Ocean temperatures around Nova Scotia strike record highs: DFO report

Ocean temperatures in the Scotian Shelf and a Gulf of St. Lawrence reached record or near-record highs in 2016, according to a Fisheries and Oceans Canada news on Atlantic Canada’s sea ecosystem.

Federal fisheries scientist Dave Hebert said temperatures on Nova Scotia’s Scotian Shelf were adult by 2 or 3 C in some places.

“Most were good above normal. Some were record highs,” pronounced Hebert, who works out of a Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax.

One of those annals was set final October, 32 kilometres off Halifax where a sea bottom exceeded 11 C.

Dave Hebert is a investigate scientist during a Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax. (CBC)

He pronounced a normal sea heat for the Scotian Shelf in 2016 was a second top on record in 47 years, with 2012 being a highest.

The Gulf of St. Lawrence set a 102-year record for heat in low H2O with a abyss of 200 to 300 metres.

“This is some-more concerning than a variations of heat on a aspect of a water,” pronounced Peter Galbraith, a researcher during a Maurice Lamontagne federal fisheries institute in Mont-Joli, Que.

He said this is since these low H2O temperatures have not been seen before, it’s not famous what a impact will be.

Newfoundland bucks a trend

In Newfoundland and Labrador, sea temperatures were normal or only above normal.

Elsewhere, aloft sea temperatures in a Bay of Fundy, Scotian Shelf and a Gulf of St. Lawrence are partial of an ceiling trend that started progressing in a decade.

The warming H2O coincides with a change in where zooplankton are residing. Known as copepods, this food source is eaten by a involved North Atlantic right whale.

More of a whales are relocating from their normal Canadian feeding drift in a Roseway Basin off southern Nova Scotia and a Bay of Fundy in hunt of food.

Since June, during slightest 10 North Atlantic right whales have died in a Gulf of St. Lawrence. (Marine Animal Response Society)

“Those zooplankton are now in a Gulf of St. Lawrence. That’s substantially a reason a whales are going to where they are going since a temperatures aren’t utterly as comfortable as they are in a Scotian Shelf,” said Hebert.

The doubt is either a zooplankton are heading a whales into a shipping line super highway.

Since June, during slightest 10 right whales have been found passed in a gulf. Several deaths have been attributed to boat collisions or fishing rigging entanglements.

The sovereign supervision responded by commanding a speed limit and temporarily shutting some fishing grounds.

What about 2017?

Hebert said readings taken this open showed temperatures returning to normal on a Scotian Shelf. He said it also happened in 2016, before a conflict of aloft temperatures after in a year.

The deeper H2O Bedford Basin inside Halifax Harbour is deliberate a substitute for what happens off a Scotian Shelf. In July, a Bedford Basin heat during 10 metres was 16 C, good above normal variability.

“It only routinely gets adult to 12 C. That’s utterly warm,” said Hebert.

Still, Hebert is not prepared to censure warmer H2O on meridian change. Ocean temperatures can change over a decades, he said.

Better information entrance soon

Ocean temperatures are collected several times a year in surveys as partial of a monitoring program.

Thanks to an distillate of income from a sovereign government, Fisheries and Oceans Canada will shortly accept sea temperatures and most some-more information on a continual basis.

The dialect is in a routine of deploying adult to eight new gliders — costing about $250,000 any — into a Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Several of a new gliders are during a Bedford Institute of Oceanography.

Scientists cruise a waters of Bedford Basin inside Halifax gulf a substitute for what happens on a Scotian Shelf. (CBC)

Two of them will be dedicated to collecting sea information from Halifax to a shelf mangle some-more than 120 kilometres off the coast.

“What we have been removing is a snapshot. We don’t know if it’s an anomaly. Now, we we will get real-time information each 6 hours,” said Hebert.

Data from a gliders will also go to Environment Canada to assistance with weather forecasting.

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ocean-temperatures-around-ns-hit-record-highs-says-report-1.4261462?cmp=rss