This page contains some of the more common or interesting questions that we get about estuaries, APNEP, or about the Albemarle-Pamlico region. Want to know more?
Ask a question!
Q: If there was an undersea earthquake off the west coast of Europe, would we be notified if a resulting tsunami was approaching our sounds?
A: As part of the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP), the Deep Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) Project is an ongoing effort to maintain and improve the capability for the early detection and real-time reporting of tsunamis in the open ocean. DART stations have been sited in regions with a history of generating destructive tsunamis to ensure early detection of tsunamis and acquire data critical to real-time forecasts. DART Station 41424 (370 nautical miles east of Charleston, S.C.) is positioned to provide advanced warning to our region.
Q: When were phosphates banned from detergents sold in the region?
A: The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources imposed a statewide ban of phosphates in detergents in 1988.
Q: How dire is the plight of river herring in the region?
A: Dire indeed. From 1880 to 1970, annual river herring (alfewife, Alosa pseudoharengus; and blueback herring, Alosa aestivalis) landings in the Albemarle Sound averaged 5.4 million kilograms, peaking at 9.1 million kilograms in 1969, but collapsed to 253,000 kilograms in 1994, and to only 45,000 kilograms by 2005.
Q: What would the ramification to the sounds be if the Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed from global warming?
A: Until recently the most often quoted range of global sea level rise (SLR) estimates from the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) was 5 to 6 meters. In May 2009, however, a research article by Bamber et al. in the Journal Science reassessed this scenario. The good news is that the mean SLR was cut by about 50% to 3.2 meters. The not-so-good news is that the eastern coast of the United States had among the highest SLR estimates at 4 meters (25% greater than the global mean). It is not clear how long a complete collapse would take once it began. Note that such an increase dwarfs the 0.2 to 0.6 meter SLR forecast for the 21st Century by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 when melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica aren’t considered, as well as dwarfing the 0.3 meter SLR rise in the 20th Century.