marine

Microplastic Hotspots In The Ocean | Earth Wise

June 4, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Many of us are aware of the infamous ocean “garbage patches” of floating plastic. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is roughly the size of Texas. But over 10 million tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year and the floating patches only account for 1% of that total. The remaining 99% of the plastic ends up in the deep ocean, generally in the form of microplastics – tiny fragments of large plastic debris that have broken down as well as manufactured polyethylene beads used in various products.

According to a new study published in the journal Science, there are actually microplastic hotspots on the ocean floor, formed by deep-sea currents that act as conveyer belts moving the tiny plastic fragments around. One of these hotspots – in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the west coast of Italy – contained 1.9 million microplastic pieces in just one square meter of seafloor. This is the highest reported value for any place in the world.

Because of their small size, microplastics can be ingested by organisms across all levels of the marine food chain and eventually find their way into human diets.

The spatial distribution and ultimate fate of ocean microplastics are strongly controlled by near-bed thermohaline currents. These are deep-ocean currents driven by differences in water density, which is controlled by temperature and salinity. Thermohaline currents are known to supply oxygen and nutrients to the flora and fauna found at the ocean bottom. As a result, deep sea biodiversity hotspots are likely to be in same places where there are microplastic hotspots.

The discovery of these deep- sea hotspots is just another reason why we need behavior and policy interventions to limit the flow of plastics into natural environments.

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Seafloor microplastic hotspots controlled by deep-sea circulation

Photo, posted September 6, 2012, courtesy of Oregon State University via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Sea Turtles Prospering During The Shutdown | Earth Wise

May 14, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Our stories often discuss how human activities change the natural environment. With most of us confined to our homes, the lack of human activities is having profound effects on the environment. We are talking about some of these this week.

Seven different species of sea turtles are found in the world’s oceans and play important roles in marine ecosystems. Over time, human activities have tipped the scales against the survival of these animals. They have been hunted for their eggs, meat, skin, and shells and face habitat destruction and accidental capture in fishing gear. Their nesting grounds in beaches are constantly disturbed and endangered by human activity.

With the beaches in Florida closed in the effort to stop the spread of coronavirus, there is less plastic waste, fewer people and vehicles, and fewer artificial lights on the beach that disorient emerging turtle hatchlings. Because of all of these factors, sea turtles have been building their nests without disruptions.

In April, it was nesting season for leatherback turtles, the largest of all sea turtles. In May, loggerhead turtles arrive in Florida. Later in the summer, green turtles will arrive.

It takes about 60 days for sea turtle eggs to incubate and to hatch. During that period, lots of things can happen to a nest on an active beach – it can get trampled, people can dig it up, and artificial light can confuse the hatchlings as they try to find their way to the water. With the current shutdown, it should be a productive nesting season for sea turtles.

On the other hand, when beaches reopen, there may well be a major influx of people flocking to the beach because they have been stuck indoors for an extended period of time.

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Sea turtles are thriving as coronavirus lockdown empties Florida beaches

Photo, posted August 9, 2016, courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Giant Marine Preserve | Earth Wise

May 4, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Seychelles islands are located east of Kenya, near the equator. Its beautiful beaches, virgin jungles, thriving coral reefs, and UNESCO-listed nature reserves are among the many attractions of the archipelago’s 115 islands. The larger inner islands are quite developed for tourists, studded with many luxurious five-star resorts. The natural wonders of the Seychelles are clearly its prime asset.

Given this, the Seychelles have now established 154,000 square miles of marine protected areas, fulfilling a pledge to protect nearly a third of its vast territorial waters. This is an area twice the size of Great Britain.

About half of the newly protected areas will be “no-take zones” in which economic activity such as fishing and mining will be prohibited. Only limited economic activities will be permitted in the other half of the protected areas.

The President of the Seychelles signed the decree establishing the marine reserve in mid-March. The reserve will help protect the nation’s fisheries resources and safeguard a host of species including endangered sea turtles, sharks, and the Indian Ocean’s last remaining population of dugongs, which are marine mammals similar to manatees.

The funding for managing and protecting the new marine reserves will come from what is termed a debt-for-nature deal. It is an agreement that was worked out with the help of The Nature Conservancy that allows the country to restructure nearly $22 million in foreign debt in exchange for protecting marine resources and enacting climate adaptation measures.

This major expansion of the Seychelles’ marine protected area is a major step in the conservation of the archipelago’s biodiversity. The success of that conservation will ultimately depend upon enforcement, public-private partnerships, and innovative management.

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Seychelles Creates a Marine Reserve Twice the Size of Great Britain

Photo, posted October 22, 2017, courtesy of Falco Ermet via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Foods of the Future? | Earth Wise

March 27, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

In a world where many go hungry in the context of rapidly changing environments, many experts contend that alternative food sources will be necessary to solve global food security problems. So-called novel food sources are central to this conversation, defined as foods with no history of consumption in a region – or perhaps anywhere.

Three popular examples are lab-grown meat, insect farming, and seaweed aquaculture. Each of these offer opportunities as well as challenges.

Lab-grown meat can refer to actual animal tissues raised in vats as well as the increasingly common cultured plant products made to resemble meat. Lab-grown meat faces push back from the livestock industry that contends it should not be labeled as any kind of meat. While results to date are positive, barriers still remain including concerns over product taste, healthiness, and cost. And while less land- and water-intensive than conventional livestock, cultured meat production is still energy intensive.

Insects do form a significant part of diets across the globe but have yet to be embraced in any substantial way in western cultures. Nutritionally, numerous species of insects are rich in key proteins, micronutrients, and minerals. But the “yuck factor” is a big barrier to cross.

Seaweed is a long-established part of many East Asian diets and has many potential dietary uses. Several selectively bred varieties of seaweed supply a range of valuable nutrients. Growing seaweed does not tax freshwater and terrestrial resources. But intensively cultivated seaweeds would have potential negative effects on local marine ecosystems.

There is no single solution to complex issues like food security. Novel foods may very well form part of the solution to a growing food crisis.

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Insects, seaweed and lab-grown meat could be the foods of the future

Photo, posted March 12, 2009, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Harvesting Blue Energy | Earth Wise

February 7, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

There are various ways to generate renewable energy from the world’s oceans, most obviously from the power of tides and waves. But there is also an oceanic energy source called osmotic or “blue” energy. Osmotic energy uses the differences in pressure and salinity between freshwater and saltwater to generate electricity.

When freshwater and saltwater are mixed together, large amounts of energy are released. If the freshwater and seawater are then separated via a semi-permeable membrane, the freshwater will pass through the membrane and dilute the saltwater due to the chemical potential difference. This process is called osmosis. If the salt ions are captured completely by the membrane, the passing of water through the membrane will create a pressure known as osmotic pressure. This pressure can be used to generate electricity by using it to drive a turbine. This has been demonstrated to work as far back as the 1970s, but the materials we have to use are not adequate to withstand ocean conditions over the long term and tend to break down quickly in the water.

New research, published in the journal Joule, looked to living organisms for inspiration to develop an improved osmotic energy system. Scientists from the U.S. and Australia combined multiple materials to mimic the kind of high-performance membranes that are found in living organisms. They created a hybrid membrane made from aramid microfibers (like those used in Kevlar) and boron nitride. The new material provides both the flexibility of cartilage and the strength and stability of bone.

The researchers believe that the low cost and high stability of the new hybrid membrane will allow it to succeed in volatile marine environments. They also expect the technology will be both efficient and scalable.

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Inspired by the Tissues of Living Organisms, Researchers Take One Step Closer to Harvesting “Blue Energy”

Photo, posted February 14, 2017, courtesy of Marian May via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Record Low Ice In The Bering Sea | Earth Wise

January 30, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Bering Sea is the area of the far northern Pacific Ocean that separates Alaska from Russia. Sea ice in the Bering Sea shrank to its lowest levels in recorded history in 2018, an event with profound effects on northwest Alaska residents who depend on marine resources for food, cash, and culture.

The loss of ice is indicative of very rapid change in the entire northern Bering Sea ecosystem with ramifications for everyone in the region. A new peer-reviewed study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society examined the details and consequences of the drastic changes in the Bering Sea.

The study found that the maximum daily Bering Sea ice was the lowest on record, and the widespread impacts of that fact include unprecedented weather effects, marine wildlife die-offs, and sightings of animals outside of their normal range. Ecological changes included the first documented mass strandings of ice-associated seals, a redistribution of thermally sensitive fish, and a multispecies die-off of seabirds due to starvation.

Persistent and anomalous warm winter weather contributed to poor ice conditions that resulted in a fatal accident on an ice road and retreating and fractured sea ice led to ice-laden flooding that caused power outages and infrastructure damage. In addition, there have been more than 50 reports of unusual events related to weather and marine wildlife.

The record-low sea ice is a consequence of the warming climate resulting in a warmer ocean, later arrival of sea ice, and more frequent storms than in the pre-industrial era. These conditions are continuing to increase in occurrence.

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Record low level of Bering Sea ice causes profound, widespread impacts

Photo, posted April 7, 2014, courtesy of Allen Smith via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

What’s On Nature’s Calendar? | Earth Wise

January 29, 2020 By EarthWise 1 Comment

The Inuit Calendar is based on six seasons defined by weather, ice, animal migration, daylight hours and the night sky. All these variables are in flux according to Harvard Narwhal Biologist Dr. Martin Nweeia. Last August in the high Canadian Arctic, at 72 degrees north latitude, temperatures were at an astounding 70 degrees during the day. In 2018, the same region at the same time of year, experienced one of the coldest August months in 15 years.

Disappearing sea ice in Hudson Bay affects migration patterns of ice-dependent species like narwhal and beluga whales and now allows more shipping traffic which produces more marine noise pollution and the risk of an oil spill. As a natural resource, the Arctic has significant deposits of iron ore, gold, diamonds, phosphate, and bauxite, so cargo shipments are increasing yearly.

The disappearance of caribou herds and altered migrations of other animals have also blurred the seasonal changes. Caribou numbers have decreased by more than half in the last two decades. Narwhal populations are remaining steady but are experiencing migration shifts resulting in their appearance at new locations and their absence from traditional areas. Even the timing of the migration has changed, shifting two weeks later from normal late summer – early fall patterns.

The night sky, which has long had identifiable reference points for Inuit observers, is also changing causing speculation about changes in the magnetic field and a polar shift or flipping of the poles. The earth’s magnetic north has been shifting toward Siberia at an alarming 30 miles each year since 2015. Every million years, it is estimated that the poles flip three times. No one knows if or when it will happen again. That’s a calendar with some unexpected dates.

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–Earth Wise acknowledges script contribution from Dr. Martin Nweeia of Harvard University.

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Migratory Tundra Caribou and Wild Reindeer

Earth’s magnetic field is acting up and geologists don’t know why

Photo, posted June 27, 2014, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Much More Microplastics In The Ocean | Earth Wise

January 28, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

We’ve been hearing more and more about plastic contamination (microplastics) in the ocean. It is pulled from the nostrils of sea turtles, found in Antarctic waters, and tracked in increasing quantities in sedimentary layers dating back to the 1940s. A new study by researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggests that there could be a million times more pieces of plastic in the ocean than previously estimated.

Oceanographers found that some of the tiniest countable microplastic particles in seawater occur at much higher concentrations than previously measured. Apparently, the traditional way of counting marine microplastics most likely misses the smallest particles, and therefore underestimates the number of particles by a factor of anywhere from 10,000 to a million.

The new measurements estimate that the oceans may be contaminated by 8 million pieces of so-called mini-microplastics per cubic meter of water. Earlier studies that only looked at larger pieces of plastic found only 10 pieces per cubic meter.

Microplastic studies typically trawl or pull a fine net behind a ship to collect samples. But the meshes previously used could only capture plastics as small as 333 microns. The new study found plastic particles as small as 10 microns, which is less than the width of a human hair.

Plastics keep breaking down into smaller and smaller particles, but they are so chemically strong that their chemical bonds don’t break down. They remain bits of plastic. Scientists are concerned that these particles can get small enough to enter the human bloodstream. The potential effects on human health are not well known and not extensively studied.

The problem of plastics just keeps getting bigger.

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Microplastics a million times more abundant in the ocean than previously thought

Photo courtesy of UC San Diego.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A New Kind Of Coral Nursery

October 22, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Coral reefs around the world are struggling from warming waters and increasing ocean acidification driven by excess carbon dioxide. Many of the world’s greatest reefs – such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – have seen steep declines over the past decade.

But apart from the global environmental threat, reefs also are often damaged by various marine accidents such as ships grounding on them. Such events can severely damage a reef and scatter countless small coral fragments onto the seafloor. These small pieces of coral are not actually dead; they can continue on with their lives if they are relocated to a suitable environment such as a coral nursery.

Coral nurseries are generally small installations that allow coral fragments – typically pieces about 4 inches in length – to recover from their reef breaking up and to grow until they are large enough for conservation managers to replant them into reefs that need them. This strategy works well in places where corals grow relatively quickly – such as Florida and the Caribbean – but not as well in places where coral grows more slowly, such as Hawaii.

Recently, coral experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration working with mechanical engineering students at the University of Hawaii have developed a new type of coral nursery that can save fully formed coral colonies as opposed to small coral fragments.

The nurseries are large, carefully designed structures that can be loaded up with corals that have become detached from their reefs. Some of these new structures were installed in the waters of Oahu in the summer of 2018 and were populated with corals. The relocated corals, which would have otherwise died, are now recovering nicely in their new coral daycare centers and will soon be replanted back into the reef.

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NOAA Develops A New Type of Coral Nursery

Photo, posted July 29, 2010, courtesy of Kyle Taylor via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Getting Rid Of Plastic Here And Abroad

May 23, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Efforts in the fight against plastic pollution are really stepping up these days.

New York State lawmakers have agreed to impose a statewide ban on most types of single-use plastic bags from retail sales. The ban would be the second statewide ban after California, which banned the bags in 2016. Hawaii effectively also has such a ban since all of the state’s counties have their own bans.

The New York ban would begin next March and would forbid stores from providing customers with single-use plastic bags. There are a number of exceptions, including food takeout bags in restaurants, bags used to wrap deli or meat counter products, and newspaper bags. New York counties could opt into a plan to charge a 5-cent fee on paper bags, with proceeds going to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund. Some environmentalists point out, however, that paper bags have their own issues. While they do decompose in landfills, they have a substantial carbon footprint since they are made from wood and being heavier, they are more costly to ship. Business groups are concerned about the forthcoming ban based on increased costs.

Meanwhile, European Union member states have reached a provisional agreement to introduce restrictions on single-use plastic products. In 2021. European citizens will say goodbye to plastic cutlery, plastic plates and plastic straws among other products.

According to the European Commission, plastics make up 85% of beach litter in the Mediterranean. Large plastic pieces injure, suffocate, and often kill marine animals but microplastics have reached record levels of concentration – over a million fragments per square kilometer – in the Mediterranean.

Both here and abroad, the war on plastics is heating up.

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Plastic Bags to Be Banned in New York; Second Statewide Ban, After California

The End Of Plastic Cutlery, Plates And Straws: EU Market Says Goodbye To Single-Use Plastic Products

Photo, posted March 20, 2007, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Protecting Vulnerable Shorelines

May 21, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Global climate change is having noticeable effects on the environment. For example, glaciers are shrinking. Plant and animal ranges are shifting and populations decreasing. And droughts, floods, and wildfires are becoming more frequent and more intense. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over time.

Our coastal shorelines, which are already stressed by human activity, pollution, storms, and invasive species, are one of many areas expected to be further threatened by climate change. Sea level rise and more intense and frequent storms are expected to erode and inundate coastal ecosystems and eliminate wetlands. Ocean acidification is also projected to disrupt marine environments.

But according to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, seagrasses could play a key role in protecting these vulnerable shorelines from this onslaught. The MIT research team demonstrated how the ubiquitous marine plants dissipate wave energy and help protect against erosion, which could help mitigate damage from rising seas.

Using mathematical modelling and experiments, the MIT researchers were able to quantify for the first time how large and dense a continuous meadow of seagrass must be in order to provide adequate damping of waves in a given setting. They also found that seagrasses offer significant environmental benefits, including preventing beach erosion, protecting seawalls and coastal structures, improving water quality, and sequestering carbon.

Submerged aquatic vegetation, including seagrasses, provides an ecosystem service exceeding $4 trillion annually. Hopefully these findings can help provide useful guidance for seagrass restoration efforts.

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Seagrass’ strong potential for curbing erosion

The Effects of Climate Change

Photo, posted October 13, 2010, courtesy of the NOAA Photo Library via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Balloons And Seabirds

March 19, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It’s no secret that there is a ton of plastic in the ocean – millions of tons, in fact. Scientists estimate that there is more 165 million tons of plastics swirling about in our oceans today, with an additional 8.8 million tons flowing in every year. As the oceans swell with plastic debris, many marine species wind up ingesting the stuff – often with dire consequences.

All this plastic trash winds up affecting more than just aquatic species, too. According to researchers from the University of Tasmania, a seabird that ingested a single piece of plastic has a 20% chance of mortality. This statistic jumps to 50% if the seabird consumes nine pieces of plastic.

The study, which was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, also found that while hard plastics account for the majority of plastic debris ingested, it’s far less likely to prove fatal than soft plastics, such as balloons.

In fact, the researchers found that balloons or balloon fragments were the number one marine debris risk of mortality for seabirds, killing almost one in five of the seabirds that ingested them.

The leading cause of death among the seabirds studied was blockage of the gastrointestinal tract. While soft plastics only accounted for 5% of the ingested plastics, they were responsible for more than 40% of seabird mortality. But the researchers make clear that hard plastics were still responsible for more than half of the study’s seabird deaths.

If we want to reduce the number of marine species dying from plastic ingestion, we need to reduce the volume of plastic going into the ocean and do what we can to remove what’s already there.

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Balloons the number 1 marine debris risk of mortality for seabirds

Photo, posted July 24, 2014, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Is There Hope For Coral Reefs?

January 16, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

News about the world’s coral reefs has been relentlessly bad for a number of years. Warming, acidifying oceans have wreaked havoc with coral reefs leading to enormous losses. Nowhere have things been more dire than in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Coral bleaching events have been increasingly common and severe over the past two decades. In fact, only 7% of the Great Barrier Reef has escaped bleaching entirely since 1998.

While the future of the world’s coral reefs is very much uncertain as global heating continues, there is a recent bit of hopeful news. According to a study published in Nature Climate Change, the response of the Great Barrier Reef to the extreme temperatures in 2017 was quite different from that of the previous year in the aftermath of back-to-back bouts of coral bleaching.

Surprisingly, corals that bleached in 2016 but managed to survive were more resistant to the recurrence of hot conditions in 2017.

Many corals don’t survive bleaching events at all and, of course,those corals don’t bleach for a second time. But the surviving corals from the 2016 bleaching event were tougher species. As a result of bleaching, the mix of coral species on the reef is changing very rapidly. The net result was that there was less bleaching in 2017 even though the temperatures that year were even more extreme than in 2016.

There have now been four mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef over the past 20 years and it is only a matter of time before another one occurs triggered by the next marine heatwave. Almost half of the corals on the northern two-thirds of the reef have been killed. But at least some of the reef is showing impressive survival skills.

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A glimmer of hope for the world’s coral reefs

Photo, posted November 29, 2012, courtesy of Robert Linsdell via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Japan And Whaling

January 10, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The commercial hunting of whales nearly drove the giant mammals to extinction. By the 1960s, as hunting technologies improved and ships began to resemble floating factories, it became clear that whaling could not continue unchecked.

But despite all this, commercial whaling was never actually banned. Instead, in 1986, members of the International Whaling Committee (IWC) agreed to a whaling moratorium in order to allow whale stocks to recover. Pro-whaling nations like Japan, Iceland, and Norway expected the moratorium to be temporary until the whales stocks recovered, and a consensus on catch quotas could be established. But the temporary moratorium became a quasi-permanent ban, much to the delight of conservationists and to the dismay of whaling nations.

As a result, Japan recently announced it is leaving the international agreement and plans to resume commercial whaling. The agreement though never really stopped Japanese whaling in the first place, because it allowed the country to kill whales for scientific research. Japan has had an annual Antarctic catch quota of 333 minke whales, producing notoriously little in terms of whale science while producing lots of whale meat. As part of its withdrawal from the IWC, Japan will cease its Antarctic hunts and limit whalers to its own waters. Commercial Japanese whaling will resume in July.

Once popular in Japan, whale meat consumption has plummeted, falling 98% between 1962 and 2016. The industry employs fewer than 1,000 people and is dependent on government subsidies.

Many governments and conservationist groups condemned Japan’s withdrawal, declaring the move out of step with the international community. They argue that, rather than hunting whales, urgent action is needed to conserve marine ecosystems.

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