Walleye and Climate Change→

PHYS,ORG

“According to a new study published Feb. 26 in the journal Limnology and Oceanography Letters, part of the problem is that walleye are creatures of habit, and the seasons—especially winter—are changing so fast that this iconic species of freshwater fish can’t keep up.

The timing of walleye spawning—when the fish mate and lay their eggs—has historically been tied to the thawing of frozen lakes each spring, says the study’s lead author, Martha Barta, a research technician at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Now, due to our changing climate, walleye have been “unable to keep up with increasingly early and more variable ice-off dates,” Barta says.”

Bob Berwyn: Large Lakes in Peril →

Ars Technica:

“Water storage in many of the world’s biggest lakes has declined sharply in the last 30 years, according to a new study, with a cumulative drop of about 21.5 gigatons per year, an amount equal to the annual water consumption of the United States.

The loss of water in natural lakes can “largely be attributed to climate warming,” a team of scientists said as they published research today in Science that analyzed satellite data from 1,980 lakes and reservoirs between 1992 and 2020. When they combined the satellite images with climate data and hydrological models, they found “significant storage declines” in more than half of the bodies of water.

The combination of information from different sources also enabled the scientists to determine if the declines are related to climate factors, like increased evaporation and reduced river flows, or other impacts, including water diversions for agriculture or cities. A quarter of the world’s population lives in basins where lakes are drying up, they warned.”

Michael Thomas: Hopeful Climate Stories of 2022→

Distilled:

“For many climate advocates, 2022 was a year that brought hope. After decades of failed efforts, the United States finally passed a climate bill. And not just any climate bill. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) may be the biggest climate bill in history.

But the federal climate bill wasn’t the only sign of climate progress in 2022. Leaders around the world took significant action this year. Meanwhile, investment in key climate solutions like electric vehicles, offshore wind, and heat pumps grew faster than ever before.”

Ian Rose: Restaurant Menus and Climate Change→

The Atlantic:

City of Vancouver Archives

“In a new study, a team from the University of British Columbia (UBC) shows one unexpected way that climate effects are already manifesting in our daily lives. To find it, they looked not at thermometers or ice cores, but at restaurant menus.

“With a menu, you have a physical and digital record that you can compare over time,” explains William Cheung, a fisheries biologist at UBC and one of the study’s authors. Cheung has spent his career studying climate change and its effects on the world’s oceans. He has contributed to several of the landmark reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but along with John-Paul Ng, an undergraduate student at UBC, he wanted to find a different way to both study and communicate those changes...

Using their records, the scientists created an index called the Mean Temperature of Restaurant Seafood (MTRS), which reflects the water temperature at which the species on the menu like to live. Predictably, they found that the MTRS of Los Angeles was higher than that of Anchorage, with Vancouver falling in the middle. But by analyzing how the MTRS for Vancouver has changed over time, they found a significant trend of warmer-water species becoming more common on restaurant menus. In the 1880s, the MTRS for Vancouver was roughly 10.7 degrees Celsius. Now it is 13.8 degrees Celsius.”