Associated Press
The warming of the waters off the East Coast has come at an invisible, but very steep cost — the loss of microscopic organisms that make up the base of the ocean’s food chain.
The growing warmth and saltiness of the Gulf of Maine off New England is causing a dramatic decrease in the production of phytoplankton, according to Maine-based scientists who recently reported results of a yearslong, NASA-funded study. Phytoplankton, sometimes described as an “invisible forest,” are tiny plant-like organisms that serve as food for marine life.
The scientists found that phytoplankton are about 65% less productive in the Gulf of Maine, part of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by New England and Canada, than they were two decades ago. The Gulf of Maine has emerged as one of the fastest warming sections of the world’s oceans.
Potential loss of phytoplankton has emerged as a serious concern in recent years in other places, such as the Bering Sea off Alaska. The loss of the tiny organisms has the ability to disrupt valuable fishing industries for species such as lobsters and scallops, and it could further jeopardize imperiled animals such as North Atlantic right whales and Atlantic puffins, scientists said.
North Atlantic right whales’ only known calving grounds are off Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia.\
“The drop in the productivity over these 20 years is profound,” said William Balch, a senior research scientist with Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine, who led the study. “And that has large ramifications to what can grow here. The health of the ecosystem, the productivity of the ecosystem.”
The scientists did the study using data gathered since 1998 by tracking chemical changes in the Gulf of Maine. The samples used to perform the work were gathered via commercial ferries and research vessels that run the same routes over and over.
The data showed changes between the gulf and the broader Atlantic, Balch said. Intrusions of warm water from the North Atlantic since 2008 have created a gulf that is hotter, saltier and less hospitable to the phytoplankton, the study states. The scientists published their findings last June in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.
Phytoplankton are eaten by larger zooplankton, small fish and crustaceans, and they are critically important to sustaining larger marine life up the food chain such as sharks and whales. Loss of phytoplankton “will likely have negative impacts on the overall productivity” of larger animals and commercial fisheries, the study states.
Decline of fish stocks in the Gulf of Maine would be especially disruptive to American fishermen because it’s a key ground for the U.S. lobster industry. Other important species such as haddock, flounder and pollock are also harvested there.
Researchers have tracked similar warming trends in the Bering Sea, Southern Ocean and northern Barents Sea in recent years. Warming’s impact on plankton is an ongoing subject of scientific inquiry. A 2020 article in the journal Nature Communications found that climate change “is predicted to trigger major shifts in the geographic distribution of marine plankton species.”
Cyclical ocean conditions also have placed more stress on phytoplankton. An El Niño climate pattern, when surface water in the equatorial Pacific becomes warmer, can reduce phytoplankton production, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said. The impacts include lack of anchovies off South America, fewer squid off California and less salmon in the Pacific, NOAA said.
The Maine scientists say loss of phytoplankton is also significant because the organisms absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, much like plants do on land.
It’s part of the toll climate change is taking on ecosystems all over the world, said Jeff Runge, a professor in the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences, who was not involved in the study.
“There’s mounting evidence that it’s linked to climate change,” Runge said. “It’s having all kinds of effects on the system that we’re beginning to see.”
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
3 comments
Paul Passarelli
January 19, 2023 at 2:32 pm
Please explain how: “Intrusions of warm water from the North Atlantic since 2008 have created a gulf that is hotter, saltier and less hospitable to the phytoplankton, the study states.”
is consistent with the alleged melting pf the polar ice caps, which would result in water that is colder, less salty, and indifferently hospitable to the phytoplankton.
Warm water comes from the South via the Gulf Stream. But that is just a thin ribbon of water when compared to the Gulf of Maine. Besides the water that enters the GoM is from the NorthEast from a counter rotating vortex.
I’ve gotta stop, the cognitive dissonance in the article is making my head hurt.
Brian Staver
January 19, 2023 at 7:26 pm
Phytoplankton Distribution
https://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/basic-page/global-phytoplankton-distribution
What are Phytoplankton?
Derived from the Greek words Phyto (plant) and plankton (made to wander or drift), phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that live in watery environments, both salty and fresh.
Some phytoplankton are bacteria, some are protists, and most are single-celled plants. Among the common kinds are cyanobacteria, silica-encased diatoms, dinoflagellates, green algae, and chalk-coated coccolithophores. As we will learn here, the tiniest of living organisms exert an outsized influence on the planet.
Phytoplankton Types
Credit: NASA
Phytoplankton are extremely diverse, varying from photosynthesizing bacteria (cyanobacteria), to plant-like diatoms, to armor-plated coccolithophores (drawings not to scale). (Collage adapted from drawings and micrographs by Sally Bensusen, NASA EOS Project Science Office.)
What do phytoplankton need to survive and where are they located?
Like land plants, phytoplankton growth depends on the availability of sunlight, carbon dioxide, and nutrients. Phytoplankton are found where each of these factors are abundant. Phytoplankton live in the surface waters of the ocean, where there is usually ample light for phytoplankton to grow in the surface waters and carbon dioxide dissolved in oceans is freely available. Like land plants, phytoplankton has chlorophyll to capture sunlight, and they use photosynthesis to turn it into chemical energy (food). Carbon dioxide is plentiful in the ocean. Whenever the supply in the surface waters goes down because the phytoplankton have used it during photosynthesis, it is replenished from the atmosphere above. *******They consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen. All phytoplankton photosynthesize, but some get additional energy by consuming other organisms.*****
Please note the highlighted area. Why, because when you increase the carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean, you create carbonic acid. This mild acid dissolves the phytoplankton’s outer shell, and they die. So no more oxygen for us to breathe. What a way to go. So keep burning those fossil fuels and remember to purchase your very own oxygen contractors. You are going to need it.
Paul Passarelli
January 19, 2023 at 8:36 pm
you wrote:
“Please note the highlighted area. Why, because when you increase the carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean, you create carbonic acid. This mild acid dissolves the phytoplankton’s outer shell, and they die. So no more oxygen for us to breathe. What a way to go. So keep burning those fossil fuels and remember to purchase your very own oxygen contractors. You are going to need it.”
But you neglected to realize that with more CO2, the organisms have a greater ability to ***build*** Calcium Carbonate shells from the abundant calcium +2 ions in seawater! Also, diatoms shells are made of ‘Silica’ SiO2 which is impervious to carbonic acid. In fact treating sand moistened with the alkaline material known as sodium silicate aka ‘water glass’ causes the SiO2 to precipitate, hardening the sand into usefully hard porous stone like material used as core for casting metals. Granted phytoplankton doesn’t do a lot of metal casting, but in a few billion more years… who knows?
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