Pacific ocean "Dead Zone" may be forever

An oxygen-depleted "dead zone" the size of New Jersey (well, figures!) is starving sea life near the coast of Oregon and Washington. The phenomenon will probably recur annually, and is caused by climate change, according to Jack Barth, an oceanography professor at Oregon State University. The news coincides with the release of this National Science Foundation briefing about the increasing occurrences of these "dead zones" around the world.

Pacific Ocean 'dead zone' in Northwest may be irreversible (LA Times)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Antinous / Moderator

Did anyone want to say anything about the topic of the post?

…crickets…
- Xopher
  
  See what I meant? A two-word rude side comment is enough to derail the entire discussion.
desiredusername

Have at it. http://www.scorecard.org/index.tcl
Bel

I suppose you think you’re cute or maybe even a comedian with the New Jersey diss — as soon as I read your NJ remark I wasn’t going to read the article — then realized, the diss was just someone being stupid and is not part of the original LA Times article which actually is an intelligent and informative read. You really ought to keep your comedian act for something that might bring laughter, and know that if you really want to reach the public w/informative info that dissing is a turn-off. Thanks for the article which was printed by LA Times — excellent reporting LA Times!
eagleapex

-1 for busting on NJ :P
huntsu

Why diss New Jersey?

Pine Barrens: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=nj%20pinelands

Delaware Water Gap: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=nj+delaware+water+gap

Great Swamp: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=great+swamp+nj

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&sa=1&q=cape+may
desiredusername

We just need some genetically engineered anaerobic fish, or a giant aquarium bubbler.
Kibble

Meanwhile I read in The Week last week that the Mafia has sunk dozens of ships loaded with nuclear waste in the Mediterranean.

Enjoy the party, boys and girls, because it’s nighty-night time pretty soon.
- IWood
  
  You read that, didya? Pretty smart, huh? Readin’ like that alla time. You should oughta watch what you read, else you might win a free cruise, capische?
Lauchlin

Wow. People from New Jersey are defensive.
- Xopher
  
  If every godsdamned comedian dissed your state for things that aren’t even true, you’d be pretty sensitive too. And while I’ve learned to ignore it from the average dolt-grade jerk on the street, I expect more from Xeni (of all people).
  
  This is so common that you can buy a t-shirt in NJ with an outline of the state and “New Jersey – Don’t Worry, We Hate You Too” on it. I do not own one, but it shows how much shit my state gets.
Ito Kagehisa

I’m from New Jersey
I don’t expect too much
If the world ended today
I would adjust

I’m from New Jersey
No I don’t talk that way
I watched too much TV
When I was young

I’m from New Jersey
My mom’s Italian
I’ve read those mafia books
We don’t belong

There are girls from New Jersey
Who have that great big hair
They’re found in shopping malls
I will take you there

I’m from New Jersey
It’s not like Texas
There is no mystery
I can’t pretend

I’m from New Jersey
It’s like Ohio
But even more so
Imagine that

I know which exit
And where I’m bound
The tolls on the parkway
They will slow you down

New Jersey people
They will suprise you
Cause they’re not expected
To do too much

They will try harder
They may go further
Cause they never think
That they are good enough

I’m from New Jersey
I don’t expect too much
If the world ended today
I would adjust
I would adjust
I would adjust

–John Gorka

(OK, I’m not actually from Jersey, but it’s less than five miles from where I’m sitting right now)
Ian70

Yeah lady, seriously.. completely unnecessary dig. thought you were bigger than that, was evidently wrong.

Tarnished.
farleymac

Hey Xeni, I lost a girlfriend once because I ragged on New Jersey. From then on I always made it a point to find out early where they were from.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Having done your reconnaissance, did you stop insulting NJ or just stop dating Jersey girls?
farleymac

Oh, it was much easier to stop insulting NJ.
Xopher

Hey, Xeni, I have some more news for you. Here in New Jersey we hear that there’s a vast cultural dead zone the size of California on the West Coast of the United States. By a curious coincidence it’s also exactly the shape of California.

Oh, wait…that’s not a coincidence.

Seriously, not for nothing is New Jersey called the Garden State. Come here during tomato season sometime and try our tomatos; you’ll be stunned by the richness of their flavor. I’ve sampled California tomatos in California (that is, not the shipped-green-and-gas-ripened ones); they don’t compare.

And LA has much worse air pollution than Newark, speaking of oxygen depletion.
Xopher

See, this post is on an interesting and important topic, from which I was completely distracted by the gratuitous rudeness against the state where I’ve spent my entire adult life.
desiredusername

NJ beat CA in number of superfund sites,
116 to 98. http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/land/rank-states.tcl

Can we talk about the dead zones now?
- Xopher
  
  Wow, what a fortuitous loss of internet connectivity. I was about to tell you to fck ff nd d, and by the time my connectivity came back I realized that while you WERE being kind of jerky even now, you weren’t being as much of a total jackhole as I thought.
  
  By all means, talk about whatever you want.
  - desiredusername
    
    Whew that’s a relief! I would have been devastated if you had typed that.
    
    But seriously, in full disclosure you fired shots at “California”, which is my home state and the state I live in. I don’t know why you thought insulting California was a good way to protest a blogger insulting one’s home state but that was the choice you made. So I pushed your button to see a little further, if you were hardwired to a self-destruct button.
    
    I’m still not sure why you brought me into this lame debate by using California but you didn’t explode, you just rattled your sabre at me, which in internet terms is meaningless so I guess while trying to insult another state is stupid your aggressive text is not in the anger-management-candidate context that I had intonated it with. So everything is essentially okay.
    - Xopher
      
      LOL OK! Xeni lives in California IIRC, that’s why I went after it. Just a “turn the tables” kind of thing. Actually that does seem kind of stupid in retrospect, especially since she doesn’t appear to have bothered to read the comments here (or at any rate to respond to any of them).
      
      I probably should have said “Xeni, why do you have to insert a gratuitous slam on my home state into an otherwise interesting and important post?” and left it at that. Your points are well taken; I will try to do better in the future.
Moriarty

Aw man, you’ve pissed off New Jersey. Those guys are worse than Welshmen!
- Xopher
  
  Let’s see, twll d’un bob…what’s Welsh for “Californians”?
  - Moriarty
    
    what’s Welsh for “Californians”?
    
    Just let your cat walk across the keyboard.
    
    Oh no I didn’t!
    - Xopher
      
      *calls Sherlock Holmes*
      
      *makes backup plan involving New Jersey farmers, pitchforks, and torches*
TIMEBURN

wow. that’s refreshing. I was coming here to harp on Xeni for the Jersey comment, but so many people beat me to it. It was refreshing to hear so many people defend the state I love (and left). It’s the path more traveled for Xeni and it would have been better had she trod the unknown like she normally does…shame, shame.
holtt

Antinous, I actually spent many a month at sea with Dr. Barth and others off the US west coast and other areas around the world. I respect his work and his opinions, plus those of Doctor’s Kosro, Huyer, Smith and others for all the work they’ve done over the years to help us understand the complexity of the sea.

Its really quite an astonishing thing to go to sea and leave the view of land behind. At first, it is a bit like traveling through space, where each day you go quite far, yet what you see around you is all the same. You don’t know if you’re in the same place you were yesterday, or many miles away.

But then you begin to look at it with different senses. You sense the water temperature is different as the deck is awash while deploying a sensor package. You enter an area where luminescent jelly fish light up in the ships wake for miles. The stars that rise and set each day are different as you travel farther north or south. The porpoises being to leap and play about the ship or an albatross follows you for miles tells you you’re in a new place that is not like the one you were in before.

And then there are the technical senses – where via computer you are observing the ocean’s temperature as you go, or the currents – not just at the surface, but 10′s or 100′s of meters down. Or measuring the fluorescence of the water, the salinity, oxygen concentrations and more. You send a sensor package down thousands of meters and collect water samples along the way, and bottle them up for further processing at some later time. And you see that it is not the same at the surface as it is at 5 meters, 50, 500 or 5000.

The sea may seem vast and featureless, but it is not. Not if you can listen to the ancient senses and the new artificial senses. It may be 3 AM and many miles off shore with no land or light in site, but you know you’re crossing the mouth of the great Columbia River when you see the salinity levels suddenly begin to dip, and the river’s current nudges the ship off course ever so slightly. You may have finally had a full night’s rest, but your ears and eyes and the slap of the waves against the hull as you lie below tell you that you are now in-shore and nearer to land than you have been in weeks.

Not only are you seeing that the sea is both broad, but it is deep as well. That sensor package you send down brings back a lashed on styrofoam cup that’s been crushed by the pressure until it’s no more than a thimble in size. The winch that brings in that sensor package from such depths seems to run forever, like reeling in a fish from a mile beneath the sea. And the faint echo off the bottom from the bathymetric’s ping reaches you after many seconds – like counting the seconds after the lightning’s flash to know how many miles away the strike was, or in this case how deep the sea is. To tread water during a swim call, and realize that the bottom is miles below you is truly and odd sensation.

And yet for all that sense of vastness, the sea is finite. When you stand on the shore and look out to sea, you may think it infinite, but it is not. You only need to look at all the natural and human detritus washed ashore to know there is much more out there. The ocean is not as the vast reaches of space and the infinite spread of the stars as you look out at night.

It is finite.

The ocean is finite.

And just as it is ever changing by it’s own nature, it’s changing by other means as well – changing by our own hands and our own actions.

We need to pay attention to that.
- Pharmakos
  
  That was fascinating and beautiful, holtt. Thank you.
dancentury

I live along the Jersey shore, and we get dolphins, a million sea gulls and terns, and plenty of fish. If Xeni wants to come to Jersey, I’ll prove it to her.

All things considered, Washington must be dumping nuclear waste into the water for it to be cleaner than Jersey.
holtt

Well thank god you two took care of your little crisis. We’re all so relieved now!
Xopher

A fig on thee, holtt.
Anonymous

Thanks for the Xeni–I’ll point out that New Jersey has some of the most impressive greenery in the country.
Anonymous

I hate how everyone always judges Jersey from the just seeing the turnpike. I live on a 53 acre piece of property in north west Jersey and seeing the colors this time of the year is nothing short of spectacular.

And Dancecentury is completely right. I have been to Ocean City, MD, Myrtle Beach, and plenty of other popular Atlantic coast vacation spots and the wildlife and cleanliness is nothing compared to most of the beaches in New Jersey.

So come and see for yourself, I guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised.
norskamerikansk

Oh yea, check out this natural wonderland I found following huntsu’s links: http://www.nj.gov/dobi/pinelands/photos/heritagepoint1.jpg

Supersizeme McMansions and the commute to nowhere is a problem in NJ, CA, Or, Mi, and every other state in the “oxygen dead zone” of the american brain.
- Xopher
  
  Given the oxygen dead zone in your head (aka “your brain”), I’m amazed you can even type your insulting comments. I recommend you boil your head at once to disinfect it and permit the installation of a functional brain.