A super El Niño on the way? Subtle signs emerging

Mashable’s Andrew Freedman has penned an intriguing and important piece suggesting the possible El Niño in the pipeline may be a doozy, comparable to the strongest ever recorded:

Since climate forecasters declared an “El Niño Watch” on March 6, the odds of such an event in the tropical Pacific Ocean have increased, and based on recent developments, some scientists think this event may even rival the record El Niño event of 1997-1998.

Recall an El Niño event is an episodic warming of the eastern tropical Pacific ocean, which often has worldwide weather implications.

Freedman interviews two scientists, Eric Blake from the National Hurricane Center and Paul Roundy from SUNY-Albany, who see early indicators reminiscent of the development stages of past whopper El Niño events.

One important possible indicator of the lead up to an El Niño is a reversal in the trade winds observed in the equatorial Pacific, from a prevailing easterly (from the east) to westerly (from the west) direction.  In recent weeks and months, there have been strong westerly “bursts”.

Read the full article here.

Oceana bycatch report first salvo in next NGO campaign to restrict fisheries

Oceana has released a report on the nine dirties US fisheries in terms of bycatch to great media fanfare. “Anything can be bycatch,” said Dominique Cano-Stocco, campaign director at Oceana. “Whether it’s the thousands of sea turtles that are caught to bring you shrimp or the millions of pounds of cod and halibut that are thrown overboard after fishermen have reached their quota, bycatch is a waste of our ocean’s resources. Bycatch also represents a real economic loss when one fisherman trashes another fisherman’s catch.”

“Hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales, sharks, sea birds, sea turtles and fish needlessly die each year as a result of indiscriminate fishing gear,” said Amanda Keledjian, report author and marine scientist at Oceana. “It’s no wonder that bycatch is such a significant problem, with trawls as wide as football fields, longlines extending up to 50 miles with thousands of baited hooks and gillnets up to two miles long. The good news is that there are solutions – bycatch is avoidable.”

This is not the language of scientists seeking to lower bycatch. It is a call to arms to shut down fisheries.

Bycatch issues in fisheries are not new. US fishery managers have spent huge amounts of time addressing bycatch.

For example, one of the key functions of fisheries observers is to accurately record and document bycatch, so that impacts on stock are understood and included in fishery management decisions.

Read the full article here.

World’s oceans hold 30 times more fish than believed

Pew research by an international team of marine scientists suggests that the global biomass of fish is 30 times more than the accepted estimate, contradicting previous beliefs about the biomass of fish in the world’s oceans.

The team investigated mesopelagic fish that tend to dominate the world total fish biomass. Mesopelagic fish are open-sea species that occupy the mid-depth of the oceans from 200 metres to 1,000 metres below the surface.

They are small, often migrate to the surface at night, and have remarkable senses – in vision and in sensing pressure and motion – which enables them to avoid nets and fishing gear.

In a report in Nature Communications, the scientists say they had not been able to accurately estimate the biomass of fish in the past because of the difficulties in sampling and the fact that available estimates were based on false premises.

To overcome these problems, the researchers analysed acoustic observations collected during the Malaspina 2010 Circumnavigation Expedition. Their calculations showed that the previous estimate needed to be revised to a higher biomass of at least one order of magnitude.

This means there could be more than 3,000 million tonnes of mesopelagic fish in the ocean – a stock still untouched by fisheries and possibly increasing because of the decline of their main predators, tuna and swordfish.

Read the full article here.

Assessing the Vulnerability of Fish Stocks in a Changing Climate

What is the Fish Stock Climate Vulnerability Assessment?
NOAA Fisheries, in collaboration with the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research – “Earth System Research Laboratory, is finalizing a methodology to rapidly assess the vulnerability of U.S. marine stocks to climate change. The methodology uses existing information on climate and ocean conditions, species distributions, and species life history characteristics to estimate the relative vulnerability of fish stocks to potential changes in climate.

Climate change is already impacting fishery resources and the communities that depend on them.  Scientists are linking changes in ocean temperatures to shifting fish stock distributions and abundances in many marine ecosystems, and these impacts are expected to increase in the future.

To prepare for and respond to current and future changes in climate and oceans, fisheries managers and scientists need tools to identify what fishery resources may be most vulnerable in a changing climate and why certain fish stocks are vulnerable.  By providing this information, the methodology will be able to help fisheries managers and scientists identify ways to reduce risks and impacts to fisheries resources and the people that depend on them.  These kinds of climate change vulnerability assessments are increasingly being used to help assess risks to terrestrial and freshwater natural resources and man-made structures such as buildings and bridges.

Read the full article here.

El Nino predicted to return this year with implications for weather and fisheries

A warming of the central Pacific Ocean this year will change weather worldwide, US forecasters predict.

The warming, called an El Nino, can mean an even hotter year coming up and billions of dollars in losses for food crops.

Australia and South Africa should be dry while parts of South America become dry and parts become wet in an El Nino. Peru suffers the most, getting floods and poorer fishing.

But it could bring good news for some parts of the planet, leading to fewer Atlantic hurricanes and more rain next winter for drought-stricken California and southern US states. It could also bring and a milder winter for the frigid US north next year, meteorologists say

The National Oceanic Atmospheric and Administration issued an official El Nino watch today. An El Nino is a warming of the central Pacific once every few years, from a combination of wind and waves in the tropics. It shakes up climate around the world, changing rain and temperature patterns.

Read the full article here.

El Niño may make 2014 the hottest year on record

Hold onto your ice lollies. Long-term weather forecasts are suggesting 2014 might be the hottest year since records began. That’s because climate bad-boy El Niño seems to be getting ready to spew heat into the atmosphere.

An El Niño occurs when warm water buried below the surface of the Pacific rises up and spreads along the equator towards America. For nine months or more it brings rain and flooding to areas around Peru and Ecuador, and drought and fires to Indonesia and Australia. It is part of a cycle called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

It is notoriously hard to make a prediction before the “spring barrier” as to whether there will be an El Niño in a given year. “The El Niño-Southern Oscillation cycle more or less reboots around April-May-June each calendar year,” says Scott Power from the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne, Australia.

The problem is that there is so much background variability in the atmosphere and ocean that it is hard to see any signal amidst the noise, says Wenju Cai from the CSIRO, Australia’s national research agency in Melbourne. “Even if there is a developing El Niño, it is hard to predict.”

Read the full article here.

Global Fish biomass may be 10 times higher than thought says acoustic survey

According to a paper produced by Carlos Duarte for the Spanish National Research Council, fish biomass in the ocean is 10 times higher than estimated.  The 6 million euro project consisted of a series of acoustic transects that detected mesopelagic species like lantern fish.  These fish are generally found in the open ocean between 200 and 1000 meters, and the rise to the shallower depth at night, and retreat deeper during the day.  They also detect nets and can flee from trawls.

Mesopelagic fishes, are fish such as lantern fishes (Myctophidae) and cyclothonids (Gonostomatidae), who live in the twilight zone of the ocean, between 200 and 1,000 meters deep. They are the most numerous vertebrates of the biosphere, but also the great unknowns of the open ocean, since there are gaps in the knowledge of their biology, ecology, adaptation and global biomass.

With a stock estimated at 1,000 million tons so far, mesopelagic fish dominate the total biomass of fish in the ocean.

However, a team of researchers with the participation of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has found that their abundance could be at least 10 times higher. The results, published in Nature Communications journal, are based on the acoustic observations conducted during the circumnavigation of the Malaspina Expedition.

During the 32,000 nautical miles traveled during the circumnavigation, the researchers of the Malaspina Expedition (a project led by CSIC researcher Carlos Duarte) took measurements between 40°N and 40°S, from 200 to 1,000 meters deep, during the day.

Duarte states: “Malaspina has provided us the unique opportunity to assess the stock of mesopelagic fish in the ocean. Until now we only had the data provided by trawling. It has recently been discovered that these fishes are able to detect the nets and run, which turns trawling into a biased tool when it comes to count its biomass”.

Read the full article here.

Sardines may help to slow aging of your brain

Eating sardines may slow the brain’s aging and protect against Alzheimer’s disease.

Eating oily fish such as mackerel and sardines may ward off Alzheimer’s disease and can delay elderly people’s brains’ aging by two years, a study suggests.

Research of more than 1,100 elderly women found that those who consumed high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in oily fish, had larger brains.

Read the full article here.

Squid vs. fish: Camera captures epic undersea battle on video

Thanks to its sharp beak, a small red squid emerged victorious after an epic hourlong battle with a much bigger owlfish, all caught on video last November in Monterey Bay, Calif.

The black-eyed squid paralyzed the owlfish by cutting through the fish’s backbone, according to Bruce Robinson, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Robinson narrates a video of the fight between invertebrate and vertebrate, captured by MBARI’s remotely operate vehicled Doc Ricketts on Nov. 11, 2013.

The Doc Ricketts discovered the struggling marine creatures at about 1,475 feet (450 meters) below Monterey Bay as the vehicle was rising toward the surface, said Susan von Thun, an MBARI senior research technician. Scientists watched the scene play out for 50 minutes before the ROV had to continue its journey, Von Thun told LiveScience. [See video of the squid-fish tussle.]

“They were sinking rapidly the whole time, and we think that’s part of the squid’s tactic,” Von Thun said. “We see a lot of feeding events, and oftentimes the squid gets startled and lets go, but this guy held on for the whole time that we watched it.”

By the time the ROV left, the squid and owlfish had dropped to a depth of 1,970 feet (600 meters), Von Thun said.

Read the full article here.

9 Reasons To Eat Fish Right Now

All things considered, 2013 was not the best year for fish news. We learned all about the dangers of contaminated fish sources and, just in December, a large-scale study published in The Journal of Nutrition found some evidence to contradict the commonly held belief that a fish-rich diet improved cognitive function in old age.

But, looking forward, the news gets better: In its first issue of 2014, the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics released a new position on fat intake, promoting fatty fish as the go-to source for polyunsaturated fatty acids:

   It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that dietary fat for the healthy adult population should provide 20 percent to 35 percent of energy, with an increased consumption of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and limited intake of saturated and trans fats.

Two “long-chain” omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), are not made by the human body, meaning we need to eat them from a dietary source. Many people get omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources like flax seeds and walnuts, though this type of “good” fat — alpha-linolenic acid — only partially converts to EPA and DHA in the body and doesn’t have the same amount of research behind it that omega-3s derived from fish do. Here are nine reasons to eat fish for your health:

Read the full article here.