Subject: [Tweeters] Major seabird wreck- addendum
Date: Mar 21 11:24:01 2007
From: monte merrick - montemerrick at speakeasy.net


hi folks

the news from oregon is tragic

it gets worse.




Newly discovered West Coast arrhythmias cause
Interplay of climate and currents disrupts marine ecosystems

San Francisco, CA -- Oceanographers, climatologists, and ecologists at
the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting report
that unusual ocean conditions and marine die-offs are changing the way
scientists think about the future of ocean resources off the US West
Coast. The researchers' new synthesis of decades of atmospheric and
oceanographic data reveals that increasingly wild fluctuations in winds
and currents appear to account for a series of recent anomalous ocean
events -- from repeated low oxygen zones larger than the size of Rhode
Island to massive die offs of seabirds. The scientists say that the
underlying swings in winds and position of the jet stream are
consistent with climate change predictions.

"There is no other viable suspect right now, no other obvious
explanation," says Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University. "We've
entered new territory. These arrhythmias in the coastal ocean suggest
we're observing a system that is out of kilter."

Understanding the interplay of warming, winds, and storms with ocean
currents and biological productivity is a whole new area of study that
is proving urgent. In 2002, when scientists first documented low-oxygen
zones off the US Pacific Northwest coast, they thought it was a
startling, once in a lifetime, event. But these "dead zones," which
suffocate crabs, fish, sea stars, and anemones on the ocean floor, have
continued, with 2006 now on the books as the largest, most severe and
longest lasting dead zone on record for the west coast.

"It was unlike anything that we've measured along the Oregon coast in
the past five decades," says Francis Chan of Oregon State University.
"We're seeing more and more evidence that changing climate and changing
currents can lead to big and surprising changes in something as
fundamental as oxygen levels in the sea."

In 2005 and 2006, researchers also found tens of thousands of starving
birds washing up on shore at times of the year when the birds should be
healthiest. And scientists trying to predict salmon runs have recorded
large swings in ocean temperatures at a much higher frequency than the
past, a change that signals large shifts in the amount of food
available for salmon, birds, and marine mammals. Scientists link the
low oxygen zones and animal die offs to changes in the timing and
strength of upwelling, a usually reliable and regular wind-driven
process that brings cold, nutrient rich waters up from the depths of
the ocean and fuels productive coastal ecosystems.

"We are investigating the idea that dead crabs and sea stars at the
bottom of the ocean are correlated with changes in coastal winds, which
are in turn driven by changes in temperatures on land," says Lubchenco.

Around the globe, areas of coastal upwelling which include the waters
off the west coasts of the US, Peru, and Chile, eastern New Zealand,
southwest and northwest Africa, and the Arabian Sea, are known for
their abundant sea life and account for nearly 50% of the world's
fisheries landings. Upwelling on the US west coast typically begins
during the spring, triggering growth of phytoplankton and fueling
marine food webs from the bottom-up. Many marine animals time their
breeding and migrations with this influx of nutrients and growth of
prey populations. But in recent years, changes in wind patterns and the
position of the jet stream have changed the timing and strength of
upwelling, disrupting these long-standing patterns.

"These are not just little blips," says oceanographer Jack Barth of
Oregon State University. "Winds in both 2005 and 2006 are outside the
envelope of what we've seen in the last twenty to forty years. They are
the two most anomalous years in the last two decades -- and they are
anomalous in opposite directions."

Starving Salmon

In 2005, relaxed winds delayed upwelling of cold water and nutrients by
several months, resulting in water temperatures 6 degrees Celsius above
normal and causing the typical boom in small, prey fish populations to
occur too late for feeding salmon, seabirds, and whales.

"In 2005 we saw no upwelling in the spring, but then it came on so
strong that we saw the same amount of upwelling in two months that we
usually see in six," says Bill Peterson of NOAA. "The salmon go out to
sea in mid-April to mid-May, that is when they always go out. But in
2005 they found nothing to eat -- by the time upwelling started, they
were dead, starved to death."

Then, in 2006, unusually strong winds doubled the typical amount of
upwelling, and increased the influx of nutrients to the system, but
these strong winds ebbed in the month of May, just when salmon went out
to sea. These mismatches in timing of upwelling are critical for many
salmon species whose return to spawning grounds has been only 2-4% in
recent years, and Peterson predicts that 2007 will be another low year
for salmon returns.

Sea-bird Die-offs

In the spring of 2005, the volunteers who work as citizen scientists
patrolling beaches found tens of thousands of seabirds washing up dead
on beaches in Washington, Oregon and California. Emaciated birds
littered the beaches because the normal spring upwelling that fuels
food production didn't occur until much later in the season.

"In Oregon, the volunteers would literally wade through 80 dead birds
in a mile. They feared no birds would survive," says Julia Parrish of
the University of Washington who leads the citizen scientist program.
Murres' and cormorants' breeding cycles are timed to coincide with the
boost in prey fish in the spring. Tied to coastal breeding colonies,
they are not strong enough fliers to travel hundreds of miles to find
new food sources.

In 2006, scientists have also documented unusual die-offs of migratory
seabirds such as auklets that visit the US West coast during the winter
months. "They appear to be starving to death at sea. It's not bird flu,
not another disease, not oiling or some other chemical," says Parrish.

Increases in the severity or frequency of storms, a prediction from
climate change models, may also be a major factor in the survival of
these seabirds. Winter die-offs are linked to stormy weather
conditions.

"The total number of wrecks (die-offs) is increasing over time, as is
the severity of these events and their duration," says Parrish. "This
year we are heading into a mild El Nino and we are sitting on pins and
needles to see what happens."

Unprecedented Dead Zones

The supercharged upwelling in 2006 also created thick, green-brown
waters off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. When these
phytoplankton and zooplankton blooms sank to the sea floor and decayed,
they consumed large amounts of oxygen, creating a 3,000 square
kilometer "dead zone" that took up nearly two thirds of the water
column and squeezed mobile animals like rockfish into shallow habitats
and suffocated everything that could not swim away.

"Phytoplankton blooms are normally thought to be a good thing because
they ultimately support the food webs that produce the crabs, salmon
and tuna," says Bruce Menge or Oregon State University. "But too much
of a good thing can be bad."

Two months into the dead zone, the scientists surveyed the sea floor.
"We were shocked to see a graveyard," Chan said. "Frame after frame of
carcass, carcass, carcass. Dead crabs, dead worms, dead sea stars." Two
weeks later the scientists returned to the same place. This once
biologically diverse habitat was covered with a white bacterial mass,
indicating that the system had turned from low to no oxygen.

"The fact that we saw no fish - alive or dead - suggests that many were
able to escape," says Lubchenco. "In previous years, fish that have
escaped the low-oxygen area appear to have returned once the oxygen was
renewed. This year may be different, however, because unlike earlier
years, the living habitat was also suffocated. This year there was no
home for them to return to."

Predicting the Unpredictable

"Climate change is upon us, there is no doubt about that, but what we
don't know is exactly how it is going to affect upwelling," says
Peterson. "What's catching us by surprise is the rate at which warming
is hitting us. And, of course, how fast the ocean has changed -- that
is what amazes me."

The scientists hope that by better understanding the interplay of
warming, winds, and storms with ocean currents and biological
productivity, they will be able to help managers and fishermen plan for
changing ecosystems. Predicting shifts in ocean ecosystems requires
sustained observations. "We are poised to deploy a fleet of underwater
robotic sensors to enable better understanding and useful predictions,"
says Barth. If scientists can predict the impact of dead zones or years
of low salmon returns, for example, managers can better adjust fishing
quotas or regulations accordingly and fishermen can modify where and
when they fish.

Scientists hope to get ahead of the curve on these surprises, but many
mysteries remain. Despite intense hypoxic zones, for example, Dungeness
crab catches in Oregon have been high in the last few years. In
California, scientists are trying to understand why rockfish
populations appear to be congregating in the northern and southern ends
of their ranges. Future changes in the timing of upwelling may favor
particular seabird or salmon species, changing the make up of animals
along the coast. And animals that live their adult lives close to
shore, like mussels and barnacles, are likely to react differently than
fish that live further offshore.

"We need to think differently about using and managing these
ecosystems," adds Lubchenco. "We should be expecting more surprises.
Climate models predict increasing uncertainty, with wild fluctuations.
And this is exactly what we are witnessing."
###

NOTE: The scientists will discuss their findings at an AAAS News
Briefing on Friday, February 16 at 3:00 PM Pacific time, in the Hotel
Nikko. Research from a new paper to be published in PNAS will be
presented at the press conference (Article #00462: "Delayed upwelling
alters nearshore coastal ocean ecosystems in the northern California
current"). For more information please contact the PNAS News Office at
202-334-1310 or e-mail PNASnews at nas.edu

The corresponding AAAS session titled, Predicting the Unpredictable:
Marine Die-Offs Along the West Coast, is on February 17th at 2:00 p.m.
For visuals (video and photographs), please visit the AAAS virtual
newsroom on EurekAlert! or contact Jessica at jbrown at seaweb.org or
#(831) 331-0507.

Contact Information:

Jane Lubchenco
Oregon State University
lubchenco at oregonstate.edu
Cell: (541) 231-7159

Julia Parrish
University of Washington
jparrish at u.washington.edu
Cell: (206) 276-8665

Francis Chan
Oregon State University
chanft at science.oregonstate.edu
Cell: (541) 510-6685

Jack Barth
Oregon State University
barth at coas.oregonstate.edu
Cell: (541) 231-1703

Bill Peterson
NOAA Northwest Science Center (Newport, OR)
Bill.Peterson at noaa.gov
Office: (541) 867-0201

Bruce Menge
Oregon State University
MengeB at oregonstate.edu
Office: (541) 737-5358

Steve Ralston
NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center
(Santa Cruz, CA)
steve.ralston at noaa.gov
office: (831) 420-3949
monte merrick
wildlife rehabilitator/oiled bird care specialist
lummi island washington
montemerrick at speakeasy.net

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