#warmingoceans — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #warmingoceans, aggregated by home.social.
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If anyone still takes #KrillOilSupplements, please stop! Our friends who live in the ocean need it way more than humans do!
Who's killing Antarctica's ecosystem? The dark side of krill harvesting no one's talking about
by Robbie Lockie
March 5, 2025Excerpt: "Saving Antarctic #krill—and, by extension, Antarctica itself—requires a multi-pronged approach:
- Stronger Quotas: CCAMLR must impose much stricter limits on krill fishing or ban it outright in certain areas.
- Marine Protected Areas: Expanding no-fishing zones in the Southern Ocean is critical to safeguarding krill and the species that depend on them.
- Consumer Action: Shoppers can pressure brands and retailers to stop selling krill-based products. Boycotting krill supplements and pet food sends a clear message to the industry.
- Global Cooperation: Governments and NGOs must work together to address the root causes of krill decline, including #ClimateChange and overfishing. [and #WarmingOceans ]."https://www.foodfacts.org/articles/whos-killing-antarcticas-ecosystem-dark-side-krill-harvesting
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😢 A #MarineHeatWave caused seabird deaths off California. El Nino could worsen the die-off
‘We don’t know how bad this is going to get’
By JULIE WATSON
Updated 1:25 PM EDT, July 1, 2026SAN DIEGO (AP) — "Within minutes of walking on a #SanDiego beach, marine ornithologist Tammy Russell found the feathered carcasses — one after another.
Some were mixed in with washed up kelp. Others were under rocks."Each month, scientists and volunteers conduct surveys of dead #seabirds and find what Russell describes as a grim assessment of the impact of a massive marine HeatWave that has lingered for months off parts of the California coast.
"The surveys that have been carried out by various organizations for decades help build a baseline of information on beached sea life to detect threats and their impact.
"Many seabirds, including California #BrownPelicans, #loons and #grebes, starved to death in recent months as record-setting ocean temperatures decreased the band of cold, nutrient-rich surface water where #krill, #anchovies and #sardines thrive near the shore, said Russell, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
"We’ve been seeing #cormorants walk to shore and then just die within the hour. I mean one time it happened within 15 minutes, and I’ve never seen that before,” Russell said. 'That has been heartbreaking for me and we’re seeing this happening across the whole coast.'
"Scientists fear the die-off could worsen with the recently formed El Nino, the natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and spikes global temperatures."
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/jsx3D#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #PacificOcean #ElNino #WarmingOceans #OceanDieOff #Seabirds
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#Algal #Toxins emerge as a new concern in #Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea
Locals who depend on the sea for food and culture are trying to understand the risks to traditional foods and wildlife populations in a region undergoing myriad changes
by Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon, May 31, 2026 via #ICTNews
Excerpt: "For countless generations, people of the #BeringStrait region have relied on the food they harvest from the sea without worrying about #HarmfulAlgalBlooms [#HABs] that threaten seafood eaters in warmer and more southern latitudes.
"Now, as the Northern Bering Sea undergoes cascading effects of a warming climate, algal risks pose a new challenge.
"The change has been dramatic.
"And it has prompted a change in the way #Nome youth grow up learning about collecting food from the waters around their home. In early April, Nome high school students traveled to Bethel with their science teacher, where they presented their research at the Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference held by Alaska Sea Grant.
"Algal toxins were present, at very low but detectable levels, in fish they eat.
"Sophomore Audrey Bruner-Alvanna was among the group of student researchers. She said young people are concerned about algal blooms, which proliferate in warmer conditions, and their potential effects on wild food resources.
" 'Because, you know, as the climate changes, as the world gets warmer and stuff, there’s going to be more of these toxins and stuff during summer,' she said. 'I feel like a lot of people that I’ve talked to have been wondering about how our subsistence is going to change in the future based on all of that.'
"The student research came about after one of the nation’s densest and biggest concentrations of toxin-producing Alexandrium algae ever documented burst forth in the waters of the Bering Strait region in 2022.
"Until the appearance of the 'massive bloom, the most toxic bloom, the longest-persisting bloom in the U.S.,' local people barely knew what harmful algal blooms or #Alexandrium are, said Emma Pate, president of the Nome Eskimo Community, the local tribal government.
" 'So we had to figure things out and learn really fast,' Pate said during an October 'Strait Science' presentation hosted by the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Nome campus."
Read more:
https://ictnews.org/news/algal-toxins-emerge-as-a-new-concern-in-alaskas-northern-bering-sea/#ClimateChange #ToxicAlgae #UniversityOfAlaska #TraditionalFoodSources #NativeAlaskans #WarmingOceans #AlexandriumAlgae
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#Jellyfish Keep Attacking #NuclearPowerPlants
By Gabriel Geiger
November 2, 2021"Jellyfish are continuing to clog the cooling intake pipes of a nuclear power plant in Scotland, which has previously prompted a temporary shutdowns of the plant.
"The #TornessNuclearPowerPlant has reported concerns regarding jellyfish as far back as 2011, when it was forced to shut down for nearly a week—at an estimated cost of $1.5 million a day—because of the free-swimming marine animals.
"In a short comment to Motherboard, #EDFEnergy, which runs the Torness plant, said that 'jellyfish blooms are an occasional issue for our power stations,' but also said that media reports claiming the plant had recently been taken offline because of jellyfish are 'inaccurate.' '[There were] no emergency procedures this or last week related to jellyfish or otherwise,' a spokesperson said. [Um, did they previously work for #TEPCOLies?]
" 'Like many other seaside power plants, the Torness plant uses seawater to prevent overheating. While there are measures in place to prevent aquatic life from entering the intake pipes, according to the #BulletinOfTheAtomicScientists, they are no match for the sheer number of jellyfish that come during so-called 'jellyfish blooms.'
" 'Usually, screens prevent aquatic life and similar debris from being drawn into the power plants’ cooling system,' the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists wrote in a 2015 blog post. 'But when sufficiently large volumes of jellyfish or other aquatic life are pulled in, they block the screens, reducing the volume of water coming in and forcing the reactor to shut down.'
"While the case in Scotland has once again spotlighted concerns regarding the jellyfish and potential power plant shutdowns, these concerns are far from new. In 2008, a swarm of jellyfish shut down a nuclear power plant [#DiabloCanyon -- which had another incident in 2024] in #California, and three years later the same occurred at a plant in Japan [#Shimane]. In 2017, jellyfish clogged a power plant in Israel [#Hadera]."
Source:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jellyfish-keep-attacking-nuclear-power-plants/#GlobalWarming #WarmingOceans
#ChangingOceans #OceansAreLife #OceanTemperatures #ClimateCrisis #Overfishing #NoDeepSeaMining #NoNewNukes #NoNukes #NoNukesForAI #Oskarshamn #Torness #RethinkNotRestart -
#Jellyfish are taking over the world – and #ClimateChange could be to blame
Jan 8, 2019
by Sean Fleming
Senior Writer, Forum Stories"For 500 million years, jellyfish have been part of the maritime #ecosystem, but now they’re poised to take over the earth.
"They have no brain, no eyes, no spine, not even blood, but they have a remarkable capacity to reproduce and can pack an impressive sting, both literally and figuratively.
"Most recently, vast numbers of bluebottle jellyfish were pushed ashore by unusually strong winds and spells of hot weather in #QueenslandAustralia, stinging thousands of people and forcing the closure of popular swimming spots. About 13,000 stings were recorded in the past week.
"In June last year, over the course of just one week, over 1,000 people were stung in Volusia County, #Florida, following a period of exceptionally prolific jellyfish blooms. The explosion in their numbers has been attributed to warming seas and even increased pollution; unlike many other marine creatures, jellyfish can cope with reduced oxygen levels.
Small but deadly – at least some of the time
"Typically, jellyfish range in size from 1cm to 40cm. But they can be significantly larger – the #LionsManeJellyfish, for example, can reach 1.8 metres wide, with tentacles over 15 metres long.
"For the most part, the sting of a jellyfish is more unpleasant than it is harmful. The pain comes from venom delivered via millions of microscopic barbs in the creatures’ tentacles. Most jellyfish stings will only have a localized effect on the victim – redness, swelling, and discomfort where the barbs make contact with the skin.
"Some, however, will prompt a systemic, whole body, reaction. These may take several hours to emerge and can include symptoms such as headaches, nausea and drowsiness.
"In rare cases, the sting can be fatal. This is true of the #BoxJellyfish, which is spreading into waters that had previously been too cool to support it; its venom causes a severe reaction that can cause death within minutes.
A force of destruction
"But these booming jellyfish populations are doing far more harm than ruining people’s trips to the beach. In fact, the scope of their disruption has extended far beyond the water’s edge.
"In 2011, both reactors at the #TornessNuclearPowerPlant in #Scotland were shut down after an invasion of jellyfish started blocking the cooling filters. Two years later, the jellyfish struck again – this time in #Sweden. They forced the closure of the #OskarshamnNuclearPowerPlant, which contains the world’s largest boiling-water reactor.
"The island of Luzon, home of the Phillippines’ capital Manilla, suffered a blackout in 1999 due to jellyfish, and in 2006 the #USSRonaldReagan, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was brought to a standstill by thousands of the little creatures. And while these events may stand out as exceptions, they are increasing in both scale and frequency.
"From sea-bed diamond mining in Namibia to salmon farming in Ireland, even jeopardising the sustainability of beluga caviar farming in the Caspian Sea, jellyfish are as destructive as they are abundant. And that abundance is being caused by a variety of factors, many of which are related to human activity.
Some like it hot
"Over the last hundred or so years, the average surface temperature of the world’s seas has risen by about 0.9°C. As the oceans get warmer, marine animals are able to spread into areas that had historically been too cold. Oxygen levels in the sea have fallen by around 2% over the last 50 years, due to rising temperatures and #pollution [including #NuclearOceanDumping, which reduces oxygen levels]
"Jellyfish can thrive in areas with lower oxygen levels, where other animals suffer. But there are other factors at work, too. Fishing has depleted the global stocks of some of the jellyfish’s natural predators – such as #tuna and #swordfish – and some they compete with for food – such as anchovies. With more food and fewer predators, some jellyfish populations can grow unchecked.
"In the #BlackSea, unchecked population growth is precisely what’s happened. #AnchovyFishing in the region had caused harm to the Black Sea’s ecosystem by the time stowaway jellyfish made the journey there from the eastern seaboard of the USA. Most likely transported in the ballast water of ships that made the crossing, 1982 saw the arrival of the warty comb jelly. By 1990, there were 900 million tons of them in the Black Sea.
"There are believed to be around 200 different species of jellyfish, not all of which can sting, and some are considered edible. This could offer one potential, and creative, approach toward dealing with an over-abundance of jellyfish – co-opting them onto our dinner plates." [That's one way to deal with invasive species -- eat them into extinction!]
Source:
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/01/how-an-explosion-of-jellyfish-is-wreaking-havoc/#GlobalWarming #WarmingOceans
#ChangingOceans #OceansAreLife #OceanTemperatures #ClimateCrisis #Overfishing #NoDeepSeaMining #NoNewNukes #NoNukes #NoNukesForAI #Oskarshamn #Torness