Sustainable Insights  

(Follow-up to Monitoring the arctic ice shelves and ecosystems posted on July 1st, 2008)

The University of Ottawa and the Onset weather station on the Serson Ice shelf captured the break up of the Serson Ice shelf. The Onset station measured temperatures unheard of at the North Coast of Ellesmere Island with a maximum of 17.46 C in early August . The Onset station also captured the wind event when the ice shelf broke away. The station is being moved to the Milne Ice shelf next spring.

Excerpt from: BethelCitizen.com
By: Alison Aloisio
August 15, 2008

Located in Hanover, Maine, Howard Pond has joined a growing list of lakes that will be monitored for the possible effects of global warming.

Dr. Dan Buckley from the University of Maine at Farmington is collaborating with other scientists and organizations. They hope to place several HOBO® Pendant loggers in 100 lakes across Maine over the next two years. The loggers are going to be used to measure and record temperature and light intensity at various depths.

Buckley recently described details of the monitoring project to Howard Pond residents. “While melting polar ice caps and glaciers get more of the attention in the global warming discussion,” explained Buckley, “climate change can have a dramatic effect on the ecology of lakes.” According to Buckley, projections show that in 50 years, this region will have the overall climate of southern Connecticut. “The scary thing is the lakes are changing faster than the air,” says Buckley.

A study of Lake Superior showed that since the 1980s, the average surface water temperature of the lake has risen about 4 degrees Fahrenheit. “In the same period”, said Buckley, “the atmospheric temperature has gone up 1 degree Fahrenheit.” “In this region, “ice out” dates are 10 to 15 days earlier than they were in the 19th century and early 20th centuries,” explained Buckley. For example, in the 1880s ice in the Rangeley lakes typically went out in mid-May; however, since the 1960s there has been a dramatic change - ice out has been happening earlier. “Some researchers,” said Buckley, “have suggested earlier ice out is the reason that lake temperatures are climbing at an accelerated rate.” This warming trend could result in the loss of cold-water fish, such as trout and salmon, from some lakes

“As for Howard Pond,” Buckley said, “The prediction will likely not be as dire.” According to Buckley, the pond is 118 feet deep which is unusually deep relative to its surface area. That characteristic will help protect it from the effects of global warming.

Howard Pond residents are not taking anything for granted. The pond’s Preservation Association will finance the placement of two pendant loggers. The loggers will record and measure temperature and light at 15-minute intervals and remain in the pond for up to 208 days. Buckley will then use the data to compare it to the data from other lakes in Maine.

The Howard Pond project will likely start next year.

Onset’s TidbiT® temperature data loggers are helping researchers understand the effects of water temperature conditions on the fish population in Colorado’s Bear Creek.

Karen Christopherson, a volunteer researcher for Evergreen Trout Unlimited, has been using TidbiT loggers for the past several years to monitor rising water temperature conditions. “We are monitoring the stream temperatures in order to show that temperatures vary significantly,” explains Christopherson. “At times, temperatures exceeded the EPA mandated temperature limits for cold-water fisheries. We had noticed a fish die-off in 2000 and 2002, during high water temperatures.”

In order to prove their case that water temperatures were rising, and prompt action by the EPA, state, and the local agencies, Christopherson and her team placed the loggers in various stream locations to monitor temperature conditions at an hourly rate.

“So far, we have succeeded in getting cooperation of state and local agencies to help the stream. This benefits not just the trout, but all other wildlife, as well as the community. It all started with our Trout Unlimited group gathering temperature data with the TidbiTs in order to prove our point - that stream temps were too high,” concludes Christopherson.

Onset’s HOBO® water temperature data loggers are helping U.S. National Park Service researchers understand the effects of water temperature on coral reef health at the service’s field station in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. More specifically, researchers are using the data loggers to establish a link between elevated water temperature over time and coral bleaching, or the whitening of coral due to the loss of life- supporting algae. Coral bleaching – a phenomenon that has been linked to global warming in recent years – causes coral to become colorless, weak, and vulnerable to a variety of environmental stresses.  [Read More]

Related links:

: Coral reefs in trouble, scientists warn http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/08/decliningreefs.ap/index.html

This past April, a team of polar ice scientists trekked to the Canadian high Arctic for a two-week expedition near Ellesmere Island to study the condition of the ice shelves and related ecosystems in this barren region.

Three scientists — Derek Mueller of Trent University, Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa and Andrew Hamilton of Laval University — traveled to this remote territory to continue an ongoing International Polar Year study.

Due to warmer climate conditions in the last 20 years, ice shelves along Ellesmere’s northern coast that have been attached to the shore for thousands of years have been breaking apart affecting this ecosystem.

To help shed light on why large chunks of the Arctic ice have been breaking-up; the team chose a HOBO® weather station with Iridium satellite interface to gather real-time environmental data. The system was deployed on the Serson Ice shelf and is the most northerly automated real-time weather station in the world.

As the arctic landscape continues to change, volumes of freshwater from deep sea inlets previously dammed by the ice shelves are being pumped into the ocean. These physical changes are affecting the habitat of aquatic microbial communities existing below the ice that play a significant role in the Arctic ecosystem.

It is not clear how these ecosystems will adapt to current and projected climate change as this region is difficult to access and has not been well studied. However, scientists are confident that the collected data will provide them with insight on how environmental conditions are affecting the Arctic’s ecosystem.

Related links:

: Ice sheet breaks loose off Canada http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/07/30/canada.arctic.ice.ap/index.html