Nearly two miles below the ocean’s surface, we are building new worlds. You might be surprised that these ecospheres are wooden—little log cabins hosting a cornucopia of sea life.  By controlling the size of these wooden homes, we can begin to answer fundamental questions about how the oceans will adapt to climate change. In our most recent, paper we are beginning to grasp the extent that food controls biodiversity, biological novelty, and the competition among species.

On the seafloor, chunks of wood—we call them wood falls—play host to a variety of invertebrate species often not found anywhere else in the ocean.  These species live their entire lives on waterlogged timber; settling out of the water column as larvae to consume wood, or to prey upon other species that do.  Once on a wood fall, these organisms can never leave, their dispersal limited to the beginning of their lives as plankton. And for all of these reasons, the island communities created by wood falls serve as the perfect experiment.

Because of humans, the oceans are radically changing.  They’re becoming warmer, more acidic, and less oxygenated.  But an even more disturbing trend has been uncovered; the oceans may be becoming less productive, providing less food and carbon for its denizens.  Scientists do not really have a handle on how life in the oceans will react to this finding. What will happen to individual species and whole communities of species?  This is an intractable question in many ways because it is hard to test. We cannot easily experimentally adjust how much food a swath of ocean gets. Or can we? In a wood-fall experiment we can change the amount of food the community receives by simply adjusting the size of the log. These species cannot leave to look for better meals once they arrive.  They are wholly dependent on the log we’ve provided in an otherwise barren patch of the deep ocean floor.

In 2006, Jim Barry (MBARI) and I placed 16 logs with a remote operated vehicle (ROV) over 2 miles down on the deep-sea floor off the California coast. We left them there for five years and then remotely and robotically harvested them.  After sorting, identifying, and analyzing, these wood falls are revealing yet another fundamental insight.

How does more food, or more specifically more carbon, allow for more species?  To explain the science, let’s visit a donut shop. At this donut shop, there are three types of donuts: chocolate, plain glazed, and raspberry filled. I ask the donut maker to make three new donuts and provide extra ingredients for them to do so.  

In Scenario A, the donut maker produces chocolate, plain glazed, and raspberry filled along with a dark chocolate, a plain glazed with sprinkles, and a blueberry filled.  The donut shop is still just serving three basic types of donuts: chocolate, plain glazed, and fruit filled. These new donuts are just slight deviations. We will call this Scenario A donut packing.  The donut maker is just packing the menu with variants of the original donuts.

Much like donuts in a shop, we can think of species in a community the same way.  As food increases and the number of species increase, are we getting slight deviations (donut packing) or something truly novel (donut expansion)?  In the ecological sense, are niches, i.e. the full set of characteristics that describe a species and their requirements, being packed into the community or are we expanding the overall niche diversity.

And so for our wood-fall species, we put numbers to each of their niches describing their feeding habits, how well and even if they move, as well as their preference for space on the wood fall. We found that as you increase the wood-fall size, and the amount of wood, you do not get truly novel species, rather you pack these species into the community.  They are just slight deviations. This suggest that increased food reduces competition among animals allowing them to coexist peacefully. Species do not have to be completely novel to join the community.

In the end this means that decreases of productivity in the oceans, will limit diversity by not allowing species to coexist.  Species will be vying for the same spots and in the end many may lose.

McClain, C.R., C.L. Nunnally, A. Chapman, and J. Barry. (2018) Energetic Increases Lead to Niche Packing in Deep-Sea Wood Falls. Biology Letters 

The post Wooden Homes on the Seafloor Yield Insights Into the Impacts of Climate Change first appeared on Deep Sea News.

As a coastal community, the economic, social, and industrial capacity of San Diego is intrinsically linked to climate change. So much so, that the city maintains one of the world’s most ambitious Climate Action Plans. Along these same lines, in an effort to unite the community towards climate resilience and education, the Climate Science Alliance (CSA) was established. The Alliance stands as a bi-national collaboration of over 130 government, academic, non-profit, private, tribal nations, and educational institutions working toward science focused partnerships, capacity building, and innovative community engagement. The ultimate goal — a united front on the South Coast across agencies and stakeholders to come together and work towards safeguarding our coast and communities from the effects of changing climate.

As part of their commitment to building a community of practice around climate adaptation, the Climate Science Alliance has developed the Affiliated Artists Program to work directly with artists who are exploring themes related to climate change and environmental stewardship. They work collaboratively to develop projects, programs, and opportunities to bring artists and scientists directly into climate resilience activities.

The artisans the Alliance collaborates with range from dancers to singers to more traditional art mediums. Working with students across the county and participating in large scale public engagement events, the seamless incorporation of art and science has resulted in a highly effective messaging strategy for the Alliance regarding climate change. The art allows people to connect to the issues of sea level rise, ocean acidification, and warming seas in a way that is more relatable than the science itself. Additionally, most of the pieces serve as a call-to-action platform whereas students and the public are encouraged to incorporate their climate commitments into the artwork. Through this program, the Climate Science Alliance has taken an effective approach for large-scale community dialogue and engagement regarding the most pressing issues facing our coastlines.

The post The Writings on the Sea-Wall: Climate Science Alliance first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Would you want your taxi driver using a paper road map from 1892? Or would you rather he plug in the route on his Google Map iPhone app?

You just got off a 14-hour flight from Australia, you’re exhausted and sore, and counting down the seconds until you can crawl into the soft comfort of your memory foam mattress. You want to get home as fast as possible, and any further delay is unacceptable.

In this scenario, if your taxi driver pulled out a faded historical road map, you would literally shout at him “Are you fucking kidding me? Is this a joke?”. Old maps list wagon trails, not highways, since the modern interstate system wasn’t built until the 1950s. In another scenario, maybe your taxi driver agrees to use Google Maps, but he turns off the traffic settings and also takes away your own smartphone so you can’t see where you’re going. He might be driving down back roads on purpose, choosing to ramp up the mileage and ramp up his final fare to rake in the cash.

Any of these above scenarios would really suck. They’re not cool. You should DEFINITELY not stand for them. You also shouldn’t stand for the gag order (#EPAgag) and grants freeze (#EPAfreeze) that’s happening this week at the EPA – because the results will be sickeningly similar to the above taxi driver scenario.

NPR reports this morning that peer-reviewed research coming out of the EPA may soon face a case-by-case review before it gets cleared for release into the public domain. This is exactly what corporations do when they fund research – do you think tobacco companies would approve studies confirming that cigarettes cause cancer? Nope, they would bury the science and ensures it never sees the light of day – and that’s exactly what the Trump administration wants to happen at the EPA. Climate change facts? Bury them. Gag the scientists. The difference is that corporations don’t fund the science at the EPA – YOU FUND IT, as a taxpayer and US citizen, and you should have a say in how your tax money is spent:

Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who want to publish or present their scientific findings likely will need to have their work reviewed on a “case by case basis” before it can be disseminated, according to a spokesman for the agency’s transition team.

Any review would directly contradict the agency’s current scientific integrity policy, which was published in 2012. It prohibits “all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other Agency leadership from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions.”

The EPA funds a stunning amount of stuff that effects your everyday life – the EPA monitors beach health (so you can swim in a seweage-free ocean!), water quality in lakes and rivers (so you can fish there!), air quality (don’t wanna taste smog on your run, right?), and even programs on Native American reservations to help with initiatives like recycling and sustainability.

If you want to know what the EPA funds in your local area, 1) Click here and enter your ZIP code to find your congressional district, and then 2) Go to the EPA search tool and search for grants awarded to your congressional district (you only have to fill out two boxes – your district number and state). The list of EPA search results will show you exactly what type of projects and how much $$ has been allocated to your town in the past few years.

Finally, CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON AND SENATORS to let them know that the #EPAfreeze and #EPAgag is NOT OK! All us scientists at Deep-Sea News are steaming mad, and you should be too. Click here to find contact info for your state senator. And click here and type in your ZIP code for your local congressperson in the House of Representatives. Phone calls are the best way to get in touch – inundate their district and DC offices with phone calls. Phone calls are scary for me as a millennial, but then again so is that dodgy taxi driver who wants to take me home using unpaved wagon trails and historical maps. Make a stand, make your voice heard.

———

UPDATE: 1/25/17, 1:42PM PST

To dig into this issue further, I did my own EPA award search. My congressional district (California 41st) has been awarded $26,369,556 in EPA grants over the last ~15 years. Here’s a screenshot of the awards:

To dig in even further, I started reading about the grants and tweeting short summaries of what the EPA had actually funded in my local area:

In my district alone, EPA has funded projects in basic research, terrorist attack prevention, drinking water and air quality #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

$218k EPA grant went to Fort Mojave Indian Tribe to train staff & implement new environmental protocols https://t.co/VSuUSQWAYQ #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

Other $15k EPA grant funded research on BBQ smoke (small particles that go airborne when grease sizzzles) https://t.co/8uVykdeyoN #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

One $15k EPA grant funded research to build a device that lowers pollution/exhaust from your lawnmower https://t.co/iVchR80lxn #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $1.2 million EPA grant went to Big Bear Lake to replace aging water pipes & ensure safe drinking water https://t.co/iVqo3lt6ia #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

$1.2 million EPA grant even went to “Air Quality Monitoring for Homeland Security” (w/ no other details) https://t.co/cCpdXgG1vi #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

More serious – $450k EPA grant went to the Luiseno Indian Tribe to fund water pollution control programs https://t.co/Ff9lhpj5df #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $408k EPA grant went to Chemehuevi Indian Tribe for community recycling program & to buy a wood chipper https://t.co/Lfq1K4941N #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $1.5 million EPA grant went to San Diego County to fund research and analysis on SoCal air quality https://t.co/xIYo9XSpk4 #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

$1.7mill EPA grant to “advance environ literacy & stewardship” for preschool, senior citizens, businesses https://t.co/GIH8SaZ1Su #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

A $115k EPA grant aimed to reduce vulnerabilities of large drinking water utilities to terrorist attacks https://t.co/Z48XapM2Si #EPAfreeze

— Holly Bik (@hollybik) January 25, 2017

I encourage you to do your own search – what has the EPA funded in YOUR local community?

The post Fight against the #EPAfreeze – Because you don’t want sewage on your beaches, right? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Do I think Trump will physically press the delete key on data?

PROBABLY NOT.

There are just too many lines of evidence that support the science that the incoming administration disputes. Deleting it all would be to put it mildly, unwieldy. And not only that, it’s not theirs to delete. IT’S YOUR DAMN DATA. Your tax dollars paid for it and you should be able to have access to it. This is the type of data that people and companies use everyday to make this world livable, from planning infrastructure to deciding what coat to wear.

Will Trump restrict access to the data?

IT COULD HAPPEN.

Access to data could be restricted. Which is pretty bad, because climate data has all sorts of applications and quashing it could have repercussions elsewhere. Building that house on a slope with the awesome view? Could be in landslide territory but you don’t know because no data! Even worse, data might still be taken but never analyzed, never interpreted and never communicated to the public in a useful way by imposing limits on what government agencies can say. There’s definitely precedent for this. Government scientists let out a collective sigh of relief once they were allowed to utter the words “climate change” again.

That being said, it’s ALWAYS a good idea to have independent repositories. So I applaud the efforts. If you want to save the data, check out Guerilla Archiving or Climate Mirror. Both are concerted efforts to copy climate data so it remains freely available and accessible. And remember, it’s not only about the data, it’s about communicating that data. As Luanne Thompson from the UW wisely said: “Be a little bit braver” and have those difficult and awkward conversations about the science you care about.

The post Are you worried about Trump deleting climate data? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

On December 1st, the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology approvingly tweeted a link to a Breitbart piece claiming El Niño, as opposed to climate change, is to blame for the run of record high temperatures observed in 2015/2016.

Their argument appears to be that, because temperatures are now falling as La Niña begins to kick in (and as summer turns to winter in the northern hemisphere where most of the Earth’s land surface is), that we must be settling back into a climate change hiatus (which doesn’t exist – more on this below). They conclude from this that greenhouse gas emissions from human activity don’t cause climate change.

There are many, many problems with this argument. The main one is that greenhouse gas emissions and naturally occurring climate cycles like El Niño aren’t mutually exclusive possible causes of global warming; rather, they can and do interact and co-occur. In other words, to suggest that global warming must be caused either by El Niño OR greenhouse gas emissions is a false dichotomy.

Another problem is that the Breitbart piece cites this Daily Mail piece as its source, which in turn cites a NASA study: “…on its website home page yesterday, Nasa featured a new study which said there was a hiatus in global warming before the recent El Nino, and discussed why this was so.” The Daily Mail didn’t provide a link to the study, so I went to NASA’s website and found the study. Here’s the problem: the study does not say what the Daily Mail says it does. The study provides strong evidence that the observed slowdown in surface warming was not evidence of a “hiatus”; rather, the heat was redistributed in the ocean. Overall, global warming has not slowed or paused. There is no hiatus.

In summary, the United States House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology shared and agreed with a piece on Breitbart (a conservative, white supremacist platform to which the chairman of the Committee is a regular contributor, claiming that a recent temperature drop proves climate change is not caused by human activity, citing the Daily Mail (a conservative British tabloid known for its racist, homophobic, and anti-science tendencies) which misreported the results of a NASA study.

If you agree that the Committee should be listening directly to NASA, and not conservative tabloids who dishonestly twist NASA’s science to support their anti-science politics, you can call the Committee at (202) 225-6371. Ask them to retract the tweet, issue an apology, sever its chairman’s connection to Breitbart, and get their information about climate change directly from NASA and other unbiased government agencies. If your Representative is a member of the committee, you can call them too.

The post An Alarming Tweet From the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology first appeared on Deep Sea News.

2. One Fish. Two Fish. Red Fish… No Fish.

3. Snow Caps Cones for Everyone.

4. Too Many Lionfish on the Dance Floor.

5. I See Deadzones.

6. No Escape from Plastic Monstas.

7. Where Have All the Coral Reefs Gone and Where are all the Cod?

8. Goodness Gracious, Great Plumes of Oil…and Mercury…and all that other crap we put in the sea.

9. I’m all alone and there’s no zooxanthellae inside me.

10. Fin.

The post 10 Reasons Why the Ocean’s Struggle is Real first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I encourage you to post other graphs below as long as the meet my three criteria (reliable source, unspeculative connection, no projections) and you provide a source link.  Anything that does not meet this criteria will be deleted.  I will do a followup post with all of your suggestions. Also follow along on Twitter at #climategraphs

1. 2015 temperatures higher than warmest years on record

2. Current atmospheric carbon dioxide at highest in last 400,000 years

3. Direct measurements of carbon dioxide increases since 2005

4. Sea level increases since 1880

5. Arctic ice cover decreases since 1980

6. Increasing river discharge from melting snow packs into Arctic Ocean

7. Decreasing glacier mass from 1945-2014

8. Increasing sea surface temperatures since 1910

9.  Increasing heat content of the oceans since 1955

10.  Earlier last spring frost and later first fall frost from 1895-2014

11. Earlier blossoming of cherry trees in Washington, D.C.

12. Northward range shifts in British 6,669 plants

13. Northwards shifts center of abundance for North American birds from 1966 to 2014

14. Increases of thermal stress on Caribbean coral reefs

15. Increases in deaths classified as “Heat-Related” in the United States, 1979–2010

The post A Story of Climate Change Told In 15 Graphs first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Through its influence on atmospheric circulation, [the ozone hole] has helped to shield the Antarctic continent from much of the effect of global warming over the past half century. (Robinson & Erickson, 2014)

That’s not a sentence I expected to read in a scientific paper. Most of us probably don’t think about the ozone hole that much anymore, except maybe to remember to wear a bit more sunscreen if you’re on vacation in Australia. But a new review paper – a really phenomenal paper by Sharon Robinson and David Erickson – lays it all out on the table and drops the mic.

The ozone hole lets in more UV radiation, sure. But this existence of this gaping hole also has a HUGE effect on the climate of the entire Southern Hemisphere, affecting wind circulation, ocean currents, and precipitation. This paper argues that we really haven’t payed enough attention to these seemingly dire climate shifts. For example:

• The ozone hole “tightens the vortex” of westerlies, the band of strong winds that encircles Antarctica – this has a complex effect on climate, effectively cooling East Antarctica but warming the (much-reported on) Antarctic Peninusula by drawing in milder air there.
• A windier Southern Ocean means increased dust inputs into the ocean – and dust contains iron, which is yummy yummy food that promotes big phytoplankton blooms.
• Dust also comes from somewhere – continental sources usually – meaning the ozone hole’s effect on wind has probably been bringing in “Anthropogenic pollution” and potentially transporting non-native species into Antarctica via such long-distance dust trails.
• Water availability has been declining in East Antractica, and wind has further contributed by drying things out – this is leading to lowered growth rates in terrestrial mosses and increasing salinity in Antarctic lakes.
• For the marine environment, increased winds promote upwelling and overturning of water masses in the Southern Ocean. This means that the polar ocean absorbs Carbon Dioxide much more slowly from the atmosphere (“therefore accelerating greenhouse warming”).

These are just some of the most important take home points from my perspective as a marine biologist – there are many more, including climate and food security implications for South America, Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. The paper is an extremely compelling read, if only because:

Changes to wind speeds, water temperatures and ocean overturning likely have [biological] impacts on ocean ecosystems…it could mean that ozone effects on wind patterns are as important to marine food webs as [UV radiation]. (Robinson & Erickson, 2014)

Reference:

Robinson, S. A., & Erickson, D. J. (2014). Not just about sunburn–the ozone hole’s profound effect on climate has significant implications for Southern Hemisphere ecosystems. Global change biology, DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12739

The post The complex wrath of the Ozone hole over Antarctica first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Props: Omar Malik, Monte Kawahara, Ben Goldfarb, Geoff Giller, Mwanzaa Brown.

The post The Immigrant first appeared on Deep Sea News.

‘Come with me quick, there’s no time to lose!’ 

The people sailed by and left very fast,

behind them they left all their oil and trash.

 When their homes were filled up by garbage and waste,

the seals couldn’t take it and left with all haste.

When the seals all left and said ‘too-da-loo!’

the bears had to find a new source of food.”

Trevor and John spoke eagerly to the room full of graduate students. The authors had come to give us a sneak peak of their children’s book, “New Eats with Polar Bear Pete.” They went on to introduce their main character, the illustriously fluffy, Polar Bear Pete.

Pete was a very unusual polar bear in that he preferred to eat leafy seaweed. My kind of bear, but very unusual behavior indeed. As the story progresses the greater polar bear community begins to suffer from depleting seal populations (normal polar bear food) and they turn to Pete for help, eventually making him the hero of this tale.

As the authors finished their fable to a great round of applause, they revealed their real life plot twist. This narrative was not one of fiction, but rooted completely in the peer-reviewed literature. What’s even more compelling, Trevor and John are 11^th graders.

The story of Polar Bear Pete is actually part of a larger collection of work produced by Jeff Lohman’s 11^th grade biology class at High Tech High School. In an attempt to educate his students on the importance of science communication and the many forms this can take, he formulated this unique project.

The assignment: to create a fully illustrated, publishable children’s book targeted towards an elementary school age level that summarized biology-based research within the last 10 years. Students were evaluated on artwork, story, and how well their books conveyed the essence of the overall articles. They covered topics ranging from scorpion venom, omnivorous polar bears, camouflaging cuttlefish, protective lemur mothers, and schizophrenic genes.

Though this is the first year Mr. Lohman has done anything like this, he said the students did well in creating their stories and concepts and gained a good understanding of their individual articles. He hopes to have the books made available to the public once they have been graded.

Listening to Trevor and John’s story was truly inspiring as one who dabbles in various mediums of science communication. More encouraging still is that teachers like Mr. Lohman and others are beginning to instill the importance of creativity, art, and taking different approaches in how we communicate science to the public early on. Keep up the good work.

Photo credits: J. Lohman

The post On How I Came to Meet Polar Bear Pete first appeared on Deep Sea News.