bad news for Pacific Coast divers ...

[MXGratefulDiver]

Will there soon be nothing left to look at down there ???

Scientists fear 'tipping point' in Pacific Ocean

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[TSandM]

I read that, and found it frightening.

 

[Web Monkey]

Will there soon be nothing left to look at down there

I think that pretty soon, there won't be anybody up here to look down there.

People seem to think that a human-friendly ecosystem is some sort of guaranteed environment, when in reality we've been dumping and consuming for long enough that it looks like we've managed to destabilize our environment.

To borrow a phrase from technology: "If you screw with something for long enough, you'll break it."

I beleive that's it's all going to collapse at some point in the not-too-distant future and hope that whatever survives us (if anything) does a better job at protecting the planet than we have.

Terry

 

[Teamcasa]

LA Times also had an article today.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/

 

[paradicio]

That is really scary.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

I think its a tad Malthusian.

You know that, if you were to look, you'd find another frenzied group of scientists eager to place their right hands on a stack of bibles and swear in a loud and outraged chorus that the first group were a bunch of crack-smoking data-diddlers who manufactured the findings for 15 minutes of fame (and the associated grants to study said imminent destruction) and who likely had the worlds largest collection of kiddieporn on their 15 terraflop water-cooled supercomputer.

Then they would commence to fling dung at each other in academic journals...

So which side of the debate are you going to believe?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think its a tad Malthusian.

You know that, if you were to look, you'd find another frenzied group of scientists willing to place their right hands on a stack of bibles and swear in a loud and outraged chorus that the first group were a bunch of crack-smoking data-diddlers who manufactured the findings for 15 minutes of fame (and the associated grants to study said imminent destruction) and who likely had the worlds largest collection of kiddieporn on their 15 terraflop water-cooled supercomputer.

Then they would commence to fling dung at each other in academic journels...

Go figure...

Problem is, Doc ... there ARE fewer living creatures to be seen down there than there were a few years ago. I dive often enough to notice. In the past year, I've seen exactly ONE giant pacific octopus at our local mudhole. Five years ago, you were almost guaranteed to see at least one on every dive. I'm no marine biologist, and can't explain why ... but I CAN tell you that in almost every dive local dive site ... north or south Sound or Hood Canal ... the abundance of life today is a tiny fraction of what it was when I started diving just seven years ago. We've had MASSIVE dead zones in Hood Canal annually since about 2004 ... killing literally everything in the area. And two years ago I was diving a site in Neah Bay where the floor was literally covered several layers deep with dead dungeness crabs ... it was chilling, and not because of the water temperature.

I'm not going to get into why ... frankly I don't know. But I DO know what my eyes are seeing ... and in this case, what they're not seeing ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[archman]

A dissolved oxygen reading of zero in a decently mixed, oceanic environment is pretty stinking rare.

Even the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico isn't usually that bad.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Problem is, Doc ... there ARE fewer living creatures to be seen down there than there were a few years ago. I dive often enough to notice. In the past year, I've seen exactly ONE giant pacific octopus at our local mudhole. Five years ago, you were almost guaranteed to see at least one on every dive. I'm no marine biologist, and can't explain why ... but I CAN tell you that in almost every dive local dive site ... north or south Sound or Hood Canal ... the abundance of life today is a tiny fraction of what it was when I started diving just seven years ago. We've had MASSIVE dead zones in Hood Canal annually since about 2004 ... killing literally everything in the area. And two years ago I was diving a site in Neah Bay where the floor was literally covered several layers deep with dead dungeness crabs ... it was chilling, and not because of the water temperature.

I'm not going to get into why ... frankly I don't know. But I DO know what my eyes are seeing ... and in this case, what they're not seeing ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Not saying it isn't happening, Bob. I don't dispute your observations. I've been in the Hood Canal myself to see it carpeted with dead salmon.

But I am saying that to take the data they have and then postulate sweeping conclusions with potentially global significance to them is a bit hasty. Like this:

"It looks like the Pacific has reached a "tipping point," a threshold where low-oxygen levels are becoming the rule, researchers said. And while scientists can't prove it's caused by a changing climate, that's consistent with what is predicted by computer projections built to anticipate global warming.

"The real thing in the back of our minds is: Is this the first signs of what global warming might be like?" said Bill Peterson, a federal scientist and co-author of the research published in the journal Science. But because it's not conclusive proof, he said, "We tried not to go there too much."

Anyone who does a lot of modeling knows that one of the biggest dangers involved is to believe your own BS. Models do not necessarily model reality, they model what the modelers perceive as reality. Most models are easily biased, and I model for a living.

Anyone who does research knows that its critical to control for internal and external validity, and the quotes above suggest these guys may be taking data sets and speculating as to its significance (at least in the article). "Looks like" and "might be like?" are not phrases ordinarily published in peer-reviewed academic journals...

You can get quite a bit of mileage from some types of speculation...

I'm not saying its crap. I'm saying IMHO its Malthusian...

(But I agree with you that seeing fewer octopus and other critters sucks on a global scale, regardless of whats causing the decline you've observed! Hopefully the situation isn't as dark as they suggest...)

 

[TSandM]

Causation notwithstanding, the finding itself is frightening. Whether it's solar activity or orbital eccentricity or whatever, we're seeing changes that are worrisome for the long-term stability of the climate and environment we depend upon for the support of our ever-increasing burden of humans on the planet. And the scary thing about the ocean is how little we actually know about the ecosystems there and what they are dependent upon, and how resilient they are.