Related Posts
Climate change, overfishing and pollution cause jellyfish invasion in Spain
Spain’s beaches are unusually full of dangerous, round, pinkish-purple blobs this year. No, they’re not aggressive sunburnt British...
UK: Jellyfish shut down nuclear power reactors
Are the jellyfish really taking over? They’re outcompeting “real” fish and multiplying in enormous “blooms” as oceans warm...
Creature Feature: The Jellyfish TreeYes, this week’s feature is about a tree! If you thought Creature Feature was only going to be...
Giant Jellyfish are Taking Over the SeasPeople in the Chesapeake Bay area are stung 500,000 times per year (sometimes more than once) by jellyfish....
Video: Ocean acidification in the Arctic threatens marine life
Oceans absorb half of the world's carbon dioxide. This may have a mitigating effect on climate change, but...
Get your Eco Starter Kit
Create an account and start harvesting Carbon Credits! Exchange your Carbon Credits for green goodies, like the Eco-Hatchery Starter Kit!
-
Green network users
3,041 Users - Show All
Green Directory
Tip of the Day
Go grocery shopping locally to help reduce your carbon footprint
Are we entering ‘The Age of the Jellyfish’?
photo by Shayne Kaye (Flickr CC)
I have seen the future and it stings.
Climate change, overfishing and agricultural runoff are all possible factors in the rise of jellyfish populations in seas around the globe. Jellyfish invasions such as those experienced by Spain last summer are actually population booms and/or mass migrations attributed to warmer waters, a reduction of predators and an increase of oceanic pollution from organic fertilizers.
Besides wreaking havoc on Spain’s beaches, jellyfish have been blamed for wiping out salmon stocks in Northern Ireland and disrupting the running of coastal power and desalination plants in Africa, the Middle East and Japan.
New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that the rise in jellyfish populations may not only be aided by climate change, but is also contributing to it by making oceans more acidic, thereby disrupting their function as carbon sinks.
Oceans have been taking up 25% of the carbon dioxide that man has produced over the last 200 years, so it’s been acting as a buffer for climate change. When you add more carbon dioxide to sea water it becomes more acidic. And already that is happening at a rate that hasn’t occurred in 600 million years. The acidification of the oceans is already predicted to have such a corrosive effect that unprotected shellfish will dissolve by the middle of the century
–Dr Carol Turley, Plymouth University Marine Laboratory (as quoted in the Guardian)
The rise of the jellyfish is also changing the balance of oceanic ecosystems around the globe. Though jellies are consumed by humans in some Asian countries, the rest of the world may want to develop a taste for them as global fish stocks decline. Thankfully, I’m a smug vegetarian.
Read more on this story in the Guardian.
But jellyfish are not simply ruining the world, they are also being used by mad scientists to create living laser beams – with therapeutic applications in mind, of course. Researchers at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States have managed to get a single cell from a glowing jellyfish to emit laser light.
Read more about that on the BBC News website.
Tags: acidic, carbon, carbon dioxide, climate change, jellyfish, laser, oceans, Pollution, population
Other Greenfudge.org posts
Climate Change in light of the recent floods in Pakistan
“There is insufficient data to say what will happen to the Indus,” says David Grey, the World Bank’s senior water advisor in South Asia. “But we all have very nasty fears that the flows of the Indus could be severely, severely affected by glacier melt as a consequence of climate change,” and reduced by perhaps as much as 50 percent. “Now what does that mean to a population that lives in a desert , without the river, there would be no life? I don’t...
These aren’t lakes, they’re rice fields
Merciless rainfall has been ravaging Thailand for the last six months. Cataclysmic floods have destroyed most of the rice fields, which are the backbone of this country’s economy. Currently, high water levels still remain in 17 out of the 77 provinces. According to the Bank of Thailand’s preliminary estimates, losses caused by floods range from between 1.9 to 2.6 billion dollars. The Ministry of Agriculture reported that the floods could damage more than 1 million hectares of rice fields. If that were...
2012 Predictions: Which disasters should I believe?
It’s TEOTWAWKI – the end of the world as we know it… do you feel fine? Despite economic and social crises that only show signs of getting worse, intensifying environmental problems – climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, etc. – wars, famines, a deepening democratic deficit in most of the world, the big apocalyptic prediction of 2012 which gets the most attention is of course the so-called ‘Mayan Prophecy’. This doomsday scenario is an interpretation of the Long Count calendar of the...
Creature Feature: The Antarctic Blue Whale
Today’s Creature Feature takes us to one of the coldest places on the planet to learn about the largest mammal on the planet: The Antarctic Blue Whale. I’m sure some of you may be thinking: “aren’t all Blue Whales the same?” No! They are not. There are actually a couple of subspecies, such as the Antarctic Blue Whale and the Pygmy Blue Whale. However, these subspecies have not gained recognition in all areas of the world yet, and so there are...
Merapi volcano erupts again
Last night the Merapi volcano on Java erupted again, killing at least 2. This brings the death toll to 38 since the first eruption of the volcano earlier this week. Last week alone, with the tsunami hitting the shores of several Indonesian islands and with the eruption of Merapi, at least 450 people were killed. 300 people are still missing in the regions where the tsunami reached Indonesia. Rescue workers are having a hard time to look for survivors due to...
US scientist destroys prominent UK climate ‘skeptic’
Christopher Monckton, aka Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is a loud critical voice in the highly politicized publicity war against mainstream climate science in the UK. A former journalist who worked in Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government during the 1980s, Monckton also favored compulsory AIDS testing for the entire population and lifetime quarantine for those with the disease. He later gave up that crackpot cause and took up climate science denial during the last decade, joining the likes of other right wing...
The 2010 Environmental Performance Index has been Released!
Yale has released this year’s Environmental Performance Index (EPI). If you’re unfamiliar with the EPI, it ranks 163 countries on 25 indicators across 10 categories, such as Climate Change and CO2 Emissions, Water and Sanitation, and Forestry and Forest Cover. These specific indicators help to determine how close each country is to establishing environmental policies. Here is the top 20 list, including their EPI score: 1. Iceland – 93.5 2. Switzerland – 89.1 3. Costa Rica – 86.4 4. Sweden – 86.0 5. Norway – 81.1 6. Mauritius – 80.6 7. France – 78.2 8. Austria – 78.1 9. Cuba...
California’s red tide and glowing blue waves
Late summer algae blooms along the San Diego, California coastline have turned the ocean red during the day and a bioluminescent blue at night. The fluorescent blue waves have attracted spectators to the shores around San Diego, offering rare photo and video opportunities. It is interesting to note that the water is not constantly glowing, but only gives off a blue light when agitated, so the waves flash blue when crashing and then grow dark again. From the Los Angeles Times: The blue glow...
Soldiers may be Responsible for Animal Killings in Congo-based Park
It would seem some animals are not safe even in the places that are supposed to protect them. Yesterday, Bantu Lukambo of the environmental group Innovation for Development and Environmental Protection, accused Congolese soldiers of killing animals in Virunga National Park. Lukambo believes it was done in February, while the soldiers were stationed in the area to fight rebels. This particular park is home to a huge number of animals, including 200 of the world’s remaining 720 mountain gorillas. However, the animal...
World’s Deepest Volcanic Vent may Hold the Answers to the Origin of Life
Yet another deep-sea discovery was made last week—by use of a remote-controlled submarine. Scientists have found the deepest known volcanic vent over 3 miles (5 km) beneath the Caribbean. The area they found the vent is known as the Cayman Trough. The pilot of the submarine and geologist, Bramley Murton, said that the area was “like nothing I had ever seen before”. Imagine multicolored mineral deposits, spires, and vast colonies of fluorescent blue microorganisms. Murton described the experience as “wandering across...
View all articles
You can also log in to post a comment.