CHANGING OCEANS

Ice core Data C02 and temp

Ice core data has measured C02 concentrations going back 650,000 years.

Tipping pt.When climate change moves beyond of our controlLevels of C02 Pre-industrial 280 ppm Dec 2008 392 ppm

Tipping point 400 ppm C02

391

400

350280

Melankovitch Cycle 100,000 year cycle

Greenhouse gases cause warming A

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Meehl et al., Journal of Climate (2004)Meehl et al., Journal of Climate (2004)

The Arctic

Polar Ice Arctic

Ice loss = area twice the size of France

Map-Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)

.

SOURCE EARTH OBSERVATORY

Dark orange=thick ice

A “Positive feed back” that Speeds warming.

Ice reflects light and heat

Bare surface absorbs heat

Greenland Ice Loss

Ice melt

Pink = area of ice melt in Greenland. Land based ice melt will raise sea level

Greenland Ice Loss

picture: global warming.com

tunnel

Melt water Lake

Tundra Tundra

Shrubs and grasses replaced By lakes, ponds, & puddles

Methane release

Warming and ice loss in Antarctica

Temp 2-3around fringes colder in interior (NASA)

Loss of Wilkins ice shelf 2008 (Natl Snow & Ice data center)

Discovery of melt around all of Antarctica, 2009.

Melting Glaciers Argentina - Patagonia

Uppsala Glacier

1928

2004 Photo ig Texas

PERU

Photo: Lonnie Thompson Ohio State U

La Paz Bolivia

Sea level rise drowning low elevation islands

Tuvalu- Pacific islands only A few feet above sea level

MaldivesHigh tide in Tuvalu

OCEAN DEAD ZONES

Upwelling along west coast of US

MAJOR OCEAN UPWELLING ZONES

Ocean circulation

Water cools and sinks off Greenland; this force helps drive the current.Fresh water floats, disrupting the current. (Dark Blue = Deep currents)

• Melt flushes fresh water into the north Atlantic and slows the Gulf Stream. Fresh water floats on salt water and cancels the sinking that drives the Gulf Stream. This has slowed Gulf Streams by 30%.

• Possible threat to Northern Europe’s climate.

Changing Oceans

SURFACE CURRENTS

Davidson’s Current Winter wind driven

Ocean pollution

The Great Ocean Garbage Patches

Oil spills

Millions of gallons of oil / year washes into the oceans

Ocean acidity The other C02 problem

Pteropod

Ocean Acidity from C02

Corals with calcium

Cups

Coccolithophores

Coral reefs under stress:

.

Natural cycles and how they are changing

EL NINO- sloshes warm waters to the west coast region of the Americas.

La Nina - cools the Pacific. La nina is an stronger expression of the ‘normal conditions’ seen in this pic.

Animal distributions change during

El Ninos

Sucker tooth ringSucker tooth ring

Range expansion of the red devil during el Nino of 2009

• 1997 El Niño: Monterrey Bay, Oregon coast

• 1998-1999: No sightings

• 2000: Monterrey Bay

• 2004 & 2005: As far north as Sitka Alaska

• 2006-2008: Increasingly widespread on West Coast

• 2009: Exploded!!!! to BC-AK border

• 2010: few squid in the northern

regions

Photos by Paul Bentley, NWFSC

Predator study off the mouth of the Columbia River

2,000 squid (~40,000 lbs) in a 30 minute tow!

Ocean Oscillations

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation AMO

A longer term (40 – 80) year cycles of warm or cold conditions in the North Atlantic which can impact regional weather patterns and is believed to also impact the Arctic.

Graph shows period of temps above average, and cool periods of temps below average.Orange represents years of warm temperatures and blue years of cool temps of Atlantic waters. 2012 the Atlantic is in its warm phase the Pacific in its cool phase.

AMO with gradual temp increase

SOURCE: DATA FROM US GEOLOGIC SERVICE , USED IN WIKIPEDIA

Pacific Decadal Oscillation PDO

2. Cont. Coho survival

is highest during cool regimes (-PDO)

Peterson and Schwing (2003)

PDO

California zooplankton

Northern copepods

OPI coho survival

Arctic Oscillation

SOURCE National snow and ice data

center

Source NASA earthObservatory. 2009Colors Show cold and Warm temps.

Positive Negative

N Pole high alt. wind patterns

Positive negative

Sea Level Rise

Greenland Ice Loss

Ice melt

Pink = area of ice melt in Greenland. Land based ice melt will raise sea level

Sea level rise drowning low elevation islands

Tuvalu- Pacific islands only A few feet above sea level

(Maldives airport 10 inches above high tide.)

High tide in Tuvalu

People are users of fossil fuels. Our use is the basis for many of the issues presented

here.

• Everyone has a carbon footprint,

(2009) 81 million people per year were added to the planet. Current world population is 7 billion. by 2050 9 billion predicted

India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, US, Bangladesh, Zaire, and Iran had the most population increase- in that order! (Source - U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division)

10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten

US Population growthAll people use energy and contribute CO2

Average US family size 3 kids

308million

500million

End