The 500 million years ocean history

Brachiopod Paraspirifer bownockeri from the Middle Devonian of Ohio (USA); Width: 5.6 cm. Picture: U. Jansen, Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

GEOMAR coordinates European research and education project BASE-LiNE Earth
02.03.2015 / Kiel. As the history of the oceans can be reconstructed in the past 500 million based on calcareous shells of fossil marine life, busy to date with the research project BASE-LiNE Earth. At the same time it enables talented young scientists and scientists a doctorate in an international research environment. The European Union supports the at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel coordinated project with a total of 3.8 million euros.

Almost all life on earth would be extinct - and that at least five times in the past 500 million years. The environmental changes that have each led to the mass extinction, the oceans play an important role in almost all cases. How did it happen that was phased so hostile to life as a life-giving force sea? And why have some species still survive? These are fundamental questions that will be examined in the next three years as part of the European research project BASE-LiNE Earth with innovative technologies and methods. In addition to answering the research questions BASE LiNE Earth serves as the training of talented young scholars and scientists who are recruited by means of a demanding selection process from all over the world and doctorate within the scope of the project. 

The EU promotes the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel coordinated project under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action in Horizon2020-Pogramm with a total of 3.8 million euros. The challenge for the future BASE-LiNE Earth-doctoral students, is to provide information to gain from distant epochs of earth's history. "When historians want to know about events 100 or 200 years ago, they visit libraries or archives where there is written evidence from these times," says project coordinator Prof. Dr. Anton Eisenhauer from GEOMAR. "We also use archives. 
However, they see something different. It is, for example, the calcareous shells of fossil brachiopods in which the relevant data on the chemical history of ocean water are stored reliably, "explains the Kiel geochemist on. 

The information is in the calcite shells of course not writing before, but encrypted in the chemical and mineralogical composition. "If we precise the ratios of elements such as strontium, magnesium, boron, or measure of the isotopic to each other, we can decrypt the information," says Professor Eisenhauer.

This then the age of the shell, as well as the chemical composition of the previous ocean and prevailing environmental conditions such as water temperature and the acidity of the water can be reconstructed. We know, for example, know that during the greatest mass extinction 251 million years ago, the ocean contained no oxygen and was acidified to a large extent. 

"This is similar to some scenarios that we expect for the future of our ocean," explains Professor Eisenhauer. Model calculations are carried out within the framework of the project should show how far the former changes in the environment are transferable to the present day. The challenge is to gain this information and to make it usable. In collaboration with industry partners modern analytical methods for obtaining information in cooperation with business partners in this area in the context of BASE-LiNE Earth therefore be generated and developed. The project involves a total of 21 scientific institutions from eight European countries and partners from Canada, Israel, Palestine and Australia involved. 15 PhD positions will announce the project this spring, two of them for the GEOMAR in Kiel. 

The Integrated School of Ocean Sciences (ISOS) provides at the University of Kiel for a comprehensive training program in which the scholars not only pursue their academic goals, but also learn more professional qualifications, skills and interact with each other.  In the coming years, the parties want to do their topic also by means of exhibitions and school supplies to a wider audience. "Of course we also bind the doctoral students, which thus also learn to communicate their work understandable," says the project coordinator. For more information on the project website www.baseline-earth.eu.

Source: Geomar

NOAA joins with Princeton and other institutions in six-year study to help public better understand Southern Ocean

NOAA is one of 10 institutions working together on the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling program, or SOCCOM, a six-year, $21 million initiative to improve our understanding of the importance and health of the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica. (Image by Oscar Schofield, Rutgers University)

The Southern Ocean that encircles Antarctica lends a considerable hand in keeping Earth's temperature hospitable by soaking up half of the human-made carbon in the atmosphere and a majority of the planet's excess heat. Yet, the inner workings — and global importance — of this ocean that accounts for 30 percent of the world's ocean area remains relatively unknown to scientists, as observations remain hindered by dangerous seas.

NOAA is one of 10 institutions working together on the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling program, or SOCCOM, a six-year, $21 million initiative to improve our understanding of the importance and health of the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica. (Image by Oscar Schofield, Rutgers University)

Princeton University, NOAA and eight other partner institutions now seek to make the Southern Ocean better known scientifically and publicly through a $21 million program that will create a biogeochemical and physical portrait of the ocean using hundreds of robotic floats deployed around Antarctica and an expanded computational capacity. The Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling program, or SOCCOM, is a six-year initiative headquartered at Princeton and funded by the National Science Foundation’s Division of Polar Programs, with additional support from the NOAA and NASA. The U.S. Argo program, led by CPO's Steven Piotrowicz, will play a major role in the project. 

"The scarcity of observations in the Southern Ocean and inadequacy of earlier models, combined with its importance to the Earth's carbon and climate systems, means there is tremendous potential for groundbreaking research in this region," Sarmiento said.
Central to the program are roughly 200 floats outfitted with biogeochemical sensors that will provide almost continuous information related to the ocean's carbon, nutrient (nitrate, in particular) and oxygen content, both at and deep beneath the surface. The floats are augmented biogeochemical versions of the nearly 4,000 Argo floats deployed worldwide to measure ocean salinity and temperature. SOCCOM marks the first large-scale deployment of these biogeochemical floats.

"These floats are revolutionary and this major new observational initiative will give us unprecedented year-round coverage of biogeochemistry in the Southern Ocean," Sarmiento said.

The Southern Ocean research will involve using Argo type floats equipped with new sensors that measure pH, nitrates in addition to temperature and salinity. (NOAA)

The floats will increase the monthly data currently coming out of the Southern Ocean by 10 to 30 times, Sarmiento said. That data will be used to improve recently developed high-resolution earth-system models, which will allow for a better understanding of the Southern Ocean and for better projections of Earth’s climate and biogeochemical trajectory. In keeping with SOCCOM's knowledge sharing, or "broader impacts," component, all the information collected will be freely available to the public, researchers and industry.

SOCCOM will provide direct observations to further understand the importance of the Southern Ocean as suggested by models and ocean studies. Aside from carbon and heat uptake, models have indicated that the Southern Ocean delivers nutrients to lower-latitude surface waters that are critical to ocean ecosystems around the world. In addition, the impacts of ocean acidification as levels of carbon dioxide in atmosphere increase are projected to be most severe in the Southern Ocean.

Other than administering the project, Sarmiento and other Princeton researchers will co-lead the modeling and broader impacts components, as well as coordinated data management. Researchers from NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory housed on Princeton's Forrestal Campus will carry out high-resolution earth-system simulations in support of the modeling effort, which is led by the University of Arizona and includes collaborators from the University of Miami.

The floats will be constructed at the University of Washington with sensors from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; NOAA’s Climate Program Office will provide half of the basic Argo floats. Float deployment, observation analysis and data assimilation will be led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego. Climate Central, a non-profit science and journalism organization based in Princeton, will oversee the broader-impacts component. Researchers from Oregon State University and NOAA will develop the floats’ carbon algorithms.

“The SOCCOM effort is the first systematic expansion of the US Argo program into biogeochemistry. The unique subsurface ocean observations from SOCCOM will contribute towards our efforts to observe the global oceans,” said David Legler, director of NOAA’s Climate Observations Division.

In addition, NASA will support a complementary project involving researchers at the University of Maine and Rutgers University that will equip the floats with bio-optical sensors intended to gather data about biological processes in the water column.

This web story was written by Morgan Kelly, science writer for Princeton University, and includes an additional quote from NOAA's David Legler

Source: NOAA

Stanford scientists use ocean waves to monitor offshore oil and gas fields

A new technique for passively probing the sea floor using weak seismic waves generated by the ocean was tested at the Ekofisk oil field in the North Sea. 

A technology developed by Stanford scientists for passively probing the seafloor using weak seismic waves generated by the ocean could revolutionize offshore oil and natural gas extraction by providing real-time monitoring of the subsurface while lessening the impact on marine life.

"We've shown that we can generate images of the subsurface nearly every day instead of taking snapshots just two or three times a year," said Biondo Biondi, professor of geophysics at Stanford's School of Earth Sciences.

Currently, many energy companies use a technique called time-lapse reflection seismology to monitor offshore oil and gas deposits to optimize production and look for hazards such as hidden gas pockets. Reflection seismology involves ships towing arrays of "air guns" that explode every 10 to 15 seconds to produce loud sound pulses. The pulses bounce off the seafloor and geological formations beneath, then journey back to the surface, where they are recorded by hydrophones. The data are then deciphered to reveal details about subsurface structures.

Each survey can cost tens of millions of dollars, and as a result they are only conducted two to three times a year. Environmental groups and marine biologists have expressed concerns about the use of air guns for contributing to noise pollution in the ocean that can disturb or even injure marine animals, including humpback whales and giant squid.

The new technique developed by Biondi and Sjoerd de Ridder, a student of Biondi's who is now a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Edinburgh, is different. It exploits naturally occurring seismic waves generated by Earth's oceans that are several orders of magnitude weaker than those produced by earthquakes.

Ambient seismicity

As ocean waves collide with one another, they create pressures on the sea floor, where they generate seismic waves that then propagate in every direction. Scientists have known about this "ambient seismic field" for nearly a century, but it was only recently that they understood ways to harness it.

"We knew the ambient seismic energy was there, but we didn't know what we could do with it," De Ridder said. "That understanding has only been developed in recent years. Our technique provides the first large-scale application to harness it for oil and gas production."

The technique that Biondi and De Ridder developed, called ambient seismic field noise-correlation tomography, or ASNT, uses sensors embedded in the seafloor. The sensors, which are typically installed by robotic submersibles, are connected to one another by cables and arranged into parallel rows that can span several kilometers of the seafloor. Another cable connects the sensor array to a platform in order to collect data in real time.

The sensors record ambient seismic waves traveling through Earth's crust. The waves are ubiquitous, continuously generated and traveling in every direction, but using careful signal-processing schemes they developed, Biondi and De Ridder can digitally isolate only those waves that are passing through one sensor and then another one downstream. When this is done repeatedly, and for multiple sensors in the network, what emerges is a "virtual" seismic wave pattern that is remarkably similar to the kind generated by air guns.

Less disruptive

Because the ASNT technique is entirely passive, meaning it does not require a controlled explosion or a loud air gun blast to create a seismic wave signature, it can be performed for a fraction of the cost of an active-reflection-seismology survey and should be far less disruptive to marine life, the scientists say.

Since 2007, Biondi and De Ridder have been testing and refining their technique in a real-world laboratory in Europe. The scientists worked with the energy companies BP and ConocoPhillips to study recordings from existing sensor arrays in the Valhall and Ekofisk oil fields in the North Sea that are capable of recording ambient seismic waves.

The proof-of-concept experiment has been successful, and the scientists have demonstrated that they can image the subsurface at Valhall down to a depth of nearly 1,000 feet. "We've now shown that our technique can very reliably and repeatedly retrieve an image of the near-surface," De Ridder said. "Our hope is that they can also reveal changes in the rocks that could signal an impending problem."

Source: Stanford

Wave energy integration costs should compare favorably to other energy sources

The Ocean Sentinel has been deployed off the Oregon Coast, one of the nation's first wave energy testing devices. Credit: Pat Kight, Oregon Sea Grant

A new analysis suggests that large-scale wave energy systems developed in the Pacific Northwest should be comparatively steady, dependable and able to be integrated into the overall energy grid at lower costs than some other forms of alternative energy, including wind power.

The findings, published in the journal Renewable Energy, confirm what scientists have expected -- that wave energy will have fewer problems with variability than some energy sources and that by balancing wave energy production over a larger geographic area, the variability can be even further reduced.

The variability of alternative energy sources is one factor that holds back their wider use -- if wind or solar energy decreases and varies widely, then some other energy production has to back it up, and that adds to the overall cost of energy supply.

"Whenever any new form of energy is added, a challenge is to integrate it into the system along with the other sources," said Ted Brekken, an associate professor and renewable energy expert in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University.

"By producing wave energy from a range of different sites, possibly with different types of technology, and taking advantage of the comparative consistency of the wave resource itself, it appears that wave energy integration should be easier than that of wind energy," he said. "The reserve, or backup generation, necessary for wave energy integration should be minimal."

This estimate of the cost of integrating wind energy indicated that it would be 10 percent or less than the actual charges being made for the integration of wind energy. Energy integration, however, is just one component of the overall cost of the power generated. Wave energy, still in the infancy of its development, is not yet cost competitive on an overall basis.

Wave energy is not now being commercially produced in the Pacific Northwest, but experts say its future potential is significant, and costs should come down as technologies improve and more systems are developed. This study examined the hypothetical addition of 500 megawatts of generating capacity in this region by 2025, which would be comparable to approximately five large wind farms.

Another strength of wave energy, the study suggested, is that its short-term generation capacity can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy over a time scale ranging from minutes to hours, and with some accuracy even seasonally or annually.

The Pacific Northwest has some of the nation's best wave energy resources, and as a result is home to the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Wave energy in the region is expected to spur economic growth, help diversify the energy portfolio, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce transmission losses, the study noted.

Source: Oregon State University

John Lennon commemorated by naming a new tarantula species from South America after him

A newly described tarantula species from Western Brazilian Amazonia was named Bumba lennoni in honor of John Lennon, a founder member of the legendary band the Beatles. Credit: Doi: 10.3897/zookeys.448.7920, Image courtesy of Pensoft Publishers

A newly described tarantula species from Western Brazilian Amazonia was named Bumba lennoni in honor of John Lennon, a founder member of the legendary band the Beatles. The new species is part of the tarantula family Theraphosidae which comprises the largest spider species in the world. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The name of the new species came across when the authors of the study Fernando Pérez-Miles, from the University of the Republic, Uruguay, and Alexandre Bonaldo and Laura Miglio, both from the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, Brazil, found out that they are all great fans of the Beatles music.

The genus, Bumba, which is proposed as replacement of the old one Maraca, already taken and used for Orthoptera, also has a story behind the choice of name. The new name is taken from Brazilian theatrical folk tradition of the popular festival called Boi-bumbá (hit my bull), which takes place annually in North and Northeastern Brazil.

The new species, as other tarantulas, has defensive urticating hairs on the abdomen which produce irritation upon contact with the skin or sensible tissues.

The specimens used in the study were captured manually or in traps during the night in Caxiuaná, Pará, Brasil, which suggest they could be mainly nocturnal animals.

Source: Pensoft Publishers

Managing coasts under threat from climate change, sea-level rise

Sea levels are rising. Experts say that we need to address human-led and other non-climatic changes. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Southampton

Coastal regions under threat from climate change and sea-level rise need to tackle the more immediate threats of human-led and other non-climatic changes, according to a team of international scientists.

The team of 27 scientists from five continents, led by Dr Sally Brown at the University of Southampton, reviewed 24 years of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments (the fifth and latest set being published in 2013 and 2014). They focused on climate change and sea-level rise impacts in the coastal zone, and examined ways of how to better manage and cope with climate change.

They found that to better understand climate change and its impacts, scientists need to adopt an integrated approach into how coasts are changing. This involves recognising other causes of change, such as population growth, economic development and changes in biodiversity. Dr Brown emphasised that: "Over the last two and half decades, our scientific understanding of climate change and sea-level rise, and how it will affect coastal zones has greatly increased. We now recognise that we need to analyse all parts of our human and natural environments to understand how climate change will affect the world."

The scientists also acknowledged that long-term adaptation to climate change can greatly reduce impacts, but further research and evaluation is required to realise the potential of adaptation. "Many parts of the coast can, with forward planning, adapt to sea-level rise, but we need to better understand environments that will struggle to adapt, such as developing countries with large low-lying river deltas sensitive to salinisation, or coral reefs and particularly small, remote islands or poorer communities," said Dr Brown.

For example, in the Maldives, many small, remote low-lying islands are at risk from climate change and will struggle to adapt. But around the densely populated capital city and airport, adaptation has already occurred as land claim is a common practice in order to relive population pressure. Sea-level rise has already been considered into newly claimed land. 

Thus in decades to come, potential climate change impacts, such as flooding, will be reduced for this island, benefiting both the local population and economy.

Dr Jochen Hinkel from Global Climate Forum in Germany, who is a co-author of this paper and a Lead Author of the coastal chapter for the 2014 IPCC Assessment Report added: "The IPCC has done a great job in bringing together knowledge on climate change, sea-level rise and is potential impacts but now needs to complement this work with a solution-oriented perspective focusing on overcoming barriers to adaptation, mobilising resources, empowering people and discovering opportunities for strengthening coastal resilience in the context of both climate change as well as existing coastal challenges and other issues."

This new research, published as a commentary in Nature Climate Change, will help in the understanding of the impacts of climate change and how to reduce impacts via adaptation. Its multi-disciplinary approach could be useful if future IPCC assessment reports are commissioned.

Source: University of Southampton

Managing reefs to benefit coastal communities

Fishing. Credit: Josh Cinner

Coral reefs provide a range of benefits, such as food, opportunities for income and education, but not everyone has the same access to them, according to a new study conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.

The researchers examined how people from 28 fishing communities in Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles benefit from the marine environment.

For many years conservation in developing countries has been based on the assumption that improvements in ecosystem conditions, such as increasing coral reef fish biomass, will benefit the community as a whole.

But Dr Christina Hicks, a social scientist, says this is approach is too simplistic.

"Increased supply tends to benefit the elite, not the community as a whole," Dr Hicks says.

"We need to look at the social and economic access mechanisms that would enable a wider group of people to benefit from reefs and then develop policies based on that information," she says.

Study co-author Professor Josh Cinner from the Coral CoE says the focus on increasing the supply of benefits isn't enough.

"We need to pay more attention to how that benefit is distributed and how it is accessed by different people within a community," Professor Cinner says.

The researchers argue that policy makers need a more inclusive approach to managing coral reefs, which includes a focus on improving wellbeing.

"We tend to focus on economic growth because it is easy to measure, but this should be greatly expanded to include the way people can share in the benefits that flow from reefs," Dr Hicks says.

Source:  ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies.

Combatting illegal fishing in offshore marine reserves

Fishing boat. Credit: Henry Wolcott

Conservation scientists say there needs to be a new approach to protecting offshore marine reserves.

Illegal fishing in marine reserves will be a major focus at the IUCN World Parks Congress, which has opened in Sydney.

Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University, who are attending the conference, have found a way to predict illegal fishing activities to help authorities better protect marine reserves.

Marine reserves are the most common strategy used to protect and maintain marine ecosystems around the world.

The International Convention of Biological Diversity aims to have 10 per cent of the world's marine areas protected by 2020.

Many countries are contributing to this target by protecting remote, offshore areas. For example, the United States recently created the world's largest fully protected marine reserve, covering almost 1.27 million square kilometres in the central Pacific Ocean.

But scientists are concerned that while a great deal of effort is being made to create reserves, many countries are simply not able to enforce the laws that are supposed to protect them.

fishing gear. Image: Todd Steiner, Sea Turtle Restoration Project
The majority of fishers obey the law, but some don't.

"The success of protected areas depends on whether people comply with the regulations," says Professor Joshua Cinner from Coral CoE.

"Enforcement and compliance issues for large off-shore marine parks are fundamentally different to near-shore protected areas," Professor Cinner says.

He explains that the biggest problems facing countries trying to enforce offshore marine reserves is their distance from land and the difficulty and cost of patrolling large tracts of ocean.
"The distances to these areas can be very large. They are a long way from prying eyes and quite often the regulations are such that you have to actually catch people illegally fishing to prosecute them," Professor Cinner says.

"It can be extremely difficult for authorities to catch illegal fishers in the act."

In a bid to combat the problem, researchers at Coral CoE examined five years' worth of data collected from the World Heritage-listed Cocos Island National Park, a unique marine protected area in the Pacific Ocean about 500 kilometres off the west coast of Costa Rica.
From the records they were able identify illegal fishing patterns and predict both when and where illegal fishing was likely to happen.

They found that illegal fishing was concentrated in a few 'hotspots' and really ramped up during specific lunar phases of some months.

Professor Bob Pressey, also from Coral CoE, says authorities could use this knowledge to match patrols to the time and place when illegal fishers are most likely to be in action.
"Using a targeted approach helps authorities catch and deter illegal fishers, while saving money on patrols," Professor Pressey says.

"Rather than just hoping you can catch illegal fishers effectively by random patrols, we have used previous patrols to look for patterns which tell us when and where people fish illegally," adds Professor Cinner.

Study lead author, Coral CoE PhD candidate, Adrian Arias says the model of predicting illegal patterns from old records can be used to increase the success of patrols in other locations.

"Our research in Costa Rica showed how a systematic and periodic analysis of patrol records can help to increase the probability of catching illegal fishers. This could be done pretty much anywhere that patrol data are available," he says.

Professor Cinner adds that by better targeting limited resources, authorities have a greater chance of successfully protecting marine parks.

"Targeting resources is particularly important for developing countries such as Costa Rica, which have taken on the conservation challenge but don't have the same funding to ensure compliance as a country such as Australia."

Source: ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies

Recreational activity a major pollutant on Canadian coast of Pacific Ocean

This is University of Calgary associate professor in geography Stefania Bertazzon.
Credit: Robert Walker

From recreational boats and fishing vessels to commercial cruise ships and private marinas, a newly published study shows that oil discharges related to human maritime activity on the Canadian coast is posing a major threat to marine ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean.

The study -- published in the August edition of the journal Applied Geography, with University of Calgary associate professor in geography Stefania Bertazzon as lead author -- provides a geospatial analysis of oil discharges in the Canadian Pacific Ocean.

The findings show that a large portion of oil discharge within these waters stems from recreational activities, passenger traffic and fisheries. According to this scientific analysis -- conducted on oil spills observed by the National Aerial Surveillance Program with the use of remote sensing devices -- these sources are polluting the ocean along the British Columbia coast more than oil tankers and commercial cargo ships.

"Cargo ships and oil tankers are much more regulated with portside inspections and they have to meet certain standards," explains Bertazzon. "They're very aware of this surveillance and this is probably why our analysis suggests that they are responsible for a smaller portion of detected oil discharges. They have to be more careful."

Bertazzon adds: "We're not saying that cargo ships and oil tankers are not polluting. What we are saying is that they are not the only source of pollution in the Canadian Pacific Ocean."
Bertazzon and her co-authors explain that fuel docks for recreational and fishing vessels can be problematic. "We know that there's a lot of oil discharge in these fuel docks, which is largely uncontrolled," she says.

"One thing that happens in these marinas is there's a lot of old boats which have been sitting there for years slowly leaking into the ocean. These are not huge spills. It's a relatively small discharge. But there's a lot of these derelict vessels and together they make for a large source of pollution."

While there's no denying the impact of large-scale oil industry disasters such as the Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010, Bertazzon argues that the oil discharges related to maritime activities are even more devastating to marine ecosystems in the long run.
"There is scientific evidence to show that these day to day activities have a larger impact on the wild life and the marine ecosystem than those accidents that are huge, but limited in space and time," says Bertazzon. "What we're talking about happens every day, all along the coast. The impact is longer term and over a larger spatial extent."

Source:  University of Calgary

New study explains the role of oceans in 'global warming hiatus'

Warming hiatus illustrated.
Credit: Image courtesy of University of Southampton

New research shows that ocean heat uptake across three oceans is the likely cause of the ‘warming hiatus’ – the current decade-long slowdown in global surface warming. Using data from a range of state-of-the-art ocean and atmosphere models, the research shows that the increased oceanic heat drawdown in the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Ocean basins has played a significant role in the hiatus.

Using data from a range of state-of-the-art ocean and atmosphere models, the research shows that the increased oceanic heat drawdown in the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Ocean basins has played a significant role in the hiatus.

The new analysis has been published in Geophysical Research Letters by Professor Sybren Drijfhout from the University of Southampton and collaborators from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Dr Adam Blaker, Professor Simon Josey, Dr George Nurser and Dr Bablu Sinha, together with Dr Magdalena Balmaseda from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF).

Professor Drijfhout said: "This study attributes the increased oceanic heat drawdown in the equatorial Pacific, North Atlantic and Southern Ocean to specific, different mechanisms in each region. This is important as current climate models have been unable to simulate the hiatus. Our study gives clues to where the heat is drawn down and by which processes. This can serve as a benchmark for climate models on how to improve their projections of future global mean temperature."

Previously, the drawdown of heat by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean over the hiatus period, due to cool sea-surface temperatures associated with a succession of cool-surface La Nina episodes, was thought to be sufficient to explain the hiatus.

However, this new analysis reveals that the northern North Atlantic, the Southern Ocean and Equatorial Pacific Ocean are all important regions of ocean heat uptake. Each basin contributes a roughly equal amount to explaining the hiatus, but the mechanisms of heat drawdown are different and specific in each basin.

In the North Atlantic, more heat has been retained at deep levels as a result of changes to both the ocean and atmospheric circulations, which have led to the winter atmosphere extracting less heat from the ocean.

In the Southern Ocean, the extra drawdown of heat had gone unnoticed and is increasing on a much longer timescale (multi-decadal) than the other two regions (decadal). Here, gradual changes in the prevailing westerly winds have modified the ocean-atmosphere heat exchange, particularly in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The team calculated the change in the amount of heat entering the ocean using a state-of-the-art high resolution ocean model developed and run by NOC scientists that is driven by surface observations. This estimate was compared with results from an ocean model-data synthesis from ECMWF and a leading atmospheric model-data synthesis produced in the US. Professor Josey said: "It is the synthesis of information from models and observational data that provides a major strength of our study."

Dr Sinha concluded: "The deeper understanding gained in this study of the processes and regions responsible for variations in oceanic heat drawdown and retention will improve the accuracy of future climate projections."

Source: University of Southampton

Better regulations needed for deep-sea biology

Deep-sea biology. Credit: Image courtesy of Radboud University Nijmegen

Although we know relatively little about the deep sea, we do extract raw materials for electronics and medicines from it. Biologist Erik Dücker describes the history of deep-sea biology in his thesis. He also gives some pointers on policy and on how to protect this remarkable but rather inaccessible area. He will receive his PhD at Radboud University on 23 September.

Deep-sea biology involves doing research below a depth of one thousand metres. 'The upper thousand metres and the seabed are familiar areas, since they are relatively easy to research', Dücker explains, 'but we are very much in the dark, literally and metaphorically, about the area in between. Deep-sea research is extremely expensive and complicated. Just one expedition day costs $30,000. However, the field biologists that do go down to that depth discover new species on every expedition. So the prospects for new knowledge are good.'

Harvesting manganese nodules from the deep sea
Such prospects make it essential to have a clear policy. Industries like deep-sea mining will do anything to obtain licences to exploit the area, while the consequences of mining remain underexplored. For example, they want to harvest manganese nodules from the seabed. These 'lumps' have taken millions of years to grow and contain traces of the valuable rare-earth metals used to produce electronic appliances like iPhones. Inactive hydrothermal vents -- cracks in the Earth's crust -- contain such metals too.

Policy on rare-earth metals
At present, 95% of rare-earth metals come from China. Buyers (mainly Western countries) are therefore looking for alternative sources. Many have set their sights on the deep sea. However, 'harvesting manganese nodules is anything but sustainable. They are not replaceable because nodule formation is the slowest geological process we know. In addition, harvesting is technically difficult and expensive, so for a long time it was thought to be impossible. Nevertheless, experts expect this harvesting to happen on a larger scale within the next ten years, so we quickly need to agree on ways of doing this properly.'

Double role for deep-sea biologists
Dücker hopes his thesis will make policymakers realise that they not only have to protect the deep sea but also the deep-sea biologists. 'There are few deep-sea biologists, so they often have a double role. Governments as well as companies and environmental protectionists ask them to do research and to gather information. They have a heavy responsibility to deal fairly with conflicting interests and to remain autonomous.'

Source:  Radboud University Nijmegen

Scientists caution against exploitation of deep ocean

A new OSU study looks at how exploiting the ocean's vast resources have put it in peril. 
Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University

The world's oceans are vast and deep, yet rapidly advancing technology and the quest for extracting resources from previously unreachable depths is beginning to put the deep seas on the cusp of peril, an international team of scientists warned this week.

In an analysis in Biogeosciences, which is published by the European Geosciences Union, the researchers outline "services" or benefits provided by the deep ocean to society. Yet using these services, now and in the future, is likely to make a significant impact on that habitat and what it ultimately does for society, they point out in their analysis.

"The deep sea is the largest habitat on Earth, it is incredibly important to humans and it is facing a variety of stressors from increased human exploitation to impacts from climate change," said Andrew Thurber, an Oregon State University marine scientist and lead author on the study. "As we embark upon greater exploitation of this vast environment and start thinking about conserving its resources, it is imperative to know what this habitat already does for us."

"Our analysis is an effort to begin to summarize what the deep sea provides to humans because we take it for granted or simply do not know that the deep sea does anything to shape our daily lives," he added. "The truth is that the deep sea affects us, whether we live on the coast or far from the ocean -- and its impact on the globe is pervasive."

The deep sea is important to many critical processes that affect Earth's climate, including acting as a "sink" for greenhouse gases -- helping offset the growing amounts of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. It also regenerates nutrients through upwelling that fuel the marine food web in productive coastal systems such as the Pacific Northwest of the United States, Chile and others. Increasingly, fishing and mining industries are going deeper and deeper into the oceans to extract natural resources.

"One concern is that many of these areas are in international waters and outside of any national jurisdiction," noted Thurber, an assistant professor (senior research) in Oregon State's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. "Yet the impacts are global, so we need a global effort to begin protecting and managing these key, albeit vast, habitats."

Fishing is an obvious concern, the scientists say. Advances in technology have enabled commercial fisheries to harvest fish at increasing depths -- an average of 62.5 meters deeper every decade, according to fisheries scientists. This raises a variety of potential issues.

"The ability to fish deeper is shifting some fisheries to deeper stocks, and opening up harvests of new species," Thurber said. "In some local cases, individual fisheries are managed aggressively, but due to how slow the majority of the fish grow in the deep, some fish populations are still in decline -- even with the best management practices."

The orange roughy off New Zealand, for instance, is both a model of effective and conservation-based management, yet its populations continue to decline, though at a slower rate than they would have experienced without careful management, Thurber noted.

"We also have to be concerned about pollution that makes its way from our continental shelves into the deep sea," he added. "Before it was 'out of sight, out of mind.' However, some of the pollution can either make it into the fish that we harvest, or harm the fishers that collect the fish for us. It is one of the reasons need to identify how uses of the deep sea in the short term can have long-term consequences. Few things happen fast down there."

Mining is a major threat to the deep sea, the researchers point out in their analysis. In particular, the quest for rare earth and metal resources, which began decades ago, has skyrocketed in recent years because of their increased use in electronics, and because of dwindling or limited distribution of supplies on land. Mining the deep ocean for manganese nodules, for example -- which are rich in nickel -- requires machines that may directly impact large swaths of the seafloor and send up a sediment plume that could potentially affect an even larger area, the scientists note.

These mining resources are not limited to muddy habitats, Thurber pointed out. Massive sulfides present at hydrothermal vents are another resource targeted by mining interests.

"The deep sea has been an active area for oil and gas harvesting for many years," he said, "yet large reservoirs of methane and other potential energy sources remain unexploited. In addition to new energy sources, the potential for novel pharmaceuticals is also vast.

"There are additional threats to these unique habitats, including ocean acidification, warming temperatures and possible changes to ocean circulation through climate change."

The next step, the researchers say, is to attach an economic value to both the services provided by the deep sea -- and the activities that may threaten those services.

"What became clear as we put together this synopsis is that there is vast potential for future resources but we already benefit greatly through this environment," Thurber said. ""What this means is that while the choices to harvest or mine will be decided over the coming decades, it is important to note that the stakeholders of this environment represent the entire world's population."

"The Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and early Greek texts all reference the deep sea," he added. "Maybe it's time for all of us to take a closer look at what it has to offer and decide if and how we protect it."

Source: Oregon State University

Experts call for urgent defense of deep ocean

This is fangtooth, Anoplogaster cornuta, one of numerous deep-sea creatures. Credit: Danté Fenolio, Ph.D. Manager of Conservation and Research San Antonio Zoo

A university of Southampton oceanographer is working with experts from around the globe to warn against lasting damage to the deep-ocean, caused by fishing, oil and gas development, industrial-scale mining, waste disposal and land-based pollution.

The world's deep-ocean spans more than half the planet and holds vast quantities of untapped energy resources, precious metals and minerals. But as advancements in technology enable greater access to these treasures of the deep, experts are urging caution, highlighting the potentially irreversible damage that extracting such materials can cause.

Writing in the research journal Science, the University of Southampton's Dr Maria Baker and co-authors call for a balance to be struck between the wise use of resources and maintenance of the deep ocean's delicate ecological balance.

The deep-ocean, below 200 meters, extends across national and international authorities and is managed separately by individual sectors. This means an area protected against trawler fishing, for example, could still be considered for mining operations and vice versa. The paper suggests this approach is not sufficient to ensure a balanced, sustainable use of resources and calls for further collaboration to manage to the cumulative effects of these activities.

"Currently, governance of our deep-ocean is fragmented," Dr Baker says, "We need to achieve integrated thinking and communication across all deep-sea stakeholders and across all jurisdictions -- this is key to delivering the best possible solutions for future deep-ocean resource use and long-term environmental protection."

Long term and possibly irreversible damage has already been caused to the deep-ocean by human actions. One fifth of the continental slope (an area of 4.4 million km2) has been trawled at least once and often multiple times by the fishing industry, leading to habitat loss and removal of slow to reproduce species. According to the paper, the underwater environment has also served as an international dumping ground for radioactive waste, sewage and toxic chemicals.

Deep-ocean mining is an emerging industry and the International Seabed Authority has already developed regulations for mining exploration of the international seabed. In addition, many nations are in the process of leasing offshore mining.

Dr Baker said: "We require transparency and flexibility within all areas of governance to make this work. Management should be a dynamic process whereby strategies will evolve as we learn more about our deep-ocean ecosystems and their response and resilience to exploitation. We should not hesitate -- we need to move forward at once. Future generations depend upon our actions."

The recommendations in this paper arose during an inaugural meeting of the Deep-ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI). According to Dr Lisa Levin, one of DOSI's founders, "The Initiative is designed to bring natural and social scientists, regulators, the private sector and civil society together to provide guidance on environmental management of the deep-ocean. We humans don't have a great track record with stewardship of land and our coastal ocean. Hopefully, we can do a better job with the deep half of the planet."

The paper is part of ELI's broader efforts to support sustainable management of the deep-ocean, including its Gulf of Mexico Program to support the public's role in restoration in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster of 2010.

The J.M. Kaplan Fund and the International Network for Scientific Investigation of deep-sea ecosystems (INDEEP) through a grant from Foundation Total have supported development of the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative.

Source:  University of Southampton

Stop Emitting Carbon Dioxide, Or Geoengineering Could Be Only Hope For Earth's Climate, Experts Warn

A new report finds that unless future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are much more successful than they have been so far, additional action in the form of geoengineering will be necessary if we are to cool the planet. Credit: iStockphoto/Andrey Prokhorov

The future of the Earth could rest on potentially dangerous and unproven geoengineering technologies unless emissions of carbon dioxide can be greatly reduced, the latest Royal Society report has found.

The report (published September 1, 2009 by the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science) found that unless future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are much more successful than they have been so far, additional action in the form of geoengineering will be necessary if we are to cool the planet. Geoengineering technologies were found to be very likely to be technically possible and some were considered to be potentially useful to augment the continuing efforts to mitigate climate change by reducing emissions. However, the report identified major uncertainties regarding their effectiveness, costs and environmental impacts.

Professor John Shepherd, who chaired the Royal Society’s geoengineering study, said, “It is an unpalatable truth that unless we can succeed in greatly reducing CO₂emissions we are headed for a very uncomfortable and challenging climate future, and geoengineering will be the only option left to limit further temperature increases. Our research found that some geoengineering techniques could have serious unintended and detrimental effects on many people and ecosystems - yet we are still failing to take the only action that will prevent us from having to rely on them. Geoengineering and its consequences are the price we may have to pay for failure to act on climate change.”

The report assesses the two main kinds of geoengineering techniques – Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Management (SRM). CDR techniques address the root of the problem – rising CO₂ – and so have fewer uncertainties and risks, as they work to return the Earth to a more normal state. They are therefore considered preferable to SRM techniques, but none has yet been demonstrated to be effective at an affordable cost, with acceptable environmental impacts, and they only work to reduce temperatures over very long timescales.

SRM techniques act by reflecting the sun’s energy away from Earth, meaning they lower temperatures rapidly, but do not affect CO₂ levels. They therefore fail to address the wider effects of rising CO₂, such as ocean acidification, and would need to be deployed for a very long time. Although they are relatively cheap to deploy, there are considerable uncertainties about their regional consequences, and they only reduce some, but not all, of the effects of climate change, while possibly creating other problems. The report concludes that SRM techniques could be useful if a threshold is reached where action to reduce temperatures must be taken rapidly, but that they are not an alternative to emissions reductions or CDR techniques.

Professor Shepherd added, “None of the geoengineering technologies so far suggested is a magic bullet, and all have risks and uncertainties associated with them. It is essential that we strive to cut emissions now, but we must also face the very real possibility that we will fail. If “Plan B” is to be an option in the future, considerable research and development of the different methods, their environmental impacts and governance issues must be undertaken now. Used irresponsibly or without regard for possible side effects, geoengineering could have catastrophic consequences similar to those of climate change itself. We must ensure that a governance framework is in place to prevent this.”

Of the CDR techniques assessed, the following were considered to have most useful potential:

• CO₂ capture from ambient air – this would be the preferred method of geoengineering, as it effectively reverses the cause of climate change. At this stage no cost-effective methods have yet been demonstrated and much more research and development is needed.
• Enhanced weathering – this technique, which utilises naturally occurring reactions of CO₂ from the air with rocks and minerals, was identified as a prospective longer-term option. However more research is needed to find cost-effective methods and to understand the wider environmental implications.
• Land use and afforestation – the report found that land use management could and should play a small but significant role in reducing the growth of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However the scope for applying this technique would be limited by land use conflicts, and all the competing demands for land must be considered when assessing the potential for afforestation and reforestation. Should temperatures rise to such a level where more rapid action needs to be taken, the following SRM techniques were considered to have most potential:
• Stratospheric aerosols – these were found to be feasible, and previous volcanic eruptions have effectively provided short-term preliminary case studies of the potential effectiveness of this method. The cost was assessed as likely to be relatively low and the timescale of action short. However, there are some serious questions over adverse effects, particularly depletion of stratospheric ozone.
• Space-based methods – these were considered to be a potential SRM technique for long-term use, if the major problems of implementation and maintenance could be solved. At present the techniques remain prohibitively expensive, complex and would be slow to implement.
• Cloud albedo approaches (eg. cloud ships) – the effects would be localised and the impacts on regional weather patterns and ocean currents are of considerable concern but are not well understood. The feasibility and effectiveness of the technique is uncertain. A great deal more research would be needed before this technique could be seriously considered.

The following techniques were considered to have lower potential:

• Biochar (CDR technique) – the report identified significant doubts relating to the potential scope, effectiveness and safety of this technique and recommended that substantial research would be required before it could be considered for eligibility for UN carbon credits.
• Ocean fertilisation (CDR technique) – the report found that this technique had not been proved to be effective and had high potential for unintended and undesirable ecological side effects.
• Surface albedo approaches (SRM technique, including white roof methods, reflective crops and desert reflectors) – these were found to be ineffective, expensive and, in some cases, likely to have serious impacts on local and regional weather patterns.

Source: The Royal Society

The Massive debris pile reveals risk of huge tsunamis in Hawaii

The researchers simulated earthquakes with magnitudes between 9.0 and 9.6 originating at different locations along the Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone, and found that the unique geometry of the eastern Aleutians would direct the largest post-earthquake tsunami energy directly toward the Hawaiian Islands. The red circles are centered on Kaua‘i and encircle the Big Island. Credit: Rhett Butler

A mass of marine debris discovered in a giant sinkhole in the Hawaiian islands provides evidence that at least one mammoth tsunami, larger than any in Hawaii's recorded history, has struck the islands, and that a similar disaster could happen again, new research finds. Scientists are reporting that a wall of water up to nine meters (30 feet) high surged onto Hawaiian shores about 500 years ago. A 9.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of the Aleutian Islands triggered the mighty wave, which left behind up to nine shipping containers worth of ocean sediment in a sinkhole on the island of Kauai.

The tsunami was at least three times the size of a 1946 tsunami that was the most destructive in Hawaii's recent history, according to the new study that examined deposits believed to have come from the extreme event and used models to show how it might have occurred. Tsunamis of this magnitude are rare events. An earthquake in the eastern Aleutian Trench big enough to generate a massive tsunami like the one in the study is expected to occur once every thousand years, meaning that there is a 0.1 percent chance of it happening in any given year -- the same probability as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake that struck Japan, according to Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii.

Nevertheless, the new research has prompted Honolulu officials to revise their tsunami evacuation maps to account for the possibility of an extreme tsunami hitting the county of nearly 1 million people. The new maps would more than double the area of evacuation in some locations, according to Fryer.
"You're going to have great earthquakes on planet Earth, and you're going to have great tsunamis," said Rhett Butler, a geophysicist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and lead author of the new study published online in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. "People have to at least appreciate that the possibility is there."

Hawaiians have told stories about colossal tsunamis hitting the islands for generations, but possible evidence of these massive waves was only first detected in the late 1990s when David Burney, a paleoecologist at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kalaheo, was excavating the Makauwahi sinkhole, a collapsed limestone cave on the south shore of Kauai.

Two meters (six and a half feet) below the surface he encountered a layer of sediment marked by coral fragments, mollusk shells and coarse beach sand that could only have come from the sea. But the mouth of the sinkhole was separated from the shore by 100 meters (328 feet) of land and seven-meter (23-foot) high walls. Burney speculated that the deposit could have been left by a massive tsunami, but he was unable to verify the claim.

The deposits remained a mystery until the Tohoku earthquake hit Japan in 2011. It caused water to surge inland like a rapidly rising tide, reaching heights up to 39 meters (128 feet) above the normal sea level. After that tsunami deluged the island nation, scientists began to question Hawaii's current tsunami evacuation maps. The maps are based largely upon the 1946 tsunami, which followed a magnitude 8.6 earthquake in the Aleutian Islands and caused water to rise only two and a half meters (8 feet) up the side of the Makauwahi sinkhole.

"[The Japan earthquake] was bigger than almost any seismologist thought possible," said Butler. "Seeing [on live TV] the devastation it caused, I began to wonder, did we get it right in Hawaii? Are our evacuation zones the correct size?"

To find out, the study's authors used a wave model to predict how a tsunami would flood the Kauai coastline. They simulated earthquakes with magnitudes between 9.0 and 9.6 originating at different locations along the Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone, a 3,400-kilometer (2,113-mile) long ocean trench stretching along the southern coast of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands where the Pacific tectonic plate is slipping under the North American plate.

The researchers found that the unique geometry of the eastern Aleutians would direct the largest post-earthquake tsunami energy directly toward the Hawaiian Islands. Inundation models showed that an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 9.0 in just the right spot could produce water levels on the shore that reached eight to nine meters (26 to 30 feet) high, easily overtopping the Makauwahi sinkhole wall where the ocean deposits were found.

The authors used radiocarbon-dated marine deposits from Sedanka Island off the coast of Alaska and along the west coasts of Canada and the United States dating back to the same time period as the Makauwahi deposit to show that all three sediments could have come from the same tsunami and provide some evidence that the event occurred, according to the study.

"[The authors] stitched together geological evidence, anthropological information as well as geophysical modeling to put together this story that is tantalizing for a geologist but it's frightening for people in Hawaii," said Robert Witter, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska who was not involved in the study.

According to Witter, it is possible that a massive tsunami hit Hawaii hundreds of years ago, based on the deposits found in the Kauai sinkhole, but he said it is difficult to determine if all three locations experienced the same event based on radiocarbon dating alone.

Radiocarbon dating only gives scientists a rough estimate of the age of a deposit, he said. All three locations offer evidence of a great tsunami occurring between 350 and 575 years ago, but it is hard to know if it was the same tsunami or ones that occurred hundreds of years apart.

"An important next thing to do is to look for evidence for tsunamis elsewhere in the Hawaiian island chain," said Witter.

Fryer, of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, is confident that more evidence of the massive tsunami will be found, confirming that events of this magnitude have rocked the island chain in the not-so-distant past.

"I've seen the deposit," said Fryer, who was not involved in the study. "I'm absolutely convinced it's a tsunami, and it had to be a monster tsunami."

Fryer is so convinced that he has worked with the city and county of Honolulu to update their tsunami evacuation maps to include the possibility of a massive tsunami the size of the one detailed in the new study hitting the islands. The county hopes to have the new maps distributed to residents by the end of the year, he said.

"We prepared ourselves for the worst tsunami that's likely to happen in one hundred years," Fryer said of the current tsunami evacuation maps based on the 1946 event. "What hit Japan was a thousand-year event … and this scenario [in the eastern Aleutians] is a thousand year event."

Source: American Geophysical Union