NASA to use salt to foresee Earth's future climate

English.news.cn 2011-06-03

LOS ANGELES, June 2 (Xinhua) -- With the help of a new salinity- measurement instrument, scientists will use salt to foresee Earth's future climate, NASA said on Thursday.

The instrument, called Aquarius, will enable scientists to make comprehensive measurements of ocean surface salinity with precision, aimed to help researchers better determine how Earth's ocean interacts with the atmosphere to influence climate, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Equipped with high-tech, salt-seeking sensors, Aquarius is planned for launch in June aboard the Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas (SAC)-D spacecraft built by Argentina's Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE).

The JPL said that it is a mission that promises to be, by quoting the old saying "worth its salt." Salt is essential to the ocean, serving as a driver of ocean processes. Salinity also influences the temperature of seawater, because sea salt concentrates in the ocean's surface mixed layer, which is actively exchanging water and heat with atmosphere.

Accurate ocean surface salinity data is a necessary component in understanding how the future climate will change, and also opens a window to Earth's past climate. When researchers want to create a climate record that spans previous decades, it is necessary to collect and integrate data from the last two to three decades to develop a consistent analysis, JPL said.

"We ultimately want to predict climate change and have greater confidence in our predictions. Climate models are the only effective means we have to do so," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef, a scientist at the Seattle-based independent laboratory Earth & Space Research.

Because of the sparse and intermittent nature of these salinity, researchers have always had troubles in fine-tuning models to obtain a real global picture of how surface salinity influences the ocean.

"Aquarius, and successor missions based on it, will give us, over time, critical data that will be used by models that study how Earth's ocean and atmosphere interact, to see trends in climate," said Lagerloef.

Editor: Mo Hong'e

Related Article:

New report confirms Arctic melt accelerating

“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness,2012, Intelligent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Return to integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) -

(Text version)

Rumbling volcano blamed for fishkill in Taal Lake

English.news.cn 2011-05-29

Tons of dead fish were seen floating on Taal Lake in Talisay, Batangas on
Saturday. Around 700 tons of fish, particularly bangus and tilapia, were
affected due to the rumbling Taal Volcano according to the Philippine
authorities. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Tons of dead fish were seen floating on Taal Lake in Talisay, Batangas
on Saturday.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Tons of dead fish were seen floating on Taal Lake in Talisay, Batangas
on Saturday.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Editor: Bi Mingxin

Fears rise after dead whale found in Loch Carnan

BBC News, 22 May 2011

Related Stories

• 'At risk' whale pod leaving loch
• Fear for mass stranding of whales
• In pictures: At risk pilot whales

The body of a pilot whale has been found in a Hebridean sea loch as conservationists fear more animals are at risk of being beached.

Tests will be carried out on the dead whale

A pod of about 60 whales had moved from the shallow waters of Loch Carnan, South Uist, and were swimming south.

But British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) later said the animals had headed back into the loch.

Tests will be carried out on the dead whale and rescuers said they were looking to see if more whales had died.

The animals were first spotted around Loch Carnan on Thursday, sparking fears that they would perish in a mass stranding.

Some of them have injuries to their heads, thought to have been sustained while they were stranded.

'Moving away'

BDMLR's Dave Jarvis said the latest movements of the pod were disappointing.

He said: "Unfortunately the pod of pilot whales that it was hoped were moving away from the sea loch earlier have now returned to their original location.

Wildlife tour operator Steve Duffield captured this
image of the whales

"Personnel were deployed earlier to search for the group that it was hoped were leaving the area, but they were located not far away, from a land vantage point, by BDMLR operations manager Stephen Marsh and SSPCA senior inspector Calum Watt.

"The animals were observed and disappointingly they retraced their route back into the loch. The whales do not currently appear to be agitated.

"Sadly, it is thought that one of the animals may now have died as a body has apparently been seen in the water."

Mr Jarvis has said the whales could only get stranded at one place - a sandy section of beach at the loch. However, other dangers are posed by the rocky coastline, with its many inlets and bays.

Volunteers from the charity will continue to monitor the whales.

Feed on squid

The Scottish Government has also lent rescuers a fisheries protection boat to follow the animals' movements.

At the end of October last year, some pilot whales almost got stranded in the same sea loch. Less than a week later, 33 whales, believed to be the same group, were found dead on a beach in Co Donegal in the Irish Republic.

Pilot whales prefer deep water but come inshore to feed on squid, their main food.

Last week a pilot whale died on Sunday morning after getting stuck in the Sullom Voe inlet in Shetland. An autopsy was carried out on the animal to try to establish why it died but the results are not yet known.

King Crabs Invade Antarctica

ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2011)

It's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands, possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.

It's like a scene out of a sci-fi movie -- thousands,
possibly millions, of king crabs are marching through
icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope.
(Credit: Image courtesy of University of
Alabama at Birmingham)

"They are coming from the deep, somewhere between 6,000 to 9,000 feet down," said James McClintock, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham Endowed Professor of Polar and Marine Biology.

Shell-crushing crabs haven't been in Antarctica, Earth's southernmost continent, for hundreds or thousands, if not millions, of years, McClintock said. "They have trouble regulating magnesium ions in their body fluids and get kind of drunk at low temperatures."

But something has changed, and these crustaceans are poised to move by the droves up the slope and onto the shelf that surrounds Antarctica. McClintock and other marine researchers interested in the continent are sounding alarms because the vulnerable ecosystem could be wiped out, he said.

Antarctic clams, snails and brittle stars, because of adaptation to their environment, have soft shells and have never had to fight shell-crushing predators. "You can take an Antarctic clam and crush it with your hands," McClintock said. They could be the main prey for these crabs, he said.

Loss of unique mollusks could jeopardize organisms with disease-fighting compounds, McClintock said. Sea squirts, for example, produce an agent that fights skin cancer. If the crabs eat them, it could bring McClintock's research with that organism to a halt.

McClintock's chemical ecology program has published more than 100 papers on species researchers have discovered, including the compound that combats skin cancer and one to treat flu, that are being explored by drug companies.

"I am very concerned that species could disappear, and we could lose a cure to a disease," he said.

McClintock's colleague Sven Thatje, Ph.D., an evolutionary biologist at the University of Southampton in England, saw the first signs of the king crab invasion in 2007. He spotted a lone crab climbing up the slope. McClintock and Rich Aronson, Ph.D., a paleoecologist at Florida Institute of Technology, put together a proposal to launch the first systematic search for king crabs in Antarctica. With Sven as chief expedition scientist, the team headed back with two ships and a submarine earlier this year.

"We ran transects up the slope and discovered hundreds and hundreds of king crabs, which could translate into millions across broad expanses of coastal Antarctica," he said. "They are adults, males and females. They appear healthy and have all the ingredients needed to produce a healthy population."

The king crabs' large numbers on the slope suggest that they are increasing in number at a rate faster than anticipated, McClintock said. "Before long, they could be in shallow water and on the shelf," he said. "This is a very visual, visceral way of thinking of an impact of climate change."

McClintock and his fellow researchers are exploring causes for the invasion, which they believe is linked to human-induced climate warming. Around 40,000 tourists visit the area each year.

"Antarctica has become a popular destination for tourists," McClintock said. Cruise ship companies have seen it as an opportunity to take visitors to "one of the most stunningly beautiful areas on our planet."

After cruising along the waters, tourists can then take a rubber boat called a zodiac to a beach covered with penguins as far as the eye can see. "The penguins will come right up to you," McClintock said.

And, now that the king crabs are on the Antarctic slope, some fishermen are anxious to head to Antarctica as well. McClintock has already gotten an email from a fisherman asking when he can come.

But the icy waters and dangerous logistics make fishing difficult, McClintock said. "There is a TV show called the 'The Deadliest Catch,'" he said. "Well this is the deadliest, deadliest catch."

For now, McClintock and his team are reviewing the thousands of images they captured during their submarine exploration. His team is analyzing the data and plans to have its findings published in a major journal within a year.

"The whole ecosystem could change," McClintock said. "And this is just one example of a species expanding its range into a new territory. There will certainly be more as the climate warms up."

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Giant ocean whirlpools puzzle scientists

Pravda.ru, 12.04.2011

US scientists discovered two giant whirlpools in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Guyana and Suriname. It became a sensational discovery because this part of the ocean has been studied thoroughly, and no one expected anything like that to appear in the area. More importantly, no one can understand where the whirlpools came from and what surprises they may bring to people.

According to Brazilian scientist Guilherme Castellane, the two funnels are approximately 400 kilometers in diameter. Until now, these were not known on Earth. The funnels reportedly exert a strong influence on climate changes that have been registered during the recent years.

"Funnels rotate clockwise. They are moving in the ocean like giant frisbees, two discs thrown into the air. Rotation occurs at a rate of one meter per second, the speed is sufficiently large compared to the speed of oceanic currents, on the border hoppers is a wave-step height of 40 cm," Castellane said.

Even during the dry months, when the movement of oceanic currents and the flow of the Amazon River practically comes to a standstill, the funnels do not disappear. Therefore, the nature of the funnels does not depend on the flow of water, which one of the world's biggest rivers brings into the ocean. The natural phenomenon, which creates the whirlpools, is unknown to modern science.

As a matter of fact, the phenomenon of giant whirlpools in the World Ocean is not new to science. In most cases, the craters, or rings, as scientists call them, are formed as a result of so-called vertical currents. The latter, in their turn, appear because of differences in water density which appear because of difference in temperatures of water layers. It is an open secret that cold water is thicker and heavier, so it goes down, underneath the masses of warm water, which is lighter. This is the reason why warm currents in the World Ocean always flow closer to the surface, whereas colder currents flow closer to the bottom.

However, such movement of water may not always depend on the difference of temperatures of the water column. The difference in salinity can also be a reason. The mechanism here is the same. The density of saltier water is higher, this water is heavier and it moves closer to the bottom, pushing less saltier water up. This type of vertical fusion occurs frequently in the tropics because high temperatures lead to the evaporation of water from the surface. The salt does not evaporate with water, though. It stays in the ocean, which raises the level of salinity on the upper layer of water. This layer "drowns" and gives way to less saltier waters of the depth.

Such vertical movements of water create giant whirlpools. The whirlpools, tens and even hundreds of kilometers in diameter, may last for months and even years, scientists say. The vertical movement of waters is a slow process, though. Why do those whirlpools exist for such a long time? This is partially the effect of Earth's magnetic field. In addition, marine water contains many charged ions, Na and Cl for example. To crown it all, water molecules are dipoles that are charged both positively and negatively.

Any dipole starts spinning when moving in the magnetic field. An oceanic ring gathers millions of billions of molecules together. That is why the giant circle movement triggered by the vertical movement of water may last for months and years mechanically. Ions also give more power to the craters. Natrium and Chlorum are charged as well, and their movement in the magnetic field of the Earth also leads to the appearance of the circle movement.

It is not ruled out that the reason for the appearance of the whirlpools off the coast of South America is the same as in other parts of the World Ocean. Scientists are currently studying the influence of those giant funnels on the climate of Latin America and Africa. Such whirlpools show influence on the atmosphere and form cyclonical air mass. They can also affect the movement of air mass formed in other places. For the time being, scientists do not know how the newly discovered water craters can affect the climate of Central and South Americas.

Anton Yevseyev

Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian

Scientists unsure why dolphins washing up dead

CNN News, By Vivian Kuo, CNN, April 8, 2011

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Since February 2010, 406 dolphins have been found dead or stranded
• Sensitivity about marine life in the area is high after the BP oil disaster
• Scientists are also concerned about sea turtle strandings

(CNN) -- Dead baby bottlenose dolphins are continuing to wash up in record numbers on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and scientists do not know why.

Hundreds of dead bottlenose dolphins
are washing ashore on the Gulf Coast.

Since February 2010 to April 2011, 406 dolphins were found either stranded or reported dead offshore.

The occurrence has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to designate these deaths as an "unusual mortality event" or UME. The agency defines a UME as a stranding incident that is unexpected or involves a significant loss of any marine mammal population.

"This is quite a complex event and requires a lot of analysis," said Blair Mase, the agency's marine mammal investigations coordinator.

Mase said NOAA is working closely with a variety of agencies to try to figure out not only why the bottlenose dolphins are turning up in such large quantities but also why the mammals are so young.

"These were mostly very young dolphins, either pre-term, neonatal or very young and less than 115 centimeters," she said.

Marine mammals are particularly susceptible to harmful algal blooms, infectious diseases, temperature and environmental changes, and human impact.

"The Gulf of Mexico is no stranger to unusual mortality events," Mase said.

Sensitivity surrounding marine life in the area is particularly high after the BP oil disaster that sent millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico nearly a year ago.

The incident occurred on April 20, 2010, when a Deepwater Horizon rig leased to BP exploded, killing 11 workers and leading to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

As recently as two weeks ago, scientists documented a dead dolphin with oil on its remains, Mase said.

Since the start of the oil spill, a total of 15 bottlenose dolphins have been found with either confirmed or suspected oil on their carcasses.

RELATED TOPICS

• Dolphins
• Gulf of Mexico
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Even after the gushing well was capped, the agency said nine oiled dolphins have been found since November 2, 2010.

Of those nine, six were confirmed to contain oil from the incident; one was found with oil that did not match the Deepwater Horizon samples, and two have not yet been tested.

The dolphin deaths may be completely independent from the oil spill, Mase said.

"Even though they have oil on them, it may not be the cause of death," she said. "We want to look at the gamut of all the possibilities."

The agency said bottlenose dolphins are actually the most-frequently found stranding marine mammal.

Scientists say they are equally concerned about the number of sea turtle strandings.

Similar to the dolphin deaths, an abnormally high number of turtles have been found either floating close to shore or washed up on shores in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

"The vast majority of these are dead, with states in moderate to severe decomposition," said Barbara Schroeder, NOAA Fisheries national sea turtle coordinator.

The majority of them are Kemp's ridley sea turtles, an endangered species since 1970. But some strandings included loggerheads, which are also endangered.

"Since January 1st, we've had just under 100 strandings," Schroeder said. "About 87 of those have been documented since the middle of March."

Only about a third of those found were in good enough shape to perform necropsies, she said. Seven turtles showed indications that they had been in accidents involving watercrafts, while another displayed injuries consistent with being caught on a hook.

Results from the rest appeared to indicate they had drowned near the bottom of the Gulf -- possibly either from forced submergence or an acute toxic event.

NOAA Fisheries Stranding Program Coordinator Dr. Teri Rowles said tissue samples from both turtles and dolphins are being carefully documented due to the civil and criminal litigation ongoing with BP.

"We are looking at what is the impact of the oil spill and the response activities to the oil spill event, and what impact they had on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem," she said. "We did not say that the dolphins have died because of the oil, just that they have come back with oil on them."

Scientists in the Gulf of Mexico remain concerned after finding
17 dead baby dolphins washed up on beaches in the region

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Dolphin toll from BP oil spill far higher: study

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Fourteen die after eating toxic sardines in Madagascar

BBC News, 6 April 2011

Related Stories 

• Country profile: Madagascar

At least 14 people have died in Madagascar after eating toxic sardines.

Samples of the sardines have
been sent for analysis

Officials say more than 120 people remain seriously ill after the incident in the south-western town of Toliara.

The government sent its condolences to the victims' families, promising to foot the medical bills of those being treated in hospital.

Samples of the sardines have been sent for analysis. In previous incidents, researchers said the contaminated sardines had eaten poisonous seaweed.

They say seaweed has proliferated among Madagascar's coral reefs as global warming changes the sea conditions.

Scientists study pool of Arctic Ocean fresh water

The Jakarta Post, Associated Press, Amsterdam | Tue, 04/05/2011

Scientists are monitoring a massive pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean that could spill into the Atlantic and potentially alter the ocean currents that bring Western Europe its moderate climate.

The oceanographers said Tuesday the unusual accumulation has been caused by Siberian and Canadian rivers dumping more water into the Arctic, and from melting sea ice. Both are consequences of global warming.

If it flushes into the Atlantic, the infusion of fresh water could, in the worst case, change the ocean current that brings warmth from the tropics to European shores, said Laura De Steur, of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research.

German researcher Benjamin Rabe, of the Alfred Wegener Institute, said the Arctic's fresh water content had increased 20 percent since the 1990s, or by a 8,400 cubic kilometers. That is the equivalent of all the water contained in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron in the U.S. or double the volume of water in Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake.

Increased runoff from the great northern rivers "could potentially impact the large scale ocean circulation in the Atlantic Ocean. This is important for us in Western Europe because our climate is pretty much dictated by the Thermohaline ocean circulation," said De Steur.

The Thermohaline current loops like a conveyer belt from the tropics to the North Atlantic, driven by the differences in salt content and wind patterns. Warm water from the south gains in salinity and grows heavier as it cools. At its northern end the current is further chilled by cold air and sinks, warming again and rising as it travels south.

That cycle could be affected when the pool of fresh water is released into the Atlantic, said De Steur and Rabe. The icy water has been kept bottled up in the Arctic by wind patterns, which have not shifted their general clockwise direction for the unusually long time of 12 years. Normally, the winds change at intervals of five to 10 years.

The two scientists spoke to The Associated Press as part of a European Union initiative, called Clamer, to collate and publicize information from 300 EU-funded research projects conducted over the last 13 years on climate change and marine ecology. Rabe and colleagues from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany, published their research last year in the journal Deep Sea Research on the effects of higher river runoff on ocean salinity.

De Steur said most of the excess fresh water has collected in the Canada Basin, but in the last three years changes also have been noticed in the Eurasian side of the Arctic Ocean.

"It's important to monitor this to see if this can be transported to the Atlantic, where it might potentially effect the Gulf Stream and the Thermohaline circulation," she said.

Rabe cautioned that scientists have not been studying the situation long enough to predict what may happen, and the results of model simulations also were inconclusive.

'Super' salmon resist climate change better: study

Yahoo News, AFP, Jean-Louis Santini, Thursday, March 31

Toughened by a punishing annual migration in western Canada, a special breed of sockeye salmon has proved better able to survive environmental change than other members of the species, a study said Thursday.

'Super' salmon resist climate change better: study

The Fraser River in British Columbia has more than 100 distinct populations of sockeye salmon, many of them so fine-tuned to their environment that even slight changes in water temperature, river flow or elevation change could spell disaster.

"As climate change alters the conditions of the Fraser River watershed, our concern is that some populations may not be able to adapt to these changes quickly enough to survive," said Erika Eliason, the study's lead author.

But the Chilko salmon, named after a region of the river where they spawn, are proving more resilient than others, and Eliason and her colleagues at University of British Columbia believe it could be due to their harsher migration conditions.

"I like to call the Chilko population of sockeye 'Superfish,'" said Eliason, who explained they are conditioned by a migratory route that is extraordinarily difficult.

Eliason and colleagues studied eight sockeye populations for the study, which was published in the journal Science.

"This is the first large study examining how different populations of fish of the same species adapt to different environmental conditions during their annual migration," she said.

Scientists say the Fraser River, which runs some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles), has already warmed by almost two degrees Celsius since the 1950s, with the last 20 years among the warmest on record.

Millions of sockeye migrate up the Fraser to spawn each year, but the species has been in decline since the 1990s. There have been mass mortalities during migrations, when between 40 and 95 percent of some populations have died, according to UBC.

The sockeye populations follow exact migration routes that vary by distance, elevation, temperature and current strength. Some have it easy, but not the Chilko.

The Chilko must swim more than 650 kilometers (400 miles) upstream, gain a kilometer (0.6 miles) in elevation, and pass through an area known as Hell's Gate, where the river shoots through a passage just 35 meters (115 feet) wide.

They do all this at the height of summer in a heroic effort to reach a glacial lake, where they spawn.

To assess the salmon's abilities to cope with changing environmental conditions, the UBC team had fish from the eight population groups swim through a large tube designed to simulate Fraser river currents and water temperatures.

The scientists measured the heart rates and metabolism of the adult salmon as they did so.

They found that when water temperatures rose above an optimal level, the salmon's ability swim declined, probably as a result of a weakening of their cardiovascular systems.

But they also observed that the Chilko sockeye seemed physiologically less sensitive to the difference in temperature and other environmental change. The most sensitive was the Weaver sockeye.

Eliason said the Chilko were able to "swim at higher and a broader range of temperatures" compared to other sockeye in the river.

"We believe it has to do with how they've adapted to cope with their difficult migration."

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“2011 and Beyond” - What you are seeing, and why - Jan 16, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Text version)

"....Let us just talk about the ocean for a moment. We won't even get to what's happening in the air and what mammals might experience. Let's just speak of the ocean. Have you heard about the salmon? What has your science warned you against? You're overfishing! The sea is dying. The coral is dying. The reefs are going away. You're not seeing the food chain that used to be there. You've overfished everything. Fishing quotas have been set up to help this. Oh, all those little people in the red room - they don't know about the purple. Red people only know about the red paradigm.

Did you hear about the salmon recently? There's too many of them! In the very place where quotas are in place so you won't overfish, they're jumping in the boats! Against all odds and any projections from environmentalists or biologists, they're overrunning the oceans in Alaska - way too many fish.

What does that tell you? Is it possible that Gaia takes care of itself? That's what it tells you! Perhaps this alignment is going to keep humanity fed. Did anybody think of this? What if Gaia is in alliance with you? What if the increase in consciousness that raised your DNA vibration has alerted Gaia to change the weather cycle and get ready to feed humanity? Are you looking at the ocean where the oil spill occurred? It's recovering in a way that was not predicted. What's happening?

The life cycle itself is being altered by the temperature change of the ocean and much of what you have believed is the paradigm of life in the sea is slowly changing. A new system of life is appearing, as it has before, and is upon you in your lifetime. It will compliment what you know and expose you to a new concept: Gaia regularly refreshes the life cycle on Earth. ...."