Study: First Ever Evidence Of Natural Disease Resistance In Tropical Corals

Underwatertimes.com News ServiceNovember 21, 2008 18:33 EST Boston, Massachusetts -- In recent years, tropical coral reefs have become drastically altered by disease epidemics. In a new study published by PLoS ONE, lead author Steven V. Vollmer, assistant professor of biology at the Marine Science Center at Northeastern University, finds that acroporid corals listed on the US Endangered Species List due to epidemics of White Band Disease can recover because up to six percent of the remaining corals are naturally resistant to the disease. This is the first evidence of natural disease resistance in tropical reef corals.
The Carribean-wide mass die-offs of acroporid corals and urchins have been major contributors to the rapid decline of coral reefs. Reef-building corals have generally been susceptible to the global rise in marine diseases. As foundation species on tropical reefs, the impacts of White Band Disease (WBD) and other coral diseases have rippled throughout the ecosystem. Recuperation of these formerly dominant corals has been slow.Despite its extreme impacts, much about the causes and ecology of WBD remains poorly understood.
“Understanding disease resistance in these corals is a critical link to restoring populations of these once prevailing corals throughout their habitat,” said Vollmer. “Our study has shown that there are disease resistant corals, which means that these corals and thus the shallow water reefs of the Caribbean can be recovered.”
The study, titled “Natural Disease Resistance in Threatened Staghorn Corals” examines the potential for natural resistance to WBD in the staghorn coral. Using genotype information and field monitoring of WBD, the study found that six percent of staghorn coral genotypes are naturally resistant to WBD.
These resistant staghorn coral strains might explain why pockets of coral have been able to survive the WBD epidemic. Identifying, protecting and farming these disease resistant corals provides a clear avenue to recover these corals.

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=62017531098

52 whales die in mass stranding in Australia: report

Fifty-two pilot whales have died after a mass stranding on Tasmania's northwest coast, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Saturday.
Thirteen whales were still alive on Anthony's Beach at Stanley on the island south of the Australian mainland, and wildlife rangers and volunteers were trying to stabilise them, the broadcaster said.
"People are moving water around them, people are stopping them from drying and stopping them from getting sunburnt because their biggest problem is they get overheated," said Parks and Wildlife official Chris Arthur.
"Then we're going to try and move some if we can on to trailers so we can move them in to deeper water."
Pilot whales are members of the dolphin family but are considered by experts to behave more like whales.
A number of theories have been put forward as to why whales strand themselves, but the phenomenon remains a subject of scientific debate.

http://www.france24.com/en/20081122-52-whales-die-mass-stranding-australia-report

Study: Ocean Growing More Acidic; '10 Time Faster' Than Models Predicted

Underwatertimes.com News ServiChicago, Illinois -- University of Chicago scientists have documented that the ocean is growing more acidic faster than previously thought. In addition, they have found that the increasing acidity correlates with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a paper published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Nov. 24.
"Of the variables the study examined that are linked to changes in ocean acidity, only atmospheric carbon dioxide exhibited a corresponding steady change," said J. Timothy Wootton, the lead author of the study and Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago.ceNovember 24, 2008 17:55 EST The increasingly acidic water harms certain sea animals and could reduce the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide, the authors said. Scientists have long predicted that higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide would make the ocean more acidic. Nevertheless, empirical evidence of growing acidity has been limited.
The new study is based on 24,519 measurements of ocean pH spanning eight years, which represents the first detailed dataset on variations of coastal pH at a temperate latitude—where the world's most productive fisheries live.
"The acidity increased more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by climate change models and other studies," Wootton said. "This increase will have a severe impact on marine food webs and suggests that ocean acidification may be a more urgent issue than previously thought, at least in some areas of the ocean."
The ocean plays a significant role in global carbon cycles. When atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in water it forms carbonic acid, increasing the acidity of the ocean. During the day, carbon dioxide levels in the ocean fall because photosynthesis takes it out of the water, but at night, levels increase again. The study documented this daily pattern, as well as a steady increase in acidity over time.
"Many sea creatures have shells or skeletons made of calcium carbonate, which the acid can dissolve," said Catherine Pfister, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study. "Therefore, the increased acidity of the ocean could interfere with many critical ocean processes such as coral reef building or shellfish harvesting."
Conducted at Tatoosh Island in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington, the study documented that the number of mussels and stalked barnacles fell as acidity increased. At the same time, populations of smaller, shelled species and noncalcareous algae increased.
"Models revealed strong links between the dynamics of species living on the shore and variation in ocean pH," Wootton said. "The models project substantial shifts in the species dominating the habitat as a consequence of both the direct effects of reduced calcification and indirect effects arising from the web of species interactions."
The study, "Dynamical Patterns and Ecological Impacts of Declining Ocean pH in a High-Resolution Multi-Year Dataset," will be published in the Dec. 2 issue of PNAS. The third co-author, James Forester, was at the University of Chicago's Department of Ecology and Evolution but is currently at Harvard University.
"To date there is a lack of information about how the ocean carbon cycle has changed in recent years," Pfister said. "Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will continue to increase, and our work points to the urgent need to better understand the ocean pH changes that this is likely to drive as well as how these changes will affect marine life."

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=11072490385

Alien-like Squid Filmed at Ultra-Deep Oil-Drilling Site

Kelly Hearnfor National Geographic News
November 24, 2008A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, a remote control submersible's camera has captured an eerie surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and—strangest of all—"elbowed" Magnapinna squid.

Video is at the link below

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html

200 whales trapped in Canada's Arctic 'must be killed'

From correspondents in Ottawa
November 22, 2008 07:42amAT least 200 narwhal whales in Canada's Arctic, trapped by winter ice and facing starvation or suffocation, must be culled, officials say.
Hunters from the village of Pond Inlet on Baffin Island discovered the animals trapped near Bylot Island, about 17 kilometres from Pond Inlet, on November 15.
The local hunters are allowed to harvest only 130 whales each year for food, according to standards set by the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans.
But department spokesman Keith Pelley said: "It's unlikely the animals are going to survive the winter, so the hunters have been given authorisation to cull them."
The hunters have been on the ice slaughtering the whales since Thursday and are likely to accomplish their task over the coming days, he said.
Narwhal are found mostly in the Arctic circle, and are renowned for their extraordinarily long tusk, which is actually a twisted incisor tooth that projects from the left side of its upper jaw and can be up to three metres long.
"A couple of weeks ago, when the ice was still moving, there were quite a few narwhal seen out there in the open water," Jayko Allooloo, chairman of the Pond Inlet hunters and trappers organisation, told public broadcaster CBC.
"About a week later, they're stuck."
Community elders and officials feared the whales would die from a lack of oxygen as the ice grew thicker around them, Keith Pelley explained. There are about a dozen areas of open waters where they could come up for air, but it is a tight squeeze for them.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24688959-5005962,00.html

Climate Change Seeps Into The Sea As The Good News Has Turned Out To Be Bad

Underwatertimes.com News ServiceOctober 24, 2008 17:53 EST Washington, D.C. -- The ocean has helped slow global warming by absorbing much of the excess heat and heat-trapping carbon dioxide that has been going into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
All that extra carbon dioxide, however, has been a bitter pill for the ocean to swallow. It's changing the chemistry of seawater, making it more acidic and otherwise inhospitable, threatening many important marine organisms. Scientists call ocean acidification "the other carbon dioxide problem." They warn that because it causes such fundamental changes in the ocean, it could impact millions of people who depend on the ocean for food and resources. "The growing amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean could have a bigger effect on life on Earth than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," says JPL's Charles Miller, deputy principal investigator for NASA's new Orbiting Carbon Observatory, scheduled to launch next January.
The ocean takes in and stores most of the heat from the sun that is deposited at Earth's surface -- heat that would otherwise be melting land ice and warming the atmosphere. The ocean also absorbs about one third of the carbon dioxide that humans now put into the air. The rest is taken up by terrestrial vegetation and soils or remains in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect.
"The ocean surface acts like a sponge to soak up excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere," says Scott Doney, a senior scientist in marine chemistry at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass. Much of the extra dissolved carbon is in the ocean’s upper few thousand feet. However, at high latitudes, surface water quickly cools, becomes saltier and denser and sinks, carrying the dissolved carbon to some of the deepest parts of the ocean.
Mix carbon dioxide with water and the result is carbonic acid. After that first simple chemical reaction comes a slightly more complicated series of changes in seawater chemistry. The final outcome is a lowering of the ocean's pH -- meaning the ocean is more acidic, and, ironically, a reduction in a particular form of carbon -- carbonate ion -- that many marine organisms need to make shells and skeletal material. The lower pH and lack of carbonate ion have serious consequences for life in the ocean.
Carbon, Carbon Everywhere, but Not the Right Kind to Use
Closest to the atmospheric source of excess carbon dioxide, the ocean’s surface waters are the first to show the effects of acidification. Since the beginning of the industrial era, the pH of surface waters has decreased slightly but significantly from 8.2 to 8.1, and it continues to decrease. Scientists project the pH of surface water will decrease by the year 2100 to a level not seen on Earth over the past 20 million years, if not longer.
Likely casualties of ocean acidification are the marine plants and animals that use carbonate to form hard shells or other structures. These include mollusks like clams and oysters, and reef-building corals. Not only does ocean acidification limit their access to the carbonate they need for building material, it could become severe enough to dissolve existing coral structures and the shells of living organisms.
Since most corals live in shallow waters, coral reefs, some of the most biologically diverse places on Earth, are particularly vulnerable. “They are already under assault from warming water, over-fishing and habitat degradation,” says Doney. “Environmental stress is leading to more incidents of ‘coral bleaching,’ which occurs when the symbiotic algae that lives inside the coral leaves or dies, and from which reefs often do not recover. Ocean acidification may push corals over the edge.”
Other sensitive areas are the Southern Ocean and the subpolar North Pacific, where acidification threatens to unravel important food chains by making life difficult for a small marine snail called a pteropod. It’s a favorite food of small fishes, which, in turn, support larger fishes, penguins, whales and seabirds. Ocean acidification strips seawater of the carbonate ion that pteropods need to build new shells, and it also damages their existing ones.
There will be some winners and losers, says Doney, as the effects of growing ocean acidification are felt. “Although we don’t know exactly how many species depend on pteropods, clams, oysters, mussels or other shelled organisms for food, or on coral reefs for critical habitat, it’s clear that ocean acidification will cause a wholesale alteration of some marine ecosystems in ways we can’t predict,” he explains.
History isn’t much of a guide. While there have been times in Earth’s past when the ocean was more acidic than now, most environmental changes occurred at a considerably slower pace than today. “At the rates of climate change and ocean acidification we’re seeing now, many organisms may be not able to keep up,” Doney says.
That Sinking Feeling
Much of the carbon now in the air will find its way into the ocean with predictable results. "Even if we stopped adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere today, ocean acidification will continue to increase,” says Doney. “What marine fisheries and coral reefs will look like 100 years from now is a big question. We need to know how much carbon dioxide is being taken up, more about the gas exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, and how this mechanism is affected by climate change.”
NASA’s new Orbiting Carbon Observatory will help provide some of the answers after it is launched in January 2009. A NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder mission, it will make precise measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide on a global scale.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory will help identify carbon dioxide sources and sinks -- things that absorb and store carbon -- on land and in the ocean and show how they vary over time. Researchers will be able to combine mission data with numerical models to estimate global patterns of the exchange of carbon dioxide from the ocean and atmosphere.
“We’ll have a much better idea about what’s going on over the ocean where measurements have been sparse,” explains Miller. “This is especially true in the Southern Ocean, which we believe is a big sink for carbon dioxide based on existing models.”
While the Orbiting Carbon Observatory may be the newest NASA mission to help address the issue of ocean acidification, NASA has many other projects and missions that provide important information about ocean biology and chemistry that relates directly to this problem. These include NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), flying on the Terra and Aqua satellites, and the Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS). These instruments collect data on ocean color -- a key component of many studies of ocean ecology, plankton and coral reefs. Another example is the recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA-sponsored Southern Gas Exchange Experiment. During this six-week research cruise, scientists investigated how gases, including carbon dioxide, move between the ocean and the atmosphere in high winds and rough seas.
The really big question is how much longer the ocean can continue to be a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide before becoming saturated -- a process that may already be under way. The implications for our future climate -- and the ocean -- are immense.

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=10850324796

Researcher: Coral Reefs Found Growing In The Ice-cold, Ink-black Depths Of The Atlantic

Underwatertimes.com News ServiceNovember 4, 2008 19:08 EST Den Haag, The Netherlands -- Imagine descending in a submarine to the ice-cold, ink-black depths of the ocean, 800 metres under the surface of the Atlantic. Here the tops of the hills are covered in large coral reefs. NIOZ-researcher Furu Mienis studied the formation of these unknown cold-water relatives of the better-known tropical corals.
Furu Mienis studied the development of carbonate mounds dominated by cold-water corals in the Atlantic Ocean at depths of six hundred to a thousand metres. These reefs can be found along the eastern continental slope from Morocco to Norway, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and on the western continental slope along the east coast of Canada and the United States. Mienis studied the area to the west of Ireland along the edges of the Rockall Trough. In her research Mienis analysed environmental factors like temperature, current speed and flow direction of seawater as these determine the growth of cold-water corals and the carbonate mounds. The measurements were made using bottom landers, observatories placed on the seabed from the NIOZ oceanographic research vessel ‘Pelagia’ and brought back to the surface a year later.
Cold-water corals are mainly found on the tops of carbonate mounds in areas where the current is high due to strong internal waves. These waves are caused by tidal currents and lead to an increase in local turbulence that results in the seawater being strongly mixed in a vertical direction. The outcome is the creation of a kind of highway between the nutrient-rich, sunlit zone at the sea surface and the deep, dark strata where the 380 metre-high tops of the mounds are found. This allows the cold-water corals to feed on algae and zooplankton that live in the upper layers of the sea. Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata are the most important coral species found on the European continental slopes.
How the carbonate mounds were formed was investigated by using a piston core from the research vessel to take samples of up 4.5 metres of sediment. These cores were then cut into thin slices that were analysed separately; the deeper the layer, the older the sediment. The samples studied were aged up to 200,000 years old. Large hiatuses found in the core were possibly caused by major changes in tidal currents. The groups of carbonate mounds develop in the direction of the strongest current and their tops are of equal height. The mounds were found to be built up from carbonate debris and sediment particles caught in between coral branches. These cold-water coral reefs have, therefore, not developed as a result of leakage of natural gas from the sea bed. However, that may well be the case in the Gulf of Mexico. This area is currently being studied from the American research vessel ‘Nancy Foster’ by Furu Mienis, her supervisor Tjeerd van Weering and NIOZ associate researcher Gerard Duineveld.
Climate change has exerted a considerable influence on the growth of corals and the development of carbonate mounds. For example, corals stopped growing during ice ages. Present-day global warming and the resulting acidification of the oceans also pose a threat: organisms are less effective at taking up carbonate from seawater that is too acidic. This is true not only for corals but also for some species of algae that are a source of food for the corals. Other activities on the seabed that can cause damage to the coral reefs are offshore industries and bottom trawlers. A number of European areas containing cold-water coral reefs have thankfully already obtained protected status.
This research was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the European Science Foundation (ESF).

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=89106275310

Coral reef replanting success for Sumatra island hit by tsunami

By Ian WoodLast Updated: 1:40PM GMT 05 Nov 2008A one-man coral replanting project has proved remarkably successful in helping a coral reef devastated by the tsunami in 2004 to recover.
Coral reefs need new protection to survive global warming
One third of coral species face extinction
Japan to plant coral island in the Pacific
The idea is the brainchild of Pak Dodent, a resident of the island of Pulau Wey off the north coast of Sumatra.
The narrow channel between his small village of Ibioh and a nearby island was particularly badly hit by the tsunami."It was like a washing machine out there and all of the coral was broken," he told me."Afterwards I thought to myself what can I do to make the coral grow again and I started to experiment."The best system he has found is to make concrete moulds using a bucket and then embed a plastic bottle or tube so that it sticks out of the top of the concrete.When these are set he drops them by boat onto the shallow sandy sea bed and leaves them there for a month before starting to transplant coral to them.
"This allows time for any chemicals present in the concrete to dissipate so that they don't affect the new coral growth," he said.
"It is just like gardening; I cut a little bit of coral from the healthy reef on the far side of the island and bring it to my new reef. I am careful to only take a little from here and there so that I don't affect the healthy eco system."
He then uses cable ties to attach the transplants to the plastic tubes so they are not dislodged by tides or currents.
We swam out to inspect his new reef and the results were quite stunning.
The areas that are now over 3 three years old are completely covered with coral and fishes with virtually no remaining sign of the concrete bases. He has already replanted in excess of 200 square meters of coral with over 26 different species.
Once planted his work is by no means over as red and green algae can build up on the young coral and destroy it. His answer is to dive down and gently clean the infected coral with a toothbrush.
"I monitor and clean it for one year, after that it is up to the fishes," he said.
His work has recently attracted the interest of Fauna and Flora International who have now given him a small grant to develop his project.
The organisation Reef Check carried out a survey of several coral reefs in Sumatra in 2005 to monitor the effects of the tsunami and earthquake. Their results found that the effects of these natural disasters were less destructive than the problem of over fishing.
"Very little was previously known about the health of the reefs in this area," said Dr Gregor Hodgson, Reef Check founder and executive director.
"This expedition points to the need for better management of coral reefs in this mega-biodiversity region. The wonderful thing about reefs is how quickly they can recover if we take care of them."
The future of these reefs depends on the local community and their attitudes to conservation. The tsunami was such a huge event in north Sumatra that many people have changed their view on the power of nature and there are more positive signs that the local people are changing their fishing habits.
There is now a net fishing ban on several reefs on Pulau Wey that is being observed. Pak Dodent summed it up perfectly by saying: "People always take from the ocean but if we carry on like that we will soon destroy it all."

Woman plans to swim across the Atlantic.....Is she serious?

Woman, 56, expects journey to take 2 months
By Antonio Gonzalez The Associated Press
November 15, 2008
OFF THE COAST OF MIAMI - The Catamaran isn't even out of Biscayne Bay yet, and already 56-year-old mother-turned-adventurer Jennifer Figge is giddy with excitement. She's squeezing into her wetsuit for a final test before her latest endeavor — one that even her own crew calls crazy.The plan goes something like this.She will swim 2,100 miles, from the Cape Verde Islands off Africa to Barbados. She'll do it in a shark cage attached to a sailboat, swimming for six to eight hours a day without rest. The journey will take about two months, and would make her the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean."I'm saving lots of money," she jokes. "I only have to buy a one-way ticket."Figge and her family have always lived a bit large. Her mother was a longtime professional opera singer. Her husband was a successful banker who is now retired. And Figge's son, Alex, is a race-car driver in the Lemans Series.It was through him that she found endurance sports. He asked her to stop smoking for his seventh birthday, and when she did, she had to replace her cigarette addiction with another habit.The answer? The Davenport, Iowa, native completed the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa in 1990 with her husband.She was hooked.In all, Figge has now conquered more than 3,000 miles running and swam across almost 25 channels — from 8 miles to a few hundred miles in length — battling the elements all over the planet.She fought through 8-foot-swells and was stung by a man-of-war on her left leg during a 52-mile, three-day swim from Cay Sal Bank north of Cuba to Marathon Key last year.She dodged rock-throwing Gypsies and outran hungry dogs during a 350-mile run across Romania.She swam through waters contaminated with sheep manure when she crossed the Straits of Tiran off Egypt, and wind gusts near 80 mph lifted her off her feet in the Black Sand Desert during a 300-mile run across Iceland."I haven't really had many challenges in life, so I have to challenge myself," Figge said. "Pushing myself to the limit is the only way I know how."Figge would not be the first to swim across the Atlantic, but she would apparently be the first woman.Frenchman Benoit Lecomte is thought to have been the first to record a trans-Atlantic swim. He swam 3,716 miles from Cape Cod, Mass., to the Brittany region of France in 1998. The journey took him 73 days, stopping along the way at the Azores Islands. Captain Bill Ray, who has accompanied Figge on some of her swims, was first approached about the trans-Atlantic journey last year. Figge gave him a blank check, and next to the "For" section at the bottom, she wrote: Deposit to Swim Atlantic."I thought she was joking," Ray said.The customized Catamaran — fittingly named Carried Away — has a makeshift shark cage made of Kevlar attached to the back.The Catamaran will carry Figge, Ray, a doctor and at least one crew member and diver on a trek that will cost at least $250,000.The sailboat will be using its motor much of the way to slow down for Figge, consuming more than 700 gallons of fuel. Figge hopes to get sponsors to defray some of the cost, and Ray also has footed part of the bill.Dr. Jerry Homish, a family friend who has sailed with her on other swims and will make this trip, estimates Figge will burn more than 8,000 calories a day. Her diet, which is still being worked out by a nutritionist, will load up on carbohydrates in the morning and protein at night, including Figge's favorite: cold pasta and potatoes.The crew will toss her water and electrolytes as needed during swims, and she'll finish off her day the same way she starts: with a caffeine-loaded soda.Figge, who trains above 8,000 feet at her home in Aspen, Colo., will swim in a wetsuit that deflects the harmful rays of the sun."I wouldn't be doing this if I functioned on common logic," Figge said. "Those who don't know the impossible are the ones who make things possible."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/local/sfl-flffigge1115sbnov15,0,3394271.story

Coral Reefs

Coral reef suffers major damage

By CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
A huge swath of stunning corals on one of the most popular and profitable reefs in Palm Beach County has been shaved from the ocean floor - a crime almost impossible to solve and repair.
Capt. Van Blakeman of the Riviera Beach dive boat Narcosis learned of the damage from his dive guides on Oct. 28. Blakeman assumed it was just another reckless boater who dragged an anchor across the reef.
"You need to see this," Blakeman recalled his guides saying.
What Blakeman saw was an area about two football fields long and 80 feet wide of barrel sponges sliced from the ocean floor; precious, slow-growing brain coral turned on its side, and other hard corals smashed.
"This is extensive damage," Blakeman said. "This is a famous reef."
For decades, guests at The Breakers, the legendary hotel in Palm Beach, have enjoyed snorkeling and diving on both in-shore and offshore reefs. Because of its location near the Lake Worth Inlet, it is a popular reef for local dive charters.
"We were extremely disheartened to learn that a top portion of the reef was damaged," said Ann Margo Peart, public relations manager at the hotel. "We are only grateful that this did not affect the reef in its entirety."
Palm Beach County's reefs bring more than $300 million in sales to local businesses, $172 million in income and almost 5,000 jobs, according to a 2001 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The county's reefs are part of the 220-mile reef tract off Florida's east coast - the most extensive coral reef system in North America and the third-largest in the world. It is also home to staghorn and elkhorn coral, which are threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
The damaged site is about a mile offshore in about 50 feet of water. It is a "major tourist attraction," said Ed Tichenor, director of Palm Beach County Reef Rescue. "Most tourist divers that come, that's one of the prime locations they go to."
Experts are trying to determine the cause.
"We believe the damage is consistent with a tug towing a barge and the cable dragging across the reef," said Gabriella Ferraro, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In rough seas, tugboats operate closer to shore. If the cable between the tug and barge goes slack, it can sink to the bottom and drag on the ocean floor.
Weather has prevented officials from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Fish and Wildlife Commission from diving on the reef to assess the damage. They hope to do so later this week. They also hope that some of the hard corals can be reattached to the sea floor with marine cement.
"There is success with that," said Erin McDevitt, a marine biologist and marine habitat coordinator with the Fish and Wildlife Commission. "A lot of factors play into that, but it can be successful."
Among the factors is money, McDevitt said. If the perpetrator is found, the agencies could fine the boat owner up to $10,000 per day per violation and order restitution to pay for rebuilding the reef, a tedious and time-consuming task.
"We have to find a funding source," McDevitt said.
Trained volunteers with Reef Rescue will help as soon as the group receives permits for its divers to touch the corals. In the meantime, Steve Spring, Reef Rescue's project manager for the incident, will continue working with investigators, providing them with photos and video of the damage.
"It's the worst damage I've ever seen on a local reef from a single incident," Spring said. "I dove it twice and I didn't even see all of it."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/11/18/1118reef.html?imw=Y

Japan's biggest coral reef artificially restored

TOKYO: Scientists are in an unprecedented project to revive Japan's largest coral reef by planting thousands of baby corals growing on tiny ceramic beds.
Corals in Sekisei Lagoon stretching between the Okinawan islands of Ishigaki and Iriomote have plunged by 80 per cent over the past two decades due to rising water temperatures and damage by coral-eating starfish.
Ten-year project
"No projects in the world have ever restored a coral reef artificially... but we aim to restore the lagoon in some 10 years," said Mineo Okamoto, associate professor at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology.
In a joint project with Japan's environment ministry, scientists will plant some 6,000 baby corals in the seabed in December over a 600 square-metre district.
The corals are 18 months old and grow on round ceramic beds that measure four centimetres in diameter and have single legs for planting.
It follows the implantation of 5,300 baby corals in 2006. Only one-third of them have survived, with many dying off or damaged by dead and collapsed corals stirred up in the sea by typhoons, Okamoto said.
"We have learned lessons from the previous planting regarding what are the best places to plant and other conditions for survival. We'll make a fresh try," he said.
Seafloor testbed
The attempt is the world's only large-scale project to restore a coral reef artificially, rather than trying to clean the environment for corals or nipping off branches of living corals for transplanting elsewhere, Okamoto said.
If experiments are successful, the Japanese team wants to try the method in other countries, Okamoto said, adding preparations in Indonesia have already being made.
"Corals are marine creatures but are functioning like seaweed in southern seas as they engage in photosynthesis to disperse oxygen," Okamoto noted. "They invite plankton and then plankton-feeding fish, creating an ecosystem and fishing ground," he said.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2333/japans-biggest-coral-reef-be-artificially-restored

Researchers: Sea Level Rise Will Alter Chesapeake Bay's Salinity

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- While global-warming-induced coastal flooding moves populations inland, the changes in sea level will affect the salinity of estuaries, which influences aquatic life, fishing and recreation.
Researchers from Penn State and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science are studying the Chesapeake Bay to see how changes in sea level may have affected the salinity of various parts of the estuary. "Many have hypothesized that sea-level rise will lead to an increase in estuarine salinity, but the hypothesis has never been evaluated using observations or 3-D models of estuarine flow and salinity," says Timothy W. Hilton, graduate student in meteorology at Penn State.
"The Chesapeake is very large, the largest estuary in the U.S. and it is very productive," says Raymond Najjar, associate professor of meteorology. "It has been the site of many large fisheries and supported many fishermen. A lot of money has gone into cleaning up the bay and reducing nutrient and sediment inputs. Climate change might make this work easier, or it could make it harder."
The Chesapeake is naturally saltier near its mouth and fresher near the inflow of rivers. The researchers, who also included Ming Li and Liejun. Zhong of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, studied the Chesapeake Bay, using two complementary approaches, one based on a statistical analysis of historical data and one based on a computer model of the bay's flow and salinity.
They looked at historical data for the Susquehanna River as it flows into the Chesapeake Bay from 1949 to 2006. The flow of this fresh water into the bay naturally changes salinity. After accounting for the change in salinity due to rivers, the researchers found an increasing trend in salinity. The researchers reported their results in a recent edition of Journal of Geophysical Research.
The team then ran a hydrodynamic model of the Bay using present-day and reduced sea level conditions. The salinity change they found was consistent with the trend determined from the statistical analysis, supporting the hypothesis that sea-level rise has significantly increased salinity in the Bay. However, the Penn State researchers note that historical salinity data is limited and sedimentation reshapes the bed of the Bay. There are also cyclical effects partially due to Potomac River flow, Atlantic Shelf salinity and winds.
"Salt content affects jelly fish, oysters, sea grasses and many other forms of aquatic life," says Hilton. "The Chesapeake Bay is a beautiful place, used for recreation and for people's livelihoods. It is a real jewel on the East Coast and changes in salinity can alter its uses. Our research improves our understanding of the influence of climate change on the Bay and can therefore be used to improve costly restoration strategies."

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=28365401791

Most Dangerous Beaches

Vacation
in a beach usually makes up to enjoy with images of lying on white sand relaxing not dicing with death but do you know the list of the world’s most dangerous beaches.
Strong currents and deadly jellyfish are among the dangers that spring to mind but the biggest fear is sharks, in Miami beach and there were only 112 incidents globally of shark bites in 2007.
Following is a list of the most dangerous beaches by category which was prepared by Forbes.com and focuses mainly on the United States.
1. Shark Attacks/Bites, New Smyrna Beach, Volusia County, Florida.
The were 112 incidents of shark-human "contact" in 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File released in March but only one resulted in a human fatality. New Smyrna, an inlet on the eastern coastline of Florida, had the most attacks, with 17 bites recorded.
2. Pollution, Hacks Point Beach, Kent County, Md./Beachwood Beach West, Ocean County, N.J.
According to the National Research Defense Council, an environmental action group, these two beaches had the highest percentage of samples exceeding U.S. health standards in 2006.
3. Jellyfish Attacks, Northern Australia
The coast of Northern Australia serves as a home to chironex fleckeri, also known as the box jellyfish, which has caused 60 deaths in the last 100 years, according the Center for Disease Control, Australia. While fatalities are rare, about 40 people are hospitalized each year in the Northern Territory. Last year, a 6-year-old boy died in the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin.
4. Lightning, Florida
Florida tops off the list as the most dangerous spot for lightning, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Between 1997 and 2006, there were 71 deaths caused by lightning in Florida, more than any other state.
Popular beaches such as New Smyrna and Clearwater are often evacuated and then closed for days because of the threat of lightning.
5. Boating Accidents, Florida
Data by county or beach is not available, but according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Boating Safety Division, the state of Florida reported 633 boating accidents and 68 fatalities in 2006, the highest number of any state in the country with more people actively involved in boating in Florida.
6. Rip Current Drowning, Brevard County, Florida

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Surfers Defy Giant Waves Awakened by Storm

DANA POINT, Calif. — One of the strongest storms recorded in the northern Pacific Ocean pummeled the West Coast last weekend, leading to widespread flooding and state and federal disaster declarations. The storm also left behind some of the most remarkable waves ever surfed.With a second major storm bearing down, four of the most experienced big-wave surfers in the world launched a boat and two Jet Skis toward Cortes Bank, an underwater mountain range whose tallest peak rises 4,000 feet from the ocean floor to within about four feet of the surface. The perilous spot, about 100 miles off the coast of Southern California, had been surfed only a handful of times in the past decade. With just the right conditions, its shallow waters turn huge ocean swells into giant, perfect breaking waves.
“I’ve made some heavy missions out to Cortes Bank,” said Greg Long, one of the surfers who ventured out Saturday. “But this time, it was all on the line: The biggest storm. The biggest swell. The biggest buoy readings ever seen. And as far as the risk factor, it was off the charts.”
Long, a 25-year-old Californian, made these comments while watching a video of the experience with the surfers who had joined him: Grant Baker, 34; Brad Gerlach, 41; and Mike Parsons, 42.
They sling-shotted one another from behind their 140-horsepower Jet Skis onto some of biggest swells ever ridden. They gawked as Parsons froze the screen on an image of an avalanche of water swatting him like a fly. “We couldn’t go fast enough,” Long said. “The waves were moving so fast that it felt like we were moving backwards.”
Before the first storm passed the Cortes Bank, surfers were stunned that weather-buoy readings showed massive swells that had the potential to become breaking waves of 80 to 100 feet. As they studied the weather maps, Parsons, Long and the surfing forecaster Sean Collins thought there might be a brief period of calm between storms.
“They had this tiny window,” Collins said, adding that if the weather had changed it would have created poor surfing conditions.
The surfers committed to the trip just as the big storm roared to land late Friday. But, Long said, he woke up at 4 a.m. Saturday to calm winds. The surfers converged at dawn on the Dana Point Harbor between San Diego and Los Angeles with the surf photographer Rob Brown and a videographer, Matt Wybenga. When they left midmorning, the ocean was still so disrupted that they could carry only one of the two Jet Skis aboard Brown’s boat. So the surfers, wearing an emergency survival suit, took turns following the boat in the other Jet Ski.
About 50 miles offshore, the weather continued to ease while the deep swells continued to grow. Just past noon the surfers cautiously launched their Jet Skis toward the waves.
“We looked out to the north at these giant mountains of water,” Gerlach said. “And the wind was just perfect. It was creating these giant, giant tubes.”
In the past seven years, all four surfers have either won or been nominated for Billabong XXL Awards, considered the top honor among the big-wave set. Gerlach, Long and Parsons are considered the most experienced surfers of Cortes Bank. Several waves, they said, far eclipsed anything they had ever seen.
The surfers traded vast, swooping carves and dropped down vertical blue walls 80 feet high or more at perhaps 45 miles an hour — faster than they had ever surfed. They rode cautiously, they said, realizing the consequences of a collision with a 20-pound, lead-weighted surfboard, or a harrowing pummeling beneath the dense foam.
“There was so much water moving, and so much turbulence, that you could have had a worst-case scenario of a guy getting flushed through the white water and you simply might have never found him,” Baker said.
Still, Baker and Parsons endured horrifying wipeouts, managing to bob to the surface thanks to their flotation vests. Then with Gerlach precariously skiing behind him on his foot-strap-equipped surfboard, Parsons was unable to outrun a giant wave — even with his ski at full throttle. After they were driven under water and tossed around, the surfers and the Jet Ski emerged, sputtering but unscathed.
The surfers waited until it was nearly dark before they headed back to shore, barely outrunning the second storm before pulling into the harbor entrance at midnight.
When asked to gauge the size of the biggest waves, Baker pointed to a poster of Parsons that promoted the 2002 surf movie “Billabong Odyssey.” The photo was of a stunning Cortes Bank ride that XXL judges deemed greater than 60 feet high.
“That doesn’t even come close to what we were seeing,” Baker said.
Long added: “It just all came together. Definitely the best surf session of my life.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/sports/othersports/09surf.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

NOAA: Ancient Deep-sea Coral Reefs Off Southeastern US Serve As Underwater 'Islands' In The Gulf Stream

Washington, D.C. -- Largely unexplored deep-sea coral reefs, some perhaps hundreds of thousands of years old, off the coast of the southeastern U.S. are not only larger than expected but also home to commercially valuable fish populations and many newly discovered and unusual species. Results from a series of NOAA-funded expeditions to document these previously unstudied and diverse habitats and their associated marine life have revealed some surprising results.
Some of those findings and images of the reef habitats 60 to 100 miles off the North Carolina coast will be featured in a high-definition film, “Beneath the Blue”, to be shown for the first time in public May 17 at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, N.C. Research scientists, joined by museum staff, conducted a series of expeditions to the deep coral habitats on the continental slope off the east coast from North Carolina to central Florida, in an area known as the Blake Plateau. “We discovered that a number of animals thought to be rare are common around the corals, documented many animals outside of their previously known ranges, and discovered species new to science,” NOAA zoologist Martha Nizinski said. “We also have had a firsthand look at how animals are using the habitat and interacting with each other. These discoveries relate to the fact that this has been a difficult habitat for scientists to sample because of the deep depths, rough topography and strong currents from the overlying Gulf Stream.”
For Nizinski, who has worked at NOAA Fisheries’ National Systematics Laboratory in Washington, DC since 1987 and served as co-principal investigator and invertebrate specialist on the annual expeditions between 2002 and 2005, the opportunity to explore these uncharted waters was one she could not pass up. She worked with a team of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, the U.S. Geological Survey, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, which operates the research vessel Seward Johnson and manned submersible Johnson Sea Link used in the expeditions.
Nizinski says the coral habitats explored during the expeditions appear to be more extensive than previously believed and are important habitat for several species of commercially and recreationally important fish as well as sponges, crabs, brittle stars and other creatures. The corals also contain historical data about changing ocean climate and productivity, and are hotspots of biodiversity. Many organisms live in and around these deep coral habitats, including species new to science and species with pharmaceutical potential. She is still studying the biological and coral samples collected during the various expeditions, research that will take several more years to complete.
Prior to these expeditions to explore and document deep coral habitats off the coast of the southeastern U.S., little was known about the location or extent of these reefs, composed primarily of the deep coral species Lophelia pertusa, how they form, and what marine species are dependent upon them. Lophelia is the most common reef-building cold-water coral and is found throughout the world. It has been found as far north as Nova Scotia in the western North Atlantic Ocean colonizing seamounts and other hard surfaces, but does not form the extensive banks that are found off the North Carolina coast, where Lophelia reefs may be tens to hundreds of thousands of years old.
"Most people associate coral reef habitats with tropical islands and warm, shallow waters, so when you tell people that reef systems exist in the cold waters off the coast of North Carolina they are surprised,” Nizinski says. “These deep-water coral banks can grow to be 100 meters (about 330 feet) tall and kilometers (miles) long. It is not what people expect to find off North Carolina, probably the northernmost deep-water coral banks existing along the U.S. East Coast.”
Unlike the colorful corals found in shallow tropical waters, Lophelia lacks zooxanthellae, the symbiotic algae which live inside most tropical reef-building corals. Generally white in color, Lophelia is fragile and slow growing. It lives in water depths between 80 and 3,000 meters (roughly 260 to 9,850 feet), but is most commonly found between 200 and 1,000 meters (about 650 to 3,300 feet) depth, where there is no sunlight, and water temperatures range from about 4 to 12 °C (between 39 and 54°F).
Nizinski says the Lophelia deep-reef habitats may be more important to many western Atlantic species than previously believed. Yet despite being in deep water with strong currents, the reefs are potentially threatened by fishing, energy exploration, and other activities. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has proposed for protection, as Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPCs), a large area which includes the deep-water coral habits off North Carolina.

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=37419820510

World's most dangerous beaches

Strong currents and deadly jellyfish are among the dangers that spring to mind but the biggest fear is sharks, according to Stephen P Leatherman of the International Hurricane Research Center & Laboratory for Coastal Research in Miami.
"But in reality, you've got a better chance at winning the lottery than getting bitten," he told Forbes.com, adding that there were only 112 incidents globally of shark bites in 2007.
Following is a list of the most dangerous beaches by category which was prepared by Forbes.com and focuses mainly on the United States. The list is not endorsed by Reuters:
1. Shark Attacks/Bites: New Smyrna Beach, Volusia County, Florida
The were 112 incidents of shark-human "contact" in 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File released in March but only one resulted in a human fatality. New Smyrna, an inlet on the eastern coastline of Florida, had the most attacks, with 17 bites recorded.
2. Pollution: Hacks Point Beach, Kent County, Md/Beachwood Beach West, Ocean County, NJ
According to the National Research Defense Council, an environmental action group, these two beaches had the highest percentage of samples exceeding US health standards in 2006.
3. Jellyfish Attacks: Northern Australia
The coast of Northern Australia serves as a home to chironex fleckeri, also known as the box jellyfish, which has caused 60 deaths in the last 100 years, according the Center for Disease Control, Australia. While fatalities are rare, about 40 people are hospitalized each year in the Northern Territory. Last year, a 6-year-old boy died in the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin.
4. Lightning: Florida
Florida tops off the list as the most dangerous spot for lightning, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Between 1997 and 2006, there were 71 deaths caused by lightning in Florida, more than any other state.
Popular beaches such as New Smyrna and Clearwater are often evacuated and then closed for days because of the threat of lightning.
5. Boating Accidents: Florida
Data by county or beach is not available, but according to the US Coast Guard's Boating Safety Division, the state of Florida reported 633 boating accidents and 68 fatalities in 2006, the highest number of any state in the country with more people actively involved in boating in Florida.
6. Rip Current Drowning: Brevard County, Florida
In 2007, 10 people drowned in Brevard County due to the rip current alone, according to the United States Life Saving Association.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4518062a34.html

Even Jules Verne did not foresee this one. Deep down at the very bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, geochemist Andrea Koschinsky has found something truly extraordinary: "It's water," she says, "but not as we know it."
At over 3 kilometres beneath the surface, sitting atop what could be a huge bubble of magma, it's the hottest water ever found on Earth. The fluid is in a "supercritical" state that has never before been seen in nature.
The fluid spews out of two black smokers called Two Boats and Sisters Peak.
Koschinsky, from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, says it is somewhere between a gas and a liquid. She thinks it could offer a first glimpse at how essential minerals and nutrients like gold, copper and iron are leached out of the entrails of the Earth and released into the oceans.
Liquids boil and evaporate as temperature and pressure rise. But push both factors beyond a critical point and something odd happens: the gas and liquid phase merge into one supercritical fluid. For water, this fluid is denser than vapour, but lighter than liquid water.
Hot 'bubble'
Water and seawater have both been pushed past this critical point in labs, but until Koschinsky and her colleagues sailed to just south of the Atlantic equator in 2006, no-one had seen supercritical fluids in nature. Geochemists suspected that if they were to find them anywhere, they would be coming out of very deep hydrothermal vents.
In 2005, a team of scientists including Koschinsky visited 5° south, as part as a six-year project to investigate the southern end of the mid-Atlantic Ridge. There, they discovered a new set of vents, which they revisited in 2006 and 2007, lowering a thermometer into them each time.
Computer models suggest that the fluid that comes out of these black smokers initially seeps down into surrounding cracks in the seabed, gradually getting deeper and hotter as it approached the Earth's magma. Eventually, at 407 °C and 300 bars of pressure, the water becomes supercritical.
Because supercritical water is far less dense than liquid water, it shoots up to the seabed like a bubble and it is spat out into the ocean through vents.
Powering life
From their first visit in 2005, the team found temperatures in the vents were at least 407 °C, and even reached 464 °C for periods of 20 seconds.
Supercritical water leaches metals and other elements out of rock far more efficiently than liquid water or vapour. Gold, copper, iron, manganese, sulphur and many more are brought out of the Earth's guts when the water is ejected from the black smokers.
Some, such as sulphur, provide energy to the locally adapted organisms, which have no light to power a food chain. Manganese is similarly used as an energy source by microbes higher up in the water column. Iron is essential for the growth of all phytoplankton.
Koschinsky estimates up to half the manganese and one tenth of the iron found in the oceans could come from vents. But because supercritical fluids have never been observed in nature, little is really known about how this happens.
Melting equipment
"We stand to greatly improve our models of fluid circulation and heat and mass transfer," says Margaret Tivey, a geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in Massachusetts.
Because of the extreme conditions, computer models are the only way of understanding the processes that drag elements out of the seafloor at hot vents. "It's not yet possible to drill into active vents," explains Koschinsky. "Temperatures are so high, much of drilling equipment would melt and joins would not work anymore." The data from the new vents will be invaluable in testing the models.
"The findings are significant," says Dan Fornari, also of WHOI. "The high temperature of the venting is especially interesting as this [mid-ocean ridge] does not spread very rapidly."
The Pacific spreads faster than the Atlantic, bringing magma closer to the seabed. For this reason, geochemists expected to find supercritical seawater there too. "So one can presume that this portion of the south mid-Atlantic ridge is in a very magmatic phase and has been for a few years," adds Fornari.
'Dry as a biscuit'
In the Pacific, vents tend to cool after a year or so, but it is likely that the Two Boats and Sisters Peak have been active since an earthquake shook the region in 2002. "The magma body underneath is probably enormous," says Koschinsky.
Her colleague Colin Devey of the University of Kiel in Germany is not so sure. "The explanation could be that there's lot of magma, but after a few more years of high temperatures, it's going to get to the point where it will be embarrassing how much magma there needs to be to maintain them for that long."
He thinks the long-standing temperatures could indicate something more fundamental. The fact that vents cool much more quickly in the Pacific could indicate the crust there is much more water-logged than it is in the Atlantic, where it could be "dry as a biscuit".
"If that turns out to be the case then we will have taken down some very, very holy grails," says Devey.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14456

Satellite: Arctic Ice On The Verge Of Another All-time Low; Polar Regions 'Very Sensitive Indicators Of Climate Change'

Paris, France -- Following last summer's record minimum ice cover in the Arctic, current observations from ESA's Envisat satellite suggest that the extent of polar sea-ice may again shrink to a level very close to that of last year.
Envisat observations from mid-August depict that a new record of low sea-ice coverage could be reached in a matter of weeks. The animation above is a series of mosaics of the Arctic Ocean created from images acquired between early June and mid-August 2008 from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument aboard Envisat. The dark grey colour represents ice-free areas while blue represents areas covered with sea ice. Current ice coverage in the Arctic has already reached the second absolute minimum since observations from space began 30 years ago. Because the extent of ice cover is usually at its lowest about mid-September, this year's minimum could still fall to set another record low.
Each year, the Arctic Ocean experiences the formation and then melting of vast amounts of ice that floats on the sea surface. An area of ice the size of Europe melts away every summer reaching a minimum in September. Since satellites began surveying the Arctic in 1978, there has been a regular decrease in the area covered by ice in summer – with ice cover shrinking to its lowest level on record and opening up the most direct route through the Northwest Passage in September 2007.
The direct route through the Northwest Passage - highlighted in the image above by an orange line - is currently almost free of ice, while the indirect route, called the Amundsen Northwest Passage, has been passable for almost a month. This is the second year in a row that the most direct route through the Northwest Passage has opened up.
Prof. Heinrich Miller from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany commented that, "Our ice-breaking research vessel 'Polarstern' is currently on a scientific mission in the Arctic Ocean. Departing from Iceland, the route has taken the ship through the Northwest Passage into the Canadian Basin where geophysical and geological studies will be carried out along profiles into the Makarov Basin to study the tectonic history and submarine geology of the central Arctic Ocean. In addition, oceanographic as well as biological studies will be carried out. Polarstern will circumnavigate the whole Arctic Ocean and exit through the Northeast Passage."
Regarding the use of satellite data for polar research Miller continues, "The polar regions, especially the Arctic, are very sensitive indicators of climate change. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown that these regions are highly vulnerable to rising temperatures and predicted that the Arctic would be virtually ice-free in the summer months by 2070. Other scientists claim it could become ice-free as early as 2040. Latest satellite observations suggest that the Arctic could be mainly ice-free even earlier."
Miller added, "At AWI we place particular emphasis on studying Arctic sea-ice, and along with in-situ studies of sea-ice thickness change satellite data have been used extensively - not only for the regular observation of changes in the Arctic and Antarctic, but also for optimising the operation of Polarstern in regions covered by sea ice."
The Arctic is one of the most inaccessible regions on Earth, so obtaining measurements of sea ice was difficult before the advent of satellites. For more than 20 years, ESA has been providing satellite data for the study of the cryosphere and hence revolutionising our understanding of the polar regions.
Satellite measurements from radar instruments can acquire images through clouds and also at night. This capability is especially important in areas prone to long periods of bad weather and extended darkness – conditions frequently encountered in the polar regions.
By making available a comprehensive dataset from its Earth Observation satellites and other ground and air-based capabilities, ESA is currently also contributing to one of the most ambitious coordinated science programme ever undertaken in the Arctic and Antarctic - the International Polar Year 2007-2008.
Further exploitation of data collected over the Arctic since 1991 is part of an ESA Initiative on Climate Change that will be proposed to the ESA Member States at its Ministerial Conference in November 2008. The proposal aims to ensure delivery of appropriate information on climate variables derived from satellites.
In 2009, ESA will make another significant contribution research into the cryosphere with the launch of CryoSat-2. The observations made over the three-year lifetime of the mission will provide conclusive evidence on the rates at which ice thickness and cover is diminishing.

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=21048395706

Seaweed released chemicals stunting coral growth

Sydney, Sep 2 (IANS) Seaweeds are releasing chemicals that are stunting the growth of corals, according to a study.
Researchers have proved that some seaweeds or algae produce toxic chemical signals that deter coral larvae from settling on reefs devastated by bleaching, storms or other impacts.
The good news is that the clever little coral larvae may also use the algal chemicals to find a good home.'Seaweeds produce a wide range of chemicals, some of which encourage coral larvae to settle and some of which repel them,' said Laurence McCook of ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
The research team includes Chico Birrell and Lindsay Harrington, of James Cook University, and Bette Willis (James Cook University) and Guillermo Diaz-Pulido (University of Queensland) of the CoECRS.
Chemicals released by the algae into the water can have a significant impact on the success of coral recovery after damage. 'We looked at three kinds of seaweeds and found that a green seaweed called Turtle Weed had a powerful deterrent effect on coral larvae, which refused to settle and appeared stressed.
Larvae had difficulty settling with a second seaweed and a third produced chemicals that actually encouraged coral settlement,' said Willis.
These chemical mechanisms may have important implications for the long-term survival of coral reefs globally and their ability to regenerate after damage from coral bleaching, which is expected to become more frequent and devastating under climate warming, he said.
McCook said following damage to a reef algae nearly always beat the corals in the race to resettle the devastated area.
A lot then depends on which algae dominate the new system - and whether there are enough fish, turtles and other herbivores around to 'mow' the weeds and give the corals a chance to re-establish.
'On the Great Barrier Reef we have been relatively lucky, but elsewhere we have seen a number of instances where seaweeds simply took over the reef, completely preventing the corals from coming back,' said McCook.
The greatest threat seems to be when we get thick mats of algae combined with sediment runoff, which smother the reef and stop corals gaining a foothold - a serious problem for our coastal reefs, he added.
However, he cautions, the picture is not simple. Some weeds repel corals but others, like calcareous red algae, play a vital role in reef building and help the corals to re-establish.
Two papers on the effects of seaweeds on corals have appeared in the journals Marine Ecology Progress Series and Oceanography and Marine Biology.

http://news.smashits.com/290360/Seaweed-released-chemicals-stunting-coral-growth.htm

Study Fuels Global Warming Debate: Warmer Seas Linked To Strengthening Hurricanes; 'More Energy'

Tallahassee, Florida -- The theory that global warming may be contributing to stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic over the past 30 years is bolstered by a new study led by a Florida State University researcher. The study will be published in the Sept. 4 edition of the journal Nature.
Using global satellite data, FSU geography Professor James B. Elsner, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor James P. Kossin and FSU postdoctoral researcher Thomas H. Jagger found that the strongest tropical cyclones are, in fact, getting stronger -- and that ocean temperatures play a role in driving this trend. This is consistent with the "heat-engine" theory of cyclone intensity.seas warm, the ocean has more energy that can be converted to tropical cyclone wind," Elsner said. "Our results do not prove the heat-engine theory. We just show that the data are quite consistent with it."
Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first suggested the possible connection between global warming and increases in tropical cyclone intensity in a 2005 paper. He linked the increased intensity of storms to the heating of the oceans, which has been attributed to global warming.
Critics argued that the data were not reliable enough to make assertions about the relationship between climate change and hurricanes. Moreover, when scientists looked at the mean tropical cyclone statistics, they did not see an upward trend.
Elsner's team addressed both issues by using globally consistent, satellite-derived tropical cyclone wind speeds as opposed to the observational record and by focusing on the highest wind speeds of the strongest tropical cyclones each year.
Emanuel's theory is that the intake of warm air near the ocean surface and the exhaust of colder air above the cyclone is what drives a hurricane. Other factors being equal, the warmer the ocean, the warmer the intake of air. This heat-engine theory of how hurricanes increase their intensity is well accepted, but there are many environmental factors, such as wind shear, that might prevent a hurricane from strengthening, Elsner said.
To address that problem, Elsner's team looked at a subset of hurricanes that are closest to their maximum possible intensity (MPI). Under the heat-engine theory, every storm will lose some energy through inefficiency, and that loss will limit the storm's potential. The MPI represents the storm's maximum potential under ideal environmental conditions.
"We speculated that you might not see a trend in the intensity of typical hurricanes due to environmental factors, but if the heat-engine theory is correct, you should see a trend in the intensity of hurricanes at or near their MPI," Elsner said. "On average, the strongest storms are closest to their MPI."
The researchers created a data set from satellite observations of hurricane intensity of all tropical cyclones around the globe and looked at the maximum wind speeds for each one during a 25-year period. Tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms, occur on average about 90 times per year worldwide.
The researchers found that the strongest tropical cyclones are getting stronger, particularly over the North Atlantic and Indian oceans. Wind speeds for the strongest tropical storms increased from an average of 140 mph in 1981 to 156 mph in 2006, while the ocean temperature, averaged globally over the all regions where tropical cyclones form, increased from 28.2 degrees Celsius to 28.5 degrees Celsius during this period.
"By creating a better, more consistent historical data set, we've been able to weed out quality issues that introduce a lot of uncertainty," Kossin said. "Then, by looking only at the strongest tropical cyclones, where the relationship between storms and climate is most pronounced, we are able to observe the increasing trends in storm intensity that both the theory and models say should be there."
While Elsner said the heat-engine theory might explain how tropical cyclones intensify given that everything else is the same, he noted, "We still do not have a complete understanding of why some cyclones intensify, sometimes quite rapidly, and others don't."

http://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=81030527496

Divers find 100-year-old shipwreck in Lake Baikal

NOVOSIBIRSK, September 11 (RIA Novosti) - Divers in Irkutsk have discovered an ancient ship that sank over 100 years ago on the bottom of Siberia's Lake Baikal, a team member said on Thursday.
The ship, thought to have been built in the late 18th or early 19th century, was found in the southern part of the lake at the depth of around 30 meters.
The vessel's hull, constructed without iron nails, is 16 m (52 feet) long, 5 m (16 feet) wide and 4 m (13 feet) deep. There is a hole in the right side of the hull and divers believe the ship sank during a storm.
They also discovered suspected human remains.
The expedition to the depths of the world's deepest and oldest lake was organized to search for historic artifacts linked with the Krugobaikal Railway, which saw numerous train crashes in the 19th century.
"We knew that this was the site of many train crashes and launched [the expedition] for this reason. As a result of the search, we ran across the sunken ship," Andrei Bobkov, a member of the diving team said, adding that the discovery was a complete surprise.
Bobkov said the team was also planning to make new dives to examine the ship and unearth the mystery of the shipwreck. However, the divers do not plan to recover the vessel due to concerns the wooden carcass, fragile after so long underwater, might be destroyed.
Baikal, called the Sacred Sea by locals for its size and beauty, is the world's oldest and deepest lake, with an age estimated at 25 million years. It holds around 20% of the planet's freshwater and is home to hundreds of unique species of fauna and flora.
The mysteries hidden in the lake's waters are currently attracting a great deal of attention. On Wednesday, a team of scientists using two Russian mini-submarines to research for the Russian Academy of Sciences, announced the completion of the first stage of their study.
The Mir-1 and Mir-2 deep-sea vehicles performed a series of 52 dives, including last week when they searched the lakebed for sacks of gold taken from the Imperial Russian reserves by the White Army's Admiral Alexander Kolchak when fleeing from the Bolsheviks in the winter of 1919-1920.
Some of the White Army officers reputedly froze on the ice as temperatures dropped to 60 degrees Celsius below zero, and the gold is thought to have sunk when the spring thaw came. However, no treasure, except boxes containing ammunition dating back to 1920s, was discovered.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080911/116704012.html

Seal levels tipped to rise 1m this century

October 27, 2008 11:00pm

SEA levels will rise by 1m this century, according to German scientists who warn global warming is happening faster than previously predicted.Citing UN data on climate change, two senior German scientists say that previous predictions were far too cautious and optimistic. Earlier estimates predicted a rise of 18cm to 59cm in sea levels this century. But that estimate is woefully understated, according to Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects, and Jochem Marotzke, a leading meteorologist. "We now have to expect that the sea level will rise by a metre this century," Professor Schellnhuber said in Berlin. He said it was "just barely possible" that world governments would be able to limit the rise in average global temperatures to just 2C by the end of the century, if they all strictly adhered to severe limits in carbon dioxide emissions. Those restrictions call for halving greenhouse emissions by 2050 and eliminating CO2 emissions entirely by the end of the century. But the German researchers said the resulting limited increase in temperature was predicated on strict adherence to those restrictions without exception, and even then there were many variables which could thwart the goals. Professor Schellnhuber, who is official adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate-change issues, said the new findings employed data unavailable to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its most recent global warming report. The two experts said the IPCC report had been based on data up to 2005 only, but since then ice loss in the Arctic had doubled or tripled.Professor Schellnhuber said 20 per cent of the loss of the ice sheet on Greenland could be directly linked to the added emissions from new Chinese coal-fired power stations.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24561491-953,00.html

Climate Change/Great Barrier Reef

Paul Maley November 01, 2008

Article from: The Australian

THE prediction of a prominent marine biologist that climate change could render the Great Barrier Reef extinct within 30 years has been labelled overly pessimistic for failing to account for the adaptive capabilities of coral reefs.University of Queensland marine biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg said yesterday that sea temperatures were likely to rise 2C over the next three decades, which would undoubtedly kill the reef.
But several of Professor Hoegh-Guldberg's colleagues have taken issue with his prognosis.
Andrew Baird, principal research fellow at the Australian Research Council's Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, said there were "serious knowledge gaps" about the impact rising sea temperatures would have on coral.
"Ove is very dismissive of coral's ability to adapt, to respond in an evolutionary manner to climate change," Dr Baird said.
"I believe coral has an underappreciated capacity to evolve. It's one of the biological laws that, wherever you look, organisms have adapted to radical changes."
Dr Baird acknowledged that, if left unaddressed, climate change would result in major changes to the Great Barrier Reef.
"There will be sweeping changes in the relative abundance of species," he said. "There'll be changes in what species occur where.
"But wholesale destruction of reefs? I think that's overly pessimistic."
Dr Baird said the adaptive qualities of coral reefs would mitigate the effects of climate change.
His comments were backed by Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chairman and marine scientist Russell Reichelt.
"I think that he's right," Dr Reichelt said. "The reef is more adaptable and research is coming out now to show adaptation is possible for the reef."
Dr Reichelt said the greatest threat facing the reef was poor water quality in the coastal regions, the result of excess sediment and fertiliser.
"If a reef's going to survive bleaching, you don't want to kill it with a dirty river," he said.
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, who in 1999 won the prestigious Eureka science prize for his work on coral bleaching, said the view "that reefs somehow have some magical adaptation ability" was unfounded.
"The other thing is, are we willing to take the risk, given we've got a more than 50 per cent likelihood that these scenarios are going to come up?" Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.
"If I asked (my colleagues) to get into my car and I told them it was more than 50 per cent likely to crash, I don't think they'd be very sensible getting in it."
He told the ABC's Lateline program on Thursday the threat posed by climate change to the Great Barrier Reef should be treated as a "global emergency".
"Why we aren't just panicking at thispoint and starting to really make some changes? Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said. "It just ... it blows my mind sometimes."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24584070-30417,00.html

Crazy.....

Shark Jump

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJrOLEGmqs&feature=related

Amazing

The Great Blue Hole at Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Belize

Interesting..

Cyclone damaged 10% of reef

One of the most severe cyclones to lash Australia damaged at least 10% of the world heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, scientists said yesterday.

Cyclone Ingrid, even more powerful than Cyclone Tracy that devastated the northern city of Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, cut a swath through a third of the region's 260 coral reefs when it hit Queensland's far north coast in March.

The category four cyclone packed winds of more than 155mph and whipped up waves as high as 10 metres (33ft), according to the Australian bureau of meteorology.

Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science discovered during a 15-day study tour that 80 individual reefs had borne the brunt of the cyclone. They warned it could take decades for the reef to recover

Katharina Fabricius, the project leader, said damaged sections of the reef had been found more than 62 miles from the eye of the storm.

More resistant coral on the outer edge of the damaged area was likely to take just two to three years to fully recover, Dr Fabricius said, while areas that were stripped bare of coral could take as long as 20 years to bounce back.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/18/australia.bernardoriordan

We are to blame.

Jellyfish Invade the Globe, Thanks to Humans
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
posted: 15 August 2005 06:26 pm ET

There are exotic Frankenfish in the Potomac, unbearably noisy foreign frogs in Hawaii, and the destructive spiny water fleas that have snuck into northern lakes.

Now you can add alien moon jellyfish to the growing list of invasive species that threaten ecosystems around the planet.

Scientists announced the discovery of 16 new species of "moon jellyfish" today while also saying the creatures are invading marine environments all over the world.

We're to blame

The jellyfish are carried by ships, the researchers said. They join several other species that have hitchhiked into new habitats, often to the demise of native species.The moon jellyfish could not have migrated naturally to so many corners of the globe, the scientists report.

The researchers conducted a 7,000-year computer simulation of possible movement based on ocean currents and the creatures' less-than-Olympic swimming skills. That combined with genetic data leaves ships as the only logical mode of transportation.

Ships take in water for stability, and some ends up in faraway harbors.

"Marine organisms traverse the globe in ballast water, on ship hulls and through the trade of exotic species such as tropical fish," said study leader Mike Dawson of the University of

California, Davis. "This has potential to displace local marine species, threaten ecosystems and cause billions of dollars in damage and preventive control."

Growing problem

Other studies suggest that nearly a quarter of all marine species in international harbors are alien, Davis said.

He has tracked the invading jellyfish in Japan, California, western Europe and Australia. The moon jellyfish are, in fact, just about everywhere, including Mexico, Alaska and along the Atlantic Coast of the United States. They include the stinging Portuguese man-of-war.
But 500 years ago, the study finds, they were not so widespread.

"Until now our knowledge of natural and human-assisted dispersal of species has been insufficient to confidently track and predict the spread of non-indigenous marine species," said University of New South Wales researcher Matthew England, who helped develop the computer program. "Now we have a tool that can include data on currents, geography and the biology of an organism to help separate natural dispersal from that which happens through shipping.

The DNA study also revealed that there are more species of moon jellyfish than known.

"We identified 16 species of moon jellyfish, revealing that marine biodiversity is actually much higher than was thought previously,"Dawson said.

http://www.livescience.com/animals/050815_jellyfish.html