The Sea Turtles Return!

Amid the mind-boggling pandemic of the Corona Virus (death total in the U.S. at 61,000 on April 30, '20), we welcome a small sign of life as we knew it. With public beaches in Palm Beach County, Florida, still closed and without threat from humans or dogs, nature has provided such a glimpse beneath our windows.

Deserted beach in Delray Beach, Florida, with stakes where turtles have nested

On our three-mile stretch of beach, thousands of female sea turtles return at night to lay their eggs between March 1st and October 31st. In 2017, there were 1077 nests, the highest number ever recorded in our area. It is estimated nearly ninety percent of all sea turtle nesting in the U.S. occurs right here (www.sunny.org/beaches/sea-turtles). This year the turtle stakes have already begun to appear, and experts expect a bumper crop.

We have four species that return to our area: loggerhead, leatherback, green, and hawksbill. Since artificial lighting discourages the females from nesting on the beach, there is an ordinance in Florida (and fine for offenses) that all outside lights must be turned off or inward during nesting season.

The females' tracks are as big as a tractor's tire marks. They dig holes in the sand, lay around one hundred golf-ball size eggs, cover the hole with sand, and spread sand over a large area to disguise the hole. Then they re-enter the water. Although I have seen the track marks in the sand, I have never witnessed the nocturnal nesting.

Incubation will last 45-55 days. The hatchlings use reflections from the moon to find their way down to the water at night. Only one out of a thousand will survive the predators and the tides.

Wheelchair for sick turtles, Juno Beach Turtle Rehab Center, Florida

Sick turtle getting an IV, Juno Beach Turtle Rehab Center, Fl.

A New York Times article by Karen Weintraub (April 17, 2018, pg. D2) reported findings that sea turtles use the earth's magnetic fields to navigate back to within 40-50 miles of where they were born. Each beach has a distinctive magnetic signature, which the turtles find through something called "geomagnetic imprinting." In a study of loggerheads at the U. of North Carolina, Dr. Kenneth Lohmann and J. Roger Brothers determined there was "more genetic similarity among turtles that nest on beaches with similar magnetic signatures than among turtles that nest on beaches physically close to each other."

In our area of beach, a non-profit organization called Sea Turtle Adventures provides daily monitoring of the nests on a three-mile stretch. They stake, relocate nests as needed, and excavate them after hatching. The group also provides documentation and reporting of predation events, offensive artificial lighting during nesting season, and obstructed nesting attempts. It co-ordinates efforts to document and transport dead or injured sea turtles to a rehab facility (such as the Juno Beach Center), and provides annual reports to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The mounds and orange stakes couldn't be more welcome this year!

May, 2018

Sea Level Rise

Charley and I live twenty-two feet above the Atlantic Ocean in Florida.  In Massachusetts, we live half a mile from Buzzard's Bay, the body of water between Rhode Island Sound and Cape Cod. To say we are concerned about global warming and rising seas is an understatement.

Delray Beach, Florida

Westport, Massachusetts

National Geographic Magazine has written in "Sea Level Rise" (an internet document) that samples, tide gauge readings, and satellite measurements tell us the sea level has risen eight inches in the last 100 years.

There can no longer be any doubt that fossil-fuel burning and human and natural activities have released enormous heat-trapping gases into our atmosphere.  The earth saw its third straight year of record-high temperatures in 2016 (hottest ever recorded), and its surface temperature has risen by more than a full degree Fahrenheit over the last 100 years. Oceans absorb 80% of this additional heat.  In May, '16, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere reached 400 parts/million, the highest since 3,000,000 years ago ("Rising Seas" by Tim Folger, National Geographic Magazine internet document).

What does this mean for us humans?  First, warmer oceans occupy more space. Thus, a rise in sea level.

Second, melting glaciers and melting polar ice caps produce a rise in sea level. Greenland's and West Antarctica's massive ice sheets are diminishing at an accelerated pace, having lost on average 50 cubic miles of ice/year since 1992 ("Rising Seas," Tim Folger).  At Palmer Station, Antarctica, local island census-taking over the last 43 years has recorded an 85% decline in penguins due to a lack of sea ice, where the penguins find nourishment (CBS News internet "Climate Diaries" by Mark Phillips, Feb. 15, 2017).

African Penguins near Cape of Good Hope

Radley Horton, a research scientist at Columbia University stated, "If acceleration continues, by the end of the 21st century the sea level could rise as much as six feet globally."  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommends planners consider a conservative  "high-rise" scenario of five feet by the end of the 21st century.

The result would not only be destructive coastal erosion and wetland flooding, but soil contamination and lost habitat for fish, birds, and plants.

In addition, bigger, more powerful storm surges (like Hurricane Sandy) might occur every decade or less by 2100.  The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that by 2070, 150 million people in the world's port cities will risk coastal flooding, along with $35 trillion worth of property being jeopardized ("Rising Seas," Tim Folger).

New York City is essentially defenseless to hurricanes and floods.  London, Rotterdam, New Orleans (where a levee was breached in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina), St. Petersburg, and Shanghai have all built levees and storm barriers in the last decades.  In New Orleans, eleven diesel pumps in a new storm-surge barrier south of the city, built in 2011, can discharge 150,000 gallons of flood water/second.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, New York City

"Twenty-five percent of New York harbor used to be oyster beds," according to Kate Orff, NYC landscape architect ("Rising Seas," Tim Folger). The reefs of oysters and other shellfish grew as sea levels rose, buffering storm waves.  The shellfish, filter feeders, cleaned the harbor.

Last June, Mayor Bloomberg outlined a $19.5 billion plan to defend NYC against rising tides: levees, storm-surge barriers, dunes, oyster reefs, etc.  Meanwhile, development in the city's flood zone continues.

Amsterdam Harbor, with railroad station in foreground and white Museum of Film across Amstel River

One-quarter of The Netherlands sits below sea level.  On January 31, 1953, The Netherlands experienced a storm that transformed that country.  Dikes failed and 1836 people died.  A $6 billion project called "The Delta Works" began, consisting of dikes and barriers.  The last component was a movable barrier protecting Rotterdam Harbor, finished in 1997.

The prospect for low-lying cities is dire.  Among the most vulnerable is Miami. Han Wanless, Chairman of the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Miami, stated, "I cannot envision southeastern Florida having many people at the end of this century." ("Rising Seas" by Tim Folger, National Geographic Magazine on-line)  With a minimal projected four-foot rise in seas possible by 2100, two-thirds of southeast Florida would be inundated and Miami would be an island ("Rising Seas," Tim Folger).

Key West, Florida

Miami and most of Florida sit on a foundation of highly porous limestone.  A barrier would be pointless, since water would flow through the limestone.

Another problem is salinity control.  There are about thirty salinity-control structures in South Florida at present.  At times, however, the sea level is higher than the fresh water level in canals.  This accelerates the saltwater intrusion and prevents discharge of flood waters.  Already during unusual high tides, seawater spouts from sewers in Miami Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, and other cities, flooding streets.

Typical canal scene, Amsterdam

What better advisor for low-lying U.S. cities than Special Envoy for Water Affairs of the Kingdom of Netherlands, Henk Ovink?  It is Ovink's job to help the world figure out how to cope with sea-rise. It is Ovink's plan that will be put into effect later this year in New York City for $920 million:  six massive projects around lower Manhattan, the Bronx, New Jersey shorelines, Long Island, and Staten Island, consisting of belts of landscaped parks, restored swamp lands, and oyster reefs.

During a three-day tour of South Florida, Ovink (a senior advisor to Obama's Hurricane Sandy Recovery Task Force) inspected Miami's incremental approach to save itself:  raising streets (starting with Dade Boulevard) and sidewalks, installing pumps, rewriting building and zoning codes.  Ovink declared Miami's attempt, "Exemplary...but not enough."

"Never stop thinking about living with water," Ovink advised ("Miami Beach Receives Advice on Sea Level Rise," The Palm Beach Post, February 12, 2017, pg. B2).

Assistant City of Miami Engineer Roger Buell stated, "Miami is buying twenty years, possibly thirty."

"Building as usual in South Florida won't cut it," Ovink stated.  "Miami is at the edge."  ("Miami Beach Receives Advice on Sea Level Rise, The Palm Beach Post, February 12, 2017, B2)

Westport, Massachusetts

   



   

Fist Bumps

Charley has been trying for at least two years to get me to stop shaking hands after tennis matches. He claimed that I was picking up germs during a handshake of even moderate strength that lasted for just a few seconds.

I watched the men doing their fist bumps after matches and told him I thought it would be insulting to finish a match and approach someone across the net as though I were going to punch her. The ladies give firm handshakes to be polite, win or lose. We don't want to be viewed as poor sports, and certainly not competitors with a wimpy grasp, even if wet and slimy. In fact, I seem to remember a rule in the Palm Beach County Women's Tennis Association handbook about the necessity of handshakes after matches.   There's a rule for everything else, so that must be covered, too.

"Suit yourself," Charley said.

Turns out he was right.

According to a study at the Institute of Biological, Environmental, and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University in Wales, fist bumps are 20 times more hygienic than handshakes and 10 times more hygienic than high-fives.  It's because the fists have a smaller area that touch each other during the bump.  Handshakes, on the other hand (ha ha), have an average of 24.4 square inches of contact and last an average of three seconds, longer than high-fives and fist bumps. An average of 124 million colony-forming units of E.coli were transferred during the three-second handshake in the tests.

That's right, researchers at the Institute actually donned sterile gloves and dunked their hands in "a soup of de-fanged Escherichia coli bacteria, then shook hands, high-fived, or fist-bumped with one another."
In addition, they used an instrument to measure the grip strength of various handshakes and found strong handshakes transferred the most bacteria.

Imagine a researcher coming home from work and the wife asks, "Did you have a rough day, dear?"

"Oh, it was lethal."

I'm still not convinced I could approach someone with my fist after a match.  So I have another solution.  Why not do the butt bump?  It would be a lot more fun and wouldn't transfer any germs.  I know I'd enjoy seeing NFL players doing the butt bump instead of handshakes!