Category Archives: Education

Temperature Changes Through Time

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BACKGROUND: With so much information in the media about Climate Change, it is important to be able to sort out and analyze the evidence first hand. From 1921 until the present, records of temperature of the sea water have been taken daily at Race Rocks. The question is, do we have evidence of an increase in ocean temperature over this time period?
OBJECTIVES: After doing this assignments, you will be able to:
a) Comment on the importance of maintaining a database of environmental factors over time.b) Compare the monthly temperature averages for the decade of the 1920’s with the last decade c) Examine data temperature records and determine if there is evidence of a change through time..d) Evaluate temperature change through time as an abiotic factor that affects the biodiversity of organisms in an ecosystem.e) Account for the geoclimatic reasons for similarities and differences of water temperatures, and indicate the implications for organisms living in these ecosystems.

PROCEDURE: 1. Describe how this set of sea-water temperature records have been obtained. This file provides examples of the records which have been submitted to The Institute of Ocean Sciences at Sidney, Vancouver Island.

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.

When the records have been submitted, they are added to a database which is maintained by the Institute of Ocean Sciences. This link shows historic sets of raw data from IOS for the British Columbia Light Stations.
 Seawater temperature and salinity observations in the past few years:
See

2. Go to this file to obtain the Race Rocks Mean Monthly Sea Temperature 1921-present,a) open an excel workbook and save it as “Temperature records at Race Rocks. We will copy the data for the first ten years of the record and the last ten years of the record to an empty Excel file.

b) Highlight years 1921 to 1930 from the data, copy and paste to the open Excel file.

c) Cut out each year and paste it side by side so that you have the rows representing the months and the columns representing the years. Make a horizontal table of the data

d) highlight across the able, the temperatures for each month of the ten year group. Then click on the symbol in the menu line which produces an average. This average will appear to the right of the last years column.

e) Do the same with the last ten years set of data. You now have two sets of averages by month of the two decades.

f) Compare the monthly averages for the two decades. What do you find?
3. There are of course many ways of looking at this data. Try summing the total averages for each decade. Simply highlight the column of averages and click on the tool for SUM. What is your finding.4. You could also do the same for all the decades.Once you have a chart made up of the monthly averages of all the decades, It is easy to have Excel draw a graph for you. Click on the Wizard symbol and choose the type of graph.

5. After manipulating the data, and looking at it in several ways, write a statement which expresses your understanding of the whether or not there has been a temperature change in the Strait of Juan de Fuca as measured by daily samples taken at Race Rocks. Be sure that you do not generalize beyond the evidence provided by your data. Also discuss the assumptions that you must recognize before drawing a conclusion from this data.

6. For Extension work: Run a statistical program to determine if the difference you find is significant.
7. For Extension work: Read the review below and if possible, read the book! Present a summary to your class. 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. Author 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
8. Refer to the file: Sea Temperature as an abiotic factor . Several ideas are discussed in this file about how the sea water temperature affects marine organisms. Discuss how organisms adapt to changes in sea temperature.
9. Extension: Find out the monthly water temperature averages from your own area. Compare them with Race Rocks and discuss the geoclimatic factors which lead to the similarities and or the differences, and the implications for organisms living in the two ecosystems.

See also https://racerocks.ca/category/education/climate-change/

Sea Water Temperatures at Race Rocks

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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  maintained the daily sea temp and salinity records until their retirement in 2009. The records have been submitted monthly to the Institute of Ocean Sciences, thus continuing this important long term record.

See the Decade Comparisons:Sea Surface Temperature at Race Rocks- 1921-1930 and 1995-2005


The students from Lester Pearson College often stayed at the island and took over the daily duties such as the water sampling for temperature and salinity. The following is their introduction to the video:During our project week at Race Rocks, Mike Slater, the Race Rocks Marine Protected Area Guardian asked us if we could make a video explaining the daily duties necessary to maintain the facility. Students who are relieving on the island during Mike’s absence will be able to use this data as a guide for performing their duties, as well as providing a useful information resource for students visiting the island. These duties include two daily engine checks, a salinity check one hour before high tide, and keeping a record of the days weather, as well as explaining the functions and instructions for testing machinery located on the island.

 

 
Garry gives a good demonstration of when one should avoid taking seawater temperatures!~ (Photo by Barry Herring Feb 2009)

 

SEA TEMPERATURE 1921 to 2008

Also
see historic sets of raw data from IOS for the British
Columbia Light Stations

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/oceans/data-donnees/lighthouses-phares/data/racerockday.txt

Observations of Seawater Temperature and Salinity at British Columbia Shore Stations, 1983. F. Glovando 1985
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=17132See this file for our own analysis which supports this statement:

page 21 State
of the Pacific Ocean 2005
context.http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/psarc/OSRs/StateofOceans2005fnl.pdfTwo
references are made to Race Rocks Sea Temperature
data. page 6 and page 31
State
of the Pacific Ocean , 2006
state of the pacific ocean 2006,page 36 ” Ocean
Temperatures along the west coast of Vancouver island
declined to below average conditions in the latter half
of 2006. The waters of race Rocks …did not follow this
pattern, and remained above average all year.”
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 atRace 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 example 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

 

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.

This
paper references Strait of Juan de Fuca Temperatures

 

Educational Exercises Using Data From Race Rocks – Excel and
Statistics

Tidepool Index:

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These pools are located 0n the West side of Great Race Rocks. They are located at slightly different elevations resulting in different abiotic factors in the pools and different life forms in the pools as well. Our students brave the elements to get some measurements in this video

Pool 9.. file not completed

Tidepool 11: No File for this pool

Upper Piling Installation for the Tidal Energy Current Project

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Images by Gary Bouman, Garry Fletcher and Chris Blondeau

Test Installation of Tidal Energy Turbine in Pedder bay

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Problems in the Installation of the Piling for the Tidal Energy Project

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Not every aspect of the tidal Current energy project went perfectly without problems. At one point the project was within hours of being called off. A replacement drill bit had to be flown in and weather conditions threatened to suspend operation.  The most difficult stage in the installation was the breaking of the drill casing and drill bit. One morning when attempting to attach the barge, the casing which by this time was sunk in the bedrock, twisted off, trapping the drill bit in the ground.

The conditions in August were marginal for the work at sea.

The most amazing part of thew process was that whatever the problems, the engineers proved to be very capable in meeting the challenge and coming up with a problem. This was particularly impressive in that it was the first kind of such an exercise and it was in an ecologically sensitive area  at a time of year when weather  could cause a stop to the process.

Dredging the Overburden for the Tidal Energy Installation

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On July 17, 2006 dredging of the overburden on the selected site was started for installation of the piling.This operation was the most environmentally invasive of the project, but it was estimated that only about 20 square metres of the bottom were disturbed. Given that this is such a high current area, within a year there were no visible changes to the are around the piling.   The following pictures were captured from the
remote Camera 5. by G. Fletcher.

 

The Johan Ashuvud Memorial

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It is unlikely that the creation of the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve in 1980 would have happened except for the efforts of an 18 year old Pearson College student from Sweden.

johan Johan Ashuvud, a student from 1978-1980, was in the Marine Science class and the Diving Service as part of IB his program at the college.
He devoted a great amount of energy in helping to direct a group of students in an extensive diving and research program in order to demonstrate the need for a Reserve at Race Rocks.

dv1Johan Ashuvud SCUBA diving at Race Rocks 1979

 

 

 

ellisIn the fall of 1979 he helped organize a workshop to investigate the creation of a reserve at Race Rocks involving provincial and university officials. Johan was instrumental in drawing up the draft proposal with staff of the Ecological reserves branch of the Parks Department in the provincial government and even helped in guiding the Deputy Minister of Parks on an underwater tour of the reserve.

sw4mJens Jensen from Denmark,and Johan Asuvud attach a transect line onto the top of the rarely exposed Rosedale Reef, South of Race Rocks at an extreme low tide.  At that point they were standing on the most southerly point in Western Canada!

Jballanac27-1ohan’s underwater photography was the first done by students of the college and was to become very valuable in helping to promote conservation of the beautiful life forms there
A gallery of some of his work is available here.

celeb80When the Ecological Reserve at Race Rocks was declared in 1980 by the provincial government, the group of students who had worked on the proposal made a celebratory trip to Race Rocks to tell the lightkeepers Trev and Flo Anderson of the great news. (Johan is on crutches after returning from a holiday in Mexico where he had had a collision with a bus!)

sw7A few weeks later, Trev and Flo invited the core group back to present the “Order of Race Rocks” for the great work done. Johan (center of photo) and other divers with whom he had worked, were given the special presentation by Trev and Flo Anderson to express their thanks for the work done.
When Johan graduated from Pearson College, he went on to the School of Economics in Stockholm, Sweden, where he obtained his Master’s degree in Environmental Economics. His first job was in Costa Rica with the International Union for the Conservancy of Nature (IUCN). There he continued his interest in getting special places preserved, as he worked to convince officials in Parks Departments of Central American governments to preserve their Natural Heritage.

Almost 10 years after he left Pearson College, on a trip back to Sweden in April of 1988, Johan died in a car accident. Our college community was deeply saddened by this tragic event. Johan left his wife and a soon to be born daughter.
Johan would be the first to urge young people from all countries to never give up with environmental concerns. He proved to us that youth can make a significant impact in the world by getting actively involved in working to preserve such special places as Race Rocks.

In 2000, The family of Johan contributed the Johan Ashuvud Memorial Fund to be administered in Trust by Lester B. Pearson College . The purpose of the fund is to support with the annual proceeds environmental activities, research and projects undertaken by present and former students of Pearson related to the Race Rocks Marine Reserve.

  • In June 2000, Several students with faculty member Garry Fletcher did a week-long series of webcasts from the Ecological reserve for the Johan Ashuvud Week
  • In June 2001, students Damien Guihen and Jean Olivier Dalphond spent several weeks at Race Rocks, doing webcasts, and producing QuickTime Virtual Reality and QuickTime Videos for the archives of racerocks.com.
  • In June 2002 four students are doing an educational webcasting program from Race Rocks.
  • Almost every year since 2002, a few students from the college stay behind after others leave at the end of the term in May to go to Race Rocks for a project week which we still call “The Johan Ashuvud Week”

One of the last papers published by Johan on his work for the IUCN in Central America :

Ashuvud, Johan, “Environmental Conservation for Development in Central America” C. Folke and T. Kåberger ed. Linking the Natural Environment and the Economy: Essays from the Eco-Eco Group, (Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991): 253-270.

ASACODE, Asociación San Migueleña para la Conservación y el Desarrollo, tiene un Albergue para la recepción de turismo en una finca dedicada al manejo integral del bosque, que fue donada por UICN y que lleva el nombre de Johan Ashuvud.

*” Talamancan Ecotourism and Conservation (ATEC) Association, provided training Tourism naturalist guides, who work in Talamanca (local communities). ATEC works as tour operator working directly with the community. * ASACODE, San Miguelena Association for Conservation and Development, has a Hostel for receipt of tourism in an area dedicated to integrated forest management, which was donated by IUCN and named Johan Ashuvud. * There are a number of private initiatives to develop tourism hotels which will generate pressure on the resources of the Refuge.”

In December 2014,  a memorial bronze plaque was installed at Race Rocks to commemorate Johan and the work that he did to help in the creation of the Race Rocks Ecological reserve: Click to enlarge.2014-12-28johanplaque

The plaque can be seen from the remote camera 1. It  faces the tower on the rock near the path intersection below the tower.

 

Dr. Anita Brinckmann-Voss and Hydroid Research at Race Rocks

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anitaDr. Anita Brinckmann-Voss  passed away in December of 2017.

From 1986, to 2005,  Dr. Brinckmann-Voss of Sooke, BC assisted the students and faculty of Lester Pearson College with her understanding of marine invertebrate ecology and her expertise in the taxonomy of hydroids.  These small colonial animals, the alternate stage of the life-cycle of jellyfish, occur in rich profusion underwater at the Race Rocks Marine Ecological Reserve.  When the original species list was done for the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve Proposal, in 1979, only 2 hydroids had been included on our species list. Now over 60 species have been identified by Anita and she continued to assist students with research projects while she furthered her research on specimens from the island until 2004. Anita has established long term research plots in a tidepool at the reserve and documents the distribution of hydroids underwater with the assistance of students and faculty in the Diving program at Lester B. Pearson College. Below: Anita accompanied Garry, Chris and Joe on a dive to Secretary Island, West of Race Rocks up the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards Sooke. The purpose was to collect samples for hydroid specimens.  

anitaandsvobodaDr. Armin Svoboda and his son Hanno visited Race Rocks with Chris Blondeau and Dr. Anita Brinckmann-Voss in August of 2004. His pictures taken on a dive there are linked here.

 

 

 See this link for the hydroids identified by Anita. https://www.racerocks.ca/tag/hydroid/ 

See all the posts on this website tagged with Dr. Anita Brinckmann-Voss

bellatitle-1Gallery of photomicrographs of Hydroids- photos by Dr. Anita Brinckmann-Voss

tubulariaVideo on the habitat of a rare Tubularia

 

 

 

 

 

westshorePhotos of  Intertidal Hydroid Habitat on West side of Race Rocks .

 

 

 

 

PUBLICATIONS of Dr. Voss from her Research at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve :

 1. Brinckmann-Voss, A. , Lickey, D.M. , and Mills, C.E. 1993 . Rhysia fletcheri (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa, Rhysiidae), a new species of Colonial Hydroid from Vancouver Island British Columbia, Canada) and the San Juan Archipelago (Washington, USA) . Canadian Journal of Zoology 71: 401-406

Abstract: 

  • A new species of colonial athecate hydroid, Rhysia fletcheri , is described from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, and from Friday Harbour, Washington, U.S.A. It’s relationship to Rhysia autumnalis Brinckmann from the Mediterranean and Rhysia halecii (Hickson and Gravely) from the Antarctic and Japan is discussed. Rhysia fletcheri differs from Rhysia autumnalis and Rhysia halecii in the gastrozooid having distinctive cnidocyst clusters on its hypostome and few, thick tentacles.
  • hydrfemeMost of its female gonozooids have no tentacles. Colonies of R. fletcheri are without dactylozooids. The majority of R. fletcheri colonies are found growing on large barnacles or among the hydrorhiza of large thecate hydrozoans. 
  • Rhysia fletcheri occurs in relatively sheltered waters of the San Juan Islands and on the exposed coast of Southern Vancouver Island. Colored photos of Rhysia males. females and gastrozooids are included.

 2. Brinckmann-Voss, A. 1996. Seasonality of Hydroids (Hydrozoa, Cnidaria) from an intertidal pool and adjacent subtidal habitats at Race Rocks, off Vancouver Island,Canada, Scientia Marina Advances in Hydrozoan Biology , Vol 60 (1):89-97

Abstract:

  • An assemblage of 27 hydroid species was reported from a tide pool in the lower rocky intertidal zone, and compared with 42 hydroids of the adjacent subtidal region. Location of hydroids within the pool, seasonal occurrence, growth and sexual maturity were tabulated, and some systematic aspects discussed. Possible causes of hydroid species diversity were considered, including location of the tide pool in an area of tidal rapids, and shading by surf-grass and rock cliffs during low tide.

Tidal Currents and Current Measurement at Race Rocks

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The current at Race Rocks had just changed to a flood – it would be getting up to 6 knots in a few hours, so it was probably at about 5 knots at this time.

currentnowsTidal Current Predictions for  Race Passage
Prediction: Graph 

 

Race Passage Current tables, 2021

 

 

 

ADCP6Along with the installation of the Tidal Current turbine,  an ADCP was installed to give real time profiles of the Currents at Race Rocks. See the attached file for the type of profile that was generated:Sample of the result of the data analysis at Site 1:

 

sw24mThe Creation of the Race Passage Current Tables

 

 

 

Map of Currents at Race Rocks from ADCP tests

 

 

 

 

awac2See the video on wave and current measurement using the Acoustic Wave and Current instrument.

 

 

waterpropertiesWater Properties in Juan de Fuca

 

 

 

 

cursymbField Lab on Current Studies using Drogues.

 

 

 

tomiondeck1stomiondeck1sOceanographic
Research on Mixing in upwellings
of Race Rocks

 

 

kallesKalle Kallestrom’s essay on The biotic associations on the Current meter Block

 

 

 

deweysStratified Tidal Flow over a Bump
Richard Dewey,et al–Interactions of stratified flow on an isolated topographic feature: a bump to the east of Race Rocks.

 

ebbs MATLAB charts of barotropic currents to the east of Race Rocks.

 

 

 

generatorsLink to the Tidal Current Power Project