Tag Archives: research scientist
Status Check: Assessing Stellwagen National Marine Sanctuary
A submerged extension of the sandy Cape tip, it is a big sandbar rising from the ocean floor to the height of an 11-story building, coming within 65 feet of the ocean surface. Currents swirl around it, lifting organic debris from the ocean bottom up into the sunlit surface waters, kick-starting the marine food chain with plankton blooms that feed grazers like herring and sand lance that are in turn preyed upon by larger fish, whales and seabirds. But, as a new report by the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary shows, human activities in the ocean continue to increase, putting greater pressure on wildlife and habitat within the sanctuary as humans create an increasingly industrialized ocean that is noisier, more contaminated and overfished. (overfished by whom?!)>click to read< 07:33
Warming trend continues in waters off Atlantic Canada
Warmer ocean temperatures off Atlantic Canada continued in 2016, maintaining a trend that started earlier this decade, according to survey results from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans. On the Scotian Shelf off Nova Scotia, temperatures last year were as high as three degrees above the 30-year average used to establish climatic norms. “It’s not quite the same [record] level of 2012, but it’s getting close to it,” said Dave Hebert, a research scientist with DFO. He added that 2016 was probably the second warmest year on record. Scientists have struggled to explain what is causing the most intriguing aspect of the recent trend: the warming of ocean bottom water, which is not influenced by surface weather events. Hebert said the latest theory is based on model results that see the Gulf Stream moving northward and intersecting with the tail of the Grand Banks. “That is stopping the cold Labrador Sea water from coming around the tail of the Grand Banks,” he said. “That’s where we normally get the cold water that refreshes the [Scotian] Shelf. That hasn’t been happening. Read the story here 16:48
