AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC ; TEEN CLIMATE COUNCIL and OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
"Teens are turning the tide at the Aquarium of the Pacific through volunteer leadership dedicated to conservation, science, and ocean stewardship. Youth-led programs by teens, for teens, are here to engage and change the world. "
This might just be an opportunity for you....
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Siren here! I was able to sit in on a presentation of this group recently and was impressed!
Scholarships!
If you click on the label Sunken Cities, you can read past posts about some of the cities that sunk long ago. Today's cities are both sinking because the weight of building is compressing soil and being flooded because the sea levels are rising!
DAILY MAIL SCIENCE : STUDY DETECTS WHICH CITIES WILL SINK
Excerpt: Between rising seas and sinking land, heavily urbanised areas of coast experience a relative sea level increase of about 6mm per year on average.
That is three times more than the global average for relative sea level rise, which stands at 2.1mm per year.
Likewise, land subsidence roughly doubles the absolute sea–level rise of 3.15mm per year, which measures the actual increase in volume and height of the ocean.
Lead researcher Dr Julius Oelsmann, of Technical University of Munich, says that this can 'significantly amplify the effects of climate–driven sea–level rise'.
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Check out that map. Is your city on it?
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Excerpt: Countries where relative sea levels are rising the fastest include Thailand, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, China, and Indonesia, where the ocean is getting seven to 10 millimetres higher each year.EARTHDAY ORG Click on your place in the world....
Excerpt: Community cleanups, teach-ins, peaceful demonstrations, tree planting, voter registration, town hall meetings, community organizing — every action strengthens the movement. Add your event to the map and show the power of collective action.HOW TO BEHAVE TO SHOW RESPECT FOR LIVING SEA CREATURES and THE ECOSYSTEM
1) Do take your camera. Photograph during the day. No flashes.
2) Do place feet carefully on dry or drier areas. Wear no-slip shoes. (Rubber thongs are not recommended. The creatures may be too tiny to see.) Take it slow.
3) Don't touch any sea creature or algae/kelp or plant life. (They are feeding and this is all part of the local eco-system they depend upon.)
4) Don't collect or take any sea creature, algae/kept or plant life, shells or stones. Simply take photographs or take notes of what diversity you've seen or perhaps note that the tidepools seems to be devoid of life.
5) Do not pour any liquid into the water. Not even your bottled water.
6) Do not urinate or defecate in the water or in or around the tidepools or beach.
7) Do not leave any trash in the water or around the tidepools or beach. If it's easy to do so without hurting yourself or the sea creatures, remove the trash others have left there.
8) Report your visit - what you saw - when and where and what time of day - to those who care. This blog has so very many links so organizations that do care.
9) Get out of there if the wind is high or the tide is coming in. Low tide is the best time to go.
10) Do some beach clean up. Plastics, wrappers, cans, surfing board wax, sunglasses, shoes, all of it will eventually go back to the tidepools or the ocean, so getting it off the beach does help.
C 2025 Siren's Link To Sea
CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY : BLACK ABALONE
Excerpt : Black abalone were once the most abundant large shellfish clinging to the rocks of intertidal zones between Baja and Oregon. A savored delicacy for sea otters and native coastal people alike, these hard-shelled marine snails were prized for the iridescent colors and the occasional pearl found inside their shells. Like most other species of abalone native to coastal California, black abalone have been decimated by seafood enthusiasts and the fisheries that fill their plates.SEATTLE TIMES : DRONES RECORD HUNDREDS OF WHALES by Brendan Rascius of McClatchy News
EXCERPT: ... scientists documented dramatic changes in the size of the mothers and calves and in humpback birthrates.THE GUARDIAN : SEA ACIDITY CRISIS TICKING TIMEBOMB
Excerpt: It found that by 2020 the average ocean condition worldwide was already very close to – and in some regions beyond – the planetary boundary for ocean acidification. This is defined as when the concentration of calcium carbonate in seawater is more than 20% below preindustrial levels.
The deeper in the ocean they looked, the worse the findings were, the scientists said. At 200 metres below the surface, 60% of global waters had breached the “safe” limit for acidification.
“Most ocean life doesn’t just live at the surface,” said PML’s Prof Helen Findlay. “The waters below are home to many more different types of plants and animals. Since these deeper waters are changing so much, the impacts of ocean acidification could be far worse than we thought.”
DAILY MAIL : NASA ...GLOBAL SEA LEVEL RISE UNEXPECTEDLY HIGH AMOUNT
The rise we saw in 2024 was higher than we expected,' said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.You can find past posts about OARFISH by clicking on the label below. This is a documentary by YouTube Station Best Documentary about this fish... Because I dislike unasked for advertising, I'm linking to this video rather than embedding it. It's an interesting and well made video. Siren
SACRAMENTO BEE : RARE SIGHTING OF OLIVE RIDLEY SEA TURTLE
It hasn't been seen in the bay since 2013 and it's usually in need of warmer waters.
LA TIMES : NEUROTIN IS POISONING LARGE NUMBERS OF SEA LIONS - CALIFORNIA COAST
Excerpt: "The levels we're finding inside these animals is off the charts," said Giancarlo Rulli, a spokesman for the Sausalito - based Marine Mammal Center. "It's all hands on deck."
Domoic acid is a neurotoxin released by Pseudo-nitzschia, a common phytoplankton species found in coast waters. Sea lions - and other marine mammals - become poisoned when they eat large amounts of fish or invertebrates that have been chowing on the contaminated diatoms.
Symptoms include lethargy, vomiting, unusual behavior, seizures, loss of pregnancy, and death.
Excerpt: Raphe Kudela, a professor of ocean science at UC Santa Cruz, said there might also be a connection to heat and runoff from inland rivers.
He said in the last few years, really wet winters have contributed to an increase in river runoff - and a resulting dump of nutrients into California's coastal waters.
"So you get a pulse of upwelling, which brought some cool water with even more nutrients to the surface, and then everything warmed up. That's just absolutely perfect conditions for a bloom like this," he said.
It's also a perfect recipe for creatures like sardines and anchovies, who feast of the diatoms, algae and phytoplankton in these cool, nutrient-rich waters. And those fish bring in predators, such as sea lions, dolphins, fur seals, bords and other fish that then proceed to feast on these "toxic bullets."
Excerpt: Researchers from Oregon State University used drones to monitor these whales and gauge changes in their size over time. They found that, while a whale born in the year 2000 could be expected to grow to around 40 feet in length, a whale born in 2020 would end up closer to 35 feet in length. Researchers said the shift in size is dramatic, comparable to the average American woman shrinking from five feet, four inches, to four feet, eight inches in the space of just twenty years.
