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Barry A.
Select Nomad
Posts: 10007
Registered: 11-30-2003
Location: Redding, Northern CA
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Mood: optimistic
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Judy---yur right-----
----it is generally excepted that we are in a huge long-term cooling trend----BUT, there are "trends" within "trends", and his could be just a
mini-trend of warming in an overall trend of cooling---------that is what makes it so controversial, and complex, and nobody really knows, as near as
I can tell.
I will now leave this subject alone (finally) 
Barry
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bajajudy
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6886
Registered: 10-4-2004
Location: San Jose del Cabo,BCS
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http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/26/coverstory/index.html
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David K
Honored Nomad
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CNN, MSNBC, no wonder!
I would trust FOX NEWS more than them!...
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Baja Bernie
`Normal` Nomad Correspondent
Posts: 2962
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: Sunset Beach
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Mood: Just dancing through life
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neilm
had a great question! Wonder why no one answered it.
As far as the TV media thing goes--I am an equal opportunity doubter--I no longer trust any of them!
My smidgen of a claim to fame is that I have had so many really good friends. By Bernie Swaim December 2007
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Bajame
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Don't worry about the population getting out of hand the BIRD FLU is coming! Pretty soon we will all be wearing those mask and looking freakie, then
the whales will start tipping the boats over again out of fear, then the world will come to an end as we know it! Time to get those magaritas, after a
half a dozen of those you won't care! 
We all want a peaceful world, filled with love and laughter, but we fill ourselves with anger and hate trying to fiqure out how to achive it.
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ursidae69
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Posts: 275
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Location: Youngsville, NM
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Russell's Book
Just wanted to say I'm through Chapter three off Russell's book and it is hard to put down. It's historical accounts are really informative and the
book is well-written. I'd recommend it.
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bajajudy
Elite Nomad
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New article on Warming and the Gray Whale
I cant get the complete link to come up so go to
http://www.sfgate.com/
And it is on the front page today, June 28
[Edited on 6-28-2006 by bajajudy]
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thebajarunner
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3687
Registered: 9-8-2003
Location: Arizona....."Free at last from crumbling Cali
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Mood: muy amable
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Judy, SFGate (SFChronicle) is just to one side of Pravda.
Yeah, check out today's edition you referenced... great stuff:
"Testimony on judges penis pump"
"Britney poses in the nude"
"Child molester too short for prison"
etc.
etc.
etc.
only in San Francisco!!
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bajajudy
Elite Nomad
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Son of a gun, the article is gone.
Sorry about that Runner.
Guess I should say what the article said. Basically it said that scientists have been surprised to find that the gray whale is seeming to adapt to
the warmer water temps, as the number of babies increased last year.
It is kind of the opposite of what Dick said in Feb.
[Edited on 6-28-2006 by bajajudy]
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turtleandtoad
Senior Nomad
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Location: Wherever I park. See sig for current location.
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Yeah, it also said that they don't know if this is just a short-term effect and that, if global warming continues, the Grays will run out of
continental shelf ocean bottom to feed on.
Mike & Robin; Full-Time RV\'ers
37\' Georgetown w/3 slides & 275 Watts of Solar Power
06 Taco TRD
www.turtleandtoad.com
I am here
To paraphrase Frank Lloyd Wright; I\'m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let\'s start with keyboards. --
Mike Dean |
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wornout
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Looks like some of the Gray Whales like Arctic Ice Reduction:
From: http://kcbs.com/pages/50862.php
Arctic Ice Reduction Causing Gray Whale Boom On CA Coast
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KCBS) -- Gray whales appear to be experiencing a baby boom, and it appears to be connected to a reduction in Arctic ice.
The annual gray whale calf count that is tallied along the California coastline is up this year.
"Reproduction in gray whales over maybe the last thirteen years is linked to the distribution of seasonal ice in the arctic," biologist Wayne
Perryman, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told KCBS Reporter Susan Leigh Taylor.
Comparing gray whales to another species that has been affected by the ongoing rise in temperatures, recession of ice, and global warming debate,
Perryman said gray whales are the opposite of polar bears.
"Polar bears feed on top of the ice -- so if there's lots of ice, there's lots of area for them to feed," he told Taylor. "Gray whales feed under the
ice, and so when the ice backs up early, they have more access to prey, and I think that nice big healthy well-fed females are more likely to have
calves."
Asked if the gray whale indicators were another "canary in the cave" -- evidence of warming waters, which points to global warming, Perryman said he
doubted it.
Perrimen said it was more likely a product of inter-annual variability in the ice, rather than global warming.
"We really don't know how long-term changes in temperature regimes in the arctic are going to affect these animals," he said. "We have a pretty good
handle on this short-term change."
Gray whales make an extraordinarily long migration from the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Alaska, to the Baja peninsula off Mexico -- and back, each
year. They travel about 12,500 miles each year, staying near the coast. They mate and calve in the warm tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean off Baja,
Mexico.
(pha)
Copyright 2006, KCBS. All Rights Reserved.
This Space Available, E-Mail Me If Interested.
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elgatoloco
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/28/...
The number of baby gray whales born along the Pacific Coast has increased over the last five years, leading scientists to believe that for now the
pregnant females are doing all right feeding in a warming Arctic environment.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers counting the calves that passed Point Piedras Blancas near San Luis Obispo tabulated 1,018
calves in 2006, up from 945 in 2005. The whales migrate about 5,400 miles a year on their way to summer feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska,
roaming February to May past popular whale-watching spots such as Half Moon Bay State Park and Point Reyes National Seashore.
The agency reports an upward trend since the counts of 3-month-old, 20-foot-long whales plummeted below 300 in the years 2000 and 2001. The counts
began in 1994.
"It's a reasonable level of reproduction, and the overall trend over the past five years is positive,'' said Wayne Perryman, a fisheries biologist
with NOAA in La Jolla (San Diego County).
"In the short term, they appear to be doing well, based on our monitoring of reproduction. But we really don't know how the long-term warming trend is
going to affect this population,'' Perryman said.
Scientists report a major shift in the ecosystem of the northern Bering Sea, the whale's traditional feeding ground, because of warming air and water
in the Arctic. The whale's favored prey, the fatty amphipod, is less abundant, sending the animal searching for food farther north.
But, say scientists, the whales have taken advantage of polar sea ice that melted in the spring, opening up new passageways to food supplies farther
north near Barrow, Alaska.
California's calf count, sometimes conducted only dozens of yards away from the whales offshore, serves as a way to measure the health of the
population, considering the expense and difficulty of a whole population count. The last complete census was taken in 2001, and the estimates ranged
from 17,000 to 27,000.
Just as scientists watch to see how the polar bear, the ringed seal and the walrus respond to environmental changes due to the shrinking pack ice,
they also watch the gray whale, which has fed for thousands of years in the northern Bering Sea.
In the summer of 1997, an El Ni?o year, scientists recorded the warmest water temperatures on record in parts of the Bering Sea. Since then, the
amphipods have dropped in numbers in the northern Bering Sea, including beds in the Chirikov Basin.
In 1999, the number of whales that washed up dead or dying on the Pacific Coast went up 10-fold to about 270, according to NOAA. Some were
malnourished; others were not.
But in recent years, NOAA scientists and others have found the gray whale moving to the Chukchi Sea off Barrow, apparently searching for -- and
finding -- enough crustaceans in the mud to nourish the pregnant females.
Perryman thinks the pregnant females are now doing well when they reach the Arctic in the spring.
"They are the first animals there'' when they arrive, probably starting in May, he said. Even though they have to go farther north to find food,
scientists believe the whales can get to it more easily because of the earlier sea ice melt that allows them to move through open ocean waters, he
said.
"What we find is a relationship between the timing of the melt of sea ice in the Arctic and the number of calves we see the next season. This past
year, the ice has been light, and we've had really good recruitment in calves,'' Perryman said.
"Think of the sea ice as a table. The polar bears feed on the sea ice. But the gray whales don't have access to the bottom of the ocean when the
table's there. So, you have to pull the table away for them to find food,'' Perryman said.
He cautioned that there has been no study determining whether the individual whales are able to put on as much weight as needed given their lengthy
route to find food and the changing food supply. The gray whales don't eat krill that float in the water the way blue, humpback and bowhead whales do.
They scoop up the mud on the floor of the continental shelf and sift out the sea life.
Jacqueline Grebmeier -- a biological oceanography professor at the University of Tennessee and lead author on an ecosystem shift study published in
the journal Science in March -- said the whales were staying up in the north and foraging longer, taking advantage of a greater expanse of open
waters, which aren't blocked with ice again until the fall.
But she noted that the changing ecosystem raises questions.
"If they go farther north, they have to spend more energy.''
Also, the gray whale may be at the end of its feeding range, she said, because it relies on the shallow continental shelf in the Pacific Ocean -- and
not the Arctic Ocean, where the continental shelf is narrow, with less room for foraging.
"For now, it's time and space playing in their favor. But at some time in the future, the space issue will become a limiting factor.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com.
Baby whales on parade
Here are the counts of Pacific gray whale calves as they migrate from Baja
California to feed in Arctic waters.
The figures show a positive trend over the last five years, up since a
decline following warm 1997-1998 El Ni?o years when amphipod food supplies
declined in the Bering Sea. The whales are now benefitting from finding new
food in the Chukchi Sea, but scientists don't know how long-term warming will
affect the population.
5,400 + miles: Gray whales have the longest yearly migration route of any
mammal
Best viewing in the Bay Area
Montara State Beach
Point Reyes National Seashore
McNee Ranch State Park
A?o Nuevo State Park
Half Moon Bay State Beach.
'94 946
'95 619
'96 1,146
'97 1,431
'98 1,388
'99 427
'00 279
'01 256
'02 842
'03 774
'04 1,528
'05 945
'06 1,020
.
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The Chronicle
MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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SiReNiTa
Special Correspondent
Posts: 881
Registered: 5-5-2006
Location: Ensenada, B.C.S.
Member Is Offline
Mood: Savoring life while saving the world!
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I just wanted to let you know that as much as I like Dick Russel, he is not a whale expert...he interviewed me for his book and he is a good writer
and did good interview, but....anyway, to begin with, gray whales are not plankton eaters so the gray whales aren't leaving the lagoons due to global
warming. Now, many years ago, I warned the whale watching companies that if they chase whales around too much, they will go elsewhere to raise their
babies. The lagoons are very critical to gray whales as the survival rate of the calves is higher in the lagoon. In Scammons Lagoon, they have an area
off limits to pangas and when I did the census there, the highest concentration of whales was in this area. In this lagoon, there are literally
hundreds of whales so the boats don't have to chase whales around so there is less harrasment. I personally wasn't pleased in San Ignacio and found
there was more harrassment there than any lagoon as people there EXPECT to pet a whale, which is absurd....a whale is a wild animal and we should
appreciate just seeing it in it's natural habitat and not HAVE TO pet it to have a good experience. OK, I know it awesome to pet a whale and believe
me, I know it is a life changing experience....BUT...a whale has to come to you, it should decide if you deserve this wonderful gift.
Now some whales arent' making the migration as they are too weak to swim all the way to Alaska...this weakness could be caused too by whale
watchers...in the feeding grounds, there are so many bloody boats that whales are not able to feed properly, they are being seriously disturbed there
and this could contribute to a general weakening of the species. So think about this...in all wild animals, the human habituated ones are the first to
die, whether by hunters or accidents...friendly whales get hit by boats outside the lagoons because they think all humans are friendly and also they
approach hunters as they now trust humans...NOT....so sometimes I wish whales were still afraid of us which would be safer for them......also the
quantity and quality of food in Alaska was affected by the Exon Valdez spill....although it happened years ago, the food chain has been affected and
gray whales are bottom feeders....I have noticed an increase of skinny whales in the last 5 years. The interesting thing globaol warming has caused in
the lagoons is that the sea level has been rising...my old campsite is now underwater at high tide! I truly wish humans could just go whale watching
and be content watching them from a considerate distance.
Live life as well as you can,
don\'t regret the things that once made you smile,
learn from your mistakes,
and thank God for every second he gives you upon this earth.
Visit me at
Http://BajaScents.Scentsy.com.mx
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Barry A.
Select Nomad
Posts: 10007
Registered: 11-30-2003
Location: Redding, Northern CA
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SeRiNiTa--------Very well said, and I completely agree with you
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