Climate change on the NW coast: Special report
Barefoot, with a blue plastic bucket, Kathleen Sayce, ShoreBank Pacific scientist, strides out into the ocean at the Oysterville approach.
She runs the bucket through the waves several times and walks back with seawater from the incoming tide.
She pours five liters of water through a micron-screened tube, catching the screened water from the bottom in containers. A long thermometer floats in the remaining water in the bucket. "Looks like about 16 centigrade, about 70 degrees Fahrenheit," she says tilting it up to eye level.
There is a silty-looking brown slush caught around the rim of the screening. "That's phytoplankton," she says, as she rinses it into a smaller jar and screws on the lid. "That's the basic ingredient in our aquatic food chain. Oysters, clams, salmon, sea birds - everything feeds on this, or feeds on something that feeds on this.
That connectedness is, in part, why Sayce and other North Coast scientists are becoming increasingly worried about global climate change.
The planet is changing; it is getting warmer.
And our way of life is changing - whether we are ready or not.
Continue reading this article from The Daily Astorian:
A SPECIAL REPORT: The evidence is here
