by Bob Berwyn, via Summit County Citizens Voice

Federal ocean scientists said this year’s sea surface temperatures along the northeast coast of the U.S. set all-time records, with as-yet unknown consequences for marine ecosystems.

Above-average temperatures were found in all parts of the ecosystem, from the ocean bottom to the sea surface and across the region, and the above average temperatures extended beyond the shelf break front to the Gulf Stream, according to an ecosystem advisory issued by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

The warm waters led to the earliest, most intense and longest-lasting plankton bloom on record, with  implications for marine life, from the smallest creatures to the largest marine mammals like whales. Atlantic cod continued to shift northeastward from its historic distribution center.

“A pronounced warming event occurred on the Northeast Shelf this spring, and this will have a profound impact throughout the ecosystem,” said Kevin Friedland, a scientist in the NEFSC’s Ecosystem Assessment Program. “Changes in ocean temperatures and the timing of the spring plankton bloom could affect the biological clocks of many marine species, which spawn at specific times of the year based on environmental cues like water temperature.”

Friedland said the average sea surface temperature exceeded 51 degrees during the first half of 2012, topping the previous record high set in 1951.The average sea surface temperature the past three decades has ranged around 48 degrees.

Temperatures climbed even higher than that in some near-shore locations like Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay, where sea surface temperature readings were more than 6 degrees above historical average and more than 5 degrees above average at the seafloor.

In deeper offshore waters to the north, bottom waters were 2 degrees warmer in the eastern Gulf of Maine and more than 3.6 degrees warmer in the western Gulf of Maine.

This year’s record-high ocean temperatures are a spike in a long-term trend that is push many commercial fish farther north and east in a response to ecosystem warming.

A 2009 study of data from 1968 to 2007 found that about half of the 36 fish stocks studied in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean have been shifting northward over the past four decades, with some disappearing from US waters as they move farther offshore.

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by Amanda Peterson, via Climate Access

School is back in session for high schools all across the country and the one thing on every student’s mind is, of course, climate change. OK, maybe in most schools who’s dating whom, getting into college and the elections are getting a bit more play.  But as we, the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE), start back up, we’re getting climate change to top of mind, too.

Since 2009, we’ve been working with high schoolers – with an assembly, student action programs and leadership trainings – in climate science and solutions. We’ve reached more than a million high schoolers and seen the first of this generation of leaders step up to tackle some issues that people twice their age are intimidated by.

But since I’ve started at ACE, I’ve heard the question: “Why high schoolers?” or “Can we really wait for high school students to become tomorrow’s leaders, given the window of opportunity on climate change?” more than I ever would have expected.

Sometimes, I cite statistics on how influential high schoolers are on their peers, their family decisions and their schools.

Sometimes, I show videos of students we’ve worked with speaking at Power Shift, taking meetings at the White House, speaking at school board meetings and state assemblies about local environmental issues.

And sometimes I even show the findings that most high school students would fail a test on basic climate science without ACE.

Why we focus on high schoolers is simple.

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