Global warming isn’t increasing algal blooms … or is it?
One of the things I’m trying to do each week with this column is to show not just articles in science journals, but how science works. It’s not a story of constant agreement. It’s not a place where anyone gets awards for delivering a pat on the back to the last guy. It’s about progress through disagreement, about jumping ahead by not just standing on the shoulder of giants, but giving them a giant kick in the head. Understanding that these arguments take place, and that they’re not an example of “science was wrong” but genuine progress, is important to many, if not all, the arguments that touch on science.
So … algal blooms. Algal blooms are sudden, explosive growths of one or more kinds of algae. These algae can be toxic, like the blue green algae that have exploded to become threats in many lakes. They can be damaging to fisheries, like the red tides that are especially prominent along southern coasts. Often they’re damaging because they can lower the level of oxygen and nutrients in the water and, because the blooms are often just one type of algae, they can limit the amount of other plant life that can be vital to food chains.
Some months ago, a team from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York put out a model that suggested that as the oceans warmed, we should expect to see more of these algal blooms. This fits with previous research that suggests that warmer oceans represent an expanded opportunity for the kind of algae usually involved in these blooms.
But this week a team from the UK published results looking at some specific types of algae. And the result of studying records of samples taken since 1958, and Continuous Plankton Recorder data from the North Eastern Atlantic and North Sea over the last 30 years, didn’t show a strong relationship between temperature and the abundance of the algae they examined. Further, the Stony Brook team had predicted some algal “hot spots” which the UK team failed to find.
First of all … who knew there was Continuous Plankton Recorder data? Or that such instruments had been floating in the sea since 1982? Spiffy.
Secondly, the team from Stony Brook was also back this week, with a response on how the results from the UK team actually do fit with the model they predicted, arguing that the simple relationship between temperature and abundance of a specific species was not what their model called for, and that the UK team was undervaluing blooms that have appeared in the predicted regions.
And the winner is? Everybody. Will increasing temperatures really increase the number and range of algal blooms that generally occur in warmer water? It seems logical, but that’s not good enough. Models are going to made, tested, adjusted, knocked down, rebuilt, and tested all over again. Because … science.
Come on in. Let’s look at some more.
Read More