Rockport-based photographer Peter Ralston traveled to the Arctic and the Northwest Passage last and returned with haunting images of a landscape in flux. Shown here is a glacier face in Croker Bay off Devon Island, Nunavut. Arctic Warming and Maine Shifting and ocean patterns along the coast BY CATHERINE SCHMITT | PHOTOGRAPHS BY PETER RALSTON

AST NOVEMBER, in the final The polar vortex is an atmospheric These tight linkages mean that any official weeks of , a blast of connection; there are others beneath the changes in the Labrador Current impact Lfrigid air from the Arctic swept ocean’s surface. The Labrador Current the food web in the North Atlantic, as across Maine and the northern United originates in the Arctic and, along with was illustrated during a -related States. The cold, which was likened to a other currents, rivers, wind, and tide, event in the late-20th century. In 1988- Siberian express freight train, brought impacts the oceanography of the conti- 1989, the year NASA scientist James below-zero temperatures before nental shelf and the Gulf of Maine. The Hansen told Congress that humans were had officially arrived. cold water of the Labrador Current sinks responsible for an increase in global The polar vortex is a counterclock- as it moves south, contributing to what is temperatures and writer Bill McKibben wise flow that usually keeps cold air over known as the Atlantic Meridional Over- was making final edits to The End of the Arctic. When it weakens, waves of turning Circulation (AMOC), a sort of Nature, Maine fishermen hauled in 12 cold air spill south into Maine. It is a vacuum that sucks warm, salty water million pounds of cod, a catch not seen chilling reminder of Maine’s many con- nections to the great white north, con- nections that are being magnified and altered now in ways we can see—and feel. The scientific studies and resulting headlines about these connections are overwhelming. When the Arctic Council met in Portland, Maine, last October, much of the discussion surrounding the meeting—the international group’s first in the United States outside of Alaska— emphasized taking advantage of the thawing Northwest Passage. This echoed ideas of exploration and competition from more than a century before, when Bowdoin College alumni Robert Peary and Donald MacMillan searched for the A grandfather cleans arctic char and Atlantic salmon at the village of Arctic Bay, northern Baffin Island, North Pole in Maine-built sailing vessels. Nunavut. Fishermen are seeing more salmon, a symptom of the changing environment. In the future, instead of being the “end of the line,” Maine could instead be a from the —the Gulf Stream—up in decades. More than 2,500 salmon “gateway,” located in a prime position to north and around the globe. returned to the Penobscot River, and profit from new shipping routes. In place since the end of the last Ice anglers lined the banks. The endangered At the same meeting, scientists gave Age, this ocean current system (some- North Atlantic right whale continued a presentations about rapid climate times called the “ocean conveyor belt”) gradual recovery. changes that are affecting thousands of has been relatively stable over the last High above the Arctic, warming tem- people who live above the Arctic Circle. 15,000 years. It affects our climate and peratures created conditions for acceler- These changes—warming air and sea every aspect of our ocean’s ecology, ated ice melt. Meltwater has to go some- temperatures, melting sea ice, melting including a food web that supports some where, and a large mass of it slid through glaciers, and less to reflect the 500 fish species in the continental shelf the Canadian Archipelago into the sun—also influence the coast of Maine. ecosystem of the northeastern U.S. Northwest Atlantic. Meltwater is warmer

64 EXPLORE the MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS DIGITAL edition @ www.maineboats.com 65 As Andy Pershing, of the Gulf of can affect patterns of temperature, salin- some species has already moved as far as Atlantic. Open water has created migra- Maine Research Institute, reported with ity, and food web for decades. 30 miles north. tion pathways for Pacific seabirds such as fellow investigator Charles Greene in Although the fatty copepods came While some, like Atlantic herring, are tufted puffins and ancient murrelets to 2007, the phytoplankton supported pop- back and right whales recovered slightly, expanding their range, fish already at visit Maine. I like to think that salmon, ulations of different, smaller zooplank- salmon and cod in many places did not. their southern limit, such as capelin and cod, and lobster are moving into new ter- ton that were less nutritious than Meltwater from both sea ice and Atlantic cod, are contracting in range. ritory. That is, they can adapt as long as Calanus finmarchicus, the copepod that shrinking glaciers and runoff from Arc- Cod, haddock, and halibut are moving conditions do not change too quickly. usually dominates our ocean. tic rivers swollen with increased rainfall to deeper water where it’s colder. The Arctic is melting. With only a Calanus finmarchicus are tiny, fat, red have altered the ocean’s circulatory sys- UMaine researcher Rick Wahle is cur- thin skin of ice remaining, or no ice at all crustaceans eaten by Northern right tem. The long-term warming trend, and rently trying to figure out if lobsters have in many areas, sunlight on the surface of whales and myriad small, silvery fishes, the rapid warming of the last 12 years, is also moved to greater depths. the Arctic Ocean fuels the growth of phy- including capelin. These fish in turn are likely related to the slowing of the Maine hasn’t had a shrimp fishery, toplankton. Winds blowing across the prey for larger fish like salmon and cod, AMOC, according to Pershing. which targets the sub-polar species Pan- water mix layers of water and nutrients and for birds and other marine mam- “Notably for our region, it tends to dalus borealis, since 2013. Meanwhile, that once stayed separate under the ice, mals. With C. finmarchicus scarce, fish shift the Gulf Stream north and weakens Greenlanders recently had their first increasing the annual production of instead had to eat the smaller, less fatty the Labrador Current, making the waters commercial fishing for mackerel. algae 47 percent in the last 20 years, zooplankton, which meant that they, in off of New England warmer,” he said. The mackerel have attracted bluefin tuna according to a recent analysis by

Source: Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change turn, provided less energy for predators. “This creates a chain of events that starts farther north than previously reported. researchers at the Scripps Institute for The decline of C. finmarchicus in the with melting in Greenland and the Arc- Scientists with Canada’s Department Oceanography at the University of Cali- 1990s resulted in reduced populations of tic, leads to warming in the Gulf of of Fisheries and Oceans have confirmed fornia San Diego. More phytoplankton The Gulf of Maine is physically connected to the rest of the globe via the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt Atlantic salmon, fewer right whale calves Maine, and results in northward shifts in the presence of Atlantic salmon in rivers and earlier blooms attract zooplankton that transports heat around the world and affects our climate. Cold, sinking water flows south from the being born, and a decline in the survival fish and lobster and declines in subpolar off Baffin Island, north of the Arctic Cir- and their predators. Meanwhile, algal Arctic into the North Atlantic, where it meets the warm Gulf Stream current. Warming temperatures and of young cod in the Gulf of Maine, said species like cod and shrimp.” cle. For hundreds of thousands of years, productivity has declined in the Gulf of melting in the Arctic has changed this circulatory pattern and affected the marine food web. Pershing. However, herring and haddock NOAA scientists have documented sea ice blocked the movement of species Maine, partly due to increased precipita- and less salty than the surrounding ocean ing phytoplankton, the microscopic plant flourished during this period. such shifts in many species, including between the Pacific and Atlantic sides of tion and freshwater flows. Is the whole water, and therefore less dense, so it tends bits at the base of the ocean food web, to This alternative regime continued alewife, American shad, yellowtail floun- the globe, but no more. Pink salmon are food web shifting north, or only parts of to stay at the surface. This floating layer flourish. This growth had a ripple effect until the early 2000s, reflecting inherent der, black sea bass, red hake, butterfish, expanding their range; Arctic and Pacific it? Do we know how fast these changes of Arctic water soaked up sunlight, allow- throughout the Atlantic. oscillations in the climate system that and saury. The population center of plankton have been found in the North will happen in the future?

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66 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | March / April 2017 | Issue 145 EXPLORE the MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS DIGITAL edition @ www.maineboats.com 67 changes in atmospheric circulation also contribute to warmer with fewer below-zero days, more frequent , and a shorter snow season. The lives of Arctic explorers Peary and MacMillan were bound and defined by ice. They dreamed of the brief sum- mer period when navigation through floes was possible, and they could try again to find a way through the North- west Passage. The Arctic, with its vast areas of thin ice and open water, and Maine, with its changing seascape, are These Disko Bay icebergs were calved by the Jacobshavn Glacier, near the town of Ilulissat on the becoming vastly different places that west coast of Greenland. The fastest moving glacier in the world, it is featured in the film Chasing Ice. these historic navigators might no longer The research is ongoing, and many is what generates the polar vortex and the recognize. Maine scientists are involved. But even westerly winds that drive our weather. What will stay the same is Maine’s scientists are struggling to keep up with With weaker westerly winds, blocking close connection to the Arctic through the changes, such as the luffing of the patterns are more likely to develop, caus- today’s mariners, scientists, and artists polar vortex and its eastward movement ing heat or cold waves that can persist for who are documenting the changing over Eurasia. days. “A blocking pattern causes heat and winds and currents that define the char- The change in atmospheric circula- moisture to build up in one place, and acter of our coast. ✮ tion is impacting Maine’s climate, accord- cold and dryness in another; in between ing to Maine State Climatologist Sean is a steep gradient. When a blocking pat- Catherine Schmitt is Communications Direc- Birkel. As the air over the Arctic warms, tern eventually breaks down, the steep tor for the Maine Sea Grant College Program there is less of a temperature difference gradient that developed fuels a powerful at the University of Maine. She is the author of between the North Pole and the equator. front that can deliver extreme rain The President’s Salmon: Restoring the King This temperature difference, or gradient, or snowfall,” said Birkel. He noted that of Fish and Its Home Waters.

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68 MAINE BOATS, HOMES & HARBORS | March / April 2017 | Issue 145