Scientists Urge Faster Installation Of Global Ocean Monitor System
source: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Scientists_Urge_Faster_Installation_Of_Global_Ocean_Monito...
-
-
- JanforGore
- added this
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.
-
- groups:
- Community, News and Politics, Tech, Green, 8 more
-
- tags:
- Environment, Science, Climate Change, Biodiversity, 7 more
-
-
larry_keylargo
-
-
...: Today we are well on our way to becoming the first global extinction caused by our own "way of Life"... http://ecodelmar.org/ocean_acidification ... and the climate changes already unfolding are clearly due to anthropogenic causes ... although long before the next ice age ... we may simply loose the source of oxygen required for most life forms on Earth and in the Oceans... phytoplankton and trees... without them, mass extinction is inevitable... the big question is... can we apply the brakes to this trillion ton industrial revolution before it runs over a mountain top that has no bridge... and the question before that is... will we even recognize that we are driving the trillion ton train that is causing Ocean Acidification that will cause mass extinction... while so many don't even hear the train...
- http://EcoDelMar.org/ocean_awareness
-Large decreases in atmospheric oxygen detected...
Decrease in atmospheric O2 has been detected in stations around the world for the past decade, a consistent downward trend that has accelerated in recent years: http://www.i-sis.org.uk/O2DroppingFasterThanCO2Risi...
-
..:: "Phytoplankton produce more oxygen than all plant life on Earth and are vital in maintaining the earth’s atmosphere. They are also the organisms most likely to be affected by global warming and climate change.
A recent study concluded that even small changes in ocean pH can severely disrupt the internal acid-base balance of marine life, which can ultimately result in their death.
Cephalopods such as squid might be particularly affected by increased oceanic carbon dioxide because they require very high amounts of oxygen supply to the blood to sustain their energy-demanding method of swimming. Lower levels of pH can impair oxygen supplies in these species, reducing oxygen capacity by about 50 percent with a small pH change of 0.25 units.
http://www.terrain.org/articles/21/burns.htm
-..:: as the ocean loses its ability to absorb carbon dioxide, its ability to regulate our global climate and supply oxygen will falter, resulting in reduced breathable oxygen....
http://treehugger.com/files/2010/07/today-on-planet.....:: Ocean Acidification and the Effects to Open Ocean and Coastal Ecosystems Presentation by Dr. Richard Feely, AGU Fellow and Supervisory Oceanographer at the NOAA Marine Environmental Laboratory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NelQ2cxoEUc..:: Ocean Acidification - What It Is and How It's Changing The World ... The Ocean's Chemistry Is Changing, and We're The Cause : http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/ex...
..:: With NOAA under the dept of "commerce"... why expect anything but "business" as usual....
..:: "Ocean Acidification is now irreversible in human lifetimes...
It will take tens of thousands of years for ocean chemistry to return to a condition similar to that occurring at pre-industrial times (about 200 years ago)....
Our ability to reduce ocean acidification through artificial methods such as the addition of chemicals is unproven. These techniques will at best be effective only at a very local scale, and could also cause damage to the marine environment...
Reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere is the only practical way to minimize the risk of large-scale and long term changes to the oceans...
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/ocean-acid...
..:: "For all practical purposes in our lifetime... Ocean Acidification is "permanent", Emerson said.
..:: A San Francisco environmental group, the Center for Biodiversity, has asked 10 states — Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Maine and Delaware — to declare their coastal waters "impaired" under the Clean Water Act because of rising acidity. Such a move could clear the way for the states to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions.
"Though the SCIENCE is there, the "political will" is NOT there," said Miyoko Sakashita, a lawyer for the Center for Biodiversity. "At least this will raise awareness among policymakers."
Though cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions might slow or reverse global warming, scientist say it could take thousands of years or longer to reverse the increased acidity of the oceans.
"For all practical purposes in our lifetime... Ocean Acidification is "permanent", Emerson said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2007/12/16/23138/oceans-...
..:: The report, in Science magazine, brings together dozens of studies that collectively paint a dismal picture of deteriorating ocean health.
..:: "This is further evidence we are well on our way to the next great extinction event," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of the report.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/04/96966/report-...
-
- 1 year ago
-
larry_keylargo
-
-
artemis6
-
troubling , hasn't this been know for awhile (years) ?
- 1 year ago
-
artemis6
