Scientists raise alert as ocean plankton levels plummet. "Alarm bells start going off because it means that something fundamental may have changed in the food web." Plankton provide about 70% of the oxygen humans breathe.
plancton plummeting is a natural cycle. Happens all the time. Not human related. ...cough, cough....can't b, can't br, huuhhuhh, wheezeezeze, cough
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/plankton_elnino.html how come nasa gets it but can't get certain folks in washington dc to? follow the money. i remember about 30 years ago some folks were ready to seed the gulfstream with iron to try and make up for the shortfalls in plankton production at the time(read here has been going on for a while, just more dramatic declines recently).
Natural cycle? Rising global temperatures? Increased populations of marine animals that feed on plankton? When do we start seeing oxygen become a precious resource bottled and sold in stores? Don't we already have machines that can make oxygen?
Since Denny isn't keeping up his naysayer responsibilities around here, I may as well post this article (with no personal ax to grind on the topic) that I found while doing a google search on the issue: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/15/the-phytoplankton-decline-is-there-anything-to-it/
much of the piece spoke to stratification and layering despite increases in net populations. one of the issues thus becomes availability of the resource to prey species. not all are able to transmigrate the mixing layers to feed. nearshore species who's larvae and fry require this population can decrease rapidly and drastically. fish populations are thus negatively impacted all the way up the chain with apex predators often taking the largest hits. these declines relative to localized populations have been linked to short and long term stock crashes. ask a fisherman about fish?
We see it right now in Beijing. By the way, there are places right here in the United States where you need to buy bottled water unless you don't mind cancer.
i am a stakeholder. lawai'a is hawaiian for fisherman, but more, it also defines one as a steward of the resource. for 40+ years it is how i fed my family. much more than just a passing interest in the subjects of fisheries and fisheries management decisions and the science behind them.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/ocean-shock/ you will find in the link a series of well written and documented pieces on some of the current problems in the ocean ecosystem that can be linked to the long term warming ocean trends.
As Lawai'a mentions in a previous post, about 30 years ago, there was a big scare over the declining plankton levels. Global warming was not an issue then. I remember reading one study about the decline that tied it to the increase in the jellyfish population, who feed on plankton. This study made the claim that jellyfish were the most damaging to plankton levels, which created a break in the food chain, resulting in declining fish populations. I do not believe jellyfish are the only reason for the decline. Nor do I believe global warming is the only reason for the decline. I believe there are many reasons for the decline, not just global warming and jellyfish.
