Our empty oceans: Scots team's research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out in catastrophic loss of life

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[–]makesyoudownvote 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Any chance you have a link to that?

Do you mean the Continuous Plankton Recorder? If so, as far as I can tell they have no data past 2014 and a huge gap in data from 1982-2009.

[–]iamonlyoneman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

fair enough. here's a paper covering the gap with ...drumroll... no decline https://academic.oup.com/plankt/article/34/1/83/1474154?login=false#aff-1

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Your reading comprehension is faulty. I quote from the paper's abstract:

"Conversely in the North Sea there has been an overall reduction in abundance."

Pretty dishonest of you to describe a paper that found decline as "no decline".

Out of five taxon of tintinnid, they found two taxon had little or no change in abundance, one had increased in abundance, and two had declined. As far as total abundance, they found a drastic drop in tintinnid numbers around the UK since 2003.

It is true that in other areas, they also found an increase in abundance of some taxons, but the point is that it is dishonest to describe it as "no decline". Some areas, and species, are declining; others are not. Some are blooming earlier in the year as waters warm; others are not.

CC /u/makesyoudownvote

[–]makesyoudownvote 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks for that. Is there any data past 2009 though?

This study is published in 2011 but only analyzes data up to 2009.

Again, I am not personally doubting you or anything, I am just anticipating dismissal from anyone I show this to and I know that would be the first thing they would go for.

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It was found on a quick googling tbqhwy. Data from the beginning to a handful of years ago being "green lights across the board" and then all of a sudden some nobody with a handful of samples from a limited area, backed by ecoterrorists, claims it's all "red lights flashing". It doesn't pass the smell test.

People who disagree will shit on the idea of reading Watts or his allies, the climate heretical people like May, but those who can look past a source at the story will find some reason for hope here https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/15/the-phytoplankton-decline-is-there-anything-to-it/

my favorite bit of that treatise encapsulates the idea nicely:

They also found that the bias was much higher in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere and that the pattern of the bias matched the pattern of the decline reported by Boyce, et al

GIGO, no cause for alarm. continue trying to be a good steward and fail to catch the panic from the latest 'red lights flashing' stories.