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There is evidence of lower salinity in the North Atlantic coming from melting of polar ice caps and diluting the ocean with more fresh water. An increased amount of fresh water could come from glaciers or sea ice melting, an increased amount of precipitation, or from rivers. The increase of freshwater in the oceans could have a damaging effect on the Ocean Conveyor (a current currents which transports transport warm water from the tropics to Northern latitudes on the surface; the water cools as it travels north, and then sinks and travels south again). There are different scenarios for the slowing down of the ocean conveyor Ocean Conveyor between the next two decade or in a hundred years (Gagosian, 2007). There is paleoclimatic evidence for rapid climatic changes as a result of the shut down of the ocean conveyorOcean Conveyor. If this were to happen, the Gulf Stream could possibly be deflected downwards, which would prevent the transfer of warm water from the tropics to the high Northern latitudes. In this scenario the high latitude would go through a very rapid cooling periods that could have devastating effects on the ecosystem (Gagosian, 2007). For this reason we assert that this region should be carefully monitored in order to recognize this trend early. There should also be a significant effort put into maintaining the robustness of the ecosystem in this area. To do this, restrictions placed on the fishery in this region should be higher than they would otherwise be set. If research proves this scenario is not as severe as predicted, or that change will happen on longer time scales, such restrictions could be scaled back.
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Scientists are using tropical foreign fish to gauge how fish around Australia and Tasmania will react to higher see sea temperatures. Also, they are trying to learn what smaller fish to feed the native fish in order to produce maximum size and yield. Researches have found that barramundi grow more quickly when fed lupins rather than smaller fish like anchovies. (Barra, 2007).
Another team of scientists studied how the depth of water and climate change related to fish populations. The science team examined 555 specimens ranging in age from two to 128 years, with birth years from 1861 to 1993. Growth rates of a coastal species, juvenile morwong, in the 1990s were 28.5 per cent faster than at the beginning of the period under assessment in the mid-1950s. By comparison, juvenile oreos, a species found at depths of around 1,000 meters, were growing 27.9 per cent slower than in the 1860s. There was no or little change in the growth rates of species found between 500 and 1,000 meters. correlations Correlations for long-lived shallow and deep-water species suggest that water temperatures have been a primary factor in determining juvenile growth rates in the species examined - Banded morwong, redfish, Jackass Morwong, Spiky, black, smooth and Warty Oreo and Orange roughy. In the southwest Pacific east of Tasmania sea surface temperatures have risen nearly two degrees, based on the results of a monitoring program at Maria Island. Coinciding with this has been a southward shift in South Pacific zonal winds, which has strengthened the warm, pole ward-flowing East Australian Current. (CSIRO, 2007).
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Rising temperature of climate change is already noticeable in the deep layers of the Japan Sea and the shrinking ice of the Sea of Okhotsk, while rising sea levels have been occurring along Sanriku coasts and the Pacific Ocean side for the past 100 years. Southern plankton which have never been seen as north northerly as Japan now threatens oysters, shellfish, and sardinesardines, all of which are important to Japan's fishing industry. (Ichikawa, 104-105) The great change afflicted by even a few degrees rise in temperature is evident in the case of bluefin tuna. Able to spawn up to six degrees below its optimal temperature of 26 degrees Celsius, bluefin tuna, however, cannot spawn three degrees above that number. Based on the study and projection of Shingo Kimura, professor of marine environmental science at the University of Tokyo, tuna population, already hurt by overfishing, will be so exacerbated that populations will shrink to 37% its current levels by 2099. As Japan is the biggest supplies of bluefin tuna and given the internationality of the fishing industry, a decline in numbers hurt will also hurt China, South Korean, China, and the US. (Bluefin, 1) In a culture that is based on fishing, Japan faces not just the threat of environmental change but also of cultural change.
The increased carbon dioxide from combustion has in turn increased acidity Over the past two centuries, the pH of the ocean by 30%'s surface has decreased by .1, drastically altering the chemistry of the ocean. In the North Pacific waters, which is the most in general more acidic than other waters because it is colder, older, and absorbs more carbon, coral reef are being tested at saturation points, when growth cannot overcome disintegration due to ; this trend is predicted to continue with a decline of .3-.5 by 2100 if carbon dioxide emissions continue at 1,000 parts per million (Samuel Bowring (personal communication, November 24, 2007)). The result of increased acidity is more pronounced in the Pacific because of its cold water, which can dissolve more carbon dioxide. Coral reefs are more likely desintegrate at these levels of acidity. (Brenton, 1) In the Indo-Pacific waters, which hold 75% the world's coral reefs, researchers of at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found in surveys found study decline, threatening a decline of coral reefs which threatens tourism, that coastal regions that once found safety behind the buffering reefs, and fisheries. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1)
As Royce Pollard of Vancouver, Washington said, "The fish gave us our first indication." (Joling, 1) The effect of climate change on fisheries in many cases is a warning sign of more adverse effects to follow. In the case of Alaska salmon run failures of 1997-1998, Chinook salmon catch were only 43,500, half than that of the catch the year before. Though for For the next year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game forecasted a catch of 24.8 million, and only 12.1 million were caught. Also in 1997-1998, Alaska experienced a 2.0 degrees Celsius increase in surface temperature and a 1.5-2.0 degrees Celsius increase in deep ocean temperature. (Kruse , 61) Pacific white-dolphins, albacore, walleye Pollock, all southern species, were sighted in northern Gulf of Alaska. A sub-polar phytoplankton known as Coccolithophore blooms appeared suddenly, indicating high light intensity and low nutrients in the water. All these changes, which were already predicted in 1995 by ocean scientists who studied global warming on the Bering Sea, confirmed the need to understand more climate change in Alaska. (Kruse, 60) As a result, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the Marine Conservation Alliance have closed US waters in the Arctic Ocean to fishing until enough research is present to understand climate change and until a management regime is put in place for climate change. (Marine Conservation Alliance, 1)
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Gagosian, Robert B. (January 27, 2003). Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried? Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=9986+unmigrated-wiki-markup
Garcia, Serge M. and Moreno, Ignatio De Leiva. "Global Overview of Marine Fisheries".Web extension to Fisheries Watch. \ [WWW Document\] URL [http://www.fisherieswatch.org/docs/237.pdf]. (visited 2007, November 9)\+
Gille, S. T. (2002) "Warming of the Southern Ocean Since the 1950's" Science 295. 1275-1277.
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Jones, P.D., T.J. Osborn, K.R. Briffa, C.K. Folland, E.B. Horton, L.V. Alexander, D.E. Parker and N.A. Rayner, 2001: Adjusting for sampling density in grid box land and ocean surface temperature time series. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 3371-3380.unmigrated-wiki-markup
Kruse, Gordon H. (1998). Salmon Run Failures in 1997-1998: A Link to Anomalous Ocean Conditions? \ [Electronic version\]. _Alaska_ _Fishery Research Bulletin_, Vol. 5 No. 1, 54-63.
Marine Conservation Alliance. (2007, June) International Agreement Needed to Protect Arctic Fisheries. Retrieved November 3, 2007 from http://www.marineconservationalliance.org/press/pr20070612.pdf.
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Phytoplankton imaging and monitoring data from the Flow Cytometer And Microscope (FlowCAM). (2007, November). Retrieved November 17, 2007, from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/+
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UNEP. (2006). Ecosystem and Biodiversity in Deep Sea Waters and High Seas. UNEP Regional Seas Reports and Studies No. 178 .
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2007, August 9). Indo-Pacific Coral Reefs Disappearing More Rapidly Than Expected. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 9, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070808082051.htm
Western Indian Ocean. (2007, November) Web extension to Wildlife Conservation Society. Retrieved on November 6, 2007 from http://www.wcs.org/sw-home.
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Working Paper: Proposal for Marine Conservation by the Pronaturaleza Foundation: Mancora Bank, Tumbes/Piura, Peru (2004)
Zhang, Q., Yang, H., Zhong, Y., et all (2005). An idealized study of the impact of extratropical climate change on El Nino--880.
Climate Changes Mitigation: (I don't know exactly where this should go)
Riparian buffer construction and preservation will help prevent damage from the increased precipitation and runoff predicted in some areas as predicted by climate models (see LINK TO RIPARIAN BUFFERS PAGE), as the overhead leaf cover helps to slow water velocity and the ground level vegetation helps slow the water velocity. Other methods that will also help decrease an increase in run-off pollution include the use of permeable asphault to encourage water infiltration and the use of different types of groundcovers in lawns (which currently act as impermeable surfaces when solely composed of dense grass)--see http://pcgroundcovers.com/groundcovers.html for examples of different types of groundcover. Education about well placement and use to prevent salt-water intrusion into freshwater should also be considered as a priority as sea-level rises become an issue.
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