John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:58 pm (PDT) . Posted by: "Wanda Ballentine"


https://thenarwhal.ca/out-in-the-great-lakes-an-alarm-is-sounding/ <https://thenarwhal.ca/out-in-the-great-lakes-an-alarm-is-sounding/>

Out in the Great Lakes, an alarm is sounding

Greg Mercer <https://thenarwhal.ca/author/greg-mercer/>Oct 10, 2018
In-Depth

For researchers with a keen eye, rising temperatures, invasive species and a changing fish population all tell the tale of a system in peril

<https://thenarwhal.ca/author/greg-mercer>

John Casselman doesn’t need to consult 70-plus years of climate data to know the Great Lakes are undergoing some dramatic and troubling changes.

He just follows the fish.

Casselman, a biologist at Queen’s University, has been studying c*****e c****e in the Great Lakes Basin longer than almost anyone else in his field, tracking the connection between water temperature and fish populations.

Fish have long been biologists’ best indicators of the Great Lakes’ health, through decades of battles against pollution. Now, Casselman says, they’re telling us a concerning story about c*****e c****e, too.

“The fish are telling us that these changes are real. If we don’t pay attention to this, it’s at our peril,” Casselman, former scientist for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, told The Narwhal.

The Great Lakes are 1.6 degrees Celsius warmer than they were in the 1940s, according to daily temperature readings from the City of Belleville’s pumping station that draws water from the Bay of Quinte.

For fish, that’s a significant change that affects all aspects of their physiology, from spawning rates to growth to feeding patterns. Casselman’s research shows rising temperatures have caused a two-and-a-half fold decrease in the population of cold water fish such as northern pike or trout, while fueling a population boom for warm water fish such as bass.

“We’re seeing significantly more warm water fish, and for cool water fish, like pike or walleye, it’s becoming precarious,” he said. “In many places, lake fish and trout in inland lakes have simply disappeared.”

Now there’s new evidence the pace of the warming may be quickening.

This summer, researchers in a laboratory on the edge of the Detroit River began seeing an alarming spike in the readings coming back from a network a buoys spread across the lakes.

The report, from the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research <http://www1.uwindsor.ca/glier/> at the University of Windsor, showed increases of 3 degrees Celsius above the long-term average for surface water temperatures in some parts of the Great Lakes. Increases like that, if sustained across the system, would be devastating to cold-water fish populations.

It’s caught the attention of climatologists who worry about the implications on the entire Great Lakes ecosystem — from impacts on fish stocks and toxic algae blooms to shrinking ice cover and more aggressive invasive species.

Light blue streaks in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, left and top right, are due to high winds drawing up sediment. The light green hues in Lake Erie, bottom right, and in a small bay of Lake Huron are due to aglae blooms which build on the waters surface when winds are calm. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory <https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/76115/sediment-and-algae-color-the-great-lakes>

For those who earn a living on the Great Lakes, the warming trend is one of their most pressing issues.

“It’s quite concerning,” said Kevin Reid, a biologist with the Ontario Commercial Fisheries’ Association. “Although we expect the industry to be viable going forward, we just don’t know what that’s going to be like. There’s so much uncertainty because of all the change that’s occurring.”

In some areas of the Great Lakes, commercial fishers are already starting to change the way they harvest fish because of c*****e c****e. Along the western shore of Lake Erie, fishing crews have switched to setting their nets only in the early morning, because as the water warms through the day they’re reporting smaller and smaller catches.

“The quality of the fish is degraded, because the water is so warm,” Reid said.

In parts of Lake Michigan, cold water species such as ciscoes have all but vanished. Larger algae blooms, fueled by warmer water, are also becoming a more pressing issue.

Although the toxins from algae haven’t been shown to be harmful to fish, they cause problems for the gill nets fishers use. In the colder waters of Lake Superior, where there hasn’t been a history of algae blooms, scientists are reporting increasing outbreaks.

Biologists also worry what the warming Great Lakes mean for invasive species, from Asian Carp to zebra mussels, which along with overfishing and pollution have already threatened dozens of native fish species.

One of the biggest threats is sea lampreys, which entered Lake Ontario through shipping canals in the 19th century and almost caused the collapse of the lower Great Lakes fishery by the late 1950s.

A mature male parasitic sea lamprey found in the Great Lakes. Sea lampreys, which are native to the Atlantic Ocean parasitize other fish by sucking their blood and bodily fluids. Photo: A. Miehls / Great Lakes Fishery Commission

Sea lampreys (which are essentially 340 million-year-old demogorgons of the sea) do not usually k**l their host fish in the Atlantic Ocean where species co-evolved. However, because sea lampreys were only recently introduced into the Great Lakes system, they often k**l the species of fish they parasitize there. Photo: T. Lawrence / Great Lakes Fishery Commission

A sea lamprey was found on this salmon, caught at the Rogers City Salmon Derby. According to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, lampreys prey on a wide variety of Great Lakes fish including lake trout, brown trout, lake sturgeon, lake whitefish, ciscoes, burbot, walleye, catfish, and Pacific salmonids including Chinook and coho salmon and rainbow trout/steelhead. Photo: M.. Gaden / Great Lakes Fishery Commission
In warmer water, the lampreys t***sform into destructive adults much more quickly, leading some to wonder if current lamprey control programs should be dramatically expanded.

“The Great Lakes are quite susceptible to invasive species. As the lakes become warmer and winter becomes warmer, those species could find the lakes even more hospitable and spread even more rapidly throughout the system,” said Marc Gaden, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Michigan who is also communications director of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.

“Then there’s the distinct possibly that the Great Lakes could become more hospitable to invaders from places that we hadn’t considered. Those would be really lethal, because the lakes could have no defense. It would be a one-two punch for native species.”

The lakes’ natural defense against some invasive species — harsh, cold winters — is also weakening.

Ice coverage on the Great Lakes has declined an average of 71 per cent over the past 40 years, according to the American Meteorological Society.

That’s caused increased evaporation and more frequent and intense storms that batter shorelines and fish habitat.

Combine all this with shifts in the lower-end of the food chain, with shrinking populations of forage-based fish such as alewife that feed larger species, and you’ve got an ecosystem under immense stress. Whether people realize or not, the changes happening in the Great Lakes will eventually reach their communities, Gaden said.

For fisheries worth millions to local economies, there’s a lot on the line.

Biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hold a lake sturgeon caught in the Great Lakes. Sturgeon are listed as threatened in the Great Lakes and are estimated to be at just one per cent of historical levels.

Photo: Justin Chiotti / USFWS <https://www.flickr.com/photos/eddiesfisheriesfws/29217730690/in/photolist-a1GJji-dV1LyA-rzDYgm-efrxNe-efxhNJ-oKtPrq-efrxKg-fzvrPZ-76T3kR-p5HkMR-oNe8p8-e2VBzD-LvSvpq-2o3CL7-6RJytE-fUd9vm-4ATseK-LR9m8m-2nYh8p-LwLRZM-7bMH98-p5HJj4-2ahL7AB-6tgDAD-oNevtZ-ekkYrN-6kKzHe-WYw47B-oNdBGW-ejnYrn-5dFsF3-fzvrDB-2o3zQJ-p5HHsK-p5FHyC-p5s3Sp-9Wbhxz-oNewQX-p3FJAd-oNdYFQ-9UAynN-p5FFdL-6Afk3C-p5HJdx-oKWPZ8-e8se4y-76WYQG-uvfF3J-95VY5j-95VV3N>

“Changes in the fish community do affect people. They affect recreational fishers, subsistence fishers and commercial fishers. Losses to any of those communities have severe economic consequences,” Gaden said. “There are concerns that these kind of wholesale changes in the environment would have repercussions that folks don’t always think about.”

Casselman, meanwhile, has been warning for years about the impact of c*****e c****e on the Great Lakes’ fish. He just hopes the broader public is finally ready to take that warning seriously.

“The fish are trying to tell us something,” he said. “They were the indicators that told us about pollution. They were the indicators that told us about acid rain. Fish can be the indicators that tell us c*****e c****e is real.”

Greg Mercer is a Guelph, Ontario-based journalist who has reported from Haiti, Brazil, London and across Canada.

alby Loc: very eastern pa.

........but there is no g****l w*****g.......seriously?????

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

Not in Washington...

pendennis

The most destruction done to the Great Lakes, was the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. That project allowed for ocean going ships to ply the Great Lakes, dumping ballast water into the ecosystem, and allowing alien species to invade. Lamprey weren't a problem until then. The Asian carp have been found on the lake side of the Chicago River, even though the dam has been touted as a stop, it's a harbinger of their lake invasion.

There's no consensus as to the variation in lake levels. One of the theories is that the solid ground beneath the Great Lakes is still rebounding from the last ice age. And the geology of the Great Lakes is not that of a single system. Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Erie were formed from melting glacial ice, and Lakes Superior and Ontario were formed differently. The three lakes ("E, H, M") which are shallowest, all have varying shore depths, and they change in as little as 20 year cycles.

There's also no consensus on g****l w*****g, since all the computer models ignore natural variations in CO2. Remember, a short forty years ago, the fear was that the world was rapidly cooling. And, it's only been around 300 years since the end of the last "mini-ice age". And warming until the 1950's certainly was not man made.

mjmoore17 Loc: Philadelphia, PA area

There is no consensus on you being an absolute fool that also believes that in flat Earth and ignoring seat belts saves lives.
Greater than 95% of scientist is enough for me but for you, I would encourage continuing to inhale deorderant spray and blowing
Cigarette smoke into your babies face.

ole sarg Loc: south florida

There is a scientific consensus on g****l w*****g except to the deniers and they have no science to back their deniel!

pendennis

I never stated the earth was flat, and I always use my seat belt. But, your ranting doesn't prove anything except your abject lack of education. Consensus is not science, and the so-called 95% is based on a sample size so small as to be grossly in error. And I don't smoke, ergo never blew smoke in a baby's face.

Maybe you should learn from Twain's observation -

“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

PS - Does your computer have spell check?

pendennis

Again, consensus is not science. To take your argument to its logical end - A majority of scientists at one time or another believed that lead could be converted to gold, that there were only four elements, that the earth was flat, that the speed of sound couldn't be exceeded, that the universe was static, that the universe consisted of the Milky Way, that evolution wasn't true, that men existed with dinosaurs, that the earth had always been as we see it now, or that some entity created the earth and mankind.

The sample of that "consensus" has long been disproven.

The earth does warm, and if you'd read closely what I wrote, you'll see that I never denied that the earth is/was warming. However, the computer models used to "prove" g****l w*****g do not include real world CO2 changes. The earth has had a number of cooling and warming cycles since the last ice age, and the vast majority is not man made. The extremes in warming and cooling have more to do with solar cycles, cool summers, and changes in the surface of the earth.

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

Science can be proven or disproven to support any theory. That is a fact that can’t be denied. All scientists do not agree on g****l w*****g. It is not a proven fact like other scientific data. Until they can prove it as fact, it is simply some guys opinion, nothing more.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

There is has been proven that c*****e c****e skeptics have had their research kept out of print due to the actions of a cabal of "better than them" scientists. Is the climate changing? Yes. Is some of the change due to human action: Yes But the question of extent is never raised.

You want to stop CO2 , then k**l all the cows and plug up all the volcanoes. Just sayin' our approach so far has been simplistic and the cures have us all hoping to have magic cures while we shut down Nuclear Power (think of all the coal and natural gas you would not have to burn) and continue to build the "urban sprawl".

Just Sayin'

Elaine2025 Loc: Seattle, Wa

It is a lie to say 95 percent of scientists agree. Scientific theory is proven or disproven. G****l w*****g is not proven. A guys opinion is not proof. Consensus is not how science works Genius.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

Wow! What an uninformed reply, "they say it is so, so I will blindly follow them without question and I will attack anyone who disputes them no matter the facts that they may or may not present.". The motto of the left.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

All I note here is an observation. The idea of presenting any interpretation of the data, other than the obvious, falls in the area of speculation. Let's not panic over speculation. I realize that old Al Gore garnered a Nobel Prize for a Power Point presentation some years back. But, Al's Power Point presentation doesn't provide scientific proof.

I'm not going to debate that things change over time. However, we've not been keeping records long enough to do anything but present evidence that some fluctuations occur.
--Bob

Quinn 4

The Moron said that g****l w*****g is all f**e news, he would not lie to us.

yhtomit Loc: Port Land. Oregon

Weather and weather cycles change. Does anyone want to dispute that?