Population crash in Hawai'i false killer whales

Researchers have identified a disturbing crash in the population of false killer whales around the Hawaiian Islands.

Recent aerial surveys, compared with surveys in 1989, suggest a significant decline in numbers of overall whales as well as in the sizes of their pods.

(Image: NOAA photo of false killer whales off Hawaii by Robin Baird.)

The most recent reports were published in the journal Pacific Science by Randall Reeves, Stephen Leatherwood and Robin Baired, under the title, “Evidence of a Possible Decline since 1989 in False Killer Whales (Pseudorca crassidens) around the Main Hawaiian Islands.”

The animals are large members of the dolphin family, and evidence suggests there is a permanent population in the waters around Hawai'i that is genetically distinct from other false killer whale populations.

The 1989 survey found massive pods—some of which had far more whales in it than the entire statewide known population today.

“Groups of more than 300 individuals were seen on three different days, with minimum counts of 380, 460, and 470 individuals in these groups.

“The encounter rate, relative species ranking, and average group size from the 1989 survey were all substantially greater than those from more recent aerial and ship-based surveys.

“The largest group observed in 1989 (470) contained almost four times as many whales as estimated for the entire main Hawaiian Islands from recent aerial surveys,” says the paper abstract.

Current population surveys suggest it's not that all whale species have declined, but that this species has suffered particularly.

“In the 1989 general surveys off the island of Hawai‘i, the false killer whale was the third most frequently sighted species of the nine documented, representing 17% of all sightings.

“In 369 days of boat-based surveys around all the main Hawaiian Islands from 2000 through 2006, undertaken throughout the year, false killer whales accounted for only 1.5% of odontocete groups sighted, and the false killer whale was the 11th most frequently encountered species of odontocete,” the paper says.

What isn't clear is why the decline has taken place—are they short of food because of increased human fishing pressure, or is it something else? That's not yet clear, the researchers say.

For more information on false killer whales, see the NOAA website, http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/cetaceans/falsekillerwhale.htm, or visit http://www.cascadiaresearch.org/robin/falsekillerwhale.htm.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2009

Rising seas causing major U.S. economic impacts now; Hawai'i dodging bullet so far

Sea level rise and increasing hurricane strength are already having severe economic impacts on the East Coast—insurance companies have stopped issuing home insurance in extensive coastal areas.

“If you can't get insurance you can't do business, you can't own a home,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a grassroots nonprofit that works on global warming impacts and solutions.

(Image: A century of sea level measurements in Honolulu. For sea level information across the state of Hawai'i, go here. Credit: NOAA.)

Allstate “has made a decision to retreat from coastal Maryland, parts of Virginia. And Liberty Mutual and State Farm have joined Allstate up and down the east coast from Massachussets to Florida in this retreat, directly and explicitly tied, according to them, to rising sea levels and bigger storms,” he said.

Hawai'i has thus far dodged this particular bullet, but experts are warning that severe impacts are coming.

Sea levels have measurably risen, and are continuing to do so. Shorelines are retreating. Low-lying areas are suffering inundation. And Hawai'i, like much of the nation, has done very little to prepare for the retreat of its shorelines.

“The tragedy is that there is so little planning for sea level rise in the United States,” Tidwell said. He joined two scientists in a recent audio conference on sea level rise. The conference, sponsored by the Rockefeller Family Fund, is available online at http://www.kelleycampaigns.com/sealevel.html.

One of their messages is that a lot of the projects being funded by the federal government's stimulus package are on land that will be under water within the lifetimes of today's young people.

Sea level expert Orrin Pilkey said that while current estimates differ somewhat, serious students of sea level are now looking at three to seven feet of sea level rise by 2100. The Dutch, whose below-sea-level provinces can't afford to get it wrong, are figuring on two feet in the next 40 years—during the working life of today's high school kids.

Pilkey is director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Duke University. He said panels in Miami and Rhode Island figure a minimum sea level rise of 3 to 5 feet by 2100. And a book Pilkey and associated wrote figures it will be 6 to 7 feet by then—and it will keep going up.

For Hawai'i, local coastal geologist Chip Fletcher has concluded that these levels put much of Waikiki under water. Indeed, a lot of coastal Hawai'i, including low-lying beach parks, are at risk.

We're not alone.

Just a three-foot rise could lop off the entire southern tip of Florida, and destroy much of the Everglades National Park, the third largest park in the contiguous U.S., said Anthony D. Barnosky, environmental change expert and professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

The main driver of sea level rise in the past century has been thermal expansion of the oceans, Pilke said. Water expands as it warms. The main driver of rise in this century will be the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets, he said.

Much of the world is taking this issue far more seriously than the U.S.

Great Britain is talking about abandoning some of its coastal small villages. The Maldive Islands are discussing buying land in India or elsewhere to move their whole low-lying nation. New Zealand is agreeing to take refugees from flooding Pacific islands. The Dutch approach is an engineering one—armoring the shoreline to keep the ocean at bay.

Pilke said the U.S. can't really consider large-scale armoring—its coastline is far too long. And beach nourishment—like what has been done to add sand to Waikiki Beach—is a very temporary solution in a rising sea environment.

The only reasonable American response to continued sea level rise is to retreat from the shoreline, he said. That gets development out of the danger zone and preserves beaches for future generations.

The experts identified three key strategies for this problem.

One, as cited by Pilke, is retreat—moving critical infrastructure and population out of the low coastal area.

Another is engineering—developing critical coastal infrastructure (harbors, for example) so it can continue to function in a higher sea level environment.

And the third is to attack the cause—climate change. The speakers at the session agreed on a need to curb greenhouse gas emissions at all levels, push the move to non-carbon fuel sources and cap carbon emissions.

Said Tidwell: “The impact of sea level rise and global warming is already being profoundly seen and felt.”

©2009 Jan TenBruggencate

Climate in peril, reefs weaken, Nero fiddles

The carbon dioxide load in the atmosphere keeps rising unabated, as the chart at the right shows, and scientists are getting a better handle all the time on consequences.

(Image: 1958 to 2009 chart of CO2 levels taken at Mauna Loa Observatory shows the rise of the gas in the atmosphere, if anything, is increasing at a steeper rate than it was half a century ago. More information on it here. Credit: NOAA.)

Against this ominous background, here is today's news, starting with something in Hawai'i back yard.

International researchers report that reef growth will slow as more and more carbon dioxide translates into more and more acid oceans. CO2 levels since 1958 have risen from under 320 to more than 380 parts per million (ppm).

The worse news: “...by the time atmospheric partial pressure of CO2 will reach 560 ppm all coral reefs will cease to grow and start to dissolve.”

There goes the shoreline. There goes your favorite surf break. There goes the nearshore fishery.

Meanwhile...

Reuters is reporting that by 2060, summer heat as a result of global warming in Sydney could be fatal to some residents.

Climate change is said to be one-third responsible for major droughts across the world, and as things continue, the droughts are likely to get worse. This is hardly news—these droughts were predicted more than a decade ago as one feature of a warmer world. And now they're here.

It's not that we're doing nothing, although it's not clear we're doing enough.

Europeans are looking at straightening out airline routes, to reduce fly time and fuel burn.

Congress has some legislation to address carbon emissions, but is not going to fast-track climate legislation for fear of a Republican filibuster.

International groups are pointing fingers rather than acting on climate issues.

And the United Nations official in charge of climate change says India's cheap Nano is just fine, because people deserve automobiles.

The really bad news, perhaps, is that most folks agree that we need to do something about climate, but as Scientific American reports, we can't agree on who should do it or what, exactly to do.

©2009 Jan TenBruggencate

Admiral Farragut's torpedoes and the Hawai'i Superferry

There is a point at which a commander throws caution to the winds and orders, in the words of Admiral Farragut, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”

It worked for David Farragut in the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. He defeated the Confederate fleet—largely because most of the tethered mines, then called torpedoes, were duds. They bounced off the ships' hulls and didn't explode.

(Image: The U.S. Postal Service's 1903 Farragut stamp, a $1 issue.)

Damning the torpedoes is always risky. It doesn't always work. Indeed, it seldom does. Take the Hawai'i Superferry (I know, you're tired of the Superferry).

Early on, when there was still plenty of time to perform a proper environmental study without holding up the ferry at all, someone made that call.

To paraphrase the classic line from “The Treasure of Sierra Madre:” “We don't have no EIS. We don't need no EIS. I don't have to show you any stinkin' EIS.”

Never mind that the Councils of three of the four counties, representing 100 percent of the ferry's destinations from Honolulu, asked for environmental studies.

Today's it's popular to blame the “environmentalists” for the Superferry's failure. But County Councils are hardly hotbeds of environmental furor. They mostly get blamed for representing the interests of power, not the radical vegan community.

Someone, at some point, made the Farragut call, although we don't know whether it was in Governor Linda Lingle's office, Superferry president John Garibaldi's office, a Superferry lawyer's or state Attorney General's office, a public relations consultant's office or perhaps a state Department of Transportation office.

The call was wrong. The Hawai'i Supreme Court said so, although the court's position in this is widely misunderstood. It required the Department of Transportation conduct an EIS—not that the Superferry prepare one.

In late August, 2007, a 15-year-old kid on a surfboard was among four dozen swimming and paddling protesters in Nawiliwili Harbor, preventing the Superferry's entrance. When Coast Guard officers used boat hooks to try to snag him and arrest him, he insisted they arrest the ferry captain as the real lawbreaker.

Technically, the Kauai kid on the surboard was wrong. Arguably, he should have been protesting at the state Department of Transportation office—or at the office of the person who made the Farragut call, if anybody could figure out who that was.

And technically, the Superferry was right as it sailed into the minefield. But clearly, the Farragut call in this case was catastrophic.

For Farragut, the mines didn't go off. For the Hawai'i Superferry, they did.

©2009 Jan TenBruggencate

Tata Motors' Nano, the $2,000 car debuts

India's Tata Motors is making good on its promise to sell a $2,000 to $2,500 car, the Nano.

Depending on whom you talk to, this is really great news or an environmental catastrophe.

(Images: A hot little red Nano. And a yellow Nano interior. Credit: Tata Motors.)

For folks in Hawai'i, it's interesting news, but hardly important—it will be a long time before a Nano is available here, it will need to have a bunch of improved features to meet U.S. safety standards, and it will certainly cost a lot more.

But what it is, is interesting.

There are three models. It's a little over nine feet long, and weighs 1,320 pounds.

By comparison, a Honda Civic is more than 14 feet long and weighs 2,600 or so pounds.

The Nano seats four and has a two-cylinder engine. The gas tank holds 15 liters of fuel, about four gallons. The Nano comes with seat belts, but not air bags.

It has been touted as Tata's “city car,” an inexpensive vehicle to get Indian families off motorbikes.

Top speed is 65 miles an hour. Fuel economy is 55 miles to the gallon.

The Civic gets 29 to 34 miles to the gallon. It has air bags, air conditioning and a pile of other features not found in the ultra-budget Nano.

For folks on a tight, tight budget who absolutely need a car, the Nano may be a godsend.

Environmental groups say that putting millions of cars in the hands of folks who would otherwise not be driving cars at all, will create traffic, fuel, environmental and other issues that could cause untold problems.

Tata will begin taking orders next month and says it will deliver the first Nanos in July.

©2009 Jan TenBruggencate