Antartica is warming, not cooling: study

ROTHERA BASE, Antarctica (Reuters) - Antarctica is getting warmer rather than cooling as widely believed, according to a study that fits the icy continent into a trend of global warming.
A review by U.S. scientists of satellite and weather records for Antarctica, which contains 90 percent of the world's ice and would raise world sea levels if it thaws, showed that freezing temperatures had risen by about 0.5 Celsius (0.8 Fahrenheit) since the 1950s.

"The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling and that's not the case," said Eric Steig of the University of Washington in Seattle, lead author of the study in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature. The average temperature rise was "very comparable to the global average," he told a telephone news briefing.

Skeptics about man-made global warming have in the past used reports of a cooling of Antarctica as evidence to back their view that warming is a myth. Cooling at places such as the South Pole and an expansion of winter sea ice around Antarctica had masked the overall warming over a continent bigger than the United States where average year-round temperatures are about -50 Celsius (-58.00F).

The scientists wrote that the Antarctic warming was "difficult to explain" without linking it to manmade emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels.
Until now, scientists have generally reckoned that warming has been restricted to the Antarctic Peninsula beneath South America, where Britain's Rothera research station is sited.
Temperatures at Rothera on Wednesday were 2.6 C (36.68F).

WEST ANTARCTICA
"The area of warming is much larger than the region of the Antarctic Peninsula," they wrote, adding that it extended across the whole of West Antarctica to the south.
Rising temperatures in the west were partly offset by an autumn cooling in East Antarctica. "The continent-wide near surface average is positive," the study said. Antarctica's ice contains enough frozen water to raise world sea levels by 57 meters (187 ft), so even a tiny amount of melting could threaten Pacific island states or coastal cities from Beijing to London.
West Antarctica "will eventually melt if warming like this continues," said Drew Shindell, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who was one of the authors. A 3 Celsius (5.4 F) rise could trigger a wide melt of West Antarctica, he said.

Greenland is also vulnerable. Together, Greenland and West Antarctica hold enough ice to raise sea levels by 14 meters. "Even losing a fraction of both would cause a few meters this century, with disastrous consequences," said Barry Brook, director of climate change research at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Ten ice sheets on the Antarctic Peninsula have receded or collapsed since the 1990s. The Wilkins sheet is poised to break up, held in place by a sliver of ice 500 meters (1,640 ft) wide compared to 100 km in the 1950s. Other scientists said that the study did not fully account for shifts such as a thinning of ice sheets in West Antarctica. "This warming is not enough to explain these changes," said David Vaughan, a glaciologist for the British Antarctic Survey at Rothera, by an iceberg-strewn bay. He said the thinning was probably linked to shifts in the oceans.

The Nature study compared temperatures measured by satellites in the past 25 years with 50-year records from 42 Antarctic weather stations, mostly on the coast. Scientists then deduced temperatures back 50 years.

http://green.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090121/sc_nm/us_antarctica_warming.html

EU bluefin tuna fishing ban for Mediterranean

A ban on fishing for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic has been announced by the EU for large industrial vessels after widespread evidence of illegal fishing.
EU to act on bluefin over-fishing
France forced to stop illegal drift net fishing
Tuna fishing ban for South Pacific zones
The closure of the season for purse-seine vessels which catch 70 per cent of the bluefin in the Mediterranean had been planned for July 1 but the European Commission said that the end of the fishing season was being brought forward because of EU vessels' repeated failure to comply with the rules.
Earlier this week the environmental group, Oceana, documented the use of spotter planes, which are banned, being used to round up some of the last of a breeding population which scientists say is in danger of being wiped out.
The Commission announced the closure of the bluefin tuna fishery on June 16 for the purse seine fleets of France, Italy, Cyprus, Malta and Greece, which supply the cages or "farms" in which tuna are kept before being exported, mainly to the Japanese market. The closure for the six vessels that make up the Spanish fleet will be delayed until June 23.
From these dates, it will be prohibited to retain on board, place in cages for fattening or farming, tranship, transfer or land bluefin tuna caught by these vessels.
Xavier Pastor, executive director of the organisation on board Oceana's MarViva Med vessel currently in waters around Malta, said: "This closure is necessary and urgent, as is curbing the production from the bluefin tuna fattening cages that are spread all across the Mediterranean and using tuna below the minimum legal size.
"We congratulate the Commission for adopting this measure. However, we are not sure that it will be totally respected. We will be observing these fleets very closely in order to denounce any kind of illegal fishing activity and to protect this threatened species."
Oceana is calling for the creation of a bluefin tuna marine sanctuary around the Balearic islands in the area where the bluefin breed.
Aaron McLoughlin of WWF said: "We believe this out-of-control fishery should never have been allowed to open this year at all.
"Overfishing and massive illegal catches threaten the survival of bluefin tuna. Fishing should be banned indefinitely at least during June, the key spawning month for Mediterranean bluefin tuna."
A meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT, the organisation mandated to manage this fishery) takes place in November.
Conservation organisations are calling for an overhaul of the rules which currently allow the catching of three times more tuna than scientists say should be caught if the species is to survive.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/charlesclover/3344381/EU-bluefin-tuna-fishing-ban-for-Mediterranean.html

Blue fin tuna banned

ROME (Reuters) - An influential global network of governments, scientists and conservationists has called for a ban on fishing for the Mediterranean bluefin tuna, a highly prized species which is threatened with extinction.

Members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) passed a resolution which urges a total ban on fishing the species and for the creation of a sanctuary for bluefin tuna around Spain's Balearic islands.

Although non-binding, the motion passed late Monday will strengthen the hand of parties seeking tough new rules on tuna fishing at a meeting next month of the global body which overseas the industry, the Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna.

"Common sense is now promising to bring an end to the real shame in the international system of fisheries management," said Sergi Tudela of WWF (formerly the World Wild Fund for Nature) who welcomed the result of the vote at a IUCN congress in Barcelona. "The message that we need to close the fishery now or have few fish and no fishery into the future is now coming from scientists, from consumers, from communities and from countries," Tudela said.

Bluefin tuna are known for their huge size, power and speed, with maximum weights recorded in excess of 600 kg (1,300 lb). Since last year, market prices for the delicacy have tripled: in Japan a single fish can cost up to $100,000. The fish are prized as a delicacy, especially in sushi and sashimi dishes where cuts are often known as toro or maguro.

The European Unions shortened this year's hunting season to try to protect the species but WWF says many tuna are fished illegally, bypassing hunting and quota rules.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews