[Repost] Preserving One of the Last and Greatest Ocean Wilderness Areas

Preserving One of the Last and Greatest Ocean Wilderness Areas

POSTED BY KERRI-ANN JONES / MARCH 26, 2013

Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.

On March 18, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to a packed room of diplomats from around the globe, non-governmental conservation advocates, and others about the urgency of protecting our vast oceans. New Zealand Ambassador to the United States Mike Moore and Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, two good friends of the United States and of oceans, joined the Secretary on the podium at this important event.

The Secretary spoke passionately about our connection and responsibility to the oceans as a people and a nation, and how ocean acidification, pollution, and fishing pressure are challenging our ability to sustain the sea and the benefits it provides to us all. You can read and watch his full remarks here.

These threats to the oceans are why the United States is so firmly committed to the protection of Antarctica's Ross Sea, one of the last and greatest ocean wilderness areas on our planet. This unique region is home to a highly productive and diverse ocean ecosystem that supports vast numbers of whales, penguins, seals, and other marine life.

Joined by New Zealand, we propose establishing a marine protected area in the Ross Sea roughly the size of Alaska. If established, it would be the largest protected area in the world. The protected area would specifically conserve critical habitats, marine life, and areas of ecological importance in the Ross Sea. Other areas of the Ross Sea would remain open to sustainably managed fisheries, allowing countries like New Zealand with an economic interest in the sea to continue to benefit from this rich area. This will give us both a baseline of untouched ocean and comparison regions where we can study the direct impact climate change and fishing are having on the oceans.

It is my sincere hope that the members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources approve our proposal at their next meeting this July. The United States will continue to work closely with all the members of the Commission to seize this historic opportunity. As Secretary Kerry said, "The world has shown that we can work together to ensure that Antarctica remains a place devoted to peace and devoted to expanding the human understanding of this fragile planet that we live on. This is one of the last places we could do this, and I think we owe it to ourselves to make it happen."

See original postin at http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/preserving_ross_sea

Melting Ice Sheets...Cyclical or Unprecedented?

We know, thanks to the findings from numerous recent reports, that Antarctica’s Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is currently melting faster than previously thought, and may eventually lead to a three to five meter rise in sea level.   This is largely because the Pine Island Glacier, which acts to regulate much of the flow ice from the WAIS to the ocean, is simultaneously retreating, i.e.melting.  Dr. Claus-Dieter Hillenbrand, of the British Antarctic Survey, and his team, have raised the question, is the melting in this region completely unprecedented, or a cyclical phenomenon?   Hillenbrand and his team may have found a new way to answer this question, and predict the rate of future changes for the WAIS, by analyzing the area’s geological past.

What’s going on?  
The ice masses that we are concerned with are the Pine Island Glacier and the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS).  Ice flows out from Antarctica to the sea.  The Pine Island Glacier acts as a bottleneck, slowing down the flow of ice that would drain into the Amundsen Sea.   As the Pine Island Glacier blocked the flow of ice out of Antarctica, this lead to a buildup of the huge mass of ice that is the WAIS.  

Lately though, the Pine Island Glacier has been showing signs of consistent rapid retreat. This retreat is accelerating the flow of ice from the WAIS out into the Amundsen Sea, at a rate that contributes an estimated 0.15 to 0.30 mm to global sea level rise, per year.   

What did the researchers do?
Hillenbrand and his team, extracted and examined three marine sediment cores which they pulled from Amundsen Sea Embayment, where the Pine Island Glacier lies.  Looking at microfossils in the mud from those cores, the researchers wanted to pinpoint when and where ice covered the bay.  Using data from the cores, the researchers studied the average rate of glacial retreat since the end of the last ice age, around 12,000 years ago.   The researchers chose core-extraction sites based on how ice shelves in that area had been positioned in the past.  

What did they find out?
By looking at the distance from the core locations to the current position of the glacier, as well as the age and depth of the extracted sediments, the researchers were able to get a clearer picture of whether and to what extent the area had shown signs of glacial retreat, in the last 12,000 years.  

Essentially, what's happening is abnormal, but not quite unprecedented. In the last 12,000 years the researchers show that glaciers had retreated about 96 kilometers, but in the last 20 years the glaciers retreated 25 kilometers.  That is a tremendous acceleration in glacial retreat.  However, their findings also showed other similar but rare sprints in glacier retreat over the last 12,000 years.  Whether we are in the middle of one of those sprints is up for debate.

What’s next?
Now we want to figure out exactly why this is happening.  Climate change has led to shifts in wind patterns and ocean currents.  We want to know if these or some other oceanographic or atmospheric shifts have lead to this accelerated glacial melt.  

So what?
This work will help us to make far more accurate models for predicting future ice loss with the Western Antarctic Ice Shelf.  Thus we will have a better idea of how to predict the rate of global sea level rise, into the coming decades.

You can find Hillenbrand et al’s original paper here

Antarctica Braces for Influx of Invasive Species

 This post was originally published on the National Geographic Ocean Views blog.

Antarctica and the Southern Ocean may seem very far away from civilization, but they are at great risk of losing their unique qualities due to human activities. Warmer temperatures and human visitation are increasing the likelihood that invasive species can take up residence in the Antarctic, and potentially cause major changes. Two studies have found evidence of invasions both on land (from a midge) and at sea (from crabs). The remoteness of the Antarctic can no longer protect it from potentially destructive invaders. Forget about The Thing – the scariest alien invaders in the Antarctic come from our own planet.

Concern about a possible crab invasion of Antarctica began in 2007, when ecologist Sven Thatje saw a few king crabs on the outer continental slope of the Antarctic Peninsula. Their presence raised immediate alarms. Unlike more famous invaders like lionfish or brown tree snakes, crabs have yet to gain notoriety as ecosystem destroyers. But in the Antarctic, cold water has long kept out crustaceans like crabs and lobsters, which cannot survive at temperatures below 1°C (just under 34°F). The result is that many seafloor creatures in the Southern Ocean today have not evolved the same defenses against crushing claws as species in other regions. So the discovery of Neolithodes yaldwyni, a species of king crab, by a submersible surveying shallower areas closer to the Antarctic Peninsula (one of the fastest warming areas in the world) was unwelcome news. This indicates that the crabs are more firmly established, and have become truly invasive. The researchers who discovered the crabs estimate that there are 1.5 million crabs in the Palmer Deep. As warming of ocean water increases, the range of these crabs will expand further.

On land, researchers have also recently found evidence of unwelcome invaders that could make life very difficult for native species. This time, the invading species is the midge Eretmoptera murphyi, and they appear to be speeding up the rate at which decay occurs in Antarctic soil. The midge hails from the sub-Antarctic South Georgia Island, but the ecosystem on that island is very different from the one on the Antarctic Peninsula, where the midge has now established itself. Decay in peninsular soil is “not very active,” according to Peter Convey, one of the scientists who discovered the presence of the midge, so the insect will introduce a new process to the ecosystem. Unfortunately for the peninsula, though its ecosystem is composed of different species, the midge can still survive in its climate. Although one tiny insect might not seem to be very disruptive on a continent without many terrestrial species, it has been well established that many Antarctic species are highly vulnerable to disturbances, so introducing a new ecosystem process could introduce a major shift.

Unlike the crab invasion, however, the midge invasion and other invasions of land species can be slowed or prevented by following strict rules that reduce the possibility that species can tag along with humans visiting different areas of the Antarctic. Even so, it’s virtually impossible to eliminate the transfer of invasive species entirely. In the sea, it will be very difficult to slow down the global warming that allows new species to colonize the Southern Ocean, so we will have to wait and see if a crustacean-generated apocalypse occurs for Antarctica’s unique seafloor communities. The presence of these invaders, it seems, only further indicates that humans have impacted the environment in virtually every place on earth, with possibly disastrous results for the world’s biodiversity.

The growing problem of invasive species is yet another reason to designate marine protected areas (MPAs) in Antarctica as soon as possible. By restricting some types of human activities, MPAs provide reference areas that can be compared with areas where activities aren’t restricted, thus helping scientists understand what ecosystem changes are caused by invasive species or climate change versus those caused by fishing or pollution. MPAs can also minimize some human-induced stressors on threatened ecosystems. Unfortunately, MPAs can’t keep king crabs out, but they can help scientists obtain a better grasp on the seismic changes taking place in the frozen south.

Is Antarctica Melting?

There are numerous debates over whether the earth’s climate is changing; who or what may be changing it; and what may be some of the symptoms of that change. Amidst that, new research from Ricarda Winkelmann and other researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, may shed some light on the foreseeable symptoms of climate change, and dispel one of the more positive myths. 

As our atmosphere warms, its ability to carry greater levels of moisture increases, which has lead to increased snowfall in the Antarctic. Many believe that this would make the Antarctic ice sheet grow.  Many scientists feel that this increased Antarctic snow will counteract the melting of ice sheets in the Arctic, resulting in minimal to zero rise in sea-level, as a result of climate change.  According to Winkelmann and her team, Antarctica may not provide such a counterbalance. 

Winkelmann’s team found that snowfall and Antarctic ice discharge work in concert with each other. Snow falls and piles up on the continent.  This exerts pressure on the ice-sheets below, pushing the ice-sheets out to the ocean more and more as the snow accumulates.  The research team found that thirty to sixty percent of snow collecting on the continent is actually offset by underlying ice being pushed out to sea by that very snow.   This by itself would not be alarming as the influx of new water from Antarctic snowfall is still greater than the flow of ice into the ocean.  Sadly, this is not the only factor that affects how ice sheets melt into the ocean.  

Winklemann explains that this shows, for now, that Antarctica is collecting more ice than it discharges, but not at the level we once thought, and that this will not always be the case. Increasing sea temperatures and shifts in ocean currents also act to speed up ice-melt in the Antarctic.  The research team demonstrates that over the last 10 years the net rate at which Antarctic ice grows has slowly but steadily been shrinking.  They show that as oceanographic processes change in the Southern Ocean, Antarctic ice will melt faster than snow collects.  

This has strong implications for areas sensitive to a rising sea-level.  As sea-level rise becomes a greater concern for coastal communities, it will grow consistently more important to monitor ice discharge from the Antarctic, so that we may gain a better idea of when and how areas will need to adapt to sea-level rise. 

You can find the original paper by Winkelmann et al, here

CCAMLR's Outcome Less Than Ideal

Last week, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), a coalition of the EU and 24 member states, gathered in Hobart Australia to discuss a proposed 872,000 square mile ocean wildlife reserve in Antarctica.  With much deliberation, due to lack of consensus, the decision was postponed. 

Ultimately the debate was simple – Conservation versus Commercial interests. While the EU, US Australia and New Zealand pressed hard to find a workable way forward with instituting the Antarctic reserve, they were brought to a stalemate due to opposition from China, Russia, Japan, Korea and the Ukraine.  

The parties did agree however agree to revisit the proposed ocean reserve at an intercessional meeting, in July 2013, in Germany.  This is not the resolution we were hoping for, but it is far from a defeat, as it allows those in favor of establishing the reserve an opportunity to fortify their arguments.

The Chair of CCAMLR’s scientific committee strongly urged that only scientists should attend the intercessional meeting in Germany (not lawyers or industry people), noting that it was important not to politicize the Scientific Committee.  

It is also worth noting that an NGO demonstration was mounted in front of the CCAMLR building, which saw excellent coverage from Australian media.  

Hopefully, with an increased media microscope on August’s meeting as well as a trimming of the political fat, we may get our historic Antarctic reserve.    

Polar Opposite Records Set in 2012

In the Arctic and Antarctic, completely opposite records were set, this year. While the Arctic is showing the lowest levels of sea ice in satellite-record history, the Antarctic is actually showing the highest ever recorded levels of sea ice. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the Antarctic is seeing this record new high of ice coverage with 19.44 million square kilometers. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice reached its minimum this year at 3.61 million square kilometers.

Sea ice is drastically shrinking in one place while seeing great growth in another. What does this say about climate change?

Scientists have known for a long time that climate change would affect Northern Hemisphere before the Southern. This is largely because the two hemispheres have extremely different physical geography. Because Arctic ice is surrounded on all sides by land, it is subject to influences from air and sea-surface temperatures.  Meanwhile, because the Antarctic is surrounded by vast stretches of open ocean, its conditions are more heavily influenced by ocean currents and stronger winds. Furthermore, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica also affects the continent’s ice. The ozone hole has made it so the stratosphere absorbs significantly less UV light than it otherwise should. Absorbing less UV light makes the stratosphere in the southern hemisphere much colder and that carries down to the earth’s surface. That affects atmospheric circulation in the Antarctic, further helping the sea ice to grow.

With significantly different conditions governing the climates of the two poles, it's no wonder that they see differences in ice coverage. Scientists project that, in the coming decades, Antarctic sea ice will begin to shrink as the generally increasing planetary temperatures will outweigh the influences of the other factors that affect the amount of sea ice in the Antarctic.

Similar but Different - The Microbial Communities of the North and South Poles

In a report last week from an international team of scientists lead by Dr. Alison Murray of the Desert Research Institute, there is a significant difference between the marine microbial communities of the seemingly similar Arctic and Antarctic oceans.  These two areas are as geographically far apart as can be, yet share very similar environmental features. Together they offer a unique opportunity to gain insight on the factors that effect biodiversity and biogeography.   Put more simply, we have a better idea of what lives in these similar areas, and why.  

This study focused on differences in bacterioplankton diversity, between the two regions.  They found that 78% of the microbial population in the Antarctic Ocean was genetically unique to itself while the Arctic has a 70% unique microbial population.   The team of scientists posits that these similar but markedly different areas may exhibit such different microbial biodiversity because of differences in fresh water sourcing between the two areas.  In the Southern Ocean, glacial melt-water accounts for most of the fresh water that flows into the marine system.  In the Arctic, there is some glacial melt water but also fresh water river systems with huge drainage basins that deposit fresh water into the system. 

Dr. Murray and her team specifically compared samples from coastal and open oceans and between winter and summer seasons.  These factors allow the scientists to investigate and compare how environmental conditions and dispersal patterns may shape the two polar marine microbial communities. 

As Dr. Murray points out, now that they’ve identified that there is such a difference in the microbial populations of these two zones, “further research is still needed to address the ecological and evolutionary processes that underlie these unique patterns.” 

This brings to mind the fact that the polar regions are more sensitive than the rest of the planet to the earth’s increasing levels of CO₂. It would be interesting to see how microbial populations in the polar regions may change over time, and whether that change can be linked to increased levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.