The jellyfish are here- a bad sign.

"...while jellyfish invasions are a nuisance to tourists and a hardship to fishermen, for scientists they are a source of more profound alarm, a signal of the declining health of the world’s oceans.

The explosion of jellyfish populations, scientists say, reflects a combination of severe overfishing of natural predators, like tuna, sharks and swordfish; rising sea temperatures caused in part by global warming; and pollution that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows.

...Within the past year, there have been beach closings because of jellyfish swarms on the Côte d’Azur in France, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and at Waikiki and Virginia Beach in the United States. " LINK

Jellyfish taking over the oceans.

"There are about six and a half billion of us on this planet, whereas a fluther of jellyfish (collective-noun aficionados also accept a "smack") measuring just 10 square miles to a depth of 11 metres that wiped out a Northern Ireland salmon farm last year was said by marine scientists to have contained "billions" of mauve stinger jellyfish.

...Traditionally, jellyfish plagues have only been a concern once every decade or so. Many are now blaming their increasing frequency on climate change.

...Back on shore, rats, slugs and snails, foxes, mosquitoes, wasps, cockroaches, rabbits and pigeons are already enjoying our warming climate. Shrewsbury and Atcham borough council said last year that complaints about rats had doubled in just 12 months and its chief rat catcher said climate change was partly to blame." LINK

And it's all happening so much faster than predicted.

Aye yah, this is sad and scary. The ocean acidification that was supposed to begin affecting us in, oh, 50+ years- well, it's happening now. Faster and stronger and new and improved and probably lemon-scented, 'cuz that's the American way.

"Climate models predicted it wouldn't happen until the end of the century.
So a team led by Seattle researchers was stunned to discover that vast swaths of acidified seawater already are showing up along the Pacific Coast as greenhouse-gas emissions upset the oceans' chemical balance.
"What we found ... was truly astonishing," said oceanographer Richard Feely, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. "This means ocean acidification may be seriously impacting marine life on the continental shelf right now."
All along the coast, the scientists found regions where the water was acidic enough to dissolve the shells and skeletons of clams, corals and many of the tiny creatures at the base of the marine food chain. Acidified water also can kill fish eggs and a wide range of marine larvae.
"Entire marine ecosystems are likely to be affected," said co-author Debby Ianson, an oceanographer at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Climate scientist Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, said the finding underscores the limitations of computer models.
"This is another example where what's happening in the natural world seems to be happening much faster than what our climate models predict," he said.
And there's worse to come, the scientists warn.
A network of currents shuffles ocean water around the globe. The acidified water upwelling along the coast today was last exposed to the atmosphere about 50 years ago, when carbon-dioxide levels were much lower than they are now. That means the water that will rise from the depths over the coming decades will have absorbed more carbon dioxide and will be even more acidic.
"We've got 50 years worth of water that's already left the station and is on its way to us," Hales said. "Each one of those years is going to be a little bit more corrosive than the one before."" LINK

Humans messing up the ocean even more than you thought.

"...Human activity seemed nothing when set against the sea itself.

Just a few weeks later, on an uninhabited island in a remote part of the Red Sea, I was proved wrong. The shore above the tide line was covered with old light bulbs, apparently tossed from the endless parade of ships over the years.

About 40 percent of ocean areas are strongly affected, and just 4 percent pristine, according to the review.

The most widespread human fingerprint is a slow drop in the pH of surface waters around the world as a portion of the billions of tons of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere from fuel and forest burning each year is absorbed in water, where it forms carbonic acid.

“I study this stuff all the time and didn’t expect the impacts to be as pervasive as we found,” Dr. Halpern said. " LINK

Great Barrier Reef- headed out. 20 years, maybe. We live in sad times, dude.

"Australia's Great Barrier Reef could be "functionally extinct" within decades, warns a leaked portion of a major United Nations report on climate change.
It warns warmer, more acidic seas could severely bleach coral in the world-famous reef as early as 2030. " LINK

This warming and acidifying is covered wonderfully in the LA Times MUST READ series, Altered Oceans. Part 5 of the series covers acidification and the impact of that, but the entire series is wonderfully done. Read this if you read nothing else ever.

"A chapter on Australia in the report on global impacts warns that coral bleaching in the Barrier Reef is likely to become an annual occurrence by as early as 2030 due to warmer, more acidic seas.
Bleaching occurs when the plant-like organisms that make up coral die and leave behind the white limestone skeleton of the reef.
The World Heritage site, stretching over more than 345,000 square kilometers (133,000 sq miles) off Australia's northeast coast, will become "functionally extinct", the scientists are quoted as saying. " LINK
additional LINK to another article