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."

Comments

Re:Revelation

[Dancin_Santa]

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.

What is wrong?

[n54]

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?

Re:What is wrong?

[jeif1k]

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.

Re:What is wrong?

[DougWebb]

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.

Seen similar thing

[Jesrad]

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.

Re:Seen similar thing

[praedictus]

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.

So, science is liberal?

[tao_of_biology]

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.

species range is important

[geg81]

"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.