The Oceans Are Changing - Let's Document It

[Davide DB]

The photo attached to the introduction of @Rune Edvin Haldorsen breaks my heart and simultaneously reminds me how important the work of image-makers is.

"A picture is worth a thousand words" is an adage in several languages that means that complex and sometimes multiple ideas can be conveyed by a single still image, which conveys their meaning or essence more effectively than a simple verbal description." [Wikipedia]

How many words, how many newspaper articles we have read and how many debates we have witnessed. We have realised how difficult it is to communicate what is happening underwater.

The oceans are threatened by pollution, unsustainable fishing, and the destruction and alteration of coastlines and seabeds. These are anthropogenic activities that, reinforced by the rapid warming of its waters, put as much pressure on underwater ecosystems as on land threatening its survival.

Compared to land, underwater the problem is amplified: the lack of past data prevents a correct perception of how environments are changing and there is an objective difficulty in having direct experience of the underwater world. Hence the need to effectively communicate the urgency of preserving underwater ecosystems.

And in my opinion, images are the best way to do this.

[RichN]

Well said Davide.. 🙏

[homodelphinius]

When i see the same images, i couldn;t believe it! How dramatic the same spot change, from colorful stars to muddy algae ..... 

And this timely aligned with a lecture i will give on NYU Abu Dhabi about "Seascapes under siege", where art is part of the way of awareness and shaking the society!

That article is a nice review (scientific) > https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/6422D490CBDB30E9798D4D41AC20FA67/S2754720523000136a.pdf/the-role-of-art-in-coastal-and-marine-sustainability.pdf

[TimG]

Those images were depressing 😔

[Davide DB]

We are in Italy and more precisely in Tuscany, in Porto Ercole. L'Isolotto is a small island (perhaps we should say a large rock) immediately next to the harbour and therefore very popular for bathing, boat trips and diving.
At a depth of 18 metres there was this beautiful wall of red coral (Corallium rubrum). This animal thriving in shade but can (used to) live at these depths because of the turbidity of the water for much of the year.
We avoided advertising this hidden corner to protect it from souvenir hunters and other poachers, but instead the constant heat waves of recent years took care of that.

These three photos taken by Simone Nicolini over the years give a good idea of the scale of the issue.

[bghazzal]

These are important and painful testimonies, thank you for posting these.

What really frightens me is that we seem to be moving from localised causes of damage, to something much broader and uncontrollable.

By this I mean that the radical and rapid changes we are witnessing today are more linked to the climate crisis/"change", than more easily identifiable, direct phenomena like pollution for instance, and this is much more worrying as there is no real easy fix...

In the recent past, culprits were easier to find, direct causes like water pollution of multiple origins, coastal changes (construction, destruction of mangroves and coral reefs for example), overfishing, destructive practices, etc…

These are insidious, often complex causes but can still be acted upon locally.
We’ve seen areas sucessfully rebound with the creation of Marine Protected Areas and similar approaches, including in the Mediterranean, for instance.

However, when we’re dealing with changes in global water temperatures, alterations of major currents, changes in pH, salinity, nutrients etc, this is much more difficult to act upon, because the causes are much deeper,  intrinsically linked to our lifestyles and (over)consumption habits, economies and associated global warming emissions...
 

This is what strikes me when I see Davide’s pictures.

The Mediterranean was very heavily polluted in the past decades, it was really bad at some point and called a "dead" sea, yet a site like this magnificent islet located outside a harbour in Tuscany was still able to make it to 2017.
But now, it’s too much. It’s not so much the pollution anymore, but deeper, more worrying causes...

And we do have a tendency to try to get ourselves off the hook.
Some will try to see the current crisis as part of a natural climate cycle, basing themselves on events which were on radically different timescale, and with different causes.
Others will hope (pray?) for technological solutions which would allow us to carry-on business as usual, or focus on population growth for instance, framing it as the key driver of past, present, and future climate change crisis, and conflating the radical rise in emissions we are witnessing with an increase in the number of people on earth (and thus offering population control as a straightforward solution to our problems).

In reality, while population growth is surely a contributing factor in the climate crisis, the current source of this rise is actually an increase in emissions produced by transportation (airplanes, cars...), industries, buildings etc, emissions which are themselves much more linked to our fossil fuel-dependent economies and our lifestyles than to the actual number of people on earth.

This is what has been called the great carbon divide, where roughly 10 percent of the world’s population contributes 50 percent of annual global warming emissions, meaning lifestyle and (over)consumption habits currently have a much greater impact than overall population numbers.

Of course, if the current fuel-dependent economies and lifestyles of the depopulating global-north are transfered verbatim to the more densely populated global-south, and demand for resources increase along the same lines, this will certainly compound the problem.

But currently, while population growth is a contributing factor - and it's certainly true that the planet can’t support unlimited population growth, especially with current (over)consumption levels - the focus should be on finding solutions where they are currently the most needed (and it's difficult to imagine how the changes required would not be radical and somewhat painful for most of us), solutions which could then be applied globally as the poorer countries transition economically (which is itself often linked to a decrease in birthrates).

There is an overpopulation problem which does / will affect resources, but population decrease is not enough to solve what is currently an overconsumption-based climate crisis, affecting our oceans in ways we've never seen before.

And it’s difficult to know where to start to address this overconsumption-based climate crisis and the effects we are witnessing in our lifetimes - and the latest COP is a clear testimony to the massive difficulties that lie ahead…
 

To return to diving, it’s great to see so many people signing up to Waterpixels who are diving locally.
This is probably the way forward, but it will probably not be a popular concept in a heavily travel-based tourism/leisure industry like ours...

Sorry for the slightly off-topic spin, I'm looking forward to seeing more awareness-raising pictures posted in this thread.
cheers

b

 

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by bghazzal

[homodelphinius]

An ex seagrass meadow, taken care by intensive and continuus anchorage of boats within a marine protected area and a dead noble shell.

A combo of two emblematic species / habitat formers / ecological engineers that we loose day by day.

Even if the seagrass meadows are abundant in Greece and elswhere, locally we have huge issues.

The noble shell / fun mussel - we are among the last that we see it alive, abundant everywhere.

Now only in two locations in Greece and the Sea of Marmara and few spots in Croatia.

What we can do for that?

Anchorage systems and ban of free anchorage is the way to go.

For the fun mussel / the noble shell? Practically nothing .... 

[RickMo]

This is very timely for us.  Sometime last spring, I booked a long photography-oriented liveaboard in the Jardines de la Reina, now a month away.  At that time, there appeared to be no SCTLD in the Jardines (although I was and am suspicious about that, fingers crossed), and the hard corals have long been reputed to be very healthy, certainly by Caribbean standards.  It's now clear that the triple-digit temperatures in the Keys, and the attendant temperature spike throughout the region, has not spared Cuba.  Two recent videos show extensive bleaching, one just a month or so old.  So, there is likely to have been some recovery of bleaching, but the trip will certainly be different than planned.  My partner and I discussed two nights ago that it will be important to document the tragedy; although it's our first time in the Jardines, there are lots of baseline images which we can bump what we see up against. 

Also apropos, there is a decent documentary on Netflix, Chasing Coral, which documents the glory and subsequent ruin of a little-known reef complex in the western Caribbean.

[Rune Edvin Haldorsen]

Here is my photo @Davide DB mentioned in the start of this thread. In the sea near Oslo, I noticed that i the years after 2013, the marine life dissapeared, the water got darker and the sea floor was covered with sludge. The environment was changing much faster than I thought was possible. In the years to 2012, we had sea ice every winter, which is something I have not seen the last ten years. Before 2012, we were normally preparef for 2 - 0 C watertemperature, while it nowdays seldom get lower than 6C during the winter.  Frequent floods, underdimentioned water purification plants and high water temperatures during winter time did something with my local sea and one of the effects is shown in this photo. There are similar problems in th ewhole coastline of Norway, but the impact is lower further north. During this winter, I have several spots to document and compare with images shot at the same spot and date from 2008 - 2013. 

[ianmarsh]

The point about showing people the changes is crucial, but we may be the only ones who care. The sea looks like it always has from above.....

[TimG]

3 hours ago, ianmarsh said:

but we may be the only ones who care.

I fear that might her scarily true, Ian

[johnvila]

Well said, and sadly so true.

Sandy and I have dived the same patch of reef pretty well every week for 8 years and the changes are horrendous, all documented though photography (albeit quite bad photography when we started)

We have had one destructive event after the other - started with mass destruction by Cyclone Pam in 2015, then a crown of thorns invasion (COTS) , run off from cleared land, water temp rising and then a double cyclone in March 2023. Not to mention overzealous clamming using crow bars by some locals destroying so much coral in the process of extracting their prize.

We have cried in our masks watching our reef disappear - once vast patches of staghorn corals are long gone, cabbage corals and acopora species totally eaten by COTS which moved in so quickly we could not cull them fast enough. What is left has been buried under inches of silt after cyclones, even the anemones are starting to disappear as algae takes over. The species loss is devastating and so noticeable to us. There was recovery for a while but sadly that was wiped out in the March 23 cyclones and the rebuilding journey starts again.

For many diving on "our reef" for the first time we get told how wonderful it is - and yes it is - but if only they knew what is like just a few short years ago!

We actually have someone coming into see us tomorrow that is working on a coral restoration project and has asked for some of the photographic story we have.

We became grandparents last week for the first time and we just despair that she will not get to see the wonders we have experienced on or doorstep.

BUT we hold out hope and try every day to create awareness through our photography. It becomes an obsession and our mission - despite the damage there is a lot of life to be discovered and documented, even amongst the rubble.

Cheers

John

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by johnvila
fixing spelling

[ianmarsh]

5 hours ago, johnvila said:

Well said, and sadly so true.

Sandy and I have dived the same patch of reef pretty well every week for 8 years and the changes are horrendous, all documented though photography (albeit quite bad photography when we started)

We have had one destructive event after the other - started with mass destruction by Cyclone Pam in 2015, then a crown of thorns invasion (COTS) , run off from cleared land, water temp rising and then a double cyclone in March 2023. Not to mention overzealous clamming using crow bars by some locals destroying so much coral in the process of extracting their prize.

We have cried in our masks watching our reef disappear - once vast patches of staghorn corals are long gone, cabbage corals and acopora species totally eaten by COTS which moved in so quickly we could not cull them fast enough. What is left has been buried under inches of silt after cyclones, even the anemones are starting to disappear as algae takes over. The species loss is devastating and so noticeable to us. There was recovery for a while but sadly that was wiped out in the March 23 cyclones and the rebuilding journey starts again.

For many diving on "our reef" for the first time we get told how wonderful it is - and yes it is - but if only they knew what is like just a few short years ago!

We actually have someone coming into see us tomorrow that is working on a coral restoration project and has asked for some of the photographic story we have.

We became grandparents last week for the first time and we just despair that she will not get to see the wonders we have experienced on or doorstep.

BUT we hold out hope and try every day to create awareness through our photography. It becomes an obsession and our mission - despite the damage there is a lot of life to be discovered and documented, even amongst the rubble.

Cheers

John

 

John

Ya... I hear you....

On the up side, I was contacted by a young guy called Will Greene, who is a keen scientist working on coral reef preservation and restoration at the Perry Institute in the Bahamas.

https://www.perryinstitute.org/staff/will-greene-bsc/

He needed some help getting the Nikonos 15mm working on his digital set up, so he could use it for underwater photogrammetry, GIS and 3D modelling of reefs.

With perseverance we (he) was able to get this sorted out, and is out there busy trying to make a difference.

He is the kind of guy we need on our team. I don't know if he is amongst our ranks, but it would be great if he could post an article on what he is doing out there in the blue.

Ian

[TimG]

7 hours ago, johnvila said:

We became grandparents last week for the first time

Congratulations to you guys - a nice ray of hope! 

[TimG]

Ian, would you be happy to talk to Will Green and see if he'd like do do something for Waterpixels? I'm happy to contact him but if you know him well enough to ask.....

[ianmarsh]

Tim

Yes, i will follow up

ian

[Davide DB]

On 12/18/2023 at 10:03 AM, Rune Edvin Haldorsen said:

During this winter, I have several spots to document and compare with images shot at the same spot and date from 2008 - 2013. 

 

Looking forward to see them

[Tom Kline]

These time series images are priceless - having the dates on them especially. I think it is going to take a lot more of these to convince some politicians as well as the body politic.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Tom Kline

[TimG]

3 minutes ago, Tom Kline said:

These time series images are priceless - having the dates on them especially. I think it is going to take a lot more of these to convince some politicians as well as the body politic.

Totally agree. Anyone who has a series of shots like these over a period of time, do post them!

[Tom Kline]

7 minutes ago, TimG said:

Totally agree. Anyone who has a series of shots like these over a period of time, do post them!

OK figured out how to do the quote!

Posting on facebok et al. even more important! Preaching to the choir if here.

[TimG]

Just now, Tom Kline said:

Posting on facebok et al. even more important! Preaching to the choir if here.

OK, we don't have the setup yet.....  (fair comment!)

[PeterN]

On 12/18/2023 at 9:01 AM, ianmarsh said:

The point about showing people the changes is crucial, but we may be the only ones who care. The sea looks like it always has from above.....

Unfortunately I have to agree 100%  Since I started diving in 1982 I have seen the decline.  Cozumel in Mexico is a great example.  My first time diving there was in the mid 80's before the cruise ship pier(s).  I have been back several times and the amount of bigger marine life declines every trip.  

 

Local diving for me is here in San Diego, California and the decline in marine life is noticable from 30 years ago.   Sunflower stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) now critically endangered, white plumed anemones (Metridium farcimen) seen on our deeper wrecks were common - not so much anymore and abalone are just some examples.  Fish larger than 3 feet or 1 meter are rare in the local kelp beds.

 

I remember reading all the diving related periodicals warning us of these changes but apparently to no avail.  Because as you say "the sea looks like it always has from above ...."  Sad but true.  Older divers have a point of reference newer divers only know what the see now.  

 

Peter

[ianmarsh]

15 hours ago, PeterN said:

Unfortunately I have to agree 100%  Since I started diving in 1982 I have seen the decline.  Cozumel in Mexico is a great example.  My first time diving there was in the mid 80's before the cruise ship pier(s).  I have been back several times and the amount of bigger marine life declines every trip.  

 

Local diving for me is here in San Diego, California and the decline in marine life is noticable from 30 years ago.   Sunflower stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) now critically endangered, white plumed anemones (Metridium farcimen) seen on our deeper wrecks were common - not so much anymore and abalone are just some examples.  Fish larger than 3 feet or 1 meter are rare in the local kelp beds.

 

I remember reading all the diving related periodicals warning us of these changes but apparently to no avail.  Because as you say "the sea looks like it always has from above ...."  Sad but true.  Older divers have a point of reference newer divers only know what the see now.  

 

Peter

One of my fondest underwater memories is also from mid-80's Cozumel, long before the cruise ship pier was put in.

 

Drift diving along Tormentos reef, we were always accompanied by large Black Groupers. There were always 4-5 individuals that would come up from the reef, each 3-4 feet long with a girth of 3 feet. Each had its own personality. They would follow along like a pack of friendly dogs, looking for hand outs. We would carry fish treats for them and they were happy to accommodate. 

 

Fast forward to my last trip to Cozumel in 1996... The pier was in, San Miguel was swamped with cruise ship tourists, all looking for bargains in the shops, or going to "free" breakfasts to find out about time-share condos. The peso had been replaced by the greenback. Diving again on Tormentos reef, the largest animal present was the odd filefish. The only large fish left were at Punta Sur, which was very remote.

 

Meanwhile, back in town, you could get a nice grouper dinner for $25usd  a plate and watch the sun set over a beautiful azure sea...

 

Ian

[Will Greene]

Ian, thanks for the kind introduction!

 

Sadly, our oceans are changing faster than we can document and understand effectively... Even being in my 20s, the changes I've seen in the Caribbean just during my lifetime of diving have been dramatic and truly scary. The research I do is mainly in The Bahamas and the changes to the benthic community even in just the past 5 years have been crazy, due mainly to the combined influences of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (which some of you may be familiar with, others not - it's a disease affecting about half of Caribbean hard coral species with extremely high mortality rates, threatening to cause local and/or total extinctions of corals like pillar and some brain corals) and coral bleaching.

 

This past summer, the warming influence of climate change combined with the effects of El Niño to produce extremely warm ocean temperatures in Florida and across the Caribbean, and the bleaching we observed this August/September in  The Bahamas was unlike anything we've seen. 

 

My main research involves using underwater photogrammetry to create "digital replicas" of sections of reef that we monitor repeatedly to track changes happening over time. Attached is a side-by-side example of some of the time-series data we collect (demonstrating severe bleaching) and a photo from the Exumas showing some extensive bleaching on a very high coral-cover reef. Across much of The Bahamas and Florida, the ocean heatwave killed a gigantic portion (90-100% in many areas) of Staghorn coral in particular- formerly one of the most important coral species for adding structural complexity and habitat quality for shallow reefs in The Caribbean that is now critically endangered and on the cusp of extinction in many regions. 

 

The one other thing I'll say is that most of us working in the coral research world haven't given up hope - there are good people working on thermal tolerance in corals and many restoration projects working to nurse dead and dying reefs back to health. More broadly, those of us who have seen the changes happening under the waves need to use our voices to speak up and advocate for policy change that protects our oceans and our planet. Climate change may be the biggest direct threat, but is just one of many including overfishing, pollution, disease, dredging, etc. The majority of people aren't able to see under the ocean, but as underwater photographers, we have a unique role in sharing what we witness underwater with the world to help bring awareness and attention. Keep fighting the good fight!

 

 

 

 

[ianmarsh]

On 1/23/2024 at 9:19 AM, Will Greene said:

Ian, thanks for the kind introduction!

 

Sadly, our oceans are changing faster than we can document and understand effectively... Even being in my 20s, the changes I've seen in the Caribbean just during my lifetime of diving have been dramatic and truly scary. The research I do is mainly in The Bahamas and the changes to the benthic community even in just the past 5 years have been crazy, due mainly to the combined influences of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (which some of you may be familiar with, others not - it's a disease affecting about half of Caribbean hard coral species with extremely high mortality rates, threatening to cause local and/or total extinctions of corals like pillar and some brain corals) and coral bleaching.

 

This past summer, the warming influence of climate change combined with the effects of El Niño to produce extremely warm ocean temperatures in Florida and across the Caribbean, and the bleaching we observed this August/September in  The Bahamas was unlike anything we've seen. 

 

My main research involves using underwater photogrammetry to create "digital replicas" of sections of reef that we monitor repeatedly to track changes happening over time. Attached is a side-by-side example of some of the time-series data we collect (demonstrating severe bleaching) and a photo from the Exumas showing some extensive bleaching on a very high coral-cover reef. Across much of The Bahamas and Florida, the ocean heatwave killed a gigantic portion (90-100% in many areas) of Staghorn coral in particular- formerly one of the most important coral species for adding structural complexity and habitat quality for shallow reefs in The Caribbean that is now critically endangered and on the cusp of extinction in many regions. 

 

The one other thing I'll say is that most of us working in the coral research world haven't given up hope - there are good people working on thermal tolerance in corals and many restoration projects working to nurse dead and dying reefs back to health. More broadly, those of us who have seen the changes happening under the waves need to use our voices to speak up and advocate for policy change that protects our oceans and our planet. Climate change may be the biggest direct threat, but is just one of many including overfishing, pollution, disease, dredging, etc. The majority of people aren't able to see under the ocean, but as underwater photographers, we have a unique role in sharing what we witness underwater with the world to help bring awareness and attention. Keep fighting the good fight!

 

 

 

 

Hey Will... welcome aboard. Good to see you here!

 

I spotted this on the BBC website... interesting stuff

 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240123-the-race-to-build-climate-resilient-coral-reefs