#warming oceans

[tomorrowusa]

California has gotten its first tropical storm watch ever. The last time a tropical storm hit California was in September of 1939 just after Hitler had started World War II. They didn't issue such watches in those days.

Major Hurricane Hilary in the Pacific is way stronger than low energy Hurricane Don in the Atlantic a few weeks ago; the latter spent only a few hours as a hurricane as it spun around aimlessly away from land.

Hilary will weaken from the current Category 4, but how much it will weaken is still not certain. If it maintains sustained winds of at least 74 MPH/119 KMH when it reaches California, then it will become California's first ever official hurricane.

Hurricane Hilary is expected to hit Southern California as a tropical storm, with a punch that could include flash flooding and significant amounts of rain, according to the National Hurricane Center.  A tropical storm watch for much of Southern California was issued Friday morning. The National Weather Service's San Diego outpost said this was the first time such an advisory had ever been issued for the region. 

As somebody who's been through half a dozen tropical cyclones on the East Coast, I would advise our California friends that rain is a bigger hazard than wind – in most cases. People in areas which have the potential for flooding should particularly remain on alert.

The 1939 storm, called El Cordonazo, became the first and only tropical storm to make landfall in the state in the 20th century, according to the National Weather Service. NWS says the storm, which was at one point a hurricane, originated off the southern coast of Central America before moving north and eventually coming ashore at San Pedro, California.  Resulting floods from the storm killed at least 45 people across the Southern California region and caused $2 million in damage to structures and crops, the weather service reports. Another 48 people were also killed at sea.

There were far fewer people in California in 1939 when El Cordonazo caused deadly flooding.

Here is the current forecast for rainfall potential.

Keep up with the track of Hurricane Hilary here. Southern California should begin to feel the effects of Hilary on Sunday afternoon. Monitor local emergency information and follow advisories.

And if you're wondering why this is happening...

Our oceans are the warmest in recorded history. This is why it's so concerning

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this EcoWatch story:

After a devastating and hot 2023 summer, the Florida Keys coral restoration community made sure to be prepped for this year’s heat. 

The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) is home to the largest coral barrier reef in the continental United States. In recent years, however, the Florida Reef Tract has suffered a “death of 1,000 cuts” – from water quality issues, pollution and disease. In 2023, a historic marine heat wave caused Florida’s corals to bleach weeks early. 

Bleaching doesn’t always lead to coral death, but it can if conditions don’t improve quickly. “The coral is essentially starving until temperatures lower and symbionts recolonize” within coral tissues, a FKNMS Mission: Iconic Reefs (MIR) fact sheet said. The fact sheet was emailed to EcoWatch during the 2023 heat crisis. Additionally, heat stress makes corals more susceptible to diseases. 

Last year, to beat the heat, coral restoration practitioners took emergency measures and moved what corals they could from their in situ nurseries to land-based holding tanks or deeper water. Many corals were lost, but many were saved, too. Each genetic strain is critical to restoration efforts, so each piece matters. 

“Last year we were caught a bit by surprise and had to react quickly,” said MIR co-lead Jennifer Moore, “but we learned a great deal and are much more prepared this year.”

Florida Institute of Oceanography’s Keys Marine Laboratory (KML) served as a land-based triage station in 2023 for thousands of corals coming in bleached and hot from the scorched ocean. Hosted by the University of South Florida, the scientific research field station held over 5,000 corals in their 60 raceways during the heat crisis. In October and November, once temperatures had dropped and the corals had been checked for general wellness, most of these were returned to the ocean.

This year, as temperatures climb and alarms sound for corals around the world, KML has led the effort to prepare proactively within FKNMS. Using emergency funding, they bolstered the quality of their facilities with additional pop-up shade tents, backup pumps, circulation pumps, spare tank chillers, a new emergency generator, and remote alarms for their seawater systems. This will allow any corals that need to be housed to receive more consistent care at KML. The lab also purchased coral food and cleaning supplies in advance – to be prepared for anything.

KML also hosted a preparedness workshop on site to review seawater systems capabilities and limitations in emergent situations. 

[yeltsinsstar]

'Alarming drop off the cliff': Record low Antarctic sea ice triggers eme...

[screwpinecaprice]

She's not like other girls

[razpberrypie]

[academic-vampire]

𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝑰 𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒗𝒆 ☕️

[mienar]

"as the sun sets,"

instagram | shop | commission info

[nasa]

Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite

As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.

Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.

NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!

Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.

Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.

While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.

In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.

Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.

With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.

Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.

Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.

Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.

The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.

With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.

PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.

It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.

With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.

Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!

[happyheidi]

[tomorrowusa]

^^^ This one didn't amount to anything. But I thought it would be interesting to take note of the first time I noticed any tropical disturbances during the 2024 Atlantic Basin Hurricane Season. That was Friday morning May 24th. Okay, it's still technically the pre-season but NOAA went into seasonal mode on May 15th at their tropical cyclone site.

This is expected to be a more active than usual season.

This hurricane season could be among the worst in decades, NOAA warns

Warm waters across the tropical Atlantic in May 2005 prompted warnings of an active hurricane season ahead. A record-smashing 28 storms formed, including Hurricane Katrina. Nearly two decades of global warming later, those late-spring ocean temperatures are cool compared with today’s record-hot waters. Government meteorologists issued a seasonal forecast Thursday that predicts that storms could develop at frequencies and with ferocity comparable to some of the worst seasons in the past 19 years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast — which calls for 17 to 25 tropical storms, eight to 13 hurricanes and four to seven “major” hurricanes — underscores how dramatically the environment has shifted and increased the risk of destructive weather. The prediction is the most aggressive outlook the agency has ever made ahead of the start of hurricane season.

Yes, climate change is the main suspect.

Warming is allowing major storms to form significantly earlier during hurricane season, and also encouraging more to undergo rapid intensification more frequently in parts of the Atlantic basin such as the western Caribbean Sea. A study found that a growing number of tropical cyclones around the world have undergone what researchers called “extreme” rapid intensification, with their maximum sustained winds increasing by 57 mph or more within a 24-hour period.

The author mentioned that 2005 was a "record-smashing" season. But he did not mention that the 2005 record was itself smashed in 2020.

2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season

In 2020 we went all the way to Hurricane Iota in mid November.

Donald Trump was probably already too busy planning his coup in mid November 2020 to notice Hurricane Iota. But if he is returned to power he is essentially declaring war on Planet Earth.

No more going wobbly in climate fight, Trump supporters vow

Trump’s campaign utterances, and the policy proposals being drafted by hundreds of his supporters, point to the likelihood that his return to the White House would bring an all-out war on climate science and policies — eclipsing even his first-term efforts that brought U.S. climate action to a virtual standstill. [ ... ] Meanwhile, many of his former staffers are building out a comprehensive plan to decimate both climate policy and regulations on fossil fuels. And Trump allies expect that the former president would fill his next administration with officials who are even more hostile to efforts to address global warming.

Donald Trump is an enemy of the planet. The only way to defeat this real-life James Bond villain is to vote for Joe Biden.

[rjzimmerman]

Fish are shrinking around the world. Here’s why scientists are worried. (Washington Post)

There’s something fishy going on in the water. Across Earth’s oceans, fish are shrinking — and no one can agree why.

It’s happening with salmon near the Arctic Circle and skate in the Atlantic. Nearly three-fourths of marine fish populations sampled worldwide have seen their average body size dwindle between 1960 and 2020, according to a recent analysis.

Overfishing and human-caused climate change are decreasing the size of adult fish, threatening the food supply of more than 3 billion people who rely on seafood as a significant source of protein.

As fish get smaller, there is less meat to cook per catch. So scientists are working to piece together why exactly fish respond to rising ocean temperatures by getting smaller.

“This is a pretty fundamental question,” said Lisa Komoroske, a conservation biologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “But we still don’t understand why.”

One undisputed reason so much marine life is getting smaller is fishing. Recreational anglers and commercial fishers alike like to catch large fish. That quest for the big ones leaves the small fries behind.

But there are plenty of marine species that face little fishing pressure that are still shrinking. To investigate why, Komoroske and her colleague, Joshua Lonthair, decided to grow their own fish.

The pair restarted their work in Massachusetts with about 400 brook trout reared for up to eight months in tanks. The scientists kept some of the fishin waters set at 59 degrees Fahrenheit while others at 68 degrees Fahrenheit. All were fed the same diet.

By the end of the experiment, the difference was stark. The trout raised in warmer waters were on average less than half the size as the other fish.

“You look at the fish, it’s so obvious,” Komoroske said. “Not that you don’t need statistics, but they’re clearly different sizes.” In the ocean, the phenomenon is so widespread it has a name: the temperature-size rule

[kp777]

Billions of Alaska snow crabs likely vanished due to warm ocean, study says | Marine life | The Guardian

[blackkatdraws2]

Whenever Stanley closes his eyes, he can feel the older man's aura surrounding him. [Blank Scripts AU]

[alexmurison]

Golden Glow on the cliffs of Skomer Island

[thinwhitedoc]

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT | Martin Freeman as Iain MacKelpie