Sea Temperature Race Rocks





			Sea Temperature as an Abiotic Factor at Race Rocks

From 1921 until 1997 daily records of Seawater Temperature and Salinity were manually taken at Race Rocks by the Lightkeepers and assistants. In 1997 the station was automated and Lester Pearson College took over the hiring of the Lightkeeper Mike Slater and his wife Carol as Guardians for the Ecological Reserve / Marine Protected Area. They have been able to maintain the daily sea temp and salinity records since that time.
The records have been submitted monthly to the Institute of Ocean Sciences, thus continuing this important long term record.

This is a file with the daily sea temperatures and salinity data as recorded by Mike Slater: 1998-2008

This is a file with the daily air temperatures and precipitation as recorded by Mike Slater: 1998-2005

The students from Lester Pearson College often stay at the island and take over the daily duties such as the water sampling for temperature and salinity. This video shows the process used in the manual determination of these factors.

SEA TEMPERATURE 1921 to 2008

FROM : Ocean Science and Productivity Division On-Line data (IOS-Sidney, BC)

The Race Rocks mean Monthly Sea Temperature 1921-present,

Also see historic sets of raw data from IOS for the British Columbia Light Stations
http://www-sci.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/osap/data/SearchTools/Searchlighthouse_e.htm

Refer to the File "Temperature Changes Through Time for an Educational exercise on Sea water Temperature changes.

OCEAN WARMING:
The long-term Sea temperature record at Race Rocks has been pointed out as one of the pieces of evidence that has accumulated on global warming. Terry Glavin, in reviewing the book The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery ( Harper Collins Publishers, 2006) says :

" The Pacific Ocean itself is getting warmer. Measurements at the Race Rocks lighthouse near Victoria show an average rise in temperature of 1°C since 1921, which doesn't sound like much until you remember that its only 10°C in the other direction that separates us from the deep freeze of the Ice Age. The ocean, absorbing increasing volumes of carbon dioxide, is becoming more acidic too, inhibiting the production of plankton, the basis of all life in the sea."

The rest of the article may be seen at http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=17132

See this file for our own analysis which supports this statement:

RESPONSE OF ORGANISMS TO SEAWATER TEMPERATURES:

The seawater in the Strait of Juan de Fuca has a very narrow variation in temperature range. It is important to understand about Heat Capacity, as it is partly due to this ability of water to warm up slowly and cool off slowly that the climate of Vancouver Island and the lower mainland of British Columbia has the mildest weather in Canada.

Heat capacity is the ratio of the heat energy absorbed to the rise in temperature. Objects with high heat capacity, such as water, require a great amount of heat energy to change temperature. Materials with low heat capacities, such as air, easily change temperature with small amounts of heat energy.

These photos are from the California sea lion page. They demonstrate one of the forms of heat exchange used by the sea lions at Race Rocks. Their flippers are filled with blood vessels, so this behaviour allows heat exchange with the atmosphere.

Heat Capacity is also sensitive to the size of the object (for example, a bathtub of water has more heat capacity than a cup of water). Therefore we can expect the greatest variation in temperatures to occur at Race Rocks in the tidepools.

This file shows one exam ple of measurements taken on tidepools. It illustrates this idea of size of the object and it also helps explain why our tidepools have different biodiversity depending on the temperature variations of the pools.

Other ideas to be developed here:
1.Temperature stratification in tidepools and distribution of organisms.

2. Temperature stratification in the ocean. The importance of the thermocline in determining marine-life zones.

3. The relationship of temperature of water to its ability to absorb the gases oxygen and carbon dioxide. (An inverse relationship which has significant implications for where organisms can live.)

4. Birds and mammals have adaptation for cold temperatures, e.g. Insulation, activity levels and counter-current arterial circulation

	OCEAN TEMPERATURE TO BE MEASURED BY SENSORS
	Coming Soon!: With the deployment of the Tidal Current Generator in the fall of 2006, a set of sensors for environmental monitoring will eventually be installed. Included will be temperature sensors in the YSI Sonde instrument. These will be able to detect seawater temperatures at the current turbine site and will be presented here in graphical form in real time..

	Dr. Kate Edwards of the University of Washington School of Oceanography is doing research on the sea temperatures of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. (click on image to left). She maintains web pages at: Strait of Juan de Fuca page: http://www.ocean.washington.edu/~kate West Coast headlands page: http://www-ccs.ucsd.edu/~kate
	Jan Newton is at the Washington state Department of Ecology and is interested in how the Straits affect Puget Sound. She has organized the "Joint Effort to Monitor the Straits," which regularly sample the three stations south of San Juan Island in the map at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/apps/eap/marinewq/mwdataset.asp . Click on the Station Group Puget Sound, and the Selected Station - Juan de Fuca.

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