www.workingwaterfront.com . November 2020
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‘V’ FOR VICTORY— This image shows a ship launching in Portland in 1942. Bearing the huge Allied “V” for victory, Ocean Gallant, a cargo carrier built for Britain under the lend-lease program, is shown being towed out to sea. The ship was christened by Mrs. Peter V.O. Evans, wife of the director of the British Ministry of Shipping. The photo is attributed to Albert Freeman.
Op-Ed
Another way to understand the Gulf of Maine Warming waters outside the region is part of the story By Steve Kasprzak The article in the October 2020 issue of The Working Waterfront, “Warm current feeding Gulf of Maine outpacing cold,” quoted Carla Guenther, chief scientist with the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington, on why the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 98 percent of the world’s oceans. This statistic is, I believe, misleading, since the remaining 2 percent of warmer ocean water is located north of the Gulf in Hudson Bay in east-central Canada and the Arctic Ocean. The surface areas of Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean are 13 and 150 times larger, respectively, than the gulf. These bodies of water are warming at least twice as fast as the Gulf of Maine, and their warmer waters flow directly into the Labrador Current. Guenther used the analogy that the Gulf of Maine is impacted by a cold-water tap, specifically the Labrador Current, and a hot-water tap, the Gulf Stream. She hypothesized “We have conditions drawing from the hot-water tap more than the cold-water tap.” Guenther added: “The latest ecosystem report from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., says the gulf is seeing proportionately more hot water than cold water over the last five years. It’s not that we have a burner on in the gulf. It’s that the sources of water are changing.” Yes, the sources of water are changing, since the temperature of this cold-water tap has not only been warmed, but its flow is also reduced by Canadian and Island Institute Board of Trustees
Emily B. Lane, Chair Tom Tinsley Vice Chair Charles Owen Verrill, Jr. Secretary Douglas Henderson, Treasurer, Finance Chair Donna Wiegle, Programs Chair Kristin Howard, Philanthropy Chair Bryan Lewis, Governance Chair Michael P. Boyd, Clerk Sebastian Belle Shey Conover David Cousens Megan McGinnis Dayton Michael Felton Nathan Johnson Michael Sant Barbara Kinney Sweet Katherine Vogt Carol White John Bird (honorary) Louis W. Cabot (honorary)
Russian mega hydroelectric reservoir dams hoarding the spring run-off. Russia openly admits to using heat pollution from the long-term storage of spring run-off in colossal hydroelectric reservoir dams built on its Siberia Rivers, for its own benefit. These reservoirs represent enormous, man-made heat sinks, used to fulfill a national strategy of an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the summer. The strategy has been extremely successful. Russia declared the Northwest Sea Passage from Europe to Asia was free of ice on July 15, almost five weeks earlier than in 2019. Russian author P. M. Borisov wrote the following in his 1973 book, Can Man Change The Climate?: “The north of the Atlantic Basin may be compared to a bathtub into which cold water is poured from two taps (the Labrador and East Greenland currents) and warm water (the Gulf Stream) through one. By regulating the taps we can change the thermal balance of the Atlantic and with it the climate of the surrounding continents. “The recognition of the important role of the ocean currents in forming the climate has determined regional improvements of the climatic regime since the end of the last century by changing the direction of the warm and cold currents. At the same time, extensive hydro technical measures have been devised to regulate and transfer the river run-off.” As I documented in my recently published book Blue Deserts, heat pollution from these mega hydroelectric reservoirs has changed the albedo, or
reflective power of the downstream estuaries and coastal seas, from ice and snow cover to open water. Sea water is now absorbing 90 percent of the sun’s energy, instead of it being reflected away by snow and ice surfaces. These much warmer Arctic waters eventually flow into the Labrador Current. Further compounding the warming of the Labrador Current is warmer waters flowing directly from Hudson Bay through Hudson Strait and into the Labrador Current. Margaret Munro of Postmedia News, quoted John Smol, an environmental scientist, in “Scientists sounding alarm as Hudson Bay area thaws,” in the Oct. 9, 2013 edition of the Edmonton Journal: “The study says the change is ‘unprecedented in the past approximately 1,500 years,’” based on analysis of sediments in the region. “Smol says there are plenty of other signs of the remarkable shift underway in the region, including fish kills caused by heat stress, dropping water levels and three weeks less ice cover on Hudson Bay than there was prior to 1995.” Given the research I have uncovered and examined, I am convinced of the cause and effect between mega hydroelectric reservoir dams and the rapid warming of the sea, air, and land surrounding and downstream of these industrial complexes, contributing to the negative impact on fisheries. Stephen M. Kasprzak lives in Cape Porpoise. His book Blue Deserts was published this year by Tall Pine Publishing.
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