15-02 Warming

It was the fall of 2009, and as part of a what is called a re-positioning cruise from Denmark to Florida, we stopped off in Qaqortog, Greenland.
Off course, we had a lecture on this mammoth island in advance of our stop and were told that although it is 85% covered with ice and snow, the most massive melt anywhere seems to be talking place in Greenland. Another story of climate change.
The beautiful fishing port in the photo was taken recently in July and shows huge areas of Greenland that are now bare of snow, something no one could even imagine happening ten years ago.
I have followed events in Greenland since that visit and apparently as of 2011, the fishermen have been catching large amounts of mackerel, which have been unknown in their waters. And it is all about ocean warming. Fish are swimming north.
In this case it is a good news story for Greenland with mackerel replacing declining shrimp stocks. But if this kind of thing is happening around the world, the fishing industry is dealing with major change.
Getting slightly “techy” it is the oceans that absorb the heat generated by humans, so global warming can also be called ocean warming.
And as a Canadian, we have a huge stake in what is happening. If, as they say, the arctic is warming faster than any area in the world, well that is Canada’s north.
It means cruise ships going through the Northwest Passage, which is a northern route from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And of course, all kinds of year-round resource exploitation. Not sure the north is ready for this shock.
In the Antarctic, no one is permitted to leave the ship during a cruise. The various governments doing research in the pristine climate of the area are afraid of pollution.
But ocean warming has lots of other dangers. I remember as an engineering student learning that as you heat any mass it will expand, and of course that applies to our oceans as they heat up.
Looking at the beautiful photo you can see what it means for coastlines that are subject to greater pressure from storms and rising waters.
So many people love to own property on the ocean, but so many coastlines are going to be threatened by erosion created by rising and warming waters.
Around Maui, where my wife and I vacationed for over ten years, it is common to see homes on the shorelines built on platforms using steel girder stilts at least 8 feet high.
It is just prudent protection from sea water surges that are the consequence of underwater volcanoes and earthquakes. They call them tsunamis.
That is the kind of home you want to build if you want to live by the sea in the future. It sounds melodramatic, but warmer climates and warmer and rising oceans are our future.
That’s the way I see it anyways.