Gray Whale, Southern-Hemisphere Algae Seen In N. Atlantic

oxide7 writes "The gray whale hasn't strayed to the Northern Atlantic since the 18th century. The Neodenticula seminae, a species of algae, hasn't been there in 800,000 years. Now, members of both species have been spotted in the Northern Atlantic."

Comments

Only the beginning

[caitsith01]

Al Gore predicted all of this in An Inconvenient Truth:

As the planet warms, the ancient machines of the gray whalean master race will begin to stir. Their instruments of death powered by minute rises in sea temperature, they will begin to send their agents of terror out on increasingly bold missions of destruction. At first the human population will be oblivious. The occasional ship sinking or swimmer mauled with characteristic baleen bite marks will be reported locally, but the dots of this sinister global movement will not be connected until it's far too late. Their algal slime will gradually colonise the land, allowing them to slither across huge distances by night. By the time the 2012 Republican presidential candidate is revealed to be a pygmy sperm whale wearing a top hat and monocle, the gray whales will have assumed total dominion over the affairs of humans, or "mega-plankton" as we are known to the grays.

In 1995 I proposed a bill to impose a 0.2% of surcharge on the use of high fructose corn syrup in candy. The money raised was to be appropriated to fund a crack team of scuba specialists to wage humanity's covert war against whalean infiltrators. The bill was defeated. Now, alas, it may be too late.

Why won't people listen to this guy? It's like everyone fell asleep or left after the first half of the movie or something.

Re:Only the beginning

[7-Vodka]

His movie had a second half?

Re:Only the beginning

[ThunderBird89]

Maybe his script was written by Frank Schätzing. The Swarm hits pretty close to this, and dramatized as it is, it's an awesome novel.

Re:Only the beginning

[PixetaledPikachu]

Why won't people listen to this guy? It's like everyone fell asleep or left after the first half of the movie or something.

because it's an Inconvenient truth

Re:Only the beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

Why won't people listen to this guy? It's like everyone fell asleep or left after the first half of the movie or something.

For the same reason people doesn't listen to greenpeace.
While he says a lot of things that are true the hit/miss ratio is too bad for anyone to be able to take anything he says at face value.
It's not enough to say a lot of things that are true. If you wan't people to start listening to you you will also have to stop telling things that aren't.

Re:Only the beginning

[Disfnord]

Al Gore is, or at least was, a politician. In the U.S., we have what is known as a two party system. Even though those two parties are often in agreement on many issues, the people who vote for those parties can be extremely emotional about their party. Consequently, to maybe 50% of the U.S. population, Al Gore is first and foremost a "Democrat" and therefore the enemy. This makes it incredibly easy to ignore everything he says as lies and liberal propaganda. And that will never change. The issue has now become politicized, there's no going back.

Re:Only the beginning

[Amorymeltzer]

For the same reason people doesn't listen to greenpeace.

Speak for yourself. I don't listen to Greenpeace because they do things like drive motorboats back and forth across the English Channel to prevent oil from coming into the UK.

Re:Only the beginning

[ThreeDeeNut]

I think the answer is unfortunately obvious. There is no profit (supposedly), it is inconvenient, and it is "outside of my control" i believe are the 3 prime reasons people use. I am no socialist, so rather than arguing the earth has rights, i argue that I (and all who desire it) have a right to a livable environment robust with trees and animals of the earth and that I a "Shepard of the Earth" must do my part to ensure its safety in the ways that I can. If more people took this approach and realized that it is their own world they are separating themselves from we would see a drastic change in overall perception and the problem would diminish rapidly. When a million people say "ill turn my computer off tonight while i sleep...", "Ill just run the ac in the rooms i need", and things like that then we will see reductions in power consumption which in turn could reduce power stations, etc. But we have people who believe that the earth does not become affected by our being here. I just say go to Google maps and look at the north east region of the american north east. In satelite view you can clearly see the difference between city and country. When you note the scope of the mega-tropolis that is New York, you realize we do in fact have a very significant impact. This is not a problem to be solved with legislation, this is a problem that must be solved in the global consciousness. Just my humble opinion.

Re:Only the beginning

[GooberToo]

Too bad he got distracted tracking the Manbearpig. Otherwise he might have saved us all from the coming insurrection.

Re:Only the beginning

[d3ac0n]

When a million people say "ill turn my computer off tonight while i sleep...", "Ill just run the ac in the rooms i need", and things like that then we will see reductions in power consumption which in turn could reduce power stations, etc

1. Most people's computers go to sleep after a long period of disuse. Particularly if they are laptops. It's called "default power management settings" which the vast majority of users don't change.

2. Most people don't have zone or room based AC. If they have AC at all and it's not window units, it's almost always whole-house forced-air AC.

Even when using window units, it is often more efficient to simply leave them running, since they use less power performing minimal room temperature maintenance than they do cranking up to full power to cool a blazing hot room. Especially if one is home during the day.

Ultimately, we have to get over the whole "mankind's activity damages the earth" mindset. It's bunk and bullcrap. Spend all the time looking at Google maps that you want. I know that when I look at it, I'm always amazed at just how much greenspace there is out there. How much totally undeveloped and unused land. Yes, the megalopolis of NYC has alot of pavement. but it is ONE city, comprising a very small portion of the planet's surface. Most of our planet is Blue Ocean and Green trees and grasses. Humanity has impacted it not at all, and once we are gone, it will not remember us.

Were we all to die off today, within 1000 years it would be as if we never existed. All of our supposed great impacts would be as a fly landing on the shoulder of an elephant, all of our great works quickly wiped off of the globe, disappearing under a carpet of green, never to be seen again. Earth would spin on, producing life in ever more abundant, vibrant and diverse ways, just as it does today.

Mankind simply doesn't have the power to damage Earth beyond fleeting pinpricks and it is arrogant to think that we can.

So yes, be responsible with your own consumption, if only to prevent personal overspending. but don't buy into the green religion, and don't ever demand that other people be forced to change they way they behave because of such bunk.

Re:Only the beginning

[jafac]

Why won't people listen to this guy?

I seriously don't know, and you ignorant fuckers all deserve the death that is coming to you.

FWIW; we all knew this was coming in 1973, and we just fucking kept on ignoring it.

Re:Only the beginning

[feepness]

Consequently, to maybe 50% of the U.S. population, Al Gore is first and foremost a "Democrat" and therefore the enemy. This makes it incredibly easy to ignore everything he says as lies and liberal propaganda.

Probably more like a very vocal 10% of the population. Most simply don't care.

And then there's the converse, like my mother-in-law, who literally said to me once "If Al Gore supports it, then I'll vote for it. Good enough for me."

Re:Only the beginning

[hawkfish]

Why won't people listen to this guy? It's like everyone fell asleep or left after the first half of the movie or something.

For the same reason people doesn't listen to greenpeace.
While he says a lot of things that are true the hit/miss ratio is too bad for anyone to be able to take anything he says at face value.
It's not enough to say a lot of things that are true. If you wan't people to start listening to you you will also have to stop telling things that aren't.

Such as? From a review by actual climatologists:

How well does the film handle the science? Admirably, I thought. It is remarkably up to date, with reference to some of the very latest research. Discussion of recent changes in Antarctica and Greenland are expertly laid out. He also does a very good job in talking about the relationship between sea surface temperature and hurricane intensity. As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn’t highlight the connection any more than is appropriate (see our post on this, here).

Which is not to say that they agree completely with everything in the book and film:

For the most part, I think Gore gets the science right, just as he did in Earth in the Balance. The small errors don’t detract from Gore’s main point, which is that we in the United States have the technological and institutional ability to have a significant impact on the future trajectory of climate change.

but to cast his "hit/miss ratio" as "bad" seems like unsubstantiated rhetoric to me.

This is bad because?

[ghostdoc]

So if a species dies out and disappears from an ecosystem, that's bad for biodiversity and can potentially cause the collapse of the ecosystem.

Now we find out that if a species that used to be part of an ecosystem re-enters it that's also bad and can potentially cause the collapse of the ecosystem.

Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem? Surely *some* changes are good?

Re:This is bad because?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem?

Gradual change.

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

Who said it was bad ? It's just a sign that things are changing, but the return of the whales or algae in itself aren't bad.

Re:This is bad because?

[im_thatoneguy]

It's almost as if the natural world is nothing more than bunch of delicately balanced equilibriums! Who would have thought!?

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

Yes, if all the change happened in the last few decades of those 800,000 years.

Re:This is bad because?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the North Atlantic supposed to get half a whale before it gets a full one?

Re:This is bad because?

[jovius]

The gist of the article is the opening of North West passage by which the whale and the algae have passed from Northern Pacific to Northern Atlantic.

The ecosystems always adapt. Some species die out and others find a microscopic ecological niche - it's a natural process. At the moment species are becoming exinct en masse. Are the changes introduced by steady oscillating processes or abruptly as a planet wide catastrophe? The humanity is the unbalancing factor in the process - we are a sort of super predator that consumes available resources at an alarming pace.

Your question evades the real question about the anthropogenic changes on Earth. We are at the top of the food chain, so it's us who will eventually suffer from the disruptions below. The more gradual and easy the changes the more time we have for adaptation. So there's still a lot to learn.

Re:This is bad because?

[Nursie]

You know it's funny that you think they want humans extinct, yet they are usually the ones shouting loudest to do something to stop humans going extinct.

It's the non-environmentalists that seem to have the deathwish.

Re:This is bad because?

[pnot]

TFA states:

The (re)introduction of a species into any ecosystem is a potentially disruptive phenomenon.

I don't think any ecologist would disagree with that. Somehow you got from that to

can potentially cause the collapse of the ecosystem.

Where did you find that? I can't see it anywhere in the article.

Re:This is bad because?

[hawkinspeter]

This fallacy was explored by a recent BBC documentary (All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace). Ecosystems aren't balanced equilibriums at all - they are constantly changing and have always been changing (i.e. before humans were around).

However, this doesn't mean that a particular change is going to be good for us humans.

Re:This is bad because?

[Hognoxious]

Ecosystems aren't balanced equilibriums at all - they are constantly changing and have always been changing

Balanced doesn't imply static. An acrobat on a wire doesn't stand still, he's constantly making small movements, and yet he doesn't fall.

Pretty much all ecosystems we can observe change, but only within a limited range. That's because ones that don't do that cease to exist, or at least transition into something else.

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

A whale is either there or it's not. It isn't half there.

But two whales can be half there.

Current "global warming" is well within the bounds of natural variation

Irrelevant. What's relevant is the current global warming is caused by human activity, how it will impact our lives, and what options we have to change it. The fact that millions of years ago it was even hotter due to some natural phenomenon doesn't change anything. It's like saying: "it's not a problem that your house is flooded, because 165 million years ago, there used to be a sea in that place"

Re:This is bad because?

[Xest]

It's a question of rate of change. Whilst long term change is inevitable, if change is happening quickly because of man's actions then those habitats may not have time to adapt. If you consider that coral reefs might be able to adapt to say a 3c increase over 10,000 years, it doesn't mean they will over 100 years- you need a number of generations of a species to adapt to the change, the pressures are just too great over a shorter period.

This is what many people don't get with the climate change issue- you have sites that cater to dumb people like The Register parroting on about how parts of the world were much hotter hundreds of years ago than they are now and the world and life didn't end as a result of that change, completely ignoring that such changes happened gradually over hundreds of thousands of years, not over a hundred years.

It is there that the problem lies. Change is indeed good, and in fact inevitable, it just has to happen at nature's pace, not our pace, else it leads to extinction.

Re:This is bad because?

[Pino Grigio]

This graph is instructive (note, Michael Mann had no part in its construction). What do you notice about temperature (left hand side is most recent)? Yes. It's not only highly variable (sampling error?) but that variability is not unprecedented. In fact current changes in temperature as measured over the last few hundred years are well within the bounds of natural variability.

Re:This is bad because?

[Cyberllama]

Depends on what you consider to be an equilibrium. For instance, imagine a teeter-totter. It goes back and forth, but it does so predictably. That, to me, is equilibrium. That's a very simple system, but ecosystems are not simple at all.

When Steven Jay Gould spoke of stasis and punctuated equilibrium, I don't think he was really using those terms in the way most people might consider them. Certainly, day to day, things change. But in the bigger picture, evolution will naturally drive us towards what, relatively speaking, is equilibrium. There's a steady rhythm, a natural cycle that might not seem very predictable to human eyes.

Check out this double pendulum.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VmTiyTut6A

Seems chaotic, right? But its not. It's just complex--too complex for humans. Your average ecosystem is like a ten-thousand part pendulum. One year there might be 10x as many frogs running around as the year before, due to a confluence of other conditions, and the next year there's a drought and there's hardly any. Even though everything seems to be in flux, it's still in a state of equilibrium. From day to day, things seem different, but if you look at a much, much bigger picture, you find that things stay the same for long periods of time until there's some massive disruption.

Re:This is bad because?

[wmbetts]

A whale is either there or it's not. It isn't half there.

But two whales can be half there.

How can 1 whale not be half there, but 2 whale can be?

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

Since 1 pixel on the graph equals about 100,000 years, it's impossible to say whether our current rate of change is unprecedented on a century-timescale, or not.

And, even assuming the current variability is not unprecedented on a 100-million year scale, that does little to comfort somebody living in a low lying coastal city, or on a flood plane, getting threatened by higher sea levels and increased precipitation.

Re:This is bad because?

[caitsith01]

Is the North Atlantic supposed to get half a whale before it gets a full one?

No, don't be ridiculous.

One whale is supposed to get right to the northern edge of the South Atlantic and verrrrrrrrrry slowly put first a fluke, then a bit of its tail, and eventually its whole body across the line, as though it's getting into a hot bath. Which, effectively, it is.

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

NO. The fact that the change is caused by humans is interesting but not relevant to our course of action

Of course it is relevant to understand what's causing a certain phenomenon. If we understand how current warming is caused by increasing greenhouse gases, then we also know how much we can influence warming by reducing the amount of those gases we produce.

And even if we choose not to limit CO2 production, we can use the knowledge to estimate how big the warming is going to be, and what kind of problems it could cause within a certain time frame. That knowledge could be used to allocate the necessary funds to deal with the problems.

Re:This is bad because?

[Krneki]

Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem?

Gradual change.

Like the dinosaur extinction?

Re:This is bad because?

[jc79]

How can 1 whale not be half there, but 2 whale can be?

Wait, can two whales not half be not there but 1 whale can be not half there?

Not half.

Re:This is bad because?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this double pendulum.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VmTiyTut6A

Seems chaotic, right? But its not.

You know, words have meanings, and flatly denying them does not change it, it just makes you look like an idiot.
Chaos Theory
Double Pendulum
Perhaps you meant it's not "random" or "non-deterministic" -- they're different words with different meaning -- but it most certainly is chaotic.

Re:This is bad because?

[capnkr]

What's relevant is the current global warming is caused by human activity, how it will impact our lives, and what options we have to change it.

NO. The fact that the change is caused by humans is interesting but not relevant to our course of action.

Are we even sure that this change has been human-induced? Proof for that posit is still hotly debated - and in fact could be called 'the debate' in and of itself, from what I see.

Re:This is bad because?

[wrook]

Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem? Surely *some* changes are good?

Depends on who you are. Things change all the time. There are areas that have been grazed as a result of human farming for a couple of hundred years. These have developed into ecosystems that are threatened because farming practices like hill farming (where you let your livestock wander around the hills grazing) has gone out of fashion (we reduced the price of meat to the point where it's no longer sustainable). There are species of birds that are threatened because the way we used to farm has changed. But the thing is that those ecological niches weren't there before we stuck out fingers in. There have even been huge debates over whether we should allow grazing and keep threatened species, or forbid grazing and allow the ecosystem to go back to what it was before we fucked with it. It's all very complicated.

We are part of nature. Our actions have an impact, but it's a mistake to think that having an impact is somehow evil. Every species has an impact. It's that whole "web of life" thing (cue crappy Disney tunes). It's also a mistake to think that we should be controlling every aspect of nature. As much as possible, we should let it get along on its own. But we need to allow it to get along. If we go and bulldoze every surface for the hell of it, then our world is not going to be very interesting/useful/comfortable.

Right now our value systems are skewed. We are geared in to production. If it doesn't aid in production, then I don't want to think about it. We aren't paying much attention to quality of life. Or rather, we are letting people bulldoze our quality of life in the name of production without much oversight. IMHO, this is where we need to be careful.

Re:This is bad because?

[TapeCutter]

We know there were times in the distant past where CO2 was 4X as high as now, global temp was 12degC higher, and yet life still flourished, however the point is that a sharp jump, (geologically speaking), to a Jurassic climate will make mince meat of our modern infrastructure and agriculture causing humanity to be dramatically downsized (and other life-forms to flourish).

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

It's only hotly debated by some politicians, laypeople on blogs and in the popular press. The debate in the scientific literature is almost non-existent.

Re:This is bad because?

[wmbetts]

I've apparently been up way to long and need to go to bed.

Re:This is bad because?

[TapeCutter]

Yes, humans can get speeding tickets, which is what I suspect some postmen are hoping for eventually. They see us all as an infection on their roads.

Re:This is bad because?

[Sulphur]

Is the North Atlantic supposed to get half a whale before it gets a full one?

No, don't be ridiculous.

One whale is supposed to get right to the northern edge of the South Atlantic and verrrrrrrrrry slowly put first a fluke, then a bit of its tail, and eventually its whole body across the line, as though it's getting into a hot bath. Which, effectively, it is.

The Gray or Schrodinger's Whale is sometimes observed doing the hokey-pokey.

Re:This is bad because?

[deadhammer]

That was bad, in fact. Big asteroid hits, giant dust clouds, 75% of species on the planet go extinct within a few thousand years. It took millions of years for diversity to recover.

Re:This is bad because?

[jd2112]

it's been 800,000 years! Isn't that gradual enough?

Re:This is bad because?

[delinear]

That argument in itself assumes extinction is bad, when in fact extinction is nature's way too. There have been plenty of apocalytpic events in the earth's history that doubtless wiped out many species, yet life goes on and many new species (maybe even our own) exist not despite, but because of these events. Maybe humans are responsible for massive climate change, but then maybe we're just this cycle's equivalent of an asteroid or mega volcano and our actions, while apparently damaging, will trigger the emergence of new species. Who really knows or can even begin to guess? The real question is are we, as a species, really arrogant enough to believe we understand how something as complex as nature works to the degree that we can preserve a specific point in time, let alone that we have the expertise to jump in there and start trying to fix it.

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

And once upon a time there was no debate about the fact that it was possible to turn lead into gold

Do you have anything more recent ? Science and science publishing has improved a bit since the 17th century. Besides, it's not even true.

Also, periodicals would love to publish counter arguments, as long as they are scientifically sound. Such publications are good for publicity. The only problem is that this combination doesn't happen very often.

Re:This is bad because?

[fyngyrz]

Bad? Without that ecosystem change, you wouldn't likely be here. Or if you were, your idea of a "good home" would be a cave high up in a cliff that had a very small diameter tunnel as the entrance. In the current ecosystem, you're top of the line. In a dinosaur ecosystem, you're lunch. Well, a snack, anyway.

Re:This is bad because?

[TheRaven64]

Very few people on either side want to see the human species extinct, but very few really care about the species as a whole. The human brain just isn't wired up for that. People care about themselves, their families, and their friends. On an intellectual level, they probably realise that their family benefits from the existence of the rest of the species, rarely on an emotional level. If you ask them to make a personal sacrifice for the benefit of the entire species, you're not going to do very well.

Re:This is bad because?

[cold fjord]

It's the non-environmentalists that seem to have the deathwish.

Don't kid yourself, there are those who want humans removed from the earth "for the sake of the environment". Some are willing to see it done voluntarily, some less so. There are people who go beyond sound scientific policy to worshipping the earth, or nature. Some pursue extreme environmental policy for their own ends.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.

Re:This is bad because?

[Colonel Korn]

And once upon a time there was no debate about the fact that it was possible to turn lead into gold or that the sun revolved around the earth in scientific literature. That's because science is actually, and a little counter intuitively, quite stuck in its ways. When there is an established fact that the vast majority of the community believe in, it's very difficult to publish a counter argument (periodicals don't want to be viewed as "wacky" for publishing thinking outside the box), and it's led science down the wrong route many times in the past. That's not to say I believe the current position is wrong, but making anything difficult to openly question in scientific circles is unproductive.

1) The scientific method and the culture we identify as Science first started to look like their modern forms in the 1600s. It's not a coincidence that alchemy (which was always questioned and outright denied by many or most prominent "natural philosophers," despite your assertion to the contrary) began to die in the 1600s.

2) Your argument that science goes down the wrong route nicely refutes your argument that science is stuck in its ways - we only know that we've taken the wrong route because science is inherently great at revising ideas and getting us away from bad ones. The most fame you can have as a scientist comes from questioning and overturning (with evidence) current ideas. However, most current scientific ideas are pretty solidly grounded, so the most common claims of refutation are made by whacky pseudoscientists, since it's increasingly difficult to find accepted theories that are genuinely scientifically invalid.

More than any other field in history, science automatically adapts with time to more closely resemble the truth.

Re:This is bad because?

[Vintermann]

Slow changes are good. Fast changes are bad. Biosystems aren't equipped to handle fast changes, unless they've happened predictably for a long time.

Especially in marine ecosystems, where there are several layers of predators (as opposed to on land where there's pretty much one), you can not expect to get back the same result if you reintroduce a species after having removed it for a hundred years.

But either way, you shouldn't worry about the whale. You should worry about the reason the whale is back.

Re:This is bad because?

[black soap]

Gradual change? You must be one of those unholy evolutionists.

Re:This is bad because?

[Vintermann]

No, you're right, probably not. If we cause a mass extinction, wiping ourselves out in the process, that's just life going on, triggering the emergence of new species. Nothing to worry about. Anyway, we don't know and can't know and it's best not to think about.

Nature is hard, let's go shopping!

Re:This is bad because?

[ScentCone]

Like the gradual build-up of a mile-thick sheet of ice over much of the US's most productive farmland? Why is change good just because it happens gradually? That recurring event wasn't good, from many points of view.

Re:This is bad because?

[Xest]

Well it is natures way too, but herein lies the problem, it's also natures way of dealing with us as a destructive force on the planet. That is, if we continue to cause other species to go extinct, and continue to cause ecosystem collapse, then there will begin to be food shortages for us, and eventually it may well be our own extinction that comes along.

The question isn't whether we should try and preserve everything, or try and maintain Earth at a static point in time, but how we can live in a manner where our contribution to extinction events is minimised, so as to decrease the chance of our very own extinction, or at best, avoid large scale decline of the human race.

Some things we can do quite easily- when we allow fishermen to drag nets right across the ocean floor destroying reefs on the bottom, and catching far more fish than quotas allow them to keep such that they just throw a load back in and kill en-masse in an ecosystem destroying manner to bring back only maybe a small percentage of what they destroy for actual consumption it seems clear we could quite trivially at least be doing a lot there to improve efficiency in terms of sustaining both our food supplies, and ensuring a healthy ecosystem that can support continued food supplies. In contrast weening ourselves off fossil fuels is much more of a challenge.

It's about recognising that whilst nature will indeed do what nature does, that if we don't play ball, then we might not like what nature does, and may not have much say in it either. It may be unfortunate that we all get whiped out tommorrow by an asteroid, but it also may not, if it's not and we have at least thousands of years in us yet, then it pays off to reduce our effect on the planet. Well, that is of course, if we care about future generations, and not just ourselves- which was really the problem with the baby boom generation, and why we have the problems we do now in the first place- they stripped the earth of more of many types of raw resources in their life times than in the whole of human history combined- because they only gave a shit about themselves, and their lifetime, and not what happened afterwards. That's also why they're sat on things like big fat final salary pension schemes that the rest of us will pay for, but can't have ourselves.

Re:This is bad because?

[yndrd1984]

The Gray or Schrodinger's Whale is sometimes observed doing the hokey-pokey.

And when not observed, it manages to be both in the North Atlantic and not in the North Atlantic simultaneously.

Re:This is bad because?

[cvtan]

Using chaos to describe a double pendulum is exactly right!

Re:This is bad because?

[nschubach]

they stripped the earth of more of many types of raw resources in their life times than in the whole of human history combined

Did they send those resources to the moon? Where did they put all those stripped resources? Mars? I don't think the rovers had that much cargo space.

Re:This is bad because?

[nschubach]

But either way, you shouldn't worry about the whale. You should worry about the reason the whale is back.

It's because they have freedom. We should be sending TSA agents out to make travel more difficult for them so they think twice about moving so far away from home. At least we can build a wall to keep them on their homeland. It's either that or remove their fins so they can't follow the algae. We'll keep them in their habitat... one way or another!

Re:This is bad because?

[radtea]

And even if we choose not to limit CO2 production, we can use the knowledge to estimate how big the warming is going to be, and what kind of problems it could cause within a certain time frame.

Really? How? It is certainly not possible to do any of that with GCM's, which are highly parametrized non-physical models that are attempting to compute the far future of a system that is vastly more complex than the world economy.

So if you believe GCMs can tell us how big the effects of anthropogenic CO2 will be, or how those effects will be distributed in anything more than the crudest and most approximate sense you are showing a touching faith in the verisimilitude of computational models that is not justified by experience. As someone who has worked professionally on a wide variety of computational physics problems over the past twenty-five years, I am confident that climate models are not adequate tools for informing public policy in any kind of detail.

Dumping gigatonnes of CO2 into the air along with all the other crap we emit is not good policy regardless of the details of the model results, but I wish people wouldn't mislead others about the strength of conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from GCMs.

Re:This is bad because?

[radtea]

Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem? Surely *some* changes are good?

Haven't you been paying attention to environmental rhetoric for the past thirty years?

If you see fewer of a species it is due to humans killing it and destroying its habitat.

If you see more of a species it is due to humans killing it and destroying its habitat somewhere else.

Ergo, all change in species numbers everywhere is proof that humans are at fault for killing and destroying.

Furthermore, because climate change happens to be top-of-mind for many people today, all changes in the natural world are evidence of climate change, because nothing is more likely than what is important to me being important in the world. It's like Christians who take the thinnest archeological evidence and use it to support Biblical claims because their priors are so radically biased they can't see any other possible explanation.

Re:This is bad because?

[Xest]

Well, it's quite obvious, most people learn after only a few years in school that when you burn fossil fuels and forests to clear room for crops that it takes a long while for such large areas of forests to grow back and for such vast amounts of fossil fuels to be replaced.

Even where the resource itself hasn't been changed into something less useful then recycling still in itself uses further resources.

Even int he case of things like over-fishing it takes years for populations of fish to recover.

I understand you're trying to make the point that the atoms comprising those resources are still on this earth and you're quite right, the problem is they're no longer useful because they were used without care for efficiency or future reusability or recyclability.

Re:This is bad because?

[Arlet]

I didn't say we'd get perfect results. But even with imperfect results, you can make an assessment about the cost of mitigation. You just have to put in the error bars as well. Same thing applies to the cost of reduction, which is probably harder to calculate.

Suppose you want to build a levee system with a requirement that a breach won't happen with more than 0.01% chance per year. Now, you can put in the model of the sea level over the next century, with the appropriate error bars, and update your estimate on how high the levees need to be. As knowledge progresses, you redo this calculation ever year. Even with limited precision, this is a better strategy than ignoring the model output altogether.

I have to disagree about your assessment of the climate models. They are mostly physical models, with only a limited number of parameters that can be tweaked:

Secondly, there are tuning parameters that control aspects of the emergent system. Gravity wave drag parameters are not very constrained by data, and so are often tuned to improve the climatology of stratospheric zonal winds. The threshold relative humidity for making clouds is tuned often to get the most realistic cloud cover and global albedo. Surprisingly, there are very few of these (maybe a half dozen) that are used in adjusting the models to match the data. It is important to note that these exercises are done with the mean climate (including the seasonal cycle and some internal variability) â" and once set they are kept fixed for any perturbation experiment.

(http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/)

Re:This is bad because?

[Princeofcups]

Is there *anything* good that can happen to an ecosystem? Surely *some* changes are good?

Your sarcasm is unfounded. This issue is not a single instance of change. It is massive and rapid change. On ecological time, our lifetime is just a blink of an eye, and we are seeing the environment change on a scale that can and will cause unheard damage. It can take hundreds or thousands of years to adapt to the elimination of a single species, and we are losing them yearly.

Re:This is bad because?

[djdanlib]

Whoa whoa, half a whale, that's an awfully big change all at once. We'd better introduce smaller individual parts first, before we can talk about larger changes to the ecosystem.

We will be holding a premeeting to discuss the scheduling of the agenda planning meeting, prior to the big planning meeting.

Re:This is bad because?

[Asmodae]

Are you advocating man should go extinct to make room for whatever comes after? How noble! I'm impressed with your selflessness. You go first.

Re:This is bad because?

[ScentCone]

there was no farmland, there was no United States, and the human population at the time was only in the tens of thousands.

The human population 15,000 years ago was a lot more than tens of thousands. Regardless, you're missing the point. The last Ice Age scraped forests down to bedrock, destroyed all sorts of species and ecosystems, etc. Just because now there's more people sitting on the same spot doesn't make climate change good or bad, per se. It just makes it more inconvenient for the people who've decided to live where shit happens. That's why coastal storms have become more destructive... not because the storms are particularly worse, but because millions of people keep building fragile lives and infrastructure right where the storms show up. Same thing with tornados and earthquakes.

Continuous natural change is neither good nor evil

Likewise with abrupt natural change, which has just as long a track record. Likewise with long-term change punctuated by dashes back and forth into various climactic extremes, which has also been happeneing for as long as it's worth discussing. There is no "correct" climate, or "correct" pace of change.

Re:This is bad because?

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Actually, it is not so hard as you make it out to be. The long-term effect would be the steady-state for the earths climate, which is a relatively simple calculation compared to say computing weather, or even just trying to predict how the current not-steady-state is progressing.

In principle, it's as simple as calculating and balancing an equation. The only real difficulty in there is cloud & ice cover, and even those are manageable.

All that is of course only to calculate the total extra energy (or average temperature, if you will). If you want to know whether it is America, Europa or Africa which will be heated most, you are back to finite elements and complicated models.

Re:This is bad because?

[radtea]

I have to disagree about your assessment of the climate models. They are mostly physical models, with only a limited number of parameters that can be tweaked

Unfortunately, anyone with actual experience in long-term integration of physical systems knows that "mostly physical" and "unphysical" mean exactly the same thing. You would be amazed at how difficult it is to avoid serious numerical artefacts in even slightly parameterized models, and the GCMs I have looked at contain some seriously non-physical hacks: one in particular didn't strictly conserve energy and fixed up the temperatures in the cells after each time step to impose energy conservation. This kind of thing will result in wildly incorrect long-term results that may look perfectly sensible.

Re:This is bad because?

[sjwt]

It doesn't change the problem, but it dose show that quick, sudden and more excessive changes have happened.

We do need to take action, but lets lay of the end of the world talk, and put in some balance and realism in it, hell I keep hearing 4 degrees C would kill of all life because fo reason X or Carbon level Y is deadly to all life, such statements are just not true.

Note this graph is logarithmic, and most of the latter 3rd wouldn't even show as a blip on it if we mapped out under the first few sections time line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png

Re:This is bad because?

[sjwt]

That might be true for older theories, once they have gone though a genration of acceptance, but anything new..

it is much essayer to disprove and get credit for that, then to create your own new wiz bang headline achievement.

Re:This is bad because?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

All this means is that mass extinctions are not normally caused by ecosystems, which is pretty meaningless. And a couple of mass extinctions have been credibly attributed to the resident ecosystems, like the earliest ice ages.

Re:This is bad because?

[Cyberllama]

Whether or not its chaotic depends on your scale. Strictly speaking, from a definition point of view, it is not. Chaos literally means lacking order. This is far from the case with the double pendulum. It is not a chaotic system by a dictionary definition. Of course, when you talk about Chaos Theory, you are not talking about the dictionary definition of Chaos. Chaos Theory is concerned with things that are unpredictable. Without knowing the random variables at the start, you cannot predict the specific outcome. This may or may not seem to be chaotic depending on your scale.

The weather is another classic example. If I ask you for tomorrows weather, you can make a semi-accurate guess. If I ask you for an hourly breakdown, you will be less accurate. If I ask you for a minute by minute breakdown, you will be less accurate still. Now imagine I ask you to describe the weather over the next million years. You'd be highly accurate, though nonspecific. You could tell me how much AVERAGE rainfall I would expect per year, as well as what sort of outlying scenarios I might expect. You could tell me how many times in a thousand years I might expect to see a certain river flood. You could give me averages, highs and lows for any number of variables. From the right scale, its completely predictable. The same is true of the double pendulum. I might not know the exact position of each axis in 5 seconds, but I know its bounds and its averages. I know where it can't be, and where its likely to be.

Ecosystems are like this. The more narrow your scale, the more they seem to fluctuate and change. In fact, generally speaking, this is probably true of all things right down to the level of quantum uncertainty. But to say that an ecosystem doesn't reach equilibrium simply because it constantly changes is silly. A forest and a desert are two very different ecosystems, and it is not uncommon for one to become the other. That is what a true shift in equilibrium looks like, but these are not the sort of shits that happen to every ecosystem every day.

Re:This is bad because?

[Cyberllama]

I replied to the guy above who had a similar post, but I think I'll respond to yours in a completely different way. I don't think the Double Pendulum is a very good example for a chaotic system. I know its been used as one for years, but things have changed. The double pendulum's reputation is due more to human perception than to actual chaotic behavior.

Certainly, there is uncertainty. You do not know the starting variables, so you cannot predict the movement. And I think the math is involved is complicated enough that before computers, it wouldn't have mattered if you did know the starting variables. But that's changed now.

If you knew all the variables and had a computer to run them through the formulas for you, you'd find that you could model the exact position of a double pendulum with a degree of accuracy very close to that of a single pendulum. If both are deterministic, and you have the capability to accurately model both, can you really call one chaotic and the other not? Chaos theory is all about whether or not something is predictable. The Double pendulum *can* be predictable with a high degree of accuracy. When the double pendulum became a "classic" example of chaos theory, this was not the case, but it is today.

Yes, there are more variables in a double pendulum than a single one, and therefore more uncertainties. Each uncertainty allows a certain amount of informational entropy into your system which eventually leads to a true chaos. Chaos Theory absolutely applies to a system with thousands of variables like the weather, but with a double pendulum and a single pendulum, very little of the "chaos" is due to actual entropy and far more to simple human perception. The double pendulum just plain looks more chaotic, but I honestly believe this is just a human bias. A robot would not see one system as particularly more chaotic than the other.

How embarrassing....

[cbytes]

When I get lost, I only have to answer to my wife...

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[riverat1]

From the Wikipedia article on Gray whales:

North Atlantic populations were extirpated (perhaps by whaling) on the European coast before 500 AD and on the American coast around the late 17th to early 18th centuries.

Nice try, but the two are unrelated

[Anonymous Coward]

Gray Whales are returning to the North Atlantic since they're no longer being hunted en masse and now their numbers are rebounding. Southern-Hemisphere algae appears in the North due to ships dumping their ballast water - the same way the zebra mussel has spread EVERYWHERE despite being native to the Black and Caspian Seas.

Re:Nice try, but the two are unrelated

[JimboFBX]

[quote]I'd love to see the ship that spread whales to the North Atlantic in its ballast tanks..[/quote]

Dude, me too. Imagine the look on their faces when they empty their tanks and find THAT!

Re:Nice try, but the two are unrelated

[Sean_Inconsequential]

It looks like Abraham Lincoln?

Re:Nice try, but the two are unrelated

[black soap]

I'm sure the mandatory reporting form detailing the contents of improperly transferred ballast went and blew some bureaucrat's mind.

Re:Nice try, but the two are unrelated

[Chibi Merrow]

Actually, funnily enough, Abraham Lincoln is the reason those states that once formed the Confederacy have been strictly DEMOCRAT states for most of the previous century.

Hell, Vitter was the first Republican senator elected in my home state since the civil war...

But don't let facts get in the way of your cognitive dissonance.

Says who?

[Michael Woodhams]

That was a terrible article. It has almost no detail. In particular, the only source given for this information is "scientists".

Here's a better reference for the algae.

I find lots of articles online linking the whales and the algae, which, while much better than the one linked to in the summary, don't say much more about the whale than that it was spotted off the coast of Israel.

Re:Says who?

[Pino Grigio]

What's more, it was apparently first found in the North Atlantic in 1999. A good 12 years ago. So what, apart from an appeal for funding (and consequently necessary media hype), has prompted this article, apart from the author's 2007 paper attempting to link its arrival to polar ice melting? As someone else has suggested, it's more likely to have arrived from ballast, as many other species have.

Re:Says who?

[Michael Woodhams]

It didn't happen unless they name the scientists and cite the paper.

Hasn't strayed or hasn't been spotted?

[dohzer]

Hasn't been there, or hasn't been found there?

As a gray whale skeptic...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest that there was in fact no gray whale. I am no marine biologist, nor have I ever studied marine biology, however I have read a newspaper article on these things and I suggest that whoever claims they saw the gray whale is only doing so that they can receive more government grants. Seriously, these "experts" - if I can use that term - can't get their facts straight. One moment it's a gray whale, the next it's algae. You don't have to be an expert to tell that these things are totally different and the "experts" are obviously confused. I am waiting for Lord Monckton's explanation - now there is true expert on this.

Re:As a gray whale skeptic...

[GrumblyStuff]

If it's "Informative", it's because someone has a sense of humor. If it's "Funny", it's 'cause someone takes pity on people like you and decided to make it obvious. If I get modded down and you up, it's because I failed to see the meta-joke even though I mentioned it in this sentence.

Re:As a gray whale skeptic...

[Jesus_666]

That's because they're two different lifeforms. Some other user pointed out that the algae spread the same way as zebra mussels do: Via the ballast tanks of freighters. The whale obiously used the same technique, hiding in the ballast tank until the time was right. So what we're seeing here is not a magical transforming animal, it's a coordinated maneuver. The zebra mussels were probably a reconnaissance team sent to scope out the seas of the world for suitable whale field base locations. I'm not certain how the algae fit into the whales' plan but they might be used to entangle ship's propellers, making them sitting ducks for the whales to plunder.

Centuries of whaling are finally taking their toll. This is a species with nothing left to lose and as everyone knows those are the most dangerous species.

Re:As a gray whale skeptic...

[berbo]

As a level-headed, independent skeptic I ask simply: TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!

Re:Yet another inconvenient fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

For the gray whale, and only in a limited way and for a time. If the Northern Atlantic becomes an attractive habitat for a species that wasn't there before, that could mean the climate and ecosystem are changing significantly, and other species that were there before will no longer thrive. It could also mean other habitats will change, with their own resulting migrations and extinctions.
Sudden changes in the world's ecology aren't rare on a long-term scale, but they often have catastrophic consequences for a lot of the world's species. Since we're one of them, we should be at least slightly concerned about it.

On the other hand, Wikipedia cites several claims that the gray whale was native to the North Atlantic until being hunted to extinction in the 18th century. If this is so, then their return would only be good news since their population would be increasing.

Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[X.25]

The gray whale hasn't strayed to the Northern Atlantic since the 18th century.

So, what happened in 18th century that made gray whale stray to the Northern Atlantic?

Re:Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[Farmer Tim]

Plankton discount coupons.

Re:Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[hugi]

The Industrial Revolution.

Re:Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[yarnosh]

That's where the white female whales at.

Re:Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[ScentCone]

So, what happened in 18th century that made gray whale stray to the Northern Atlantic?

Obviously, in the 1800's, we went past a global tipping point of Crisis Doom Climate Change Horror. Until it went away by raising taxes.

Re:Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[nschubach]

No no... Nature increased the distribution of Plankton Stamps but they mandated that they could only be used in neighborhoods of less than N coral density. It was a plot to move all the gray whales out of the better waters of the Pacific into the scummy waters of the North Atlantic. Fortunately, mankind realized what was going on and decided to show Nature that it's plot would not work.

Re:Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[eleuthero]

Interesting. So, if the gray whale used to exist in both the Pacific and the North Atlantic, we should not be concerned so much about global warming as how well we are managing in the midst of what is surely a natural process (whether or not we are speeding it up or slowing it down or doing nothing). Why? If gray whales are native to both... they had to have access to both at one point or another via a water route or Klingon Birds of Prey or something (and if wikipedia is to be trusted here, by the time the gray whales existed, we already had most of our current continental structure intact).

Re:Were they panicking in 18th century as well?

[makubesu]

I thought the reason we increased Plankton Stamps was because there was a change in Plank's constant.

What's with these lost animals?

[antdude]

This whale and that lost penguin in NZ. :(

Some people have too much time

[michelcolman]

Really, roaming the Atlantic for 800,000 years looking for a specific kind of algae? I mean, if they say it hasn't been there during all that time, somebody must have been checking, right? Boy, some people have waay too much time on their hands.

Re:Some people have too much time

[darkgrayknight]

maybe someone has a time machine, or maybe there are some ancient cameras that have been keeping close watch

Re:Some people have too much time

[im_thatoneguy]

It'as based on sedimentary core samples. (If you're actually curious.)

Re:Some people have too much time

[michelcolman]

They can find a particular kind of algae in sedimentary core samples, among all the other algae? Those are some pretty precise sampling techniques then. But what if the algae only appear for a few years and then go away again? Would that show up?

Gay whale

[Smigh]

What I read on my rss feed was "Gay whale... seen in N. Atlantic"

I'm kind of disappointed now that they haven't found a gay whale...

Re:Gay whale

[rossdee]

How would you know it was gay, unless there were two of them (of the same sex)

Re:Gay whale

[delinear]

Maybe the research boats were equipped with gaydar?

Re:Gay whale

[mangu]

You sir, would have got the "most double entendres in a single post", if only you had logged in instead of postingAC...

Re:Gay whale

[nschubach]

Gray is the new Humpback. I thought the entire fishion industry new that.

Sigh

[SmallFurryCreature]

Well smartass, that was EXACTLY what the parent and the documentary are claiming isn't true. Nature was thought for a long time to be a balanced machine (to many rabbits, the foxes do well reducing the number of rabbits and then the excess of foxes dies as there are fewer rabbits to eat allowing the rabbits to restore themselves).

And the documentary showed how this believe came into being, how it was used and then how it was completely and utter debunked. In nature this does NOT happen. Not that nature doesn't appear to balance out but there is no balancing mechanism in place. It is VERY possible for the foxes to eat all the rabbits. No magic rebalancing act. Nature has plenty of example in all the extinct species.

Welcome to new century, some old ideas are going to be replaced by new ones. Constantly balancing eco system is so last century.

Re:Sigh

[drinkypoo]

Nature IS a balancing act, it only happens to be on a longer period than will be helpful to one species. The earth has mechanisms to handle global warming, increased CO2, et cetera. We will not enjoy them. Indeed, we are already not enjoying them. We may not enjoy them to the point that our industrial society collapses due to our brilliant location of the majority of our population near the coastlines threatened by... our population. Or at least, its careless maintenance.

Re:Sigh

[drinkypoo]

The earth has mechanisms to handle global warming, increased CO2, et cetera.

No, it hasn't.

So I suppose it is an illusion that CO2 is exchanged into the ocean and then fixed by subaquatic limestone? The problem is not that the Earth is an unstable system; it's been here through many cycles, although current CO2 levels are unprecedented. I suppose it is an illusion that when global temperature swings in one direction, the climate goes through a cycle of ice age and warm period and brings it back in line again. Whoops, no, ice core samples prove that this has been going on for quite some time. The Earth is self-regulating, or it would already be a lifeless ball of rock. The issue is that we may or may not live through the cleaning cycle, and even if we do, society may be set back considerably.

Re:Sigh

[hey!]

The claims being disputed here are too vague to be entirely true or false.

Beyond any reasonable doubt, equilibrium governs many aspects of ecosystems. Looked at different ways, an equilibrium could be called both "static" and "dynamic". An equilibrium could be called "static" in that it maintains certain parameters within a certain narrow range, but it does so by reacting "dynamically" to changes.

That said, an equilibrium's *tendency* to resist change doesn't mean change is impossible, or even uncommon. An equilibrium can collapse when the conditions supporting it change, or it's capacity to resist change can be overwhelmed.

Let's say you are fishing wild stocks. All other things being equal, if you take a ton of fish out of a fishing grounds within a generation or two the fish you've removed are replaced because there's more food or habitat for the next generation. Equilibrium re-establishes the old population numbers. But, if I remove pollack faster than they can reproduce, I can overwhelm the equilibrium. In the extreme case let's say I take *all* the tiger muskies out of a pond; equilibrium won't magically conjure replacements out of nothing. Or let's say we're trawling for ocean bottomfish. If our gear destroys the habitat needed by the fish population, we undermine the conditions producing the equilibrium.

We can't understand the natural world without models, but expecting those models outside their limits and assumptions is stupid.

Re:Sigh

[bytesex]

'It is VERY possible for the foxes to eat all the rabbits.'

Yes, but it is also statistically anomalous. We're not talking about finding corner-cases, we're debating variations off of the middle of the spectrum.

Re:Sigh

[siglercm]

Ever hear of Lyapunov stability, friend? This is the applicable analysis in the mathematical study of dynamical systems, and it answers all your guessed-at (and guessed-at in that documentary) assertions.

Re:Sigh

[sbrown123]

Yes, but how can we blame humans for that? It is far more damning to say "nature is perfectly balanced but humans fuck it all up".

Re:Sigh

[rgviza]

I KNEW there was a fox-rabbit analogy guy in here somewhere. However, rabbits reproduce like, well, rabbits. It's pretty rare to hear about them going extinct. usually it's the other way around because humans tend to destroy all predators in areas they inhabit in a wide swath around the area where they live.

Look to Arizona for a perfect example where coyotes and rattlesnakes are all but extinct around the Phoenix area. The rodents are out of control... and that was back in the early 90's.  I'm sure it's a lot worse now.

Re:Sigh

[rgviza]

edit: rabbits are lagomorphs not rodents, but they do the same type of damage...

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[capnkr]

And the non-climate-scare angle of that Wikipedia entry (and this part of this story), which immediately follows the above quoted line (screengrab):

However, on May 8, 2010, a sighting of a gray whale was confirmed off the coast of Israel in the Mediterranean Sea,[7] leading some scientists to think they might be repopulating old breeding grounds that have not been used for centuries.[7]

So, is climate change responsible? Or is it simpler, Occam - like growth of the species allowing a return to former breeding grounds? Guess it depends on your/the 'viewpoint' you need to support...

How is Israel the North Atlantic?

[Shivetya]

OK, I read the article and searched google. How is a city in Israel somehow part of the North Atlantic? I would be more interested in how the whale got that far into the Med without being spotted.

As for the algae, if ships are making the passage they are doing the same thing they did to the great lakes, bringing lifeforms across that have no natural enemies to an environment similar to the one they left. I really doubt the algae is flowing from the Pacific to the Atlantic, I am more sure its because of the ships passing through the area. Either pumping out their bilge water or barnacles and other assorted life attached to the hulls coming off.

Re:How is Israel the North Atlantic?

[Vintermann]

Ballast water tanks are certainly a problem, but they're not a new invention.

Re:How is Israel the North Atlantic?

[rocket rancher]

OK, I read the article and searched google. How is a city in Israel somehow part of the North Atlantic? I would be more interested in how the whale got that far into the Med without being spotted.

Obviously, you didn't use Google Maps. :) There are only two sea routes into the Med, the Straits of Gibraltar in the west and the Suez Canal in the east. Given the width and depth of the canal and the level of maritime traffic through the canal, it is unlikely the whale would have escaped notice if that is the way he arrived off the coast of Israel. That leaves the Straits of Gibraltar as it's point of entry to the Med, which means the whale probably came east through the Northwest Passage, then south through the North Atlantic, and east again through the Straights of Gibraltar to Israel. I doubt whales are high on NATO's threat list, so even if it was pinged by some sonars in the Atlantic or the Med during the trip, the operator(s) probably just logged it and shrugged it off, not realizing the significance.

The True Question

[chill]

The article doesn't address the most important question. Did the whale cause the algae to drift, or did the algae cause the whale to migrate?

What this really means...

[PortHaven]

Is that we've been lied too...yup.

This isn't showing that global warming is some how destroying our ecosystem. What this shows is all that BS about it being the hottest ever was bogus. Clearly, if the Gray whales migrated back in the 1800's to the northern Atlantic. And they're "just now" doing it again. Then our global temperatures have really just become on par with the 1800's again.

Hmm...food for thought rather than hysteria.

Re:What this really means...

[pnot]

Clearly, if the Gray whales migrated back in the 1800's to the northern Atlantic. And they're "just now" doing it again. Then our global temperatures have really just become on par with the 1800's again.

Grey Whales didn't "migrate" to the North Atlantic in the 1800s; there was a pre-existing native population there which died out in the 18th century (probably due to whaling). Reference here. Temperature didn't have anything to do with it.

Hmm...food for thought rather than hysteria.

I didn't see any hysteria in the article.

Re:What this really means...

[Arlet]

No, what's more likely is that the whales left in the 1800's because they were hunted, and they are returning because they aren't (as much) anymore.

The article's claim that they returned as a result of higher temperatures isn't very well supported (it certainly doesn't provide any citations). It may be different for the algae, though.

BTW, nobody ever claimed that recent years were "the hottest ever". The claim was that those years were the hottest in the modern temperature record, which goes back to 1880. Based on proxy data, it is likely that last decade was the hottest since at least a couple thousand years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

Re:What this really means...

[Anonymous Coward]

So they're going back to their old feeding grounds. Nature reclaiming where it was before.
As for the algae from the North Pacific, perhaps the Panama canal can explain that.

Re:What this really means...

[pnot]

So they're going back to their old feeding grounds. Nature reclaiming where it was before.

Not exactly: the Atlantic population didn't migrate to the Pacific, it just died out. It doesn't really matter, though. The point of the paper is to demonstrate that species are now able to traverse the North-West Passage due to the lack of ice, with possible consequences for the Pacific and Atlantic ecosystems. There isn't really a "whales should be here" / "whales shouldn't be here" aspect to it, it's just analysing what actually happened.

Re:What this really means...

[Vintermann]

They didn't leave, they were hunted to extinction. And while they're "returning", the population they're coming from has probably been separated from the north Atlantic one for a longer time than since they were wiped out.

Re:What this really means...

[Dynedain]

The gray whales didn't migrate away from the North Atlantic, they were hunted to local extinction.

And a single whale does not a migration make.

The algae, not from southern oceans, but N Pacific

[G3ckoG33k]

The previously known distribution of the algae included the North Pacific (http://us.mirror.gbif.org/species/13292500, click the agreement), not southern oceans as claimed in the title

Ecosystems don't go through gradual change

[Colin Smith]

Ecosystems are driven by exponential processes, change is always "catastrophic".

Atlantic Grey Whales Return From Extinction

[R80_JR]

Grey whales became extinct in the Atlantic sometime in the 1600's - 1700's,....... You'd think that evidence of population and range recovery would be good news to environmentalists...

Re:Atlantic Grey Whales Return From Extinction

[ArsonSmith]

There's no more money in "save the whales" that went out sometime in the 90s, right about the time of the Al Gore Warming (AGW) started to greedily grab money from the government.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[captainpanic]

Careful readers do not focus on the whales only. The previous posts did focus on the whales only, but never mentioned the climate. If you now wish to change the topic here, and discuss the climate, it would be fair to include the 2nd topic of the article too: algae.

The real story are the algae. Algae weren't hunted to extinction 800,000 years ago. But their reappearance in the Northern Atlantic is likely a climate-related issue.

800,000 years???

[chris.alex.thomas]

What I really dislike is blanket statements like this which are practically impossible to prove and just serve to hype up what is being said, albeit to fellow nerds who will recognise the significance, fake or otherwise, of what is being said.....

how would you possibly know the algae wasn't there 800,000 years ago, just there is no evidence to suggest it, I mean, there isn't any evidence I went to france back in 1995, but I did, are you going to sit there and tell me I didnt go?.........morons....

Here's the citation

[pnot]

The article's claim that they returned as a result of higher temperatures isn't very well supported (it certainly doesn't provide any citations).

Here you go. Scheinin, A. P. et al. (2011) Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in the Mediterranean Sea: anomalous event or early sign of climate-driven distribution change? Marine Biodiversity Records, 4: e28. (Spoiler: they reckon it's probably climate-driven distribution change.)

I am baffled as to why Slashdot insists on linking to the shittiest, vaguest intermediary sites for any scientific research, but I find that 30 seconds with Google usually turns up the relevant paper.

Re:Here's the citation

[mangu]

I am baffled as to why Slashdot insists on linking to the shittiest, vaguest intermediary sites for any scientific research

I'm baffled as to why so many Slashdotters insist on being fossil fuel industry shills.

It's good to be skeptical, yes, but they should be skeptical of the propaganda spread by those who have an economic interest in denying anthropogenic global warming, instead of being skeptical of properly conducted scientific research. That's the reason why they link to shitty sites.

Re:Here's the citation

[stdarg]

I'm baffled as to why so many Slashdotters insist on being fossil fuel industry shills.

There's your mistake, you don't believe skeptics are actually skeptical, you think they are all plants by the oil companies.

It's good to be skeptical, yes, but they should be skeptical of the propaganda spread by those who have an economic interest in denying anthropogenic global warming

You can't be skeptical about everything forever, at some point you pick a side... Most people who are genuinely skeptical start off being skeptical about both sides, but then decide one makes more sense. They adopt that side. Then they are skeptical of any propaganda designed to make them change sides.

Another thing that gets confused is that there are people who believe in anthropogenic global warming but are skeptical that we need to stop it. They generally get lumped in with the non-believers because whenever a concrete plan is proposed, they are on the same side: do nothing because it's not a problem.

Also, two questions:
1. Can you not imagine any economic interests in promoting anthropogenic global warming?
2. Why didn't you mention the governmental interest in promoting anthropogenic global warming?

Re:Here's the citation

[Arlet]

1. Can you not imagine any economic interests in promoting anthropogenic global warming?

Not enough to justify setting up a giant, global conspiracy of scientists.

2. Why didn't you mention the governmental interest in promoting anthropogenic global warming?

Because governments have little interest in doing that anyway. Note how little progress is made on climate summits to make any kind of change. I'd be more worried about the influence of oil companies on governments.

Re:Here's the citation

[stdarg]

Not enough to justify setting up a giant, global conspiracy of scientists.

Do you think companies like Goldman Sachs couldn't think of a way to make lots of money if they knew that Exxon and Shell, some of the biggest companies in the world, could be brought down overnight with a bit of coaxing and lobbying?

How about industries like nuclear power -- and the megacompanies that go along with them like GE, Hitachi, Areva? Do you think GE wouldn't be happy to say "Hey you know the billions of dollars of natural gas turbines you just installed? Well, they're illegal now, would you be interested in buying a few reactors before you are run out of business?"

It's incredibly unlikely that the entire world economy is participating in some grand coverup scheme to save the hides of the oil industry.

Because governments have little interest in doing that anyway.

Oh, yeah, governments are never interested in increasing regulation (and thus their own power).

Note how little progress is made on climate summits to make any kind of change.

Yeah I noted how every poor country in the world was massively in favor of enacting climate change legislation, which just happens to favor them economically by giving passes to their growing industries and also forcing "rich" countries to buy carbon offsets from them. Note that that the carbon offsets appear magically from out of thin air because these poor countries were victimized and exploited by the evil West for so long, so they never got the chance to grow and blossom and all that... thank God we now have the chance to pay for our sins with cold hard cash, huh?

Yeah... no economic incentive *at all*...

Re:Here's the citation

[Arlet]

Companies like Goldman Sachs have little to benefit from bringing down Exxon or Shell. Besides, even with the most stringent CO2 reductions, there is no suitable alternative for oil until the wells run dry. The future of those companies is secure until then.

Oh, yeah, governments are never interested in increasing regulation (and thus their own power).

Sure, but there are better methods than setting up a worldwide conspiracy that could be easily uncovered by any decent researcher. Also, your method would assume that all major governments have their goals aligned. This is simply not true. Russia's economy is for a large portion based on oil and gas exports, and they would hate to lose that in return for some extra regulation. Other countries like China are rapidly building coal plants to provide electricity to their citizens, and have little interest in slowing that down. And, obviously, some countries like China do not have a problem with increasing regulation if they wanted to do that on a whim.

Yeah I noted how every poor country in the world was massively in favor of enacting climate change legislation

Of course, most of the developed world doesn't give a fuck about them.

Re:Here's the citation

[stdarg]

Companies like Goldman Sachs have little to benefit from bringing down Exxon or Shell.

If you know a company is going to collapse you can make a ton of money.

Sure, but there are better methods than setting up a worldwide conspiracy that could be easily uncovered by any decent researcher.

Yes, I'm not sure why you brought up a conspiracy of scientists to begin with. The action is happening through politics, not science. That's where the economic motivation is.

Also, your method would assume that all major governments have their goals aligned. This is simply not true. Russia's economy is for a large portion based on oil and gas exports, and they would hate to lose that in return for some extra regulation. Other countries like China are rapidly building coal plants to provide electricity to their citizens, and have little interest in slowing that down. And, obviously, some countries like China do not have a problem with increasing regulation if they wanted to do that on a whim.

I suggest you read about the economic incentives in the Kyoto Protocol. You sound like you have no idea about what's actually at stake for developed vs developing countries economically. For instance, Russia actually did support Kyoto because, while they do export oil, they have a low carbon footprint themselves. They would continue to export oil, and they would also be paid extra by the countries buying oil for the "privilege" of burning the oil.

China loves the Kyoto protocol for the same reason. They will continue doing exactly what they are doing, but suddenly they will be paid billions of dollars per year extra. And they already have a huge advantage in that they are just starting to build their power infrastructure, so they can put a heavy emphasis on carbon-free solutions like nuclear power.

Of course, most of the developed world doesn't give a fuck about them.

I've got news for you, most of the developing world doesn't give a fuck either. This is all about the money.

Missleading headline

[Anonymous Coward]

The Neodenticula seminae is not a southern-hemisphere algae as the headline says. It belongs in the Bering Sea and at middle to high latitudes of the North Pacific. The news here was that the two species were able to travel through the Northwest Passage to the Atlantic since the ice has melted away.

Troll?

[drinkypoo]

No, I really believe this guy is a genius. After all, if the whales migrated 200 years ago, they are obviously doing it for the same reason today.

Nice abuse of moderation, though. Was it from a second account or just from a douchebag friend?

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[fyngyrz]

But their reappearance in the Northern Atlantic is likely a climate-related issue.

Yes... or an ocean pollution-related (nutrient,toxin) issue. Or a river pollution-related (nutrient,toxin) issue. Or a passenger-on-a-hull issue. Or a natural (nutrient) issue. Or a current-alteration issue. Or a secondary species has brought them along, perhaps as a parasite or a host, or simply a passenger. Or a geological (heating, cooling, pressure, nutrient, toxin) issue. And I'm pretty sure a marine biologist could extend that list without a lot of effort.

Yessir, the re-appearance in the Northern Atlantic of this algae definitely allows us to immediately draw the following conclusion: The algae has re-appeared in the northern Atlantic.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[capnkr]

Reappearance, or rediscovery? The ocean is a big place, and algae, small. We find new things in our oceans every day. And 'careful readers' will note:
1: that the algae in question is not from the Southern Hemisphere, as this /. summary suggests - it is a Northern Pacific algae.
2: The Arctic ice pack did not extend from the surface to the sea bottom, like some kind of ice barrier which excluded whole oceans from contact. You do recall that nuclear subs have made the trip under the N Pole. Who's to say an algae can't do the same, that it *has* to have come through the NW passage?

This article - and it's suppositions - are sadly lacking in any detail of merit. It is climate-scare puffery with little to back it up, IMO. Let's get back to 'News for Nerds'....

Occam's Razor

[RogueWarrior65]

How in hell this can be definitively attributed to "global warming" is beyond the pale. It's much more likely that the lack of whaling activity would eventually lead to increase in population and hence migration.

Re:Occam's Razor

[pnot]

How in hell this can be definitively attributed to "global warming" is beyond the pale. It's much more likely that the lack of whaling activity would eventually lead to increase in population and hence migration.

It's pretty simple: ice melts, whale swims through water. Whales don't magically gain the ability to teleport just because there's a moratorium on whaling. Whatever the population dynamics, the whale physically requires a channel of water to swim through if it's going to get from one ocean to another. The recently de-iced route through the North-West Passage provided this channel. What's your alternative hypothesis? It swam clear across the Pacific, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and approached the Mediterranean from the South? Possible, but as I'm sure you've seen from reading the original research paper, highly unlikely. Occam's Razor favours a northern route.

Oh, and it's not "definitively attributed"; it's just the most likely scenario.

Re:Occam's Razor

[eleuthero]

You have neglected a far more likely scenario. In the 23rd century, a satellite comes down on earth and starts broadcasting a message specifically for North Atlantic Gray Whales being a distinguished satellite and not wanting to deal with the riff-raff in the Pacific despite their common cultural and linguistic heritage. Finding no response from them, the satellite boosts the power to its communicator, not having a built in... a "woops they must all be dead or deaf" switch, to avoid killing them via atmospheric turmoil if in fact they were still alive.

From there, humans, also affected by the issue, took a conveniently stolen cloakable warship back in time by surviving the crushing nature of a singularity and traveled back in time to 1986 / *1586* and stole one out of the ocean using a conveniently developed waterproof hold... made out of steel-glass / *pig iron* (what?, it was developed in the early 18th century... convenient accident?--no way!).

On a related note, html tags are generally what I use when typing stuff on this site... why no strike-through?

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[Candid88]

So, is climate change responsible? Or is it simpler, Occam - like growth of the species allowing a return to former breeding grounds? Guess it depends on your/the 'viewpoint' you need to support...

Or, even more probable, both are correct. Throughout history species have taken advantage of changes in regional climate (and in particular its effects on other fauna and flora) to expand into new localities.

In the ocean, even a slight change in temperature can cause massive changes in algae and hence crustacean populations, as has been much documented. However if you RTFA the direct reason for their return seems to be the now regular summer thawing of the North West Sea Passage, which is seen as evidence of climate change.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[GooberToo]

Contrary to a lot of green peace misinformation, whale populations are at their highest in several centuries. Chances are extremely high this only has to do with re-population and expansion. The fact humans are vastly over fishing and making food scarce for these animals only further encourages them to find new feed grounds.

Basically, whaling destroyed the populations. So it makes sense they would be harder to find. Whale populations are now higher than before whaling reached its height.

A global warming angle is extremely bullshittish unless there is lots and lots and lots of proof which is far, far stronger than the most obvious and reasonable explanation.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[d3ac0n]

Why would BOTH being correct be more probable?

If you have a simple and very "Occam's razor" style theory on one hand and a very UNlikely and politically motivated theory on the other hand, how does combining them create an even more likely theory?

Answer: It doesn't, unless you are trying to find any way possible to continue to include the highly unlikely politically motivated theory in your calculations.

Face it, the "global warming" explanation for grey whale re-population and Algae increase is as much bunkum as the rest of "global warming" (or "Climate Change" or whatever obscuring terminology the shysters have switched to using today.)

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[flaming error]

I don't understand why I keep seeing "politically-motivated."

Al Gore did not invent global warming any more than he invented the internet. This concept originated with scientists, has been vetted by scientists, and is accepted as something between the leading theory and established fact by every national and international science body on the planet.

Maybe it is a hoax. If it is, convince the scientists. They'd love to hear it, nothing helps their career more than disproving the status quo.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[dryeo]

It is a fact that the North West Passage has been opening up in recent years. Calling it politically motivated makes you look pretty stupid. Perhaps you also call the Round Earth Theory politically motivated?

Double sigh with knobs on, you smug fat wrong cunt

[Hognoxious]

Find someone who is competent at reading comprehension and show them the bit I quoted. They'll tell you that GP's words clearly imply that for something to be in balance it must not change, i.e. balance = static, dynamic = not balance. Read. The. Words.

My acrobat is a counter-example. So are the foxes and rabbits, so I don't know why you're disagreeing with me or what your point is, other than waving your dick. Do trolls have them?

It's exactly analogous to him saying "Whales are not fish; they have lungs and so they're mammals" and me bringing up lungfish or reptiles. And then you making snide remarks and claiming "ha ha, fucktard, reptiles don't live in the sea!" - even though some do.

Not that nature doesn't appear to balance out but there is no balancing mechanism in place.

I never said there was. Perhaps my choice of example caused you to assume that I believed in some kind of purposeful actor. Well, I neither meant nor said anything of the sort; it was merely an example of something that moves and yet remains in balance. Balanced != static, remember? In fact, I almost chose prey/predators or commodity prices (arguably the same thing) and for some bizarre reason chose not to.

However there is a selection bias in which systems get studied, in the same way that there's a lot of history about the British and Roman empires and considerably less about, say, the Belgian and Seleucid ones.

It is VERY possible for the foxes to eat all the rabbits. No magic rebalancing act. Nature has plenty of example in all the extinct species.

Another strawman. Where did I mention anything like magic? However did I, or did I not, mention unstable systems and how, by their very nature, they disappear? If all the foxes had died out before we came along then they wouldn't be there for us to study, would they? That, not-so-smartass, was the point.

You might find these other BBC programmes educational and informative.

Gray whale bringing invasive algae to N. Atlantic?

[sylvandb]

We hunted them to the brink of extinction once, we can do it again.

Whales: The biofuel before fossil fuel was cool!

Re:There is no such thing as climate change

[EsbenMoseHansen]

The rate of change is quite unprecedented, though. Just saying. Personally, I don't think the world is up to reducing the CO2 output much, even if the world wanted to, so we just argue with each other instead.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[flaming error]

Lawyers say when the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When neither the facts nor the law are on your side, launch an ad hominem attack.

Al Gore's motivations make no difference to the laws of thermodynamics. Disprove the theories, not the peanut gallery.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[mldi]

No. Manbearpig first bore his ugly mug in the 18th century, and it scared the shit out of the whales.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[flaming error]

In science there are not "both sides". There are only facts, and theories to explain those facts. Some theories are eventually disproven. Some become broadly accepted. Currently every credible scientific organization on Earth accepts the theory that human activity is significantly altering the climate

Maybe they're wrong. If you know better, correct them. You'll be a rock star.

But I think you'll find that among scientists, conversion stories and senate reports won't clarify the laws of thermodynamics any more than speculations regarding Al Gore's financial interests will.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[Lakitu]

If whaling destroyed the populations, how can whale populations be at their highest level in several centuries? When exactly do you think whaling took place?

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[flaming error]

> If you wish to blindly follow the claims without
> questioning their validity, go right ahead.

Not sure what you mean by "blindly." I defer to science for many things I have not personally verified, including relativity, quantum mechanics, optics, magnetism, cosmology, evolution, and climatology.

Sometimes the scientific conclusions make some kind of sense to me, such as in cosmology, evolution, and climate.

Sometimes I can barely make sense of anything, like relativity and quantum mechanics.

But I don't think my ignorance of the science, or my vague intuition that it really makes no sense at all, is enough grounds for me to say Einstein had it wrong, nor is it enough I'd declare myself a quantum mechanics skeptic and attempt to nitpick a

And on climate change, I have no reason to believe self-identified skeptics, armed only with ad hominems and FUD, over every national and international scientific organization on planet Earth.

> makes me wonder if you connect the two (global
> warming and thermodynamics).

Yes I do. I also connect falling down with gravity, and carpet burns with friction. Am I a geek or what?

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[riverat1]

One reason gray whales might be reappearing in the Atlantic is the summer reopening of the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage in the past few years allows them an avenue to get there from their normal Pacific territory. The opening up of those passages is definitely climate related.

Don't blame the Boomers

[Paul1969]

Exploitation of natural resources without thought of sustainability has been standard human practice since at least the Old Stone Age.
Oh, and it was Boomers who first started the "green" movement.

Re:Don't blame the Boomers

[Xest]

"Exploitation of natural resources without thought of sustainability has been standard human practice since at least the Old Stone Age."

To nowhere near the extent of that under the baby boomers though. The relative levels of strip mining, deforestation, overfishing, and so on all peaked under the boomers.

"Oh, and it was Boomers who first started the "green" movement.""

No, it was a mere few concerned boomers who recognised how badly the rest of their generation was fucking up the world. Not the generation as a whole- it was the very fact the boomers were so destructive that the green movement came about as a knee-jerk response in the first place, there wouldn't have even needed to be a green movement if they'd worked to be more responsible and sustainable from the outset.

They raped this planet hard, and to this day are still the biggest barrier to fixing it.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[sjwt]

Is that like all the Algae and Starfish, and Jelly fish that has magically appeared in Australian waters over the last few hundred years from ships traveling though Internationale waters and doping ballast. Surly that is a better reason, it only takes one ship to drop ballast with some life in it and BANG species
  form half way around the plant are introduced.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[sjwt]

umm Whales eat Plankton, i dont believe we fish too much of that.

In fact the revers is more likely, we are over fishing, leading to the reduction in other species that eat the plankton, thus more food for the Whales.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[GooberToo]

If whaling destroyed the populations

Yes, through the 18th and early 19th century. That's have a long time to make a come back. Whales are rarely hunted these days. And what hunting does exist is far, far below their breeding levels. Accordingly, just like with any species, when your birthrate out paces your death rate, the species experiences a population resurgence. That's exactly what's happened to every whale species. We now have far more whales than what existed before the whaling crazy took hold of global waters.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[GooberToo]

Do some more research. Most whale species eat fish, not plankton. Not all whales were hunted just for their blubber. More than one species were hunted for their blubber, where there were clearly preferences, making some more hunted than others. Generally speaking, just about any large whale species was considered fair game, especially after the decline of some of their larger, more preferred targets.

Re:What happened in the 18th century?

[Lakitu]

I question where you're finding your information.

Whaling as a profession peaked towards the latter half of the 19th century when it became industrialized out of New Bedford in New England. That trailed off and then died out in the early 1900s, but it was gaining popularity in places like Norway, where it became even more efficient with the advent of 20th century technologies. Although it wasn't as dominant an economic and cultural force, more whales were actually being killed in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s than at any time before in history when motorized ships could venture out farther, and for longer, and kill more whales with modern weapons which were being found with modern technologies like SONAR.

Any way you look at it you are just flat out wrong. At best you are off by a century, and with any research into the numbers of whale kills it makes it clear you are off by more than that, since whaling took its biggest toll in terms of numbers in the middle of the 20th century, at a time you think they were replenishing their stocks back to prior levels.