans setting new high-temperature marks, according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.

The latest record-breaking in this climate change-fueled global hot streak includes sea surface temperatures that weren’t just the hottest for February, but eclipsed any month on record, soaring past August 2023’s mark and still rising at the end of the month. And February, as well the previous two winter months, soared well past the internationally set threshold for long-term warming, Copernicus reported Wednesday.

The last month that didn’t set a record for hottest month was in May 2023 and that was a close third to 2020 and 2016. Copernicus records have fallen regularly from June on.

February 2024 averaged 13.54 degrees Celsius (56.37 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking the old record from 2016 by about an eighth of a degree. February was 1.77 degrees Celsius (3.19 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late 19th century, Copernicus calculated. Only last December was more above pre-industrial levels for the month than February was.

Read the full the Associated Press

Researchers release global database to understand climate impacts on ocean predators

March 9, 2024 — A cross-border science collaboration has yielded a global database that will help researchers understand how climate change is affecting ocean predators like the albacore tuna — which also happens to be an important food source for people around the world.

“Climate change is shifting where species can live, and the pace of change is most intense in the ocean,” says Stephanie Green, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Global Change Ecology and Conservation.

“Our big questions are where will marine species go, and what will it mean for communities that rely on the fisheries they support?”

To tackle these questions, researchers at the University of Alberta are collaborating with colleagues in the United States to discover how top predators will respond to climate extremes and changing prey over the coming decades.

Wind and currents in the Pacific Ocean make the west coast of Canada and the United States an attractive feeding ground for migrating predators like tuna where they support lucrative fisheries, and also a hotbed of climate impacts.

The team honed in on albacore tuna, a torpedo-shaped predator known to eat hundreds of different species around the world and whose harvest is regulated by a treaty between the United States and Canada

Read the full article at the University of Alberta

Catch dips as lobster fishers grapple with climate change, whale rules

March 7, 2024 — America’s lobster fishing business dipped in catch while grappling with challenges including a changing ocean environment and new rules designed to protect rare whales.

The lobster industry, based mostly in Maine, has had an unprecedented decade in terms of the volume and value of the lobsters brought to the docks. But members of the industry have also said they face existential threats from proposed rules intended to protect the North Atlantic right whale and climate change that is influencing where lobsters can be trapped.

Fishermen from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other Northeast states also harvest lobsters with traps from the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but about 80% comes to the docks in Maine in a typical years.

Read the full article at The Daily News

What is a whale native to the North Pacific doing off New England? Climate change could be the key

March 6, 2024 — Scientists have confirmed the presence of a whale off New England that went extinct in the Atlantic Ocean two centuries ago — an exciting discovery, but one they said that illustrates the impact of climate change on sea life.

Researchers with the New England Aquarium in Boston found the gray whale while flying 30 miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts, on March 1. The whale, which can weigh 60,000 pounds (27,215 kilograms), typically lives in the northern Pacific Ocean.

The gray whale vanished from the Atlantic Ocean by the 18th century, but there have been five observations of the animal in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters in the last 15 years, the aquarium said in a statement. The whale found this month was likely the same animal spotted in Florida late last year, the aquarium said.

The researchers who found the animal off Massachusetts said they were skeptical at first, but after circling the area for 45 minutes, they were able to take photographs that confirmed it was indeed a gray whale.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Exclusive: World on brink of fourth mass coral reef bleaching event, NOAA says

March 5, 2024 — The world is on the verge of a fourth mass coral bleaching event which could see wide swathes of tropical reefs die, including parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

Marine biologists are on high alert following months of record-breaking ocean heat fuelled by climate change and the El Nino climate pattern.

“It’s looking like the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere is probably going to bleach this year,” said ecologist Derek Manzello, the coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch which serves as the global monitoring authority on coral bleaching risk.

Read the full article at Reuters

MAINE: Maine Lobster Harvest Down 5% Amid Warming Ocean, Right Whale Regulations

March 4, 2024 — Last year’s lobster catch in Maine fell more than 5% for a total yield of 93.8 million pounds, new data from the Maine Department of Marine Resource showed Friday, as climate change and regulations put in place to protect a rare whale species continue to impact the fragile industry.

Fishermen in Maine, who are responsible for catching more than 90% of the nation’s lobsters per year, caught 93.8 million pounds of the crustacean in 2023 (the lowest level since 2009) and were paid $4.95 per pound, up significantly from the $3.97 per pound paid to fishermen last year.

The sharp rise in price paid harvesters a total of $464.4 million, almost $72 million more than in 2023 despite the lower catch, indicative of a widely fluctuating value that involved prices spiking to $6.70 per pound in 2021 before falling to less than $4 in 2022.

The lobster industry in the state has been in flux for a decade as lobster populations move north toward Canada and away from the United States in search of cooler waters—the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world’s ocean surface, according to the University of New England.

New England’s fishermen have also been increasingly impacted by regulations put in place to protect right whales—one of the most endangered species of all large whales—that impact when and for how long fishermen can be on the water.

The decline in catch continues to build on a trend in the Maine lobster industry since harvesters caught a record high 132.6 million pounds in 2016, and 2023 marked the second year in a row the total catch has declined.

Read the full article at Forbes

Lobster catch dips to lowest level since 2009 as fishers grapple with climate change, whale rules

March 4, 2024 — America’s lobster fishing business dipped in catch while grappling with challenges including a changing ocean environment and new rules designed to protect rare whales.

Maine fishermen’s catch in 2023 fell more than 5% from the year that preceded it, and the total of 93.7 million pounds of lobsters caught was the lowest figure since 2009, according to data released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The figure tracks with the up-and-down year lobster fishermen experienced, said Dave Cousens a fishermen based out of Criehaven island and a former president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Fewer fish, worse health: The climate effect

March 2, 2024 — Over the next 25 years, reduced intake of marine food resources due to climate change will likely have a negative impact on the cardiovascular health of First Nations on Canada’s Pacific coast, a new study suggests.

According to modeling based on climate projections, the reduction in seafood consumption can be expected by 2050 to increase the risk of heart attack in this population by 1.9 to 2.6% for men and 1.3 to 1.8% for women.

For people aged 50 or over, the increase would be between 4.5 and 6.5%.

These numbers come from a recent study that used data from the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study (FNFNES), a joint project of the Assembly of First Nations, Université de Montréal and the University of Ottawa.

The study was published in the journal FACETS.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

Climate change found to be reducing fish weight

February 28, 2024 — Fish weight in the western North Pacific Ocean dipped in the 2010s due to warmer water limiting food supplies, according to a new study at the University of Tokyo. The work appears in Fish and Fisheries.

The researchers attributed the first period of weight loss to greater numbers of Japanese sardines, which increased competition with other species for food. During the 2010s, while the number of Japanese sardines and chub mackerel moderately increased, the effect of climate change warming the ocean appears to have resulted in more competition for food, as cooler, nutrient-dense water could not easily rise to the surface.

These results have implications for fisheries and policymakers trying to manage ocean resources under future climate change scenarios.

Whether it’s sushi, takoyaki (traditional octopus pancake balls), or grilled mackerel, seafood is an iconic and important part of Japanese cuisine. Japan’s seafood self-sufficiency has, however, been gradually declining for several decades. Local fisheries face multiple challenges, from reduced sales and lower prices to labor shortages, changing consumer preferences, and soaring costs. But perhaps one of the biggest threats comes from global warming.

Japan’s eastern coast is bordered by the western North Pacific Ocean, a highly productive marine area. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2019, the western North Pacific accounted for almost a quarter of the global total of fish caught and sold. However, results of new research at the University of Tokyo show that during the 1980s and 2010s, fish weight in the region changed dramatically.

Read the full article at PHYS.org