Blue Marble

Polar bear on a remnant ice floe: Credit: Gerard Van der Leun at Flickr.

As predicted by chemistry, change in the Arctic Ocean is accelerating as temperatures warm faster than the global average, as the sea ice melts, as northern rivers run stronger and faster, delivering more fresh water farther into the northernmost ocean, and as we continue blasting an ever increasing quantity of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The Arctic Ocean Acidification Assessment, a new report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), presents these 10 key findings: 

1. Arctic marine waters are experiencing widespread and rapid ocean acidification. In the Nordic Seas, acidification is taking place over a wide range of ocean depths, from surface waters (faster) to deep waters (more slowly). Seawater pH has declined ~0.02 per decade since the late 1960s in the Iceland and Barents Seas. Other ocean acidification signals have also been encountered in surface waters of the Bering Strait and the Canada Basin of the central Arctic Ocean.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

2. The primary driver of ocean acidification is uptake of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere by human activities. The ocean has swallowed our atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions and slowed global warming during the past few critical decades while we dithered in disbelief. But the cost of temporarily delaying even more warming has been the increasing acidification of seawater. The average acidity of surface ocean waters worldwide is now ~30% higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

3. The Arctic Ocean is especially vulnerable to ocean acidification. Arctic rivers plus melting ice input huge (and increasing) amounts of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean, changing the chemistry and making it less effective at neutralizing CO2's acidifying effects. Add the fact that cold waters slurp up more CO2 from the air. Add the fact that dramatic decreases in Arctic summer sea-ice cover—real and projected—allow for greater transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere into the ocean. These combined influences make Arctic waters among the world's most easily acidified. 

US Geological Survey at Flickr

4. Acidification is not uniform across the Arctic Ocean. Other processes influence the pace and extent of ocean acidification. Rivers, sea-floor sediments, and coastal erosion all supply organic material that bacteria can convert to carbon dioxide, exacerbating ocean acidification, especially on shallow continental shelves. Sea-ice cover, freshwater inputs, and plant growth and decay also influence local ocean acidification. The contributions of these processes vary from place to place, season to season, and year to year. The result is a complex, unevenly distributed, ever-changing mosaic of Arctic acidification states.

Brian Gratwicke at Flickr

5. Arctic marine ecosystems are highly likely to undergo significant change due to ocean acidification. Arctic marine ecosystems are generally characterized by short, simple food webs, where energy is channeled in just a few steps from small plants and animals to large predators like seabirds and seals. The integrity of such a simple structure depends greatly on keystone species. Pteropods (sea butterflies) and echinoderms (sea stars, urchins) are key food-web organisms that may be sensitive to ocean acidification. Too few data are presently available to assess the precise nature and extent of Arctic ecosystem vulnerability, as most biological studies have been undertaken in other ocean regions. Arctic-specific long-term studies are urgently needed.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

6. Ocean acidification will have direct and indirect effects on arctic marine life. Some marine organisms will respond positively to new conditions associated with ocean acidification. Others won't. Experiments show that a wide variety of animals grow more slowly under the acidification levels projected for coming centuries. While some seagrasses appear to thrive under such conditions. Birds and mammals are not likely to be directly affected by acidification but may be indirectly affected if their food sources decline, expand, relocate, or otherwise change in response to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification may alter the extent to which nutrients and essential trace elements in seawater are available to marine organisms. Shell-building Arctic mollusks are likely to be negatively affected by acidification, especially at early life stages. Juvenile and adult fishes are thought likely to cope with acidification levels projected for the next century, but fish eggs and early larval stages may be more sensitive. In general, early life stages are more susceptible to direct effects of ocean acidification than later life stages.

US Geological Survey at Flickr

7. Ocean acidification impacts must be assessed in the context of other changes happening in Arctic waters. Arctic marine organisms are experiencing not only acidification but also other large simultaneous changes: climate change, harvesting, habitat degradation, and pollution. Ecological interactions—e.g. between predators and prey, or among competitors—also play an important role in shaping ocean communities. As different marine life responds to environmental change in different ways, the mix of plants and animals in a community will change, as will their interactions with each other. We don't know much of anything about this yet.

NOAA Photo Library at Flickr

8. Ocean acidification is one of several factors that may contribute to alteration of fish species' composition in the Arctic Ocean. Ocean acidification is likely to affect the abundance, productivity, and distribution of marine species. But the magnitude and direction of change are uncertain. Other processes driving Arctic change include rising temperatures, diminishing sea ice, and freshening surface waters.

Western Arctic National Parklands at Flickr

9. Ocean acidification may affect Arctic fisheries. Few studies have estimated the socio-economic impacts of ocean acidification on fisheries, and most have focused largely on shellfish and on regions outside the Arctic. The quantity, quality, and predictability of commercially important Arctic fish stocks may be affected by ocean acidification, but the magnitude and direction of change are uncertain. Fish stocks may be more robust to ocean acidification if other stresses—for example, overfishing or habitat degradation—are minimized.

missmonet at Flickr

10. Ecosystem changes associated with ocean acidification may affect the livelihoods of Arctic peoples. Marine species harvested by northern coastal communities include species likely to be affected by acidification. Most indigenous groups harvest a range of organisms and may be able to shift to a greater reliance on unaffected species, but these changes would likely exert a cultural toll. Recreational fish catches may change to different species. While marine mammals—important to the culture, diets and livelihoods of Arctic indigenous peoples and other Arctic residents—are unlikely to escape changes in the Arctic Ocean food web.

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Excess gas flares off at a well site outside Williston.

At 7:00 am local time this morning, Lonnie's Roadhouse Cafe in Willison, North Dakota, was already bustling, packed to the gills with truckers and roughnecks tanking up on coffee and omelettes for another day in that town's ongoing fracking boom.

"It's continuous, it doesn't stop," says manager Lonnie Iverson. "Busy, busy, busy."

It's become a typical scene here in the last several years, as new drilling technology has unleashed massive deposits of oil from the Bakken Shale, in the process slashing unemployment to the lowest anywhere in the nation, minting a new class of oil wealth, and generally upending what was once a backwater prairie town—turmoil Climate Desk witnessed first-hand last year (see video below). And it looks like that growth is here for the long haul: A new analysis out yesterday from the US Geological Survey doubled previous estimates of how much oil is in reserve under North Dakota, up to 7.4 billion barrels, which would make it the largest oil field in the country.

"It's good," Lonnie says. "It'll keep our people working." And eating, presumably.

The new numbers come as no surprise to the fossil fuel titans behind the boom: Back in 2011, fracking kingpin Harold Hamm said he thought the Bakken will ultimately churn out 24 billion barrels. While the new federal analysis doesn't go quite that far, it does confirm that places like Lonnie's are likely to be jam-packed for the forseeable future. The exact expiration date of the boom remains unclear: Local officials are hesitant to pin it down, and estimates made before yesterday's analysis range from 20 to 100 years, depending on technological advances, future oil prices, and the level of private investment. But the USGS report could help clear that up: Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) requested the update in 2011 precisely to boost confidence in the corporations slinging up hotels, restaurants, and other services for the surging worker population.

The last time USGS took a crack at guessing what the Bakken might hold was in 2008; the upward revision since then comes mainly as a product of the learning process that happens when developers start to drill. As more wells go in and more oil comes out, geologists can refine their sense of what lies in store, said Jim Ladlee, associate director of Penn State University's Marcellus Center, which tracks the fracking revolution nationwide. 

"The technology is always evolving," he said, "there's constant change and constant evolution going on."

At the same time, the new estimate takes into account for the first time the Three Forks Formation, a nearby oil deposit that was previously—incorrectly—thought to be unproductive. It also nearly triples previous assumptions about natural gas reserves. 

[Read more]

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Some of Florida's butterflies go missing for years and then come back. The Meske's skipper was AWOL for a decade before returning. Photo by Mary Keimat Flickr.

An entomologist hired by the state of Florida to find any surviving members of five rare butterflies species spent six years on the search instead of the two without finding any. "I thought I was going to find some at some point so I just took a lot more time," Marc Minno told the Miami Herald. "They're just not there." He concluded that the Zestos skipper and the rockland Meske's skipper—which haven't been seen in more than a decade—should be declared extinct, that the Zarucco duskywing is likely extinct too, and that the nickerbean blue and the Bahamian swallowtail are now gone from their North American range: the coastal and inland forests of southern Florida. From the Miami Herald:

Considering that there have been only four previous presumed extinctions of North American butterflies—the last in California more than 50 years ago—Minno finds the government response to such an alarming wave frustrating. "There are three butterflies here that have just winked out and no one did a thing about it," Minno said. "I don't know what has happened with our agencies that are supposed to protect wildlife. They're just kind of sitting on their hands and watching them go extinct."

Worse, because these species were never listed as threatened or endangered they now fall into a limbo where the government won't declare them extinct either. "There is no requirement for us to do anything as far as a formal announcement that it's gone," Ken Warren, spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service's South Florida office, told the Miami Herald. Meanwhile Minno argues that something is badly awry when species vanish before the feds even begin the process of considering whether or not they're in trouble.

Alarmed over the backlog of 757 species awaiting listing, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Fish and Wildlife Service and won a settlement in 2011 "requiring the agency to make initial or final decisions on whether to add hundreds of imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list by 2018." Unfortunately that may already be too late for these five butterflies species.

The problems facing butterflies in Florida and elsewhere are complex and poorly understood, but include: climate change; urban sprawl; pesticides; hurricanes; invasive species; and all the perils associated with the genetic bottlenecks that accompany species in sharp decline. Last summer an effort was made to begin captive breeding of Florida's Schaus butterflies, but only a handful of individuals could be found in the wild and none was a female. 

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Paleoanthropologist and Berkeley professor Tim White has been waiting for years to drill into the Gulf of Aden near the Indian Ocean seabed for ancient ashes from African volcanoes. By comparing the different layers in the sea core to those found on land, he hopes to be able to estimate the age of certain fossils, thus advancing our understanding of both human evolution and climate change.

But there's a problem: Pirates have made it too dangerous to put a boat anywhere near the ash that White needs. Somali buccaneers claimed more than 3,740 crew members from 125 countries as victims between 2005 and 2012, according to the World Bank. Globally, the economic cost of piracy comes to $18 billion per year. And now, scientific research appears to be another casualty of the marauding bandits. 

"Piracy has stopped oceanographic work in the region," White  told National Geographic this week. "There's been no data coming out of this area for years. Zero."

White's research requires the use of the JOIDES Resolution, an oceanographic ship with a drilling rig. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), which controls the JOIDES Resolution, has docked three projects near Somalia (including White's) due to safety concerns. "To get the kind of climate records we're after, you need to sit on station for two days to a week," says Sarah Feakins, an assistant professor of Earth Science at USC whose research is also being stalled. "The ship is in one place, which makes it more dangerous."

According to National Geographic, White's and Feakin's frustrations are echoed by scientists worldwide:

"Scientists from around the globe, specializing in subjects as diverse as plate tectonics, plankton evolution, oceanography, and climate change, are decrying a growing void of research that has spread across hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Indian Ocean near the Horn of Africa-an immense, watery "data hole" swept clean of scientific research by the threat of Somali buccaneering."

Back in 2011, Australian researchers interested in studying international weather patterns asked the Australian and US navies to help them fend off threats from Somali pirates. In a joint military effort, the two countries' navies protected the researchers' instruments. 

But this kind of aid wouldn't help with White's sea core drilling. "You can do some science off military vessels, but for these operations you need sediment coring ships themselves," said Feakins. An armed escort for the research vessels could work, but Feakins told National Geographic that when she suggested this idea, "it caused a firestorm of anger from everybody from the US State Department to the IODP." Scientific groups say such efforts would hurt their insurance policies, and governments hesitate to foot the bill.

So far in 2013 there have been four pirate hijackings worldwide, down from 14 in 2012 and 31 in 2011. But despite the recent decline, scientists still don't know when—or if—their research will be able to move forward. 

"My sense is the window of opportunity may not open again for many, many years," says White. 

According to Feakins, the last time any science was done in the Gulf of Aden was in 2001. "The climate system is changing and it's a shame not to have any information on this region," she says. 

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