Archive for February 8th, 2010
Goodbye Galapagos, you’re too warm for us
February 8th, 2010 
Ocean Conserve: Ocean Conservation RSS Newsfeed
Independent (UK): Marine scientists are reporting that a colony of sea lions, previously unique to the Galapagos Islands, has unexpectedly decamped 900 miles south-east to an island just off the coast of Peru in what may be another symptom of global warming. According to the Peru-based Organisation of Research and Conservation of Aquatic Animals, it is the first recorded instance of a colony of Galapagos sea lions abandoning their familiar waters around the archipelago, which belongs to neighbouring ...
Melting Arctic could cost global economy over $2.4tr
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Business Green: The melting of ice in the Arctic could result in economic costs of between $2.4 trillion (£1.54tn) and $24 trillion by 2050, according to a major new study that predicts that the loss of "the planet's air conditioner" will accelerate the rate of global warming and lead to an increase in losses associated with heat waves, rising sea levels and other climate change effects. The study, which was commissioned by the Pew Environment Group, was presented to G7 finance ministers gathering ...
Australia: Ice core research could back climate change claims
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A 750-year-old core of ice showing a link between increased snow over Antarctica and drought in south-west Western Australia could provide evidence that the climate is changing because of human activity. Dr Tas van Ommen, from the Australian Antarctic Division, has studied the ice core taken from from Law Dome in eastern Antarctica. His research shows that rainfall over south-west Western Australia has decreased between 15 and 20 per cent since the 1960s, while snowfall at Law ...
Obama-backed wind farm in Mass. meets strong resistance
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar journeyed out into Nantucket Sound on a Coast Guard vessel last week to signal the Obama administration's readiness to put some muscle behind wind energy. To do that, Salazar has to resolve a battle over building a wind farm on 25 square miles of open water that has driven a rift between environmentalists, infuriated local Native Americans and threatened one of the administration's cherished priorities. The nearly decade-long fight over whether to ...
New Federal Climate Change Agency Forming
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Associated Press: The Obama administration on Monday proposed a new agency to study and report on the changing climate. Also known as global warming, climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced NOAA ...
Seaweed beds, the ‘cradle of the sea,’ vanishing
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Asahi Shimbun: Fisherman Hideo Kawamura recalls how the Suruga Bay seabed full of kelp and other sea grasses gave him an eerie feeling as a novice abalone catcher. "I went down to find grasses dancing as if they were the long hairs of a woman. It was scary," the 75-year-old says, but he could harvest "lots of large abalones." That was more than 50 years ago. The rich seaweed beds stretching 8,000 hectares and brimming with fish in the western coast of the bay off Shizuoka Prefecture ...
US forming new climate change agency
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Associated Press: President Barack Obama's administration is forming a new agency to study and report on the changing climate. Climate change has drawn widespread concern in recent years as temperatures around the world rise, threatening to harm crops, spread disease, increase sea levels, change storm and drought patterns and cause polar melting. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, planned to announce Monday that NOAA ...
NOAA Reorganizes With Eye Toward Assessing Effects of Climate Change
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Greenwire: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched a new climate service today, a reorganization effort aimed at improving long-range assessments of climate change, sea-level rise and severe weather. The effort is aimed at providing long-term forecasts to assist fisheries managers, farmers, state governments, renewable energy developers, water managers and others. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke likened the new climate shop to the 140-year-old National Weather Service, ...
Posted in Ocean 
Comments Off on NOAA Reorganizes With Eye Toward Assessing Effects of Climate ChangeQ&A: ”There’s a Limit to Fish Harvesting”
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Inter Press Service: The perilous state of the world's fish stocks has received less media attention than the more visible, palpable environmental problems like air pollution. Isabella Lövin is seeking to redress that balance. Her 2007 book 'Tyst hav' (Silent Seas) hit the best-seller list in her native Sweden, garnering her three awards, including the title of 'Journalist of the Year'. Blending the techniques of investigative journalism with the style of a crime thriller, the book is still awaiting ...
Companies Push Hard to Halt Tuna Collapse
February 8th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Inter Press Service: In the Seychelles' only cannery, the din of thousands of empty tuna cans rattling on narrow metal troughs is incredible as they bustle along, soon to be filled with Skipjack tuna that only days ago were swimming freely in the inky blue Indian Ocean. At one end of the Indian Ocean Tuna Limited processing plant - the world's second largest - cranes offload nets full of frozen tuna from huge international fishing boats called purse seiners while at the other end of the plant, 5,000 cans ...
