But he is not stopping in Falmouth for long: shortly after Christmas, Febos will hit the road in his Rabbit, armed with nothing more than a camera, a laptop, and a tank full of vegetable oil.

Combining his interest in low-impact living with a quest to find other people who are setting that example, Febos plans to drive across the country in his vegetable oil-powered car.

With a binder of information as a road map, he plans to visit at least 35 sustainable projects in urban and rural locales, hoping to gain insight and inspiration into how society can design itself according to ecological principles.

In what may be viewed as a modern-day version of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Febos plans to blog his way across America.

I’m documenting the life process of living more sustainably and happily, while minimizing my use of resources and assessing my impact on the blog. The idea is to inspire people to see how others are making their lives more sustainable with fun, cool projects. That way people can see how they can make changes in their lives.

-Barry Febos

Creating, not consuming

For Febos, repurposing waste products into useful materials is a way of life—and a form of artistic expression.

His journey began in October with a “live-in” exhibition in a Baltimore gallery, entitled “Moving to Utopia: unpacking a quest for a more sustainable life,” a slogan that is also stenciled onto the side of the Rabbit.

Living in the gallery for a week, Mr. Febos depicted his planned journey through photos, drawings, maps, and video, while cataloguing his possessions and “auctioning off” the items he deemed unnecessary. He plans to do a version of this show in New Orleans, and another when he returns to Falmouth.

His previous art projects have included making notebooks out of plastic bags and paper that had been printed on one side, making windows out of glass bottles, and a hammock made of used fabric and plastic bags.

One man’s food is another man’s fuel

While working on community art projects in Baltimore, Febos started to get interested in the mechanics of biodiesel engines a couple years ago. He bought the Rabbit, already equipped with a vegetable oil conversion system built into it, and started imagining the possibilities.

“Having a vehicle that runs on veggie oil seemed like a way to creatively use other people’s waste,” he said.

Though diesel engines can run on straight bio-diesel, using discarded vegetable oil requires a few additional steps, said Febos.

First, one has to find a source of oil. Usually, restaurants and fast-food establishments have to pay to dispose of the used oil, and are only too happy to have someone take it off their hands, he said. A classified-type website, Fillup4free.com, is another source for finding free or cheap waste oil.

Once he collects 10 gallons to fill a separate fuel tank, the oil must then be filtered to remove any food particles or water.  Febos has constructed a simple filtration system using plastic buckets and fine-meshed cloth.

He plans to have several gallons of oil filtering while he drives—so as to avoid running out of fuel with no McDonald’s in miles.

Bio-diesel mechanics

One issue with a built-in conversion system is that diesel engines cannot start with vegetable oil, and the car must be warmed up completely before switching over to the bio-diesel source. Therefore, the Rabbit has a regular fuel tank for starting the car and flushing oil from the fuel lines during the last few miles of each journey, Febos said.

“The conversion system is not as good for driving locally. For a three- to four-mile trip it doesn’t really work,” he said.

Mr. Febos plans to take the southern route across the United States, where warmer temperatures should make the oil less likely to congeal. He said the Rabbit gets up to 50 miles per gallon while running on either regular diesel or vegetable oil.

In addition to getting an MPG that rivals hybrid vehicles, running a car on veggie oil benefits the environment in a number of ways.

According to the non-profit educational organization, NOLS, running your car on recycled veggie oil:

• Makes us more energy independent. As long as people eat French fries, there will always be an oil source. Plus, your tailpipe will give off the pleasant odor of fried food, instead of toxic fumes!
• Reduces our dependence on oil from foreign sources or environmentally sensitive areas.
• Does not release sulfuric acid (SO2) into the atmosphere, one of the main causes of acid rain.
• Reduces our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 78%.
• Produces 48% less carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas, than regular diesel fuel.
• Creates 48% less asthma-causing particulate matter, and 80% less cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) than petroleum diesel.

Connecting the dots

The first stop on Febos’s itinerary is just a few miles from his parents’ home. Having received some guidance on biodiesel vehicles from Joseph L. Hackler, a member of the Alchemy Farm Neighborhood Association, Febos plans to start his blog with a post about the agricultural and renewable energy projects at Alchemy Farm, home of the former New Alchemy Insitute.

Other highlights of the journey will include the Germantown Community Farm in upstate New York, where a fellow Falmouth native, Kaya Weidman, is working on starting up a community radio station, WGXC.

He also plans to visit a shanty boat project in Providence, Rhode Island, where a group has created something like a floating ark, complete with a vegetable garden and chickens and ducks on board.

Farther south, Febos plans to visit intentional communities in Virginia and Tennessee, staying for a while in each place to blog and contribute to projects. He also plans to visit the Project M Lab’s Rural Studio in Greensboro, Alabama, where designers tackle problems and find solutions for poor communities.

“I’m still learning. I want to see and participate in what people are doing, so that later I’ll have the resources to make things happen,” Febos said.

They came to learn advanced satellite imaging techniques, and left at the end of September with maps that will help their countries manage their forests and take part in a potential global carbon credit trading system.

The pan-(bio)mass challenge

The WHRC is leading an effort to create the first pan-tropical biomass map that will demonstrate the future effects of deforestation and land use change across the globe. This information is key in developing the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) policy initiative being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Mukund Srivastava (left), of the Indian Forest Survey, works with Tina Courmier of the Woods Hole Research Center and Abel Siample of the Zambia Forestry Department, to develop a map that shows the land use and carbon-sequestration capacity of India.

Under the REDD system, countries like the United States that emit a large amount of greenhouse gas could purchase carbon credits from countries like Gabon that have a lot of forest, but need cash to continue to protect it.

The system is also designed to encourage countries like Kenya to build up its forests, reversing the trend of deforestation that threatens to increase not only global carbon emissions, but also the ability of its citizens to grow food and find safe drinking water.

Using the maps, governments and tropical forest stakeholders will be able to monitor and track changes to land cover, helping inform policy decisions, said Joseph Kellndorfer, a WHRC scientist co-leading the pan-tropical mapping effort.

Tropical deforestation is estimated to be the cause of about 17 percent of man-made global carbon emissions, which makes it an easy target for combating climate change, said Dr. Kellndorfer.

“These maps give us a first estimate of what we’re talking about trading,” he said.

As the scholars taking part in the workshop indicated, deforestation is caused by a variety of factors. While logging is an obvious source, agricultural expansion—exacerbated by population pressures and a turn to the cultivation of cash crops—is also taking a major toll on tropical forests across Africa and Southeast Asia.

In Colombia, a decades-long guerilla war is having an impact even in remote forests; in Bolivia, hydroelectric projects threaten to flood the lush jungle of the Amazon basin.

The forest for the trees

Poverty is the number one barrier to forest conservation, said Edward Ssenyonjo, a remote sensing specialist with the Ugandan National Forest Authority. “More than 80 percent of people depend on the natural environment, mainly forests, to survive. This is compounded by a population growth [rate] of 3.2 percent,” he said.

His colleague, Abel Siample, of the Zambia Forestry Department, said that investment in alternatives to charcoal production and agricultural expansion are the only way to stop encroachment in protected forests.

Joint forest management committees in Zambia and India are giving disenfranchised people a say in how REDD funds are distributed, said Mukund Srivastava, of the Indian Forest Survey.

With a structure based on equality for women and the rural poor, these committees are developing a model so that a portion of REDD revenue returns to the community to attract tourism or sustainable industries and build up infrastructure.

People realize it when they hit the wall, and there is no more forest, but they cannot stop without alternatives. It’s a human dilemma: we do not change our behavior until it becomes too late.

-Nadine Laporte, associate scientist

However, said WHRC associate scientist Nadine Laporte, throwing money at the problem is not a sure way to protect diminishing forests. Sensitive to the socio-economic hardships that people in developing countries face, she is working with the scholars to find solutions to deforestation while meeting the needs of impoverished people.

“In Africa, deforestation is done by people who are trying to feed their families,” said Dr. Laporte, pointing out that people are driven to cut down the forest in a quest to find wood for cooking and heating.

Think global, act local

Peter Ndunda, of the Green Belt Movement, and WHRC Associate Scientist Nadine Laporte go over Peter's map of Kenya

Although REDD was not adopted by the UNFCCC Conference of Parties that met in Copenhagen last December, Dr. Laporte said it is only a matter of time before a global carbon-trading system is in place.

Already, there are several bilateral agreements in place between developing nations and high carbon-emitting countries and states. Progress on REDD achieved in Copenhagen will continue at the next COP meeting in Cancun, Mexico, starting in late November.

Shifting the focus of international climate talks to helping communities and developing nations solve their own problems, the field survey sessions that Dr. Laporte and her colleagues take part in reach some of the most rural or forested areas in the world.

Community capacity-building is the name of the game for Peter Ndunda, a GIS specialist with the Kenyan Green Belt Movement (GBM), a non-governmental organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

By building up tree nurseries and embarking on a nationwide tree planting campaign, the GBM has been able to stem the trend of deforestation in part of Kenya. In addition, GBM offers civic and environmental education programs that help people understand how forests help retain soil and water, thereby supporting food production and safe drinking water.

A map of Kenya's forest cover shows the GBM's progress, but huge areas in the east remain deforested.

While GBM has made great strides in the last 20 years, the biomass map Mr. Ndunda created at WHRC shows how much further the country has to go.

Indeed, great swaths of Kenya were colored in brown on his map, indicating low forest cover; while the green areas where GBM is active nonetheless indicate that human activity has spilled over the boundaries of designated conservation areas.

“How do you help communities increase their yields without compromising future generations?” Mr. Ndunda asked.

With additional income from REDD, communities will have the time to wait for the trees to grow, while also improving their farmland, he said.

“REDD provides a great opportunity to help resolve the global challenge of poverty. This is a huge economic and ecological benefit that we cannot quantify.”

If you teach a man to map…

Nguyen Hanh Quyenv, of the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, works on a biomass map that she says will help her country develop forest conservation policies

Some of the scholars taking part in the WHRC workshop were able to create a map of the forest cover as well as the biomass capacity of their country.

Using readily-downloadable data from free sources like Google Earth–as well as sophisticated software and the 160 processing systems owned by the WHRC– the scholars were able to create forest-cover maps of their entire country with a 15-meter resolution, and biomass maps with 500 meters resolution.

Another benefit offered through the WHRC program is the use of satellite radar imaging, a powerful tool that can penetrate the cloud cover that tends to persist over tropical forests, Dr. Kellndorfer said.

That way, forest managers will have more accurate “snapshots” of a forest region, without gaps in data due to cloud cover.

That was a difficulty for Edersson Cabrera, a remote sensing expert with the Colombian ministry of the environment. Though he has been collecting data on the country’s diverse range of forests for the past two decades, thick cloud cover in some years led to gaps in knowledge about how land use had changed over time.

Eric Armijo, of the Friends of Nature Foundation in Bolivia, said the maps he is working on with the WHRC will give his organization the tools it needs to make sure conservation policies are in place— and working.

“It’s a powerful way of pushing the decision-makers,” he said.

Earle Barnhart has a vision for food sustainability on Cape Cod

In a white paper he wrote for his nonprofit educational institute, The Green Center, Barnhart discusses how—and why—Cape Codders should reduce their reliance on imported food.

In his paper, Barnhart makes the case for food self-sufficiency, which he argues will reduce the cost of food, lower the region’s carbon footprint, and increase food security on Cape Cod.

“One of the advantages of living on Cape Cod is that we can very clearly see the source of our food supply. Most of our food is imported over the bridge in trucks,” wrote Barnhart.

“Food produced regionally would provide a degree of insurance against the volatility of international economics and the disruption of food supply in turbulent times.”

Hilde picks fresh pea pods for lunch

Most supermarket produce is shipped thousands of miles to get from the farm to the dinner table. Due to energy-intensive transportation and fertilizer production, deforestation and concentrated livestock farming, agriculture is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Meanwhile, fresh produce and eggs from a backyard garden require absolutely no fossil fuels and have higher nutritional value to boot, said Barnhart.

While many residents enjoy gardening as a hobby, few would be able to live on what they produce at home. Using his own yard and greenhouse as tests for decades of research conducted at the New Alchemy Institute, Barnhart and his wife, Hilde Maingay, have found that intensive gardening and permaculture methods have resulted in a shorter grocery list year-round.

The Cape Cod Ark

The Cape Cod Ark House is designed to provide the essentials for modern living based on nature's principles

By planting crops with varying root depths close together and rotating crops with different nutritional needs, even a small garden can produce a hefty amount of vegetables, Barnhart said.

The couple’s large greenhouse makes use of passive solar heat to grow crops 12 months a year, and cold frames can do the same on a smaller scale.

Nutrient-rich water from the fish ponds feeds greehouse plants year-round

A few water tanks inside the greenhouse serve a dual function. Filled with algae-rich dark green water, they host catfish and goldfish, types of fish that digest the green algae to produce high-nutrient waste that Barnhart feeds to the lemon trees and nursery plants in the greenhouse. The fish themselves could be eaten, but in this case, they serve a more decorative purpose.

Barnhart and Maingay eat a vegetable-rich diet, but they also rely on eggs from a number of hens they raise in a fenced-off, shaded area.

By feeding the chickens kitchen scraps, those nutrients are “converted into a clean, highly nutritious egg, biologically packaged in an organic eggshell,” Barnhart wrote.

If more people kept hens, food waste that is otherwise incinerated, buried, or sent to septic tanks and sewers, would be diverted back into the nutrient cycle, he said.

Citing research conducted at New Alchemy and in his own back yard, Barnhart said that a year’s worth of fresh vegetables per person can be grown on as little as 1/100th of an acre—or 450 square feet, equivalent to a 15-by-30-foot garden. To grow grains, a quarter of an acre per person is necessary; if chickens or livestock are raised, at least 3/10ths of an acre are required.

A sustainable equation

Earle checks out his salad beds in mid-June

Considering that Cape Cod has 226,000 year-round residents and about 250,000 acres of land, self-sufficiency could hypothetically be achieved under this model.

The problem is that a majority of that acreage is covered by roads, buildings, or conservation restrictions, notes Barnhart.

Acknowledging that the Cape does not have enough available land to feed its year-round population with land-intensive crops; nor is it sufficient to feed the millions of tourists who visit each year, Barnhart suggests that the available land be used to cultivate fresh fruits and vegetables, and that residents continue to import staple grains, meat, sweeteners, and oils.

Waste or Asset?

Another challenge of intensive gardening is the need for fertilizer to replenish nutrients in Cape Cod’s sandy, clay-filled soil. Instead of relying on petrochemicals, Barnhart suggests that Cape Cod’s biggest environmental problem—nitrogen pollution—could be turned into an asset for agriculture, by developing a system to process human waste into fertilizer.

Putting waste into clean water, where it then has to be processed out with chemicals, does not make ecological sense, Barnhart points out.

“It is an ecological error to put waste into water in the first place,” he said.

The couple has a composting toilet in their home, which collects waste in the basement, allowing it to decompose while a fan directs odors through a pipe in the roof. The result is about four bushels of compost a year, which must be buried nine inches underground, according to MA law.

(For more information on composting toilets, please see a previous post, Turning Waste Into Compost)

In his paper, Barnhart proposes an even more manageable system: packaging toilets.

“These are conventional-looking toilets that direct the post-eaten food into an absorbent, deodorized, biodegradable package in the toilet that is sealed after each use and is stored in the base,”  Barnhart wrote.

The isolated unit does not use any electricity or water, and satisfies hygienic sensibilities, Barnhart said. Packaging toilets are marketed by the Swedish company Pacto, and are often used in wilderness areas.

“There will inevitably be a need for the creation of new businesses, new occupations, new skills and improved ecological education,” Barnhart wrote.

“The personal and political change required to facilitate the transition is likely to be slower and less certain, but will be just as necessary to achieve the kind of world we want to live in.”

High tide flooding covers Menauhant Road

I would like to know why, in all the discussion on the half-billion dollar sewer project, there has been not one word on global warming and sea level rise. There is no question that the sea level is rising, and this century it is likely to rise sufficiently to make the health of the coastal ponds a moot question. …  It seems to me that spending that much money to protect ponds that will soon enough be part of the Atlantic is a huge waste of resources.

Prepare for the Worst, Hope for the Best

Ric brings up an interesting point that is not often considered in the great sewering debate that Falmouth and other coastal towns are engaging in these days. Then again, very little planning is being done with climate change and sea level rise in mind in this country.

In a shift from that trend, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) is taking an active role in planning for changes to the coastline, by mapping the seafloor and making recommendations for how to mitigate impacts. They’re working on legislation so that towns have clear guidelines for what to do, should buildings and beaches start to disappear into the ocean, or should get-rich-quick contractors attempt to build in vulnerable coastal zones.

Regarding building public infrastructure such as sewer pipes and roads, the CZM posted these guidelines:

• Roads and utilities are absolutely critical during evacuation, disaster response, and recovery. If they’re flooded or damaged, they can become yet another liability, rather than an asset.
• Placing public infrastructure in areas where it may be damaged makes it extremely likely that your community will end up repairing it—an added strain to municipal staff, budgets, and available services.
• Putting public infrastructure (e.g., water and sewer) in a hazard-prone area increases the likelihood that the area will be developed, or that existing development will be expanded, thereby putting more structures and people at risk.

In Chatham, a local bylaw prevented new construction of a house in a floodplain, a landmark decision upheld by the MA Supreme Court. One of the prohibited uses of the land in these Flood Hazard Zones is the discharge of sewage. In a model bylaw developed by the Cape Cod Commission, towns would be able to repair or replace their existing sewer and water mains, but not build new ones in high-risk flood zones  “in order to avoid impairment of or contamination from them during flooding.”

Regulating catastrophe?

Despite these regulatory strides, Ric’s question brings up an important point about long-term planning for climate change on Cape Cod, which includes planning for a region-wide sewer system.

It strikes me that the egos and possibly greed of town officials are leading people astray. To refuse to address this question, based on the best science available, is arrogant, short-sighted, and ultimately just plain stupid. It’s not improbable that by the end of the century, if not considerably sooner, that Falmouth Plaza will be the new Falmouth Heights Beach. Perhaps money might be better spent protecting the fresh water supply from salt incursion, though in time that will also be moot.

-Ric Gerace, Falmouth

As I’ve reported in the Enterprise, sea level rise is already a reality on Cape Cod, although occuring at a miniscule rate of 3 millimeters per year. That amount is expected to accelerate as the polar ice caps melt. A very conservative– yet widely accepted–projection from the IPCC of a 2-11 °F increase in average global temperatures would cause an average one meter (3 foot) rise in sea level.

Again, that might not sound like much, but with storm surges, high tides, and erosion over time, Main Street, Falmouth (as we know it), will be waterfront property. Ric’s prediction that Staples will be the next Falmouth Heights Beach may not be too far from the truth. (Click here for an excellent PowerPoint presentation on the issue from Falmouth resident and USGS researcher, Rob Thieler.)

Long Term Gain for Short Term Pain

In 2003, the Coastal Resources Working Group completed a report to Falmouth selectmen on how to deal with the threat of sea level rise. In order to prevent an apocalyptic, beach-less town by 2100, the group made the following recommendations (among others):

• Beaches and dunes will be wide enough for protection from storms and for public access and use.
• Water quality, habitat and fisheries resources of the coastal zone, estuaries, ponds and marshes will be sustained and enhanced.
• A minimum of hard structures (e.g., groins, seawalls, jetties, etc.) will be found in the coastal zone, to reduce
  maintenance costs, allow natural sediment transport, and for ease and safety of public use; adverse impacts of their presence will be mitigated by passive and active management approaches.
• Public infrastructure will be relocated from the immediate coast to reduce maintenance and repair costs and to reduce its impact on the coastal system.

These recommendations contain two important aspects of the issue that Ric brought up: protection of water quality for the health of marine life, and the costs of building and maintaining public infrastructure in flood zones.  They needn’t be mutually exclusive goals, however.  With proper planning, the main sewer line (if that is what happens) should be located well beyond the reach of the flood zone. By restoring the estuarine ecosystem, especially south of Route 28, where nitrogen pollution is most severe, nature’s defenses against erosion will be able to do their job. Eel grass and dune grass are essential for keeping sand and sediment in place. Natural migration of sand (which is rapidly moving eastward in Falmouth) will protect the coastline from erosion and sea level rise.

From there, yes, it would be a matter of time before the residences that connect to the sewer main are compromised by rising water levels. But that will likely take centuries. We may not be able to stop global climate change, but at least we can do something now to restore the local marine ecosystem.

According to scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 30% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, known to be a leading cause of global warming, are being absorbed by the ocean. Small coincidence that over the past 50 years of global  industrialization, rising CO2 emissions have also led to a 30% increase in the average acidity of ocean surface water.

This phenomenon is just starting to attract the attention– and alarm– of policymakers and the shellfish industry.  I talked to Scott Doney and Sarah Cooley at WHOI to find out why.

How does ocean acidification happen?

When CO2 in the atmosphere combines with seawater (H2O), the molecules combine to form carbonic acid (H2CO3). This acid is weak and dissociates rapidly in basic seawater, releasing hydrogen ions. When these ions combine with the carbonate ions already present in the water to form bicarbonate, they rob coral and shellfish of the materials they need to grow their shells and skeletons.

Scientists estimate that the pH of seawater has decreased by about 0.1 units– a 30 % decline on the logarithmic pH scale– and could decline by 0.3-0.5 units more in the next 100 years, as CO2 levels rise. Over time, they warn, the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 could diminish the development of coral reefs and marine organisms with calcium carbonate shells, with side effects reverberating throughout the ecosystem.

Scott Doney, of WHOI, explains the connection between CO2 and your favorite seafood dinner

The question is when, and where, said Dr. Doney. Using carbon emissions projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he predicted that acidity levels in the ocean will double by mid-century, and carbonate ions could decline by half.

Carbon dioxide, if you look at it as a pollutant, is very long-lived, lasting from hundreds to thousands of years. It will also continue to grow through the mid-century, with no good indication that we’ll be able to stabilize it.  We’ve now increased atmospheric carbon dioxide to a range that hasn’t been seen since 800,000 years ago,  judging from ice cores.

-Scott Doney

In a 2008 paper, Drs. Cooley and Doney indicate that bivalves, such as scallops and oysters, would feel the effects of acidification more heavily than sea urchins or crustaceans, such as lobsters, shrimp, and crabs, due to their use of a more soluble form of calcium carbonate in their shells. The effects of acidification on fish is not known, but should be studied, Dr. Doney said.

“There’s no indication that this will destroy sea life, but it certainly will diminish and dislocate some species,” he said.

Calling for additional research into the socio-economic, as well as biological and political ramifications of ocean acidification, Drs. Doney and Cooley, with WHOI marine policy specialist Hauke Kite-Powell, are investigating the impacts on the shellfish industry in the Northeast.

The economic effects of ocean acidification will be felt locally, the scientists say. In New Bedford, the top American port for shellfish, they found:

• By 2060, a 25 % loss in shellfish populations would decrease landing revenues by $67 million a year, or $2.2 billion
• Losses in primary revenue from commercial harvests—or the money that fishermen receive for their catch—could add up to as much as $1.4 billion within 50 years
• In comparison, a 25 % decrease in the seafood employment sector contributed to a dramatic economic decline from in New Bedford from 1992 to 1999, when 20 % of residents were living below the federal poverty level

The Bigger Picture

Dr. Doney’s research also takes a look at the global picture, especially at areas of the developing world that are dependent on viable fisheries.

“As with so many aspects of environmental degradation, the Third World is often hit hardest, and is the least resilient,” he said. “We want to make the connections with fishing communities and how they can adapt.”

Acidification could be the death blow for coral reefs, which are already impacted by pollution and overfishing, Dr. Doney said, which will have an impact on coastal erosion, fish habitat, and tourism.

Regions that are impacted by acid rain and nutrient runoff might already be experiencing the effects of acidification, he added. While a connection between nitrogen loading and acidity has not been thoroughly studied, Dr. Doney warned that algal blooms from excess nitrogen release CO2, “an unfortunate synergy” that could occur on Cape Cod.

Results from the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) program indicate that Arctic ice melt has made its way to the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, said Cabell S. Davis, a WHOI senior biologist.

The influx of fresh water has lowered the natural salinity of these productive fishing grounds—and coupled with rising water temperature, the impacts will be felt across the entire ecosystem, he said.

Towing an underwater video camera from the Azores to Woods Hole, Dr. Davis captured thousands of images of copepods, a food source for cod and haddock larvae, and even right whales. Putting a computer model to work, the GLOBEC team found that decreased salinity led to an earlier spring bloom of phytoplankton, the main food source for copepods.

The result was a three-fold increase in copepod populations on Georges Bank from 1995 to 1999. Longer term data sets revealed that the water in the 1990s was more fresh and had more copepods than the 1980s.

Pointing to the 2003 haddock harvest, the best year for that fishery since 1963, Dr. Davis said the changes can initially be a good thing for fish. An earlier spring bloom of phytoplankton means that copecods have more food. Higher concentrations of copepods will allow the infant cod and haddock to grow faster, and thus have better survival rates.

However, not all copecods are created equal, Dr. Davis said. There are two types living in the western North Atlantic: one cold-water species, and one tropical species. The warm-water copepod, Centropages typicus, swims too fast for the larval fish to catch.

Already, Dr. Davis said, these copepod populations have doubled in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, off New York and New Jersey, since 1977.

“Potentially, cod and haddock larvae won’t have anything to eat,” said Dr. Davis, speaking at a Marine Biological Laboratory Ecosystems Center seminar last week.

“Even with best management practices, if the projected warming trend happens in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, cod and haddock could be gone by 2080.”

Worst-case scenarios

Dr. Davis based his models on a medium prediction of climate change, established by an International Panel on Climate Change scenario that includes a mix of fossil fuel and renewable energy to drive the economy. If Artic melting occurs more rapidly than the predictions—which has already been the case—Dr. Davis said that the effects on fisheries could be worse.

“As more melting occurs, the nutrients on the surface sink, leading to a decrease in productivity. In addition, a climate pattern, called the North Atlantic Oscillation, affects how deep Labrador Sea water flows southward to New York, bringing in colder, low salinity water with lower nutrients,” Dr. Davis said.

Further research will be needed to study the consequences of this ecosystem shift, and other effects of climate change, on other commercially important species, including adult cod, haddock, scallops, and lobsters.