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Warm Water Squid Reported Off Alaskan Coast

fenris_23 writes "The associated press is reporting Humboldt Squid - a species that lives in the warm waters off the Baja coast - have recently been observed off the coast of Alaska. 'A large Humboldt squid caught offshore from Sitka is among numerous sightings of a species seen for the first time in waters of the Far North, and the first of the species recovered from British Columbia waters.' This may help corroborate a similar slashdot story covering rising CO2 levels measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory where the possibility was raised that rising sea temperatures are reducing the Earth's ability to manage greenhouse gases."

44 comments

  1. Way to be on top, slashdot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your local morning radio schlock jock show already reported on this TWO DAYS AGO.

  2. Revelation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder if this is what will cause the apocalypse. Rising temps. Hell on earth.

    1. Re:Revelation by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 3, Funny

      And lo, the tasty, translucent beasts of the sea with bright eyes traversed the oceans and came unto the place of the white bear and the fish of orange flesh. And so upon arriving the Lord sent to the land a message that whosoever eats of the beast of the sea shall bring damnation unto all men.

      The men of Rome heeded not these words and boiled the beast in hot oil and leaven flour. They consumed the beast before they supped, dipping the abomination in the fruit of nightshade.

      The Lord looked down upon the men in their wickedness with much anger. "Unto Noah had I promised not to destroy the world by flood. But these men in their wickedness have called down my wrath upon all men. Thus shall I destroy the earth anew with not flood but fire."

      And the eigth horseman appeared in the distance carrying a great cart with no horse in his left hand and a flag of many stars and red and white stripes in his right. And he rode across the face of the earth setting aflame ice and darkening the skies.

    2. Re:Revelation by hookedup · · Score: 1

      uh... ok..

    3. Re:Revelation by OwlofCreamCheese · · Score: 1

      they put ketchup on it?

      --
      -You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.
    4. Re:Revelation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wow....

  3. Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Alaskan Calamari, mmmmmmmmmm....

  4. What is wrong? by n54 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Migration of individual animals and species due to changes in the climate isn't a new thing. The earth is not static, it evolves and has cycles, so it's a long shot (not to say junk science) to claim it corroborates theories on a specific cause of those climate changes.

    It's still moderately interesting but how come this is considered a bigger science story than this?

    Is /. really that broken?

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    1. Re:What is wrong? by jeif1k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The earth is not static, it evolves and has cycles, so it's a long shot (not to say junk science) to claim it corroborates theories on a specific cause of those climate changes.

      Yes, climate "evolves and has cycles". But those "cycles" don't just happen by themselves, they are caused by changes in the environment, atmosphere, radiation, etc. Currently, it evolves in the direction of getting warmer, and that is something that deserves a scientific explanation.

      It just happens that CO2 levels are a highly plausible explanation of it. If you have a specific other explanation, please share it with us. Right now, your alternative theory seems to be "shit happens", and that really is junk science.

      It's still moderately interesting but how come this is considered a bigger science story than this?

      You don't need PCA in order to see trends in that data, you can use your own eyes. On the other hand, even if done correctly, PCA is probably a bogus procedure for this kind of analysis. So, you have a stupid response to a stupid analysis. Frankly, even observing a single warm water squid in cold water tells you more.

    2. Re:What is wrong? by n54 · · Score: 1

      I haven't said that the cycles happen by themselves, of course there are chains of causalities (both manmade and natural). Neither that its just "shit happens". I don't know where you got those things from but stop putting words in the mouths of people you consider your opponents, it's better to actually try to see what they say.

      As for PCA's validity etc. you don't seem to be too preoccupied by science being done right, did you read the link and the links in that text or did you just gloss over it?

      Observing a vagrant squid tells us a lot less scientifically than a major flaw being discovered in some of the most used data in scientifically arguing for global warming (and implicitly for the warming to be manmade). Try reading the links again :)

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    3. Re:What is wrong? by jeif1k · · Score: 1

      I haven't said that the cycles happen by themselves,

      No, you didn't say that, you simply ignored the question of causation at all. We currently have one plausible hypothesis for why global warming is happening. When you come up with an alternative, please share it.

      than a major flaw being discovered in some of the most used data in scientifically arguing for global warming

      The article about PCA isn't about a flaw in the data, it's about a flaw in one particular statistical analysis.

    4. Re:What is wrong? by n54 · · Score: 1

      you simply ignored the question of causation at all

      I did no such thing, I put forward an important news item that has big implications for most of the theories about what the specific cause(s) is/are. For you to automatically interpret that as a claim that there are no causes at all is ludicrous. The news isn't about what the specific causes are, the news is about a major and often used analysis of data being critically flawed.

      The article about PCA isn't about a flaw in the data, it's about a flaw in one particular statistical analysis

      Not just any analysis, in the words of the MIT Tech Rew article:
      "A prime piece of evidence linking human activity to climate change"

      In case you still do not realize it the analysis of said data is the starting point for the majority of science on global warming, and used as scientific proof for it. The fact that said analysis of data is "shot down" is pretty big news no matter what you, I, or anyone else personally believe is/are the cause(s).

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    5. Re:What is wrong? by mercedo · · Score: 1

      i dont completely follow what environmentalists are claiming. appearing animals living usually in warm area is a strange thing. but its wrong to connect immediately and directly with the results from the global warming what environmentalists insist. current global warming has got many other causes than human activities. lets reconsider from astronomical geological point of view. i think science can have room for it.

      --
      Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
    6. Re:What is wrong? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The mind boggles. A few posts up you were ordering jeif1k to "... stop putting words in the mouths of people you consider your opponents ...". And now you accuse him of an interpretation (automatic, no less) that he clearly did not make. Why don't you "actually try to see what they say"?
      Oh, and when jeif1k says "you simply ignored the question of causation at all" he is clearly referring to the first part of your original post. Not the bit about your new-found anti-global-warming meme. But that's clearly what you want to talk about, isn't it?

    7. Re:What is wrong? by DougWebb · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here's another plausible expanation, from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. The gist is that long term measurements of solar activity (going back thousands of years) show that the sun's output varies in cycles, and that those cycles coorelate very closely with average temperature measurements over the same period.

      This seems much more plausible to me, since it explains global warming and cooling that we know occurred well before the industrial revolution.

    8. Re:What is wrong? by jeif1k · · Score: 2, Informative

      In case you still do not realize it the analysis of said data is the starting point for the majority of science on global warming, and used as scientific proof for it

      The paper in question has indeed been cited over 300 times, so it is important, but it contains several results. We don't now which of those results (if any) citing papers rely on and if the conclusions of those papers would be affected if the McIntyre and McKitrick criticism is accurate. Muller fails to make that analysis in his paper, and he also is not an expert on statistical data analysis.

      What we are left with is that both points of view have been published, people have had the opportunity to make up their minds, and it is pretty clear what the mainstream scientific opinion on the matter is, at least for now.

    9. Re:What is wrong? by jeif1k · · Score: 2, Informative

      I didn't see any peer reviewed publications by Art Robinson; where are they?

      And, yes, solar variation has an influence on temperatures, and climatologists are aware of it. See Solar variation accounts for less than half of global warming in 20th Century, UA geoscientist finds, for example. And here.

  5. Seen similar thing by Jesrad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Off Brittany coast, around the Belle-Ile-en-Mer island, (latitude around 47.3, that's upper North than New-York or even Boston) now live tropical fishes. They've established there a couple years ago.

    The sea there has been warming these last years. I'd say on average it went up 2 C in temperature, but that's a totally unscientific estimate of mine.

    --
    Maybe we deserve this world ?
    1. Re:Seen similar thing by praedictus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Also I remember seeing an article recently... Ah here it is: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/200409 17/sc_nm/environment_mussels_dc_2 about warm water mussels migrating north. So there at least seems to be a very consistent trend going on here, whether due to emissions or natural cycles or both.

      --
      Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
  6. So, science is liberal? by tao_of_biology · · Score: 4, Informative
    It's maddening that there are people who think neutral scientific observations are furthering some kind of political agenda. That's not to say that the idea of "science" hasn't been misused in the past, but I don't believe that's the case w/ global warming.

    Do you think scientists are lying about the oceans warming up? Do you think they're lying about global warming? Do you think that liberals (which I am not one, but I am a scientist) have hijacked science to perpetuate some global warming myth... just for the sake of perpetuating some global warming agenda? Why? Because they like to scare people? Because they want to stifle business? I'll tell you why... it's because that's what they're observing.

    I realize there is some debate as to WHY global warming appears to be happening. I don't think there is much legitimate debate on IF it is happening though. The debate, now, seems centered on how severe it is, and how severe the impact will be.

    I don't really think the issue of the environment and global warming should be a liberal or conservative issue. It's a rational issue. It doesn't make any sense to politicize it.

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    -- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."

    1. Re:So, science is liberal? by KilobyteKnight · · Score: 1
      It's maddening that there are people who think neutral scientific observations are furthering some kind of political agenda. That's not to say that the idea of "science" hasn't been misused in the past, but I don't believe that's the case w/ global warming.

      It's maddening that some people blindly accept junk science as "neutral scientific observations".

      Squid are observed farther north = neutral observation

      Squid farther north bacause of CO2 and global warming = junk science

      And when exactly is it you think politicians stopped trying to misrepresent science to further their political agendas?
      --
      When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
    2. Re:So, science is liberal? by n54 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you think scientists are lying about the oceans warming up?

      Some might be twisting and nudging the facts a little but that isn't interesting compared to the simple fact that science do make mistakes from time to time, even big ones. Some people seem to think that science is infallible which is simply dangerous and weakens science in the long term. It's pretty obvious that global warming is a hot potato (pun intended) and also that this has compromised the quality of science regarding it (tendency for large scale panic usually has this effect). That should be a problem for all concerned as it reduces the chances of finding the correct answers on a question vital to us all.

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    3. Re:So, science is liberal? by jeif1k · · Score: 1

      Squid farther north bacause of CO2 and global warming = junk science

      No, that's not called "junk science", it's called a hypothesis (and a pretty plausible one). If you have an alternative hypothesis, please advance it. But simply ignoring the observation of species outside their normal range without explanation, that really is "junk science".

    4. Re:So, science is liberal? by fenris_23 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Nobody claimed that because squids are farther north, then it must be because of rising CO2 levels.

      The point was that one of the three hypotheses about why the CO2 levels recorded in Hawaii was rising sea temperatures. If this hypothesis were true, then there must be some testable predictions. I don't think anybody needs to argue that if sea temperatures rise, then warm-water species can migrate to areas previously too cold to sustain them.

      The point is that there is could be an interesting connection. Don't discredit suggestions merely because they don't fall in line with your political agenda. That is junk science.

      This was just an observation that may or may not corroborate a hypothesis explaining another anomalous observation. If you want to discredit it, then prove that there must be some other reason that the squid are now being observed where we would not have expected to observe them. Or, you could prove that rising sea temperatures could not have caused the rise in CO2 levels. That is how you discredit something in science.

    5. Re:So, science is liberal? by mercedo · · Score: 1

      i fairly agree in ur opinion. those who say science is omnipotent are arrogant. achievements human beings can reach still should be regarded as very limited. only from the deep reflection human beings can pose, further development can raise.

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      Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
    6. Re:So, science is liberal? by mercedo · · Score: 1

      u r very right. u showed something that every scientist must follow.

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      Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
  7. Article is example of common carelessness by museumpeace · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    in linking sundry phenomenon as part of a poorly understood hypothesis that our global climate system may be in some sort of collapse or runaway condition. Its JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE. The jump in CO2 may be real but the presumed jump in temps may be more illusory than previously supposed

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  8. Because we all know... by b-baggins · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...that pulling a squid out of the ocean is a far more effective way of measuring water temperature than using a thermometer.

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    You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
    1. Re:Because we all know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it really is, if you are interested in long-term trends.

  9. species range is important by geg81 · · Score: 3, Informative

    "in linking sundry phenomenon as part of a poorly understood hypothesis"

    One of the key determinants of the range of a species is temperature. So, observing changes in the range of species is one way in which one can determine whether there have been long-term changes in temperature.

    "The jump in CO2 may be real but the presumed jump in temps may be more illusory than previously supposed"

    Or it may not be, we just don't know. The way to gain more certainty is to get more data from different sources than we have used before. Observing the range and distribution of species over time is such a data source.

  10. I read squirts...not squid by supertsaar · · Score: 1

    Warm water squirts in the cold sea are always a warning sign :)

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    The Bigger The Headache The Bigger the Pill
  11. Follow the money by dheltzel · · Score: 1
    That's not to say that the idea of "science" hasn't been misused in the past, but I don't believe that's the case w/ global warming.

    I believe it is the case with global warming. The scientists involved get lots of attention which translates into money and power in our society. There are a lot of valid objections to the global warning theory, but rather than acknowledge and deal with those objections and the opposing data they present, the "scientists" who believe in global warming just ignore them. If they see data points that don't fit their model, they reject them. In my book, that's less science than religion.

    I realize there is some debate as to WHY global warming appears to be happening. I don't think there is much legitimate debate on IF it is happening though.

    But see, that's just it. There is debate about whether it's happening or not and you want to skip over that. It's as if you are saying "Assume the average temperature is increasing, now we need to find out why". Well as long as there is salient data that says the warning is not taking place, I don't see how you can make that assumption.

    Way back in the 70's, there was much concern about global cooling, and the likelihood that we were headed for another ice age. Apparently, that didn't work out so well for them, so now it's global warming.

    It doesn't make any sense to politicize it.

    I agree. But who's politicizing it? Which "side" is making all the noise politically? The "scientists" who want more funding for studying a problem they have theorized into existence, and some anti-corporate, anti-globalization types whose main agenda is to punish Americans for comsuming more than their share of the Earth's resources (as evidence of this, I give you the Kyoto Treaty, as blatently anti-American as you will ever see).

    It's more plausible to believe that the earth goes through cycles of heating and cooling that it is to believe that the normal state is some average global temperature that we should be targeting. It takes a lot of arrogance to assume that human activities are the cause of every little climate change, but if you don't start with that assumption, the global warming theories go nowhere.

  12. maybe it mutated by r00t · · Score: 1

    The squid could evolve to tolerate cold water.

    1. Re:maybe it mutated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The question wasn't about alternative hypotheses for why the squid migrated so far north (there are plenty of those), it was about alternative hypotheses about what caused the recent rise in temperatures.

      As for the squid, it probably migrated north only indirectly because of temperature; most likely, something in its food chain changed.

  13. I'm surprised this didn't appear in politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This looks like an article for the Politics section. However, it would have included something negative about Bush.

    Alright so a squid is in a part of the ocean people weren't expecting it to be in. We've traced life on Earth back hundreds of millions of years. We've been paying close attention for the past few hundred years. We've had very good data for what 50-100 years? Does this mean we can conclude it's because of CO2 and thus global warming?

    The earth has gone through many periods of hot, cold, wet, dry. Some are gradual and occur over thousands of years. Others can be directly related to sun spots.

    It's not hard to see how dumping dangerous chemicals into streams and oceans is going to be bad for the environment. But I know someone is going to link this to the Kyoto treaty.

    1. Re:I'm surprised this didn't appear in politics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought you neo-cons believe that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

    2. Re:I'm surprised this didn't appear in politics by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 1

      You answer your own question. You imply that thousands of years is a long time for a climate change. In geological time this is pretty damn quick. The fact that we are seeing a change over the "50-100 years" we've been lookning at global temps and CO2 levels is an even bigger concern. Are you actually seriously questioning this, or are you trolling? Perhaps your mis-informed, head-in-the sand attitude was actually an attempt at humour, if so I'm sorry.

  14. The squid migrated there too feed on penguins by Muhammar · · Score: 2, Funny

    About a month or two ago, some fishermen off the coast of Alaska found a penguin. This is the first record of a penguin in the Northern Hemisphere. The fishermen hauled in their nets and there he was! The species was identified as a Humboldt Penguin. These penguins live at the southern tip of Chile and Argentina, about 8,000 to 9,000 miles away from home.
    Audubon Society

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    I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
  15. Just a normal El Nino year by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This has nothing to do with global warming- and almost everything to do with a weather phenomenon caused by reversal of currents in the Pacific. In an El Nino year- these sightings are quite common (tropical fish off the coast of Oregon and Washington, warm water species in the Gulf of Alaska, etc). It's easy to see why- a reversal of currents means instead of cold water coming south from the poles, warm water is headed north from the equator. (the other side of the big convection current is off the coast of Japan- where El Nino years mean you get different species of sushi on your plate).

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    1. Re:Just a normal El Nino year by mercedo · · Score: 1

      i think this comment is fairly true. i didnt know exactly the influence and effect of el nino here off coast in japan. but this year unusually one-tenth of the normal years quantity of anchovy( iwashi-in japanease) and aboundant quantity of sanma (i dont know how to say in english...) are reported. this theory tells us clearly the exact cause of this phenomenon which certainly brings about changes in cuisines.

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      Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
    2. Re:Just a normal El Nino year by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 1

      Sanma is Salmon in English. They don't like warm water as well- and they're very common in the United States and Canada as a food fish source. The reversal of the standard Pacific Current would bring them down from Alaska to you in Japan.

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      SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  16. global warming not caused by human s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    global warming is not a new problem, nor even one caused by humans.
    Over the past 150 centuries average temp. has fluctuated nearly 8 C, and this fluctuation is explained by several ice ages. The current warming period is merely part of the eraths cyclical nature.
    average temperatures on earth were higher during the 10th-15th centuries, during which the Vikings inhabited Greenland and vineyeards fluorished in a now cold Britain.
    As well, while CO2 is now 28% greater than 150 yrs ago, most of the global warming occurred prior to 1940 when the emissions level was much less.