#or would he be just in his own group with like…Iceland and the Faroes?

[simple-persica]

A sketch of the North America trio from the Discord

[bigyack-com]

Warming Waters, Moving Fish: How Climate Change Is Reshaping Iceland

ISAFJORDUR, Iceland — Before it became a “Game of Thrones” location, before Justin Bieber stalked the trails of Fjadrargljufur, and before hordes of tourists descended upon this small island nation, there were the fish.“Fish,” said Gisli Palsson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland, “made us rich.” The money Iceland earned from commercial fishing helped the island, which is about the size of Kentucky, become independent from Denmark in 1944. But warming waters associated with climate change are causing some fish to seek cooler waters elsewhere, beyond the reach of Icelandic fishermen. Ocean temperatures around Iceland have increased between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. For the past two seasons, Icelanders have not been able to harvest capelin, a type of smelt, as their numbers plummeted. The warmer waters mean that as some fish leave, causing financial disruption, other fish species arrive, triggering geopolitical conflicts. Worldwide, research shows the oceans are simmering. Since the middle of last century, the oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. To beat the heat, fish are moving toward cooler waters nearer the planet’s two poles. Last year, the capelin fishery, the country’s second most economically important export fishery, was closed for the winter fishing season on the recommendation of Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, which cited a decline in fish populations it attributed to unusually warm waters. Capelin is caught and then sold both for direct consumption (its flavor is said to resemble herring), for fish meal and for its roe, or eggs, commonly called masago. In 2017 the country’s largest bank, Landsbankinn, valued the fishery at roughly $143 million. Last month, the research institute recommended keeping the capelin fishery closed for a second winter season. “They moved farther north where there are colder seas,” said Kari Thor Johannsson, who, like many Icelanders of a certain generation, fished on family boats when he was younger. These days you can find him, behind the counter of his fish store in Isafjordur. “For the first time last winter, we didn’t fish because the fish moved,” said Petur Birgisson, a fishing captain whose trawler is based out of Isafjordur. With 2,600 residents, it is the largest community in the Westfjords, a region that is still heavily invested in fishing. Over the years he has adjusted to a series of changes, including the development of a quota system that allows individuals and companies the right to catch, process and sell a predetermined amount of fish each year. But he can’t conceive of an Iceland without fish.If there aren’t fish, he said, “we can’t live in Iceland.”The concern is not just limited to capelin. Blue whiting is increasingly moving farther north and west into the waters near Greenland. And cod, which this year brought in record profits of $1 billion, feed on capelin. But Mr. Birgisson said the best place to fish for cod was where warmer ocean temperatures meet colder ocean temperatures, and that is increasingly moving north in keeping with global patterns.Different species of fish evolved to live in specific water temperatures, with some fish like sea bass requiring the temperate ocean climates like those found off the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, and tropical fish like the Spanish hogfish preferring warmer waters such as those in the Caribbean. But these days, fishermen are finding sea bass in Maine and the Spanish hog fish in North Carolina. And as the fish flee they are leaving some areas, like parts of the tropics, stripped of fish entirely.What’s more, fish “need more oxygen when the temperature is higher,” said Daniel Pauly, a professor of aquatic systems at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, but warmer water holds less oxygen than colder water. The fish are swimming for their lives, according to Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor of environmental studies at N.Y.U. “They are moving in order to breathe,” she said.In colder climates, like Iceland, as fish like capelin head north other fish that were previously found farther south move into their waters. “Mackerel and monkfish used to be south of the country,” said Kari Thor Johannsson. “But now they are up here or west of the country where it used to be colder.”As fish cross political boundaries, that can create a platform for conflict.In the case of Atlantic mackerel, the fishery is comanaged by Norway, the Faroe Islands and the European Union. The mackerel’s arrival in significant numbers in Icelandic waters in 2005 shifted the relationship. “A lot of fisheries management is about allocation between groups. So everybody’s fighting for a piece of the pie,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.In the ensuing discussions Britain would accuse Iceland of stealing its fish, a Norwegian civil servant would accuse Iceland of making up its own rules, and all of the parties would accuse each other of varying degrees of fighting dirty.“It doesn’t just stay as a fisheries management conflict,” said Malin Pinsky, an assistant professor in the department of ecology, evolution and natural resources at Rutgers University.“In the Iceland case it also spilled over and became a trade war,” he said. “It affected international negotiations and seems to be part of the reason that Iceland decided not to join the European Union.”The negotiations between Norway, the Faroe Islands, the European Union and Iceland over mackerel never came to a consensus, partly because the fish migrated into waters where Iceland has exclusive fishing rights and the nation chose to unilaterally set its own quotas. This year it raised its mackerel quota by 30 percent, to 140,000 tons from 108,000 tons. At a meeting in October, the European Union and the two other countries criticized Iceland’s behavior, saying, “Such action, which has no scientific justification, undermines the efforts made by the European Union, Norway and the Faroe Islands to promote long-term sustainability of the stock.” Greenland and Russia, which are also setting unilateral mackerel quotas, were also criticized, but less forcefully. The rebukes are reminiscent of those that contributed to a series of conflicts, known as the cod wars, between Iceland and Britain from the late 1940s until 1976. The British conceded when Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO and deprive the bloc of a then-critical ally.A study led by Sara Mitchell, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa, found that, since World War II, a quarter of militarized disputes between democracies have been over fisheries.So while fishery management problems have long existed, climate change is exacerbating conflicts. Many fisheries that weren’t shared in the past are now straddling borders as fish move. Dr. Pinksy is a co-author of a study that found that there will be roughly 35 percent more fisheries that straddle boundaries by 2060 if we fail to rein in emissions. “So now two countries have access to this population where in the past only one did, and what we’ve found is that we’re just not very good about starting to share,” Dr. Pinksy said. “I was in Dakar in West Africa and I said, ‘you know that your fish are moving toward Mauritania,’ which is north of Senegal in West Africa,” Dr. Pauly said. The response he received was: “‘Let’s catch them, let’s catch them before they get there.’ This was a naïve kind of response that you will find everywhere.”In the tropics, this issue is especially acute because, as fish head toward the poles, they aren’t replaced, creating a food vacuum. In some tropical countries, which emit a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases compared with countries farther north, fish provide as much as 70 percent of people’s nutrition according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. “My mom is from Ghana, my dad is from Nigeria, and I tell you that for many people along the coast the only animal protein they get to eat is fish — and the fish are moving,” said Rashid Sumaila, the director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. Not only does this have huge consequences for the people living in those regions, he said, it also has global implications, because the lack of a critical food source may cause people to move.While Iceland is still able to fish in the wild, albeit for different species, fish farming seems an increasingly attractive option. In 2017, the country harvested 23,000 tons of farmed fish, according to government data, though fish farming also comes with environmental concerns.Fishing is “dangerous work — I don’t want my kids to be at sea,” said Saethor Atli Gislason, standing on his fishing boat in Bolungarvik, a town roughly 10 miles north of Isafjordur. While he still fishes in summer, his father works in a fish farm.“Fish farms are a good job,” he said.“We have to start fish farms because we cannot count on the sea,” echoed Petur Birgisson. Source link Read the full article

[the-independent-spt-yahoopa-blog]

Fortitude's Sofie Grabol interview: 'I love it when you ask another actor, ‘What are you doing today?’ ‘Oh, I’m eating a baby!’ It’s hilarious'

The Killing killed British indifference to foreign-language TV drama. When the breath-taking Danish detective drama was first broadcast on BBC4 in 2011, it was a game-changer.

It proved that we could be gripped by brilliant storytelling, whether in English or Danish, or any other language for that matter. The huge success of that series – which won a BAFTA award in 2011 - paved the way for an influx of riveting 'Nordic Noir' shows such as Borgen and The Bridge.

An enormous part of The Killing’s appeal lay in the mesmeric qualities of its lead actress, Sofie Grabol. She brought a rare magnetism to the role of the ice-cold, homicide detective Sarah Lund. She reached such levels of international popularity that her trademark Faroese jumpers became a “must-have” item online.

Even the Duchess of Cornwall owns a Lund sweater, given to her by Grabol in 2012 when she made a royal visit to the set. On the same visit, Prince Charles revealed that The Killing was one of the very few shows that he and his wife loved watching together.

The actress even received a glowing review from that unlikely TV critic, the then Prime Minister David Cameron, who disclosed that that he and his wife Samantha enjoyed nothing more than spending an evening watching The Killing together in bed.

“It’s our idea of relaxation,” he said. “I think it’s just brilliant. We should be making more television like that in this country. Isn’t Lund wonderful? Lund rather reminds me of Samantha. Lund and Samantha are very cool.”

And now Grabol is grabbing the headlines in this country once again. She stars in the second series of Sky Atlantic’s sweeping supernatural drama, Fortitude.

And Simon Donald’s chilling (in every sense) drama, the 48-year-old Danish actress plays Governor Hildur Odegard. Having in the last season led the remote Norwegian town of Fortitude through the cataclysm of a plague of prehistoric wasps released from the permafrost, Hildur is now confronting another lethal, otherworldly threat to her isolated Arctic community.

Within moments of the opening titles, some very disturbing creatures are walking the earth, the sky is illuminated by an ominous 'blood aurora' and characters are darkly quoting WB Yeats: “The centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” We are left in no doubt that something wicked this way comes. Welcome to Fortitude, the most deadly town this side of Midsummer Murders.

Grabol is the polar opposite to Lund. Where the detective was detached and distracted, the actress is charming and charismatic. And rather than the perennial chunky-knit Faroe Islands sweater, she is wearing an extremely chic all-black ensemble.

Unlike Lund, who didn’t crack a smile in three series of The Killing, Grabol also has a delightful sense of humour. She is amusing enough in English - I can’t imagine how funny she must be in her first language of Danish.

For instance, she tells a self-deprecating anecdote about her Danish accent. “It’s funny because in my mind, I don’t have an accent! I did a play at the National Theatre in London, where I was supposed to be Scottish. I said to the director, ‘I can’t speak Scottish! Just speaking English is enough of a challenge.’

“So I spoke the best English I could and thought, ‘This is brilliant!’ Then Sir Ian McKellen came to see the show one night, and afterwards he asked, ‘How did that actress get that amazing Danish accent?!’ I was doing my best, but I do obviously have a big fat Danish accent!”

In the same way, the actress jokes about the enormous amount of support The Killing has enjoyed in this country. "In Danish, the word 'killing' means ‘kitten’. I think that’s very appropriate because that’s how we feel. You Brits have taken us in!”

Grabol, who is divorced and has two children, is equally entertaining on the subject of the “out-there”, sometimes gory nature of Fortitude. She loves the fact that the production doesn’t hold back. “Being Scandinavian, I really enjoy that, like a child.

"We Nordic people like little stories and little expressions and don’t give too much away. That makes us really good at details and credibility, but we’d never dare to go where we go in Fortitude. So for me to be in a project where wasps come out of the permafrost in a biblical fashion is absolutely brilliant. I love it when we go that far.”

Hitting her rhetorical stride now, the actress continues, “I also love it when you go into the make-up room in the morning and ask another actor, ‘What are you doing today?’ ‘Oh, I’m eating a baby!’ It’s hilarious.”

The second season picks up just nine weeks after the end of the last series, and it does not shy away from showing the catastrophic effect of the disaster the town has suffered.

Grabol, who has been given a clean bill of health after undergoing treatment for breast cancer in 2013, reflects that, “The first series was about surviving and about life and death. In my personal life. I recognise that in any real crisis you use all your resources, but actually it’s the moment after that’s really interesting. Who am I now? Why am I alive? What has happened?

"That atmosphere of having survived and the same time being completely lost is fascinating. The community in Fortitude is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s carrying a lot of scars, definitely.”

The catastrophe in the first series has certainly left its mark on Hildur. “She’s not in a great place,” the actress muses.” I think she’s traumatised – or maybe I’m just projecting my own life! She is a doer, she’s a solver. She’s a woman of power and leadership. So the worst thing for a person like that is that she couldn’t guard her town. I see her as the mother of Fortitude.

“We’re so used to watching crime stories where the characters are very driven. I think it’s really interesting that my character and others have these moments where they just fall into a void.”

Fortitude, whose second series confirms the show’s reputation for attracting major stars by featuring Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven) as a troubled fishermen, Michelle Fairley, (Game of Thrones) as his poorly wife and Ken Stott (The Hobbit) as a martinet government official, is shot in Iceland. The icebound island doubles for Svalbard, the northernmost town in the world and a place too far-flung to allow filming.

The drama conjures up the sense of desolate isolation that pervades the town. The 2000 inhabitants of Fortitude are outnumbered by the 3000 polar bears, who stalk the ice just beyond the town limits. In fact, it is illegal to leave the town without a gun.

Grabol thinks the drama captures that idea of utter remoteness. “It shows this community that is beyond our culture. People come to Fortitude from all over the world. But what kind of people would wind up in this place?”

She adds that the producers ensure that the cast experience first-hand the sensation of being cut off from the rest of the world. “It helps to film in Iceland where you get that feeling of real isolation. All the actors are put in a hotel far away from everyone else in a very, very isolated place. There is nothing to do there except get very close to each other.

“That whole feeling in Fortitude of depending on each other and being close in a very big space – we get to know that as people. There is a great group dynamic. They’re such a lovely cast – although sadly a lot of their characters have died!”

Before we part, we have to touch on the subject of a possible revival for The Killing. Grabol smiles that maybe one day it will return and just keep on going: "Like The Mousetrap here in London!”

Or perhaps she could reprise Lund in 20 years' time? Grabol laughs one last time. “That's a good idea!

“Sarah could end up like the Danish Miss Marple!”

All episodes of Fortitude season 2 will be available on Sky Box Sets after the first episode airs on Sky Atlantic on Thursday 26 January 9pm

[biofunmy]

Warming Waters, Moving Fish: How Climate Change Is Reshaping Iceland

ISAFJORDUR, Iceland — Before it became a “Game of Thrones” location, before Justin Bieber stalked the trails of Fjadrargljufur, and before hordes of tourists descended upon this small island nation, there were the fish.

“Fish,” said Gisli Palsson, a professor of anthropology at the University of Iceland, “made us rich.” The money Iceland earned from commercial fishing helped the island, which is about the size of Kentucky, become independent from Denmark in 1944.

But warming waters associated with climate change are causing some fish to seek cooler waters elsewhere, beyond the reach of Icelandic fishermen. Ocean temperatures around Iceland have increased between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 20 years. For the past two seasons, Icelanders have not been able to harvest capelin, a type of smelt, as their numbers plummeted. The warmer waters mean that as some fish leave, causing financial disruption, other fish species arrive, triggering geopolitical conflicts.

Worldwide, research shows the oceans are simmering. Since the middle of last century, the oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. To beat the heat, fish are moving toward cooler waters nearer the planet’s two poles.

Last year, the capelin fishery, the country’s second most economically important export fishery, was closed for the winter fishing season on the recommendation of Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute, which cited a decline in fish populations it attributed to unusually warm waters.

Capelin is caught and then sold both for direct consumption (its flavor is said to resemble herring), for fish meal and for its roe, or eggs, commonly called masago. In 2017 the country’s largest bank, Landsbankinn, valued the fishery at roughly $143 million. Last month, the research institute recommended keeping the capelin fishery closed for a second winter season.

“They moved farther north where there are colder seas,” said Kari Thor Johannsson, who, like many Icelanders of a certain generation, fished on family boats when he was younger. These days you can find him, behind the counter of his fish store in Isafjordur.

“For the first time last winter, we didn’t fish because the fish moved,” said Petur Birgisson, a fishing captain whose trawler is based out of Isafjordur. With 2,600 residents, it is the largest community in the Westfjords, a region that is still heavily invested in fishing. Over the years he has adjusted to a series of changes, including the development of a quota system that allows individuals and companies the right to catch, process and sell a predetermined amount of fish each year. But he can’t conceive of an Iceland without fish.

If there aren’t fish, he said, “we can’t live in Iceland.”

The concern is not just limited to capelin. Blue whiting is increasingly moving farther north and west into the waters near Greenland. And cod, which this year brought in record profits of $1 billion, feed on capelin. But Mr. Birgisson said the best place to fish for cod was where warmer ocean temperatures meet colder ocean temperatures, and that is increasingly moving north in keeping with global patterns.

Different species of fish evolved to live in specific water temperatures, with some fish like sea bass requiring the temperate ocean climates like those found off the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, and tropical fish like the Spanish hogfish preferring warmer waters such as those in the Caribbean. But these days, fishermen are finding sea bass in Maine and the Spanish hog fish in North Carolina. And as the fish flee they are leaving some areas, like parts of the tropics, stripped of fish entirely.

What’s more, fish “need more oxygen when the temperature is higher,” said Daniel Pauly, a professor of aquatic systems at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, but warmer water holds less oxygen than colder water.

The fish are swimming for their lives, according to Jennifer Jacquet, an associate professor of environmental studies at N.Y.U. “They are moving in order to breathe,” she said.

In colder climates, like Iceland, as fish like capelin head north other fish that were previously found farther south move into their waters.

“Mackerel and monkfish used to be south of the country,” said Kari Thor Johannsson. “But now they are up here or west of the country where it used to be colder.”

As fish cross political boundaries, that can create a platform for conflict.

In the case of Atlantic mackerel, the fishery is comanaged by Norway, the Faroe Islands and the European Union. The mackerel’s arrival in significant numbers in Icelandic waters in 2005 shifted the relationship.

“A lot of fisheries management is about allocation between groups. So everybody’s fighting for a piece of the pie,” said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In the ensuing discussions Britain would accuse Iceland of stealing its fish, a Norwegian civil servant would accuse Iceland of making up its own rules, and all of the parties would accuse each other of varying degrees of fighting dirty.

“It doesn’t just stay as a fisheries management conflict,” said Malin Pinsky, an assistant professor in the department of ecology, evolution and natural resources at Rutgers University.

“In the Iceland case it also spilled over and became a trade war,” he said. “It affected international negotiations and seems to be part of the reason that Iceland decided not to join the European Union.”

The negotiations between Norway, the Faroe Islands, the European Union and Iceland over mackerel never came to a consensus, partly because the fish migrated into waters where Iceland has exclusive fishing rights and the nation chose to unilaterally set its own quotas. This year it raised its mackerel quota by 30 percent, to 140,000 tons from 108,000 tons.

At a meeting in October, the European Union and the two other countries criticized Iceland’s behavior, saying, “Such action, which has no scientific justification, undermines the efforts made by the European Union, Norway and the Faroe Islands to promote long-term sustainability of the stock.” Greenland and Russia, which are also setting unilateral mackerel quotas, were also criticized, but less forcefully.

The rebukes are reminiscent of those that contributed to a series of conflicts, known as the cod wars, between Iceland and Britain from the late 1940s until 1976. The British conceded when Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO and deprive the bloc of a then-critical ally.

A study led by Sara Mitchell, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa, found that, since World War II, a quarter of militarized disputes between democracies have been over fisheries.

So while fishery management problems have long existed, climate change is exacerbating conflicts. Many fisheries that weren’t shared in the past are now straddling borders as fish move. Dr. Pinksy is a co-author of a study that found that there will be roughly 35 percent more fisheries that straddle boundaries by 2060 if we fail to rein in emissions.

“So now two countries have access to this population where in the past only one did, and what we’ve found is that we’re just not very good about starting to share,” Dr. Pinksy said.

“I was in Dakar in West Africa and I said, ‘you know that your fish are moving toward Mauritania,’ which is north of Senegal in West Africa,” Dr. Pauly said. The response he received was: “‘Let’s catch them, let’s catch them before they get there.’ This was a naïve kind of response that you will find everywhere.”

In the tropics, this issue is especially acute because, as fish head toward the poles, they aren’t replaced, creating a food vacuum. In some tropical countries, which emit a tiny fraction of greenhouse gases compared with countries farther north, fish provide as much as 70 percent of people’s nutrition according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

“My mom is from Ghana, my dad is from Nigeria, and I tell you that for many people along the coast the only animal protein they get to eat is fish — and the fish are moving,” said Rashid Sumaila, the director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia.

Not only does this have huge consequences for the people living in those regions, he said, it also has global implications, because the lack of a critical food source may cause people to move.

While Iceland is still able to fish in the wild, albeit for different species, fish farming seems an increasingly attractive option. In 2017, the country harvested 23,000 tons of farmed fish, according to government data, though fish farming also comes with environmental concerns.

Fishing is “dangerous work — I don’t want my kids to be at sea,” said Saethor Atli Gislason, standing on his fishing boat in Bolungarvik, a town roughly 10 miles north of Isafjordur. While he still fishes in summer, his father works in a fish farm.

“Fish farms are a good job,” he said.

“We have to start fish farms because we cannot count on the sea,” echoed Petur Birgisson.

Sahred From Source link Science

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