Satellite Study Shows Drop In Ocean's Plankton Level

An anonymous reader submits: "CNN reports there seems to be a dramatic drop in N. hemishpere phytoplankton and a net overall decline in the ocean's overall phytoplankton population. This has very serious implications for the overall food chain and also the scrubbing of CO2 in the atmosphere."

Comments

SeaWiFS

[LunarFox]

Additional information on the spacecraft that made these observation is available on the SeaWiFS site.

Or maybe el Nino?

[stefanlasiewski]

Don't plankton populations drop during the El Nino season? Different temperatures == fewer plankton survive the temperature change?

Re:Or maybe el Nino?

[arkham6]

Unfortunatly this is not a quick change. This is a gradual decline since the 1980's.

This is a very scary thing. I remember my bio teacher in high school saying that the plankton were responsible for the majority of the co2 -> 02 conversions. They also feed fish and whales. If they continue to drop, we may soon have dead lifeless oceans. I'm not trying to sound like a fear monger, but...

Re:Or maybe el Nino?

[3waygeek]

We'd better keep a couple of humpbacks around, just in case.

No Plankton?

[Karma Farmer]

But, the plankton can't all dies off. Once it's all gone, then what are we going to make this yummy new soylent green stuff out of?

Actually seems like a shift from N to S

[ccmann]

Here's the original press release from NASA. The actual journal article, in Geophysical Research Letters, is not available on the Web to nonsubscribers.

Note, though, an important sentence in the NASA release that is missing from the CNN account:

"Also, summer plankton concentrations rose by over 50 percent in both the Northern Indian and the Equatorial Atlantic Oceans since the mid-80s. Large areas of the Indian Ocean showed substantial increases during all four seasons."

There's still a net loss, but the real phenomenon appears to be a shifting of phytoplankton from north to south.

Re:Actually seems like a shift from N to S

[4of12]

There's still a net loss, but the real phenomenon appears to be a shifting of phytoplankton from north to south.

You mean, shifting in a direction opposite to where most developed countries are located [except for Oz]?

UVs

[Scrameustache]

IIRC

Plankton is sensitive to ultraviolet rays (in the "it kills it" sense), with all the talk of ozone layers and holes in the recent years, I wonder if this might be related.

Huh?

[Cyno01]

wern't we having the opposite problem with plankton? all the nitrates and crap from farming flowing down the mississippi into the gulf and causing a surge in plankton that was choking off the eco-system, there were dead fish washing up on every beach in the gulf, was the phytoplankton or am i thinking of something else?

you'd better be!

[js7a]

You are correct to be scared. There seems to be little hope.

Thi is a "teeth-gritter" of an article...

[Ocelot Wreak]

If the oceans phytoplankton give up the ghost, then you really won't want to stick around on planet earth for very much longer. Dead oceans will cause the entire planet's ecosystem to collapse. On the other hand, perhaps the plankton, being simple single cell life, can adapt to hight temperatures and pollution more easily than other life forms. But it's still something to worry about...

Yes....

[JMZero]

But as long as there's still one Plankton, we'll all have to keep watch over our Krabbie Patties.

The decline is only relative to 20 years ago.

[kroymen]

This is potentially very disturbing. However, we don't know that the levels in 1980 weren't abnormally high for some reason (e.g. growing use of fertilizer and increased mono-cropping exacerbating erosion of topsoil into the ocean).

As usual, we read way too much into research findings.

And how do you know that?

[Spamalamadingdong]

Researchers have been collecting samples of seawater for a lot longer than 20 years. The levels in historical data could have been relatively steady, for all that's in the article.

One thing for certain, if we are going to fight global warming we really can't afford substantial decreases in oceanic carbon fixation. We may have to do things like pumping nutrient-laden deep ocean water up to the surface to overcome the increased adverse thermal gradient and slowing winds (both of which tend to let the water stratify instead of mix).

Re:And how do you know that?

[kroymen]

I know that because they were using specific satellite technology which would not have been available much earlier.

I know that because the article cites a drop *since* *1980*. Had there been a consistent drop since another time period...or even a stable period prior to that time, it should be mentioned in the article.

The point is the only information in the article is that using satellite data, phytoplankton levels have dropped since 1980. From that information, there is only one thing that can be stated with any degree of certainty: that levels of phytoplankton are lower than they were 22 years ago.

As much as the wild-eyed prophets would like to believe otherwise, that's not much to go on...

We need the good package

[EvilTwinSkippy]

All we need to do is ask the aliens for the good package.

Of course the Bush administration would rather we pick up the bad package... But hey, we just need to behave like Real Men.

Global warming

[gengee]

I've always been extremely skeptical of global warming and most all evidence produced to 'prove' its existence.

Why? A simple matter of common sense. You constantly see headlines in the liberal-news media similar to "2001 Average Global Temperature Highest Since 1670" which, of course, begs the question "Who/what was producing all the green house gases in 1670 that caused the Earth's temperature to rise so dramatically?"

The answer is noone/nothing. There was no above average volcanic activity. There was certainly no man-made greenhouse gases. There was extraordinarily little man-made pollution. It was, in fact, a normal cycle in the Earth's temperature. We know that the Earth's temperature goes up and down over the course of hundreds and thousands of years.

Not to mention of course the fact that 30 years ago we were heading into an iceage, and all advised to buy warm clothes. Won't this new global warming simply offset the predicted ice age of 30 years ago?

The fact is these enviro-nuts don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about. There has been good scientific data produced, of course, but the media constantly reports tbe findings of liberal-financed propoganda from neo-hippy enviromental nutsos that will do/say anything to get their point across - that man is bad, and nature is good. It's a typical rage-against-the-machine type attitude.

Anyway, in my ramblings I lost track of my point: If we take the plankton data at face value and accept it as true (Ha-ha) and we further stipulate that global warming is a reality - Maybe 'global warming' is directly attributable to the "dramatic drop" in phytoplankton in the N. Hemisphere. Why does the reverse have to be true? If memory serves, something like 80% of all oxygen is produced from cyanobacteria. I don't have exact figures (I never do:P) but thats a whole fuck-ton of carbom dioxide absorbtion.

Don't get me wrong - pollution is bad. It obviously affects wild life populations (Prince William Sound, anyone:P) It's stinky, it's yucky and I don't want it in my back yard. But this idea that it's going to cause the flooding the world, that it will unleach monster hurricanes upon Oklahoma is rediculous.

Re:Global warming

[ianscot]

Maybe you should look back over the history of the 20th century. Look for the people who were saying the sorts of things you're saying now about the environment, and tell me if they seem like they were right in retrospect. (I'm reading "Close to Shore" right now, about the shark attacks of 1916. "Gee, fish I buy in Philadelphia is tasting a little like coal tar, but nothing's been 'proven'...")

When politically-obsessive folks -- your "liberal media conspiracy" asides make it all too clear -- refer to "common sense," the rest of us keep one hand on our wallets.