It could be worse, for instance...
Posted on 03/11/2006 3:18:09 PM PST by Enviroboy3000
Warmer Arctic Waters Forcing Animals North
By CLAYTON SANDELL March 9, 2006 — - The Bering Sea -- which lies just south of the Arctic Circle between Russia and Alaska -- is getting warmer, and the heat is already having a huge impact on marine wildlife there.
Among the findings is a declining food supply for populations of walrus, gray whales and sea ducks in this northern sea.
It appears that these animals now have to compete with fish populations that have pushed into their territory, said the study's lead author, Jacqueline Grebmeier of the University of Tennessee.
Near-freezing water in the northern Bering Sea has traditionally kept bottom-feeding fish like halibut and flounder farther south in warmer waters. But as temperatures have risen -- as much as 6 degrees Fahrenheit at the sea floor -- the fish have moved farther north, where they eat the food favored by the larger marine mammals.
"This demonstrates the biological effect in an area so shallow that it doesn't take much to fundamentally change the system," said Lee Cooper, chemical oceanographer at the University of Tennessee and co-author of the study. "It's a little sobering."
The report presents evidence that "gray whales have responded by moving their primary foraging area northward," and cites a "surprising detection" of gray whale calls in the winter of 2003-2004 near Barrow, Alaska, a place where local hunters report "more numerous gray whales than in any time previously."
But there is a limit to how far north the whales and other mammals can go.
"You eventually fall off the continental shelf," Grebmeier said. "They don't have to go very far north of Barrow and they're into that much deeper water basin. And they can't find food that deep."
More here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1706459&page=1
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
yeah but animals are moving away that means we can drill the areas they left
so i say bring them pumps and drills lets go, needs some crude
Six degrees warmer at the ocean floor?
Somehow I don't think that's possible.
Interesting article.Too bad abc has zero credibility with me.
It's clear those naughty fish are not environmentally educated. Peta needs to work on this dire situation.
I've been saying this for years.
...women and children hit hardest!
The earth probably is warming, a geologically brief warming tied to solar cycles and not to human activity. If the animals can adapt so can we. If the animals can't, they are not hardy enough to survive.
Thank you! When will these dimwits understand that we go through 500,100,50,20,etc.,etc. year cycles of COLDER-WETTER, COLDER-DRIER, WARMER-WETTER, WARMER-DRIER cycles on and on, over and over?
We're doooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed!
sheez, where is everybody?
The Science report was released on the same day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released figures showing the 2005-2006 winter season was the fifth-warmest on record for the contiguous United States.
Welcome to FR, hopefully you really didn't believe any of that garbage they were busy trying to sell did you?
OK, is it driving the liberals into the South? Maybe to the oceans? Is this why we have so many liberals in Calif?
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