Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Antarctic Glacier Melt Maybe "Not Due to Climate Change"

Lewis Page
The Register
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:39 UTC
D-autosub
© The RegisterThe latest in scientific bottom-probing battery powered devices
Brit D-cell robot torpedo probes massive icy bottom

British and international boffins, having probed an Antarctic glacier which is thought to be a major cause of rising sea levels worldwide, report that increased polar ice melting may not be driven by climate change.

The massive ice river in question is the Pine Island Glacier, aka PIG to those in the field.

"Estimates of Antarctica's recent contributions to sea level rise have changed from near-zero to significant and increasing," says Stan Jacobs of Columbia uni in the States. "Increased melting of continental ice also appears to be the primary cause of persistent ocean freshening and other impacts."
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Ladybug

Small Creatures Will Be Oil Spill's Biggest Victims

Stuart Fox
LiveScience
Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:16 UTC
Spartina grasses with snails
© UnknownSpartina grasses with snails
Over the last two months, the BP oil leak has unleashed all manner of havoc on the ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico. But while sad pictures of large-eyed, oil coated birds make these animals the most visible victims of the oil leak, smaller ocean creatures will bear the brunt of the damage, scientists say.

"The greatest threat is to the whole food chain, and the base of the food chain, said John Caruso, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at Tulane University. "People see the big impressive animals like pelicans and the other sea birds. It's a devastating sight, it tears you up when you see those poor birds covered in oil, but the real damage to our coastal ecosystem here will come from destruction of the cord grasses."

In particular, the cord and Spartina grasses that grow on the coast of Louisiana are crucial to the ecosystem and especially sensitive to the oil leak, Caruso said. These grasses form the foundation of the local food chain, and their root systems lessen the erosion of the small islands that protect inland Louisiana from hurricanes, Caruso said.
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Heart - Black

BP Funds Front Group Claiming Oil Spill Jobs Are Better Than 'Normal' Ones, Storm Will Clean Up Oil!

Lee Fang
Think Progress
Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:33 UTC
Shortly after BP's catastrophic oil spill in the gulf, the New York Times spoke to Quenton Dokken, the executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, about the environmental impact. "The sky is not falling," Dokken told the paper, adding "it isn't the end of the Gulf of Mexico." ProPublica dug into the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, and reported that the Times had failed to disclose that Dokken and his group are funded by a consortium of oil companies with business in the gulf, including companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon rig, Transocean and Anadarko. Today, the Times reported that the Foundation has been downplaying effects of the spill, possibly because of its funding from oil companies.
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Light Saber

Frustrated Locals Not Waiting for Official "OK" to Try to Stop Oil & Save Oiled Animals and Birds

Jamie Gumbrecht
CNN
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:24 UTC
woman holding oiled bird
Stephanie Neumann holds a Northern Gannet
Okaloosa Island, Florida - Vacationers were the first to notice the bird fumbling in the water near this popular tourist beach last week. He bobbed and swayed differently than other birds, and didn't react when humans came dangerously close. Once he was ashore, they could see why: a light sheen of oil covered his feathers.

Animal health technician Stephanie Neumann tried to rescue the Northern Gannet, but beach safety officers stopped her. Her coworkers at the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge already had stabilized birds and a sea turtle affected by the Gulf oil disaster, but officials wanted to know: Did she have a contract with BP? Could she - and the bird - wait while they verified her organization's status?

"They're trying to do their job," Neumann said as she crouched over the motionless bird, wrapped in a white sheet and barely hidden from the stares of kids and parents. "They have to make sure protocol is followed."
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Fish

BP Oil Spill Kills its Largest Victim Yet

Leslie Kaufman
New York Times
Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:14 UTC
sperm whale
© Greenpeace
On Tuesday, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship spotted the 25-foot animal due south of the Deepwater Horizon site. The water the whale was floating in was not oiled. The fate of the whales, which have frequently been spotted swimming in the oil by planes overhead, has been of intense concern to wildlife biologists.

Blair Mase, the Southeast marine mammal stranding coordinator for the oceanic agency, said that scientists were "very concerned" that oil was the cause of the whale's death, but that the whale's body was so decomposed and scavenged by sharks that it would be impossible to say for certain.

There are an estimated 1,700 sperm whales that live in gulf waters and they are known to congregate particularly at the mouth of the Mississippi River, a rich feeding ground. Unlike other whales, which travel long distances, these live full-time in the Gulf and do not usually mingle with sperm whale pods in the neighboring Caribbean and Sargasso Sea. Ms. Mase said that the dead whale was almost certainly a gulf whale.
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Hourglass

Suffering Dolphins in Barataria Bay

Georgianne Nienaber
12160.org
Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:45 UTC
oil dolphin
© Jerry Moran Dorsal Fin Encrusted with Oil in Barataria Bay
Toxic poisons are stalking the dolphins in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, and no one is discussing or reporting the fact that the oiled mammals are struggling in the waters near Grand Terre Island. There are no published photos or videos that we have been able to find, and no stories that describe the oil-encrusted dorsal fins and odd behavior that suggest an under-reported or deliberately hidden environmental catastrophe.

We were on the water with New Orleans photographer Jerry Moran and Reel Screamers Guide Service on June 11, when we noticed two groups of dolphins. One group was swimming through a bubbling slick consisting of the dispersant COREXIT and oil, and the other was in the shallows and rooting in the mud. Dolphins will dig for flounder on the bottom, so it did not seem remarkable at the time, but we did note that they appeared unusually agitated. The group swimming in the oily dispersant near our boat was sluggish but there was nothing we could do to discourage them from swimming there. Oil was everywhere, above and below the surface, and there was no escape. We shrugged it off, snapped a few photos, and went on to photograph oiled pelicans on Cat Island and Queen Bess.
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Arrow Down

Stranded Danish Whale Dies


The Associated Press
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:19 UTC
Image
© Benny F. Nielsen/AP PhotoA fin whale is seen stranded in a shallow fjord on the western coast at Vejle on the western coast of Denmark Wednesday June 16, 2010.
A fin whale that was stranded in a Danish fjord for days has died and scientists were trying to pinpoint the cause, they said Monday.

A team of veterinarians, natural science experts and students have dissected most of the 58-foot (17.6-meter) whale, which died Sunday, Joachim Engel of Denmark's Natural History Museum said. Scientists will analyze its heart and other organs to establish the cause of death.

"That is what they will be trying to find out, whether it was sick. We don't know," biologist Anders Kofoed said.

The team dissected the animal on a pier in the Vejle Fjord, 135 miles (220 kilometers) west of Copenhagen, where the animal had been stranded since Wednesday.
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Binoculars

Why Chimpanzees Attack and Kill Each Other


PhysOrg
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:00 UTC
Image
© Thomas Lersch/WikipediaCommon chimpanzee in the Leipzig Zoo.
Bands of chimpanzees violently kill individuals from neighboring groups in order to expand their own territory, according to a 10-year study of a chimp community in Uganda that provides the first definitive evidence for this long-suspected function of this behavior.

University of Michigan primate behavioral ecologist John Mitani's findings are published in the June 22 issue of Current Biology.

During a decade of study, the researchers witnessed 18 fatal attacks and found signs of three others perpetrated by members of a large community of about 150 chimps at Ngogo, Kibale National Park.

Then in the summer of 2009, the Ngogo chimpanzees began to use the area where two-thirds of these events occurred, expanding their territory by 22 percent. They traveled, socialized and fed on their favorite fruits in the new region.
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Blackbox

Times Picayune: BP confirms blowout preventer is "tilting"

Oilflorida
Times Picayune
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:18 UTC
Oil spill containment efforts could be putting strain on damaged well, New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 18, 2010:

Meanwhile, observers monitoring the video feeds from the robotic vehicles working on the sea floor have noticed BP measuring a tilt in the 40-ton blowout preventer stack with a level and a device called an inclinometer.

Odone, the BP spokesman, confirmed that his company has been monitoring the lean of the blowout preventer, which BP believes began tilting when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank and the riser pipe got bent. ...
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Bizarro Earth

Oil from BP spill may reach Ireland


Belfast Telegraph
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:22 UTC
ocean current diagram
© Unknown
Remnants of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could be headed towards Ireland, according to an American computer-modelling study.

The study, by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, found that the Gulf Stream could carry oil from the Louisiana coast far into the eastern Atlantic ocean.

Based on computer animation, the study shows how the oil could be carried in the upper 65ft of the ocean, taking into account weather and currents.

If the oil spill is contained by the end of August, the impact on Ireland will be negligible, said NCAR oceanographer Synte Peacock. But if it continues, no-one knows what the impact will be, she said.
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