October 10, 2019 — This spring’s record-shattering flooding from the Mississippi River has wreaked historic havoc on oyster production in the Gulf of Mexico, which could reverberate for years to come with scant supply and hard-to-digest prices.
Louisiana, which bore the worst of the damage from too-low salinity and smothering algae blooms and historically accounts for 75 percent of Gulf harvests and 34 percent of U.S. harvests, is all but out of commission for this fall’s oyster harvest season.
October 7, 2019 — Just how far will California Gov. Gavin Newsom go in his high-profile fight with the Trump administration over environmental protections?
The next few months will provide an answer, as Newsom is forced to take a stand on Trump rollbacks in a long-contested battleground—the Northern California delta that helps supply more than half the state’s population with drinking water and fills irrigation canals on millions of acres of farmland.
The battle lines are not nearly as clearly drawn as they are on climate change or air pollution, where the state is presenting a fairly unified front against Washington. When it comes to California water, there is no unity.
Some of the state’s biggest and most powerful water agencies are eager for the federal government to weaken endangered species protections that have cut their delta deliveries. And they want the Newsom administration to go along.
October 4, 2019 — Two weeks ago, lobstermen working off Scorton Creek started seeing something they had never experienced. Lobsters, in fact everything in their traps, were coming up dead.
Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries senior biologist Robert Glenn started fielding phone calls from puzzled fishermen Sept. 23. The fishermen were worried there might be something in the water that was killing the lobsters, fish, shellfish, even sea worms.
It turns out, it was something missing from the water: oxygen.
For the past two weeks, division researchers and scientists from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown have boarded vessels and taken water samples, gathered temperature data at various depths and measured the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water. Preliminary results from testing on dozens of dead lobsters found nothing toxic in the water that could have killed them, and the focus was on a phenomenon that occurs every year — low oxygen in the layer of water along the ocean bottom, Glenn said.
October 4, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
The high temperatures that came with the marine heatwave known as the Blob led to unprecedented mixing of local and subtropical species. There were, often with new and unpredictable outcomes. Out of that mix came one unexpected winner: West Coast rockfish. These bottom-dwelling species, which that had previously collapsed in the face of overfishing during the 2000s, thrived under the new conditions.
Scientists from Oregon State University and NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center recount the boom in young rockfish in a new research paper in the journal Fisheries. It examines the effects of the Blob as documented by NOAA Fisheries offshore surveys. Scientists have been conducting the surveys for more than 20 years. The Blob years brought some of the most dramatic changes in marine life off the West Coast they’ve ever seen.
Unexpected interactions may have also altered the abundance of some species, from plankton that support the food web to fish that depend on them, the researchers wrote.
In the waning months of the Blob in 2016, juvenile rockfish increased over a large area from California to Alaska. Since juvenile rockfish are very difficult to distinguish from one another, scientists could not tell which species benefited. They could not tell what specifically drove the boom in their numbers and or whether they will support fisheries in future years.
October 3, 2019 — Offshore wind farms have been pitched as a critical cog in the drive to reduce the use of fossil fuels to power American life, while trying to fend off the worst effects of climate change.
But will the environmental and economic problems the construction and operation of the giant wind turbines cause be outweighed by the long-term benefits? And are state and federal regulators, or the wind farm developers themselves, doing enough to offset or protect against those problems?
These were the questions put to the panel of experts at the first “Press Session” event held in East Hampton last Thursday afternoon, September 26, at Rowdy Hall. Representatives of the fishing and offshore wind industry, environmental and renewable energy advocates, and local government officials each shared their perspective.
Last week’s Press Session panel included Dr. Francine Kershaw, a large marine mammals expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council; Bonnie Brady, a commercial fishing advocate; Gordian Raacke, a renewable energy advocate; Jennifer Garvey, Long Island development coordinator for Ørsted, the company proposing to build the South Fork Wind Farm; East Hampton Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby; and State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.
October 3, 2019 — Ocean-based solutions can play an important role in the fight against climate change, according to a new scientific report published last week at the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in New York City, U.S.A.
The report, “The Ocean as a Solution to Climate Change: Five Opportunities for Action,” written by a consortium of scientsts affiliated with the World Resources Institute, begins with the dramatic statement, “The ocean is on the front lines of the battle against climate change.”
October, 2, 2019 — The 51st session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 51) adopted the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), and accepted the underlying report. The SROCC assesses the latest scientific knowledge about the physical science basis for, and impacts of, climate change on ocean, coastal, polar and mountain ecosystems, and the human communities that depend on them.
The report also evaluates their vulnerabilities and adaptation capacity, as well as options for achieving climate-resilient development pathways. The report’s SPM, which the Panel approved line-by-line, aims to tease out some of the key findings of the longer report in such a way that policymakers can easily comprehend and use them.
The Earth Negotiations Bulletin highlights that oceans and ice are an “integral and dynamic part of the earth’s climate systems,” as they cover more than 80% of the earth’s surface. The report underscores the urgency of prioritizing “timely, ambitious and coordinated action” to address “unprecedented” and enduring changes in the ocean and cryosphere. It also describes the benefits of ambitious and effective adaptation for sustainable development, and the escalating costs and risks of delayed action.
According to the report, global warming has already reached 1°C above preindustrial levels, with: profound consequences for ecosystems and people; a warmer, more acidic and less productive ocean; melting glaciers and ice sheets causing increased sea level rise; and coastal extreme events becoming more severe.
The global ocean, the report notes, has warmed unabated since 1970 and has taken up more than 90% of the excess heat in the climate system, with consequences now visible in increased ocean acidification, stratification and loss of oxygen. Speaking at the press conference that launched the report to the public, IPCC Vice-Chair Ko Barrett said, “Water is the lifeblood of the planet,” and the world’s ocean and cryosphere have been “taking the heat” from climate change for decades, with “sweeping and severe” consequences for nature and humanity. She warned that changes to the ocean and cryosphere are forcing people from low-lying coastal cities to Arctic communities to “fundamentally alter their ways of life.”
October 2, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA:
NOAA will fund 12 new research projects around the country to better understand and predict harmful algal blooms (HABs) and improve our collective response to them.
NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) is allocating $10.2 million in FY 2019 to fund HAB research across the nation. Approximately $8.4 million of that will cover the first year of new 3- to 5-year projects, and $1.78 million will go to 3-year projects already in process. Funded under NOAA’s ECOHAB and MERHAB programs, new projects will begin in Alaska, California, Chesapeake Bay, Florida, the Great Lakes, New England and the Pacific Northwest. A full list of the new grant awards is available online.
Award recipients will conduct research to identify conditions that increase bloom toxicity; model toxin movement from the water into shellfish, fish and marine mammals; and improve toxin monitoring and forecasts. NCCOS research programs help states and regions around the nation mitigate the effects of HABs, which can include contaminated drinking water, fisheries closures and disruption to recreation and tourism.
September 30, 2019 — The marine heatwave known as “The Blob” wreaked havoc on Northwest fisheries during 2015 and 2016, Ron Warren, fish policy director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told a Senate committee Wednesday.
And before the federal government could even provide disaster relief for that event, another marine heatwave loomed, he said.
The Blob stoked marine temperatures nearly 7 degrees higher than normal, according to his testimony. Fewer coho salmon returned. Those that did return were smaller. Fisheries had to be closed.
Gov. Jay Inslee and representatives of several tribal governments in 2016 requested millions of dollars in federal fishing disaster funds to help offset the losses to fishing communities.
Now, more than three years later, the fishing disaster money has only just arrived from the feds, Warren told senators. The money, including some for tribes and about $1.5 million for nontreaty fishing communities in Washington state, is in the process of being distributed.
September 27, 2019 — Since the 1970s, the climate crisis has made our oceans warmer and more acidic, reducing the number of fish we rely on for our food and putting the future of fish in peril, according to a major UN report out Wednesday.
Rising temperatures mean oceans will have less oxygen, and this, along with more heatwaves and increased acidification, will make fish move further away from the coast and create larger deadzones, where life cannot survive.
Ultimately, the report said, this will lead to the extinction of some species of fish, which Americans have been eating an increasing amount of recent years.
The US dietary guidelines recommend 8-12 ounces of seafood a week to keep a healthy diet. Fish plays an even bigger role internationally, providing up to half of all animal protein eaten in developing countries and it remains a leading source of vitamins and minerals.