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Oceans have acidified more in the last 200 years than the previous 21,000 years
Man-made carbon emissions have acidified the world's oceans far beyond their natural levels, new research suggests.
In some regions, acidity levels rose faster in the last two centuries than it did in the previous 21,000 years, a study from the University of Hawaii has shown. Ocean acidity makes it harder for organisms such as molluscs and coral to construct the protective layers they need to survive.
Measuring changes in ocean acidity is difficult because it varies naturally between seasons, years and regions. Scientists looked at changes in the saturation level of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate used to measure ocean acidification.
As seawater acidity rises, the saturation level of aragonite falls. Direct observations only date back 30 years, which is not long enough to reveal a meaningful trend. However the new research used simulations of ocean and climate conditions going back 21,000 years to the Last Glacial Maximum and forward in time to the end of the 21st century.
In several key coral reef regions aragonite saturation is already five times below its lowest pre-industrial range, according to the model. This translates to a decrease in overall calcification rates of corals and other shell-forming organisms of 15%, scientists at the university believe.
They fear calcification rates of some marine organisms could drop by more than 40% of their pre-industrial levels within the next 90 years.
Dr Tobias Friedrich, from the University of Hawaii, who led the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, said: 'Any significant drop below the minimum level of aragonite to which the organisms have been exposed to for thousands of years and have successfully adapted will very likely stress them and their associated ecosystems.
'In some regions, the man-made rate of change in ocean acidity since the industrial revolution is 100 times greater than the natural rate of change between the Last Glacial Maximum and pre-industrial times.'
He added: 'When Earth started to warm 17,000 years ago, terminating the last glacial period, atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels rose from 190 parts per million (ppm) to 280 ppm over 6,000 years.
'Marine ecosystems had ample time to adjust. Now, for a similar rise in CO2 concentration to the present level of 392 ppm, the adjustment time is reduced to only 100 - 200 years.'
Co-author Professor Axel Timmermann, also from the University of Hawaii, said: 'Our results suggest that severe reductions are likely to occur in coral reef diversity, structural complexity and resilience by the middle of this century.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2090253/Oceans-acidified-200-years-did-previous-21-000-years-claims-new-climate-change-research.html#ixzz1kJIObunQMan-made carbon emissions have acidified the world's oceans far beyond their... more-
- JanforGore
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Tons of Los Angeles River Trash to Be Captured Before Reaching Pacific Ocean
Los Angeles Times...
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Environmental news from California and beyond
Greenspace
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Tons of L.A. River trash to be captured before hitting the sea
November 1, 2011 | 4:57 pm
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Tons of trash normally swept to the ocean by the Los Angeles River should be captured by thousands of trash screens that have been installed beneath nearly every storm drain in the lower reaches of the river.
The project is believed to be the largest debris-capturing effort in the nation and marks the most aggressive attack yet on river trash in the Los Angeles region.
The project spans 16 cities and is expected to keep 840,000 pounds of debris -- the equivalent of about 450 Volkswagen Beetles -- from reaching the ocean each year, according to the Gateway Authority, a coalition of cities and public water agencies in southeastern L.A. County.
The biggest winner from the project is Long Beach, where workers routinely have to scoop floating islands of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other debris flowing from dozens of communities upstream before it litters the city’s coastline.
In August 2010, crews began installing the stainless-steel, full-capture trash devices inside nearly 12,000 catch basins.
The simple mesh contraptions sit just below the drains where water from city streets flows into the storm-water system and can catch debris as small as a cigarette butt.
Another 5,400 drains in the most-littered areas also were outfitted with street-level retractable screens as a second layer of defense.
.Los Angeles Times... . Environmental news from California and beyond... more-
- EthicalVegan
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World Oceans Day: Celebrating the source of all life on Earth
Today is World Oceans Day which is a day of celebrating the oceans of our planet and reflection on our mistreatment of them. Without oceans all life on Earth would cease. They drive our climate and weather and the web of life from the tiniest plankton to the largest whale, each species with a distinct part to play in our web of life.
They are mystical, beautiful, peaceful and colorful, but now also polluted, overfished, toxified, overdrilled, over saturated with Co2, depleted of oxygen, overheated and used as trash cans by humans who do not truly appreciate nor understand the wonder of it all.
So today if you can, try to give a thought to the oceans and their majesty and reflect on what you have done to allow the continued killing of them and just what will be left for future generations to enjoy, explore and survive.
The oceans are our lifeline. And we have forgotten.Today is World Oceans Day which is a day of celebrating the oceans of our planet and... more-
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Divers and Coral Reefs
Jess Reese is inspiring divers to save coral reefs.-
- lnmgilbert2004
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- 10 months ago
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Robotic Ghost Knifefish Is 'Born'
Researchers at Northwestern University have created a robotic fish that can move from swimming forward and backward to swimming vertically almost instantaneously by using a sophisticated, ribbon-like fin.
:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119095045.htmResearchers at Northwestern University have created a robotic fish that can move from... more-
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Australia: Floods threaten Great Barrier Reef
Australia's disastrous floods have spread to 40 towns and are threatening the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as tonnes of sludge pour into the sea, officials and scientists said Wednesday.
As anxious residents scrambled to build emergency levees and authorities counted billions of US dollars in economic damage, researchers said the iconic reef's corals could be damaged by run-off from Australia's eastern coast.
James Cook University researcher Michelle Devlin said floodwaters carrying debris and pesticides spelt a harmful "cocktail" for the world's biggest reef, a delicate ecological treasure and a major tourist attraction.
"This is a really massive event," Devlin told AFP. "It has the potential to shift the food web, it has the potential to shift how the reef operates."
"There is just going to be this cocktail of water containing a lot of things that they (the corals) wouldn't necessarily have seen before," she added. "It is fresh, warm water and that will stress corals out as well."
Devlin said any plume would likely stretch from the reef's southern tip to the scenic Whitsunday Islands, and may in some areas damage sea grass beds -- a feeding ground for dugongs -- or allow damaging crown of thorns starfish to flourish.
Meanwhile, two more military aircraft were pressed into service Wednesday as heavy rains were forecast for flood-damaged areas, which cover an area as big as France and Germany and have affected some 200,000 people.
Queensland premier Anna Bligh said the flooding was unprecedented in the state and had now directly affected 40 towns, raising the number from 22 announced previously.
She said waters that have flooded dozens of mines and closed railways and ports would send coal and steel prices soaring, adding that the state produces about half of the world's coking coal used to make steel.
Queensland Resources Council has said the floods have already cost one billion US dollars (one billion US) in delayed coal production, while the state's resources minister says the industry is losing 100 million US dollars a day.
"Seventy-five percent of our mines are currently not operating because of this flood, so that's a massive impact on the international markets and the international manufacture of steel," Bligh told the Seven network TV station.
"Without doubt, this disaster is without precedent in its size and its scale here in Queensland," she added.
cont.Australia's disastrous floods have spread to 40 towns and are threatening the... more-
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Coral Damage Due To BP Spill
For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine life on the ocean floor several miles from the blown-out BP well – a strong indication that damage from the spill could be significantly greater than officials had previously acknowledged.For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other... more-
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Scientists find damage to coral near BP well
For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine life on the ocean floor several miles from the blown-out BP well — a strong indication that damage from the spill could be significantly greater than officials had previously acknowledged.
Tests are needed to verify that the coral died from oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, but the chief scientist who led the government-funded expedition said Friday he was convinced it was related.
"What we have at this point is the smoking gun," said Charles Fisher, a biologist with Penn State University who led the expedition aboard the Ronald Brown, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.
"There is an abundance of circumstantial data that suggests that what happened is related to the recent oil spill," Fisher said.
For the government, the findings were a departure from earlier statements. Until now, federal teams have painted relatively rosy pictures about the spill's effect on the sea and its ecosystem, saying they had not found any damage on the ocean floor.
In early August, a federal report said that nearly 70 percent of the 170 million gallons of oil that gushed from the well into the sea had dissolved naturally, or was burned, skimmed, dispersed or captured, with almost nothing left to see — at least on top of the water. The report was blasted by scientists.
Most of the Gulf's bottom is muddy, but coral colonies that pop up every once in a while are vital oases for marine life in the chilly ocean depths.
Coral is essential to the Gulf because it provides a habitat for fish and other organisms such as snails and crabs, making any large-scale death of coral a problem for many species. It might need years, or even decades, to grow back.
"It's cold on the bottom, and things don't grow as quickly," said Paul Montagna, a marine scientist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. He was not on the expedition.
Montagna said the affected area is so large, and scientists' ability to explore it with underwater robots so limited that "we'll never be able to see everything that happened down there."
Using a robot called Jason II, researchers found the dead coral in an area measuring up to 130 feet by 50 feet, about 4,600 feet under the surface.
"These kinds of coral are normally beautiful, brightly colored," Fisher said. "What you saw was a field of brown corals with exposed skeleton — white, brittle stars tightly wound around the skeleton, not waving their arms like they usually do."
Fisher described the soft and hard coral they found seven miles southwest of the well as an underwater graveyard. He said oil probably passed over the coral and killed it.
The coral has "been dying for months," he said. "What we are looking at is a combination of dead gooey tissues and sediment. Gunk is a good word for what it is."
Eric Cordes, a Temple University marine scientist on the expedition, said his colleagues have identified about 25 other sites in the vicinity of the well where similar damage may have occurred. An expedition is planned for next month to explore those sites.
When coral is threatened, its first reaction is to release large amounts of mucus, "and anything drifting by in the water column would get bound up in this mucus," Cordes said. "And that is what this (brown) substance would be: A variety of things bound up in the mucus."
About 90 percent of the large coral was damaged, Fisher said.
The expedition was funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mission was part of a four-year study of the Gulf's depths, but it was expanded this year to look at oil spill damage.
In a statement released Thursday night, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said the expedition underscored that the damage to marine life from the oil spill is "not easily seen." She added that more research was needed to gain a "comprehensive understanding of impacts to the Gulf."
"Given the toxic nature of oil, and the unprecedented amount of oil spilled, it would be surprising if we did not find damage," she said.
NOAA did not provide any officials or scientists of its own who went on the expedition. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its researcher on the expedition was unavailable.
Cordes said that the expedition did not find dramatic visual evidence of coral damage in other sites north of the well. But he said it was premature to say coral elsewhere in the Gulf was not damaged.
The new findings, though, could mean long-term trouble for the coral southwest of the well, where computer models and research cruises mapped much of the deepwater oil.
Referring to one type of coral known as "gorgonians," Cordes said he had never seen them "come back from having lost so much tissue. It would have to be re-colonization from scratch."
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On The Web:
Photos of the dead coral: http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/photos/research-photos/biology/fisher-photos/
More about the NOAA expedition: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/10lophelia/welcome.htmlFor the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other... more-
- JanforGore
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Scientists Urge Faster Installation Of Global Ocean Monitor System
The ocean surface is 30 percent more acidic today than it was in 1800, much of that increase occurring in the last 50 years - a rising trend that could both harm coral reefs and profoundly impact tiny shelled plankton at the base of the ocean food web, scientists warn.
Despite the seriousness of such changes to the ocean, however, the world has yet to deploy a complete suite of available tools to monitor rising acidification and other ocean conditions that have a fundamental impact on life throughout the planet.
Marine life patterns, water temperature, sea level, and polar ice cover join acidity and other variables in a list of ocean characteristics that can and should be tracked continuously through the expanded deployment of existing technologies in a permanent, integrated global monitoring system, scientists say.
The Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO), representing 38 major oceanographic institutions from 21 countries and leading a global consortium called Oceans United, will urge government officials and ministers meeting in Beijing Nov. 3-5 to help complete an integrated global ocean observation system by target date 2015.
It would be the marine component of a Global Earth Observation System of Systems under discussion in Beijing by some 71 member nations of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations.
The cost to create an adequate monitoring system has been estimated at $10 billion to $15 billion in assets, with $5 billion in annual operating costs.
Some 600 scientists with expertise in all facets of the oceans developed an authoritative vision of characteristics to monitor at a 2009 conference on ocean observations.
Furthermore, as documented in the forthcoming proceedings of the 2009 conference (to be published shortly by the European Space Agency), the value of such information to the world's financial interests and to human security would dwarf the investment required.
"Although the US and European Union governments have recently signaled support, international cooperation is desperately needed to complete a global ocean observation system that could continuously collect, synthesize and interpret data critical to a wide variety of human needs," says Dr. Kiyoshi Suyehiro, Chairman of POGO.
"Most ocean experts believe the future ocean will be saltier, hotter, more acidic, and less diverse," states Jesse Ausubel, a founder of POGO and of the recently completed Census of Marine Life. "It is past time to get serious about measuring what's happening to the seas around us."
The risks posed by ocean acidification exemplify the many good reasons to act urgently.
POGO-affiliated scientists at the UK-based Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science recently published a world atlas charting the distribution of the subset of plankton species that grow shells at some point in their life cycles.
Not only are these shelled plankton fundamental to the ocean's food web, they also play a major role in planetary climate regulation and oxygen production. Highly acidic sea water inhibits the growth of plankton shells.
The Foundation says the average level of pH at the ocean surface has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 units, "rendering the oceans more acidic than they have been for 20 million years," with expectations of continuing acidification due to high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Because colder water retains more carbon dioxide, the acidity of surface waters may increase fastest at Earth's high latitudes where the zooplankton known as pteropods are particularly abundant. Pteropods (see links to images below) are colorful, free-swimming pelagic sea snails and sea slugs on which many animals higher in the food chain depend.
Scientists caution that the overall global marine impact of rising carbon dioxide is unclear because warming of the oceans associated with rising greenhouse gases in the air could in turn lead to lower retention of carbon dioxide at lower latitudes and to potential countervailing effects.
cont.The ocean surface is 30 percent more acidic today than it was in 1800, much of that... more-
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[CNN] | Scientist: "Human-Induced Global Warming" Killing Corals
October 20th, 2010
02:51 PM ET
Scientist: 'Human-induced global warming' killing corals
Photo: Reefs on Sumatra, Indonesia, on May 31, 2010 show the effects of bleaching.
Coral reefs are dying around the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia at rates that may be the worst ever recorded, scientists said this week.
Death rates as high as 80 percent have been recorded for some species, according to the study performed by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.
“It is certainly the worst coral die-off we have seen since 1998. It may prove to be the worst such event known to science,” said Andrew Baird, a principal research fellow for James Cook University in Australia.
The coral bleaching extends from the Seychelles in the middle of the Indian Ocean to the Philippines in Southeast Asia and encompasses much of the Coral Triangle, an area scientists refer to as the “Amazon rainforest of the seas” or the most diverse marine ecosystem on Earth.
A mass of abnormally hot water which moved into the Indian Ocean several months ago is behind the bleaching, according to the ARC report. The hot water caused the corals to shed microscopic algae which help nourish them. The algae also give color to the corals, so when the algae are gone, the corals starve and appear white or bleached.
Dive operators reported water temperatures were 4 degrees Centigrade higher than average during the die-off, according to the ARC report.
The scientists said coral coverage in the affected areas could drop from 50 percent to 10 percent, hurting fishing and tourist industries over the long term as dead reefs support less marine life than live ones. And with that loss of diversity, they attract fewer fishermen and fewer divers.
“While it may take up to two years for some fish species to be affected by the loss of coral habitat, fisheries yields will decline and this combined with a drop in the number of scuba divers visiting could have major long-term effects on the local economy,” Baird said in a statement.
Baird blamed “human-induced global warming” for the decline of the corals and said action must be taken to reduce carbon emissions that help retain heat in the atmosphere.
“This is not just about warmer temperatures: it is also threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of people and potentially the stability of our region,” Baird said in a statement.October 20th, 2010 02:51 PM ET Scientist: 'Human-induced global warming'... more-
- EthicalVegan
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Coral Records Show Ocean Thermocline Rise With Global Warming
Researchers looking at corals in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have found records linking a profound shift in the depth of the division between warm surface water and colder, deeper water traceable to recent global warming.
LINK : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101011220123.htmResearchers looking at corals in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have found records... more-
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Extreme Heat Bleaches Coral, and Threat Is Seen
This year’s extreme heat is putting the world’s coral reefs under such severe stress that scientists fear widespread die-offs, endangering not only the richest ecosystems in the ocean but also fisheries that feed millions of people.
From Thailand to Texas, corals are reacting to the heat stress by bleaching, or shedding their color and going into survival mode. Many have already died, and more are expected to do so in coming months. Computer forecasts of water temperature suggest that corals in the Caribbean may undergo drastic bleaching in the next few weeks.
What is unfolding this year is only the second known global bleaching of coral reefs. Scientists are holding out hope that this year will not be as bad, over all, as 1998, the hottest year in the historical record, when an estimated 16 percent of the world’s shallow-water reefs died. But in some places, including Thailand, the situation is looking worse than in 1998.
Scientists say the trouble with the reefs is linked to climate change. For years they have warned that corals, highly sensitive to excess heat, would serve as an early indicator of the ecological distress on the planet caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases.
“I am significantly depressed by the whole situation,” said Clive Wilkinson, director of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, an organization in Australia that is tracking this year’s disaster.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the first eight months of 2010 matched 1998 as the hottest January to August period on record. High ocean temperatures are taxing the organisms most sensitive to them, the shallow-water corals that create some of the world’s most vibrant and colorful seascapes.
Coral reefs occupy a tiny fraction of the ocean, but they harbor perhaps a quarter of all marine species, including a profusion of fish. Often called the rain forests of the sea, they are the foundation not only of important fishing industries but also of tourist economies worth billions.
Drastic die-offs of coral were seen for the first time in 1983 in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, during a large-scale weather event known as El Niño. During an El Niño, warm waters normally confined to the western Pacific flow to the east; 2010 is also an El Niño year.
Serious regional bleaching has occurred intermittently since the 1983 disaster. It is clear that natural weather variability plays a role in overheating the reefs, but scientists say it cannot, by itself, explain what has become a recurring phenomenon.
“It is a lot easier for oceans to heat up above the corals’ thresholds for bleaching when climate change is warming the baseline temperatures,” said C. Mark Eakin, who runs a program called Coral Reef Watch for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “If you get an event like El Niño or you just get a hot summer, it’s going to be on top of the warmest temperatures we’ve ever seen.”
Coral reefs are made up of millions of tiny animals, called polyps, that form symbiotic relationships with algae. The polyps essentially act as farmers, supplying the algae with nutrients and a place to live. The algae in turn capture sunlight and carbon dioxide to make sugars that feed the coral polyps.
The captive algae give reefs their brilliant colors. Many reef fish sport fantastical colors and patterns themselves, as though dressing to match their surroundings.
Coral bleaching occurs when high heat and bright sunshine cause the metabolism of the algae to speed out of control, and they start creating toxins. The polyps essentially recoil. “The algae are spat out,” Dr. Wilkinson said.
The corals look white afterward, as though they have been bleached. If temperatures drop, the corals’ few remaining algae can reproduce and help the polyps recover. But corals are vulnerable to disease in their denuded condition, and if the heat stress continues, the corals starve to death.
Even on dead reefs, new coral polyps will often take hold, though the overall ecology of the reef may be permanently altered. The worst case is that a reef dies and never recovers.
In dozens of small island nations and on some coasts of Indonesia and the Philippines, people rely heavily on reef fish for food. When corals die, the fish are not immediately doomed, but if the coral polyps do not recover, the reef can eventually collapse, scientists say, leaving the fishery far less productive.
Research shows that is already happening in parts of the Caribbean, though people there are not as dependent on fishing as those living on Pacific islands.
It will be months before this year’s toll is known for sure. But scientists tracking the fate of corals say they have already seen widespread bleaching in Southeast Asia and the western Pacific, with corals in Thailand, parts of Indonesia and some smaller island nations being hit especially hard earlier this year.
snip
Parts of the northern Caribbean, including the United States Virgin Islands, saw incipient bleaching this summer, but the tropical storms and hurricanes moving through the Atlantic have cooled the water there and may have saved some corals. Farther south, though, temperatures are still remarkably high, putting many Caribbean reefs at risk.
Summer is only just beginning in the Southern Hemisphere, but water temperatures off Australia are also above normal, and some scientists are worried about the single most impressive reef on earth. The best hope now, Dr. Wilkinson said, is for mild tropical storms that would help to cool Australian waters.
“If we get a poor monsoon season,” he said, “I think we’re in for a serious bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef.”This year’s extreme heat is putting the world’s coral reefs under such... more-
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Mass Die-off at Coral Reef Triggered by 93-Degree Ocean
One of the most destructive and swift coral bleaching events ever recorded is underway in the waters off Indonesia, where water temperatures have climbed into the low 90s, according to data released by a conservation group this week.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) says a dramatic rise in sea temperature, potentially linked to global warming, is responsible for the devastation.
In May, the WCS sent marine biologists to investigate coral bleaching reported in Aceh — a province of Indonesia — located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. The initial survey carried out by the team revealed that more than 60 percent of corals in the area were bleached.
Subsequent monitoring of the Indonesian corals completed in early August revealed one of the most rapid and severe coral mortality events ever recorded. The scientists found that 80 percent of some species have died since the initial assessment, and more colonies are expected to die within the next few months.
"This is a tragedy not only for some of the world’s most biodiverse coral reefs, but also for people in the region, many of whom are extremely impoverished and depend on these reefs for their food and livelihoods," said WCS Marine Program Director Caleb McClennen. Coral reefs provide haven for fish and other creatures, and larger fish tend to congregate around reefs because they are good places to feed.
Bleaching — a whitening of corals that occurs when symbiotic algae living within coral tissues are expelled — is an indication of stress caused by environmental triggers such as fluctuations in ocean temperature. Depending on many factors, bleached coral may recover over time or die.
The event is the result of a rise in sea surface temperatures in the Andaman Sea — an area that includes the coasts of Myanmar, Thailand, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and northwestern Indonesia. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Hotspots website, temperatures in the region peaked in late May at more than 93 degrees Fahrenheit (34 degrees Celsius). That's 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) higher than long-term averages for the area.
cont.One of the most destructive and swift coral bleaching events ever recorded is underway... more-
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Major Study Makes Dire Sea Forecast
A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible... more-
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BP Prepares to Take New Tack on Leak After ‘Top Kill’ Fails - The New York Times
Photo: Crews worked Saturday on the failed top kill effort to stanch the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. BP will try another strategy.
May 29, 2010
BP Prepares to Take New Tack on Leak After ‘Top Kill’ Fails
By LESLIE KAUFMAN and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
NEW ORLEANS — In another serious setback in the effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers said Saturday that the “top kill” technique had failed and, after consultation with government officials, they had decided to move on to another strategy.
Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said at a news conference that the engineers would try once again to solve the problem with a containment cap and that it could take four to seven days for the device to be in place.
“After three full days of attempting top kill, we now believe it is time to move on to the next of our options,” Mr. Suttles said.
The abandonment of the top kill technique, the most ambitious effort yet to plug the well, was the latest in a series of failures. First, BP failed in efforts to repair a blowout preventer with submarine robots. Then its initial efforts to cap the well with a containment dome failed when it became clogged with a frothy mix of frigid water and gas. Efforts to use a hose to gather escaping oil have managed to catch only a fraction of the spill.
BP has started work on two relief wells, but officials have said that they will not be completed until August — further contributing to what is already the worst oil spill in United States history.
The latest failure will undoubtedly put more pressure — both politically and from the public — on the Obama administration to take some sort of action, perhaps taking control of the repair effort completely from BP.
President Obama, who is spending the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, issued a statement Saturday evening on the decision to abandon the top kill.
“While we initially received optimistic reports about the procedure, it is now clear that it has not worked,” Mr. Obama said.
He said that Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard had “directed BP to launch a new procedure whereby the riser pipe will be cut and a containment structure fitted over the leak.”
“This approach is not without risk and has never been attempted before at this depth,” Mr. Obama said. “That is why it was not activated until other methods had been exhausted.”
The president continued, “We will continue to pursue any and all responsible means of stopping this leak until the completion of the two relief wells currently being drilled.”
For BP, the besieged British company, the failure could mean billions of dollars of additional liabilities, as the spill potentially worsens in the weeks and months ahead.
“I am disappointed that this operation did not work,” Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, said in a statement. “We remain committed to doing everything we can to make this situation right.”
A technician who has been working on the project to stem the oil leak said Saturday that neither the top kill nor the “junk shot” came close to succeeding because the pressure of oil and gas escaping from the well was simply too powerful to overcome. He added that engineers never had a complete enough understanding of the inner workings of drill pipe casing or blowout preventer mechanisms to make the efforts work.
“Simply too much of what we pumped in was escaping,” said the technician, who spoke on condition of remaining unnamed because he is not authorized to speak publicly for the company.
“The engineers are disappointed, and management is upset,” said the technician. “Nothing is good, nothing is good.”
The spill began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people. Since then, it has dumped an estimated 18 million to 40 million gallons into the gulf.
After the announcement Saturday, the disappointment was palpable along the Louisiana shoreline, where the oil has increasingly washed up in sticky, rusty globs.
Michel Claudet, the president of Terrebonne Parish, 60 miles southwest of New Orleans, said that when he heard the news, he felt “sorrow, despair and like this ordeal will never finish. If you go around the parish, it is all our folks talk about.”
Mr. Claudet said that he was trying to remain hopeful, but that it was increasingly difficult. “As every item fails,” he said, “I am less and less optimistic.”
In New Orleans, Margaret Shockey, 67, a retired teacher, said, “One thing’s for sure, this is the last city that deserved this.”
Last week, BP described the top kill — which was an effort to pump heavy mud into the well to counter the flow of oil — as its best hope for stopping the spill. During the course of the operation, BP officials had often expressed optimism that it would work.
But on Saturday, Mr. Suttles said the operation had pumped 30,000 barrels of mud into the well and yet failed to stop it from flowing.
Admiral Landry called the failure “very disappointing.”
The new strategy is to smoothly cut the riser from which the oil is leaking and then place a cap over it. Pipes attached to the cap would take the oil to a storage boat on the surface.
Though a first effort at a containment dome failed, Mr. Suttles said BP had learned from that experience and now believed that this cap, which is custom fitted to the riser, would be more successful.
He said it would capture most but not all of the oil leaking from the well, which is believed to be gushing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.
He would not give odds for the operation’s success, but said he had “a lot of confidence” that it would work.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Suttles said preparations for such an alternative plan were already under way, just in case. “That equipment is on stage and ready to go,” he said. Equipment is being deployed on land and on the seabed, he said.
If the new cap is not successful, the company has said it will look into attaching another blowout preventer to the one that already exists at the wellhead and has not functioned.
But officials emphasized that the real solution to the spill was the relief well. They said one of the relief wells was currently proceeding ahead of schedule, but was still at least a month away.
“It’s like a bad movie that just won’t end,” said Billy Altman, 45, a mechanic in New Orleans. “You know, you think they finally killed the bad guy, and then he comes back to life. It’s crazy.”
Clifford Krauss reported from Houston, and Leslie Kaufman from New Orleans. Robbie Brown contributed from New Orleans, and Sarah Wheaton from New York.Photo: Crews worked Saturday on the failed top kill effort to stanch the leaking oil... more-
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'Top kill' fails to stop flow of oil, BP says - CNN.com
BP's "top kill" attempt to stop the flow of oil from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico failed, the company's chief operating officer said Saturday.
The oil giant has tried for days to stop the the largest oil spill in U.S. history by pumping heavy, mudlike drilling fluid into a ruptured oil well, a method known as "top kill."
The next option is to place a custom-built cap known as the "lower marine riser package" over the leak, the company's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles said. BP crews were working Saturday to ready the materials for that option should it become necessary, he said.
"We've been prepping that all along in case we need to move to that option," he said. "People want to know which technique is going to work, and I don't know."
And if "lower marine riser package" were to fail, he said, BP engineers would try placing a second blowout preventer on top of the first, which failed to cut of the oil flow after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The failed blowout preventer is a 48-foot-tall, 450-ton apparatus that sits atop the well 5,000 feet underwater.
Meanwhile, teams in Louisiana were working Saturday on a clean-up project aimed at protecting coastal marshes while BP continues its efforts to stop oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser has said that machines would suck oil out of marshes Saturday after crews determined where to deploy them.
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"We will begin to clean up some of those areas that fell by the wayside for the last couple weeks," he said.
Oil giant BP's focus has been trying to put a stop to what officials say is the largest oil spill in U.S. history, with as many as 19,000 barrels of crude gushing into the ocean daily.
By Sunday morning the company could know whether the "top kill" procedure -- pumping heavy drilling mud into the breached oil well at high pressure -- is working, said Robert Dudley, BP's managing director.
"It's like an arm-wrestling match of two equally strong forces," he said.
Government scientists on Thursday said as many as 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil were spewing into the ocean every day, making this disaster perhaps twice the size of the Exxon Valdez incident.
Previously, BP officials and government scientists had said 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of crude were flowing out daily.
"This is clearly an environmental catastrophe," BP CEO Tony Hayward said Friday. "There's no two ways about it."
Under intense political pressure to take control of the situation, President Obama toured the region on Friday.
"We want to stop the leak, we want to contain and clean up the oil and we want to help the people in this region return to their lives and livelihoods as soon as possible," the president told reporters.
About 25 percent of the Gulf of Mexico exclusive economic zone has been put off limits, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and fishermen are worried the gushing oil will take a more serious toll than Hurricane Katrina did in 2005.
"Katrina was nothing but rain, water and wind. This is poison. It's gas," oysterman Arthur Etienne said.
Obama said Friday that federal officials were prepared to authorize moving forward with "a portion of" an idea proposed by local officials, who want the Army Corps of Engineers to build a "sand boom" offshore to keep the water from getting into the fragile marshlands.
That did not satisfy Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has advocated immediate construction of the booms. Noting in a written statement that 107 miles of the state's coast have been oiled, he said, "We continue to ask federal officials to approve our entire sand-boom plan from the northern Chandeleurs to the Isle Dernieres chain."
Obama said he has directed federal officials to triple the manpower in places where oil has hit shore or appears within a day of doing so.BP's "top kill" attempt to stop the flow of oil from a ruptured well in... more-
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Brain Coral [pic]
Koralle, photographed at the Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Brain coral is a common name given to corals in the family Faviidae so called due to their generally spheroid shape and grooved surface which resembles an animal brain. Each head of coral is formed by a colony of genetically identical polyps which secrete a hard skeleton of calcium carbonate; this makes them important coral reef builders like other stony corals.Koralle, photographed at the Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.... more-
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China ship 'gouged two-mile scar' in Great Barrier Reef
A Chinese ship that spent nine days stranded on the Great Barrier Reef gouged a three-kilometre (two-mile) scar in the coral that could take decades to recover, a top expert said on Tuesday.
David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the body overseeing the heritage-listed marine park, said the Shen Neng 1 coal carrier had been grinding against and crushing the reef after it veered off course and smashed into it on April 3.
Officials have expressed anger over the incident and accused the crew of the ship, which was refloated late on Monday and towed away, of taking an illegal route.
"This is by far the largest ship grounding scar we have seen on the Great Barrier Reef to date," Wachenfeld told public broadcaster ABC.
"This vessel did not make an impact in one place and rest there and then was pulled off. This scar is more in the region of three kilometres long and up to 250 metres (yards) wide."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called the accident, which also leaked about two tonnes of fuel oil into the pristine seas, an "absolute outrage".
"It is still an absolute outrage that this vessel could've landed on the Great Barrier Reef," he said. "We will leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding out how that happened."
An approaching storm hurried authorities into refloating the 230-metre (750 feet) ship -- the length of two football pitches -- after nightfall on Monday. They pumped compressed air into its bunkers and pulled it free using tugboats.
Officials said the rescue had been carried out without adding to the initial oil spill, which created a three-kilometre slick.
Divers were due to assess damage to the ship, still carrying 68,000 tonnes of China-bound coal, which has been towed to a nearby island.
But concern on Tuesday focused on the plight of the reef, which was also left plastered with toxic anti-fouling paint from the ship's hull.
Divers "have found significant scarring and coral damage. They've also found quite a lot of anti-fouling (paint) spread across the reef," Russell Reichelt, chairman of the marine park authority, told ABC radio.
"It is a concern because it's designed to be toxic and stop things growing on ships. We've already seen observations where anti-fouling paint that's been scraped off onto the reef is killing corals in its vicinity."
Officials have promised to investigate allegations that ships have been taking short-cuts through the world's biggest reef, which covers 344,000 square kilometres (137,600 square miles) off the east coast and is a major tourist draw.A Chinese ship that spent nine days stranded on the Great Barrier Reef gouged a... more-
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Disney's "Oceans"-Earth Day 2010
Two thirds of the Earth is covered by water, and our oceans are the barometer of all life. On Earth Day this year, Disney Nature will release "Oceans" to show us the wonderment of a world on which all life depends.Two thirds of the Earth is covered by water, and our oceans are the barometer of all... more-
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Stranded ship "time bomb" to Great Barrier Reef
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A stranded Chinese coal ship leaking oil onto Australia's Great Barrier Reef is an environmental time bomb with the potential to devastate large protected areas of the reef, activists said on Monday.
The ship was a "ticking environmental time bomb," Gilly Llewellyn, director of conservation for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Australia, told Reuters.
She said this was the third major international incident involving its owners in four years.
NY Times coverage:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/science/earth/05reef.htmlSYDNEY (Reuters) – A stranded Chinese coal ship leaking oil onto... more-
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