B6 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 19, 1997 ec rerrinia eet DAVE TAYLOR ROB BROWN A deadly trend he beat goes on. The heat goes up. Polar ice sheets calve, sending their offspring into the frigid waters with great splashes. Glaciers go from melt to melt down, Scientists race to the Antarctic to test the theory of one J.H. Mercer of Ohio State U., who argues that the marine ice sheet there — as large a slab of ice as one can imagine covering an equally expansive slab of bedrock — is inherently unstable, If enough of the floating ice sheets buttressing their bedrock ridden cousin melt in the global greenhouse, speculates Dr. Mercer, this vast marine vestige of the last ice age would disintegrate, inundat- ing the coast lines of the world in the process. In this scenario 60 per cent of Florida would be- come betler real estate for gators and snook than for hominids. The ambassador to the United Nations to the Maldives, a small archipelagic country in the Pacific, sweats from more than tropical heat. For Maldavians a global rise of 5 degrees Cel- sius means more than a lot of water in a lot of basements. It means their little country will slip beneath the surface; sleep with the fishes, literally. He pleads, he exhorts the super nations of the first world, the big time energy burners — of which Canada is number one, incidentally — to stop gassing the atmosphere with green- house formulations. The Dutch know the problems of sea rise well. In 1953 the sea breached a dike and raced 64 kilometres inland flooding 200,000 hectares of Holland, leaving 100,000 people homeless, and two thousand dead. Since then the Dutch have refined diking to the point that they feel they can contend with a gradual five metre rise in sea | level. Besides that, they live in a small country that can be diked. It is the unpredictability and violent intensity of the storms that accompany global warming, and the overwhelming damage wrecked by them, that worries climatologists of the Netherlands, A tising tide of hitherto unimagined dimen- sion is sadly only one of the unsatisfactory resulls of a gradual increase in global tempera- ture. Kees Groot, another Dutchman, coinciden- tally, and a highly respected scientist within the ranks of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, gave a keynote address on one to the steelheaders attending the recent Annual Gener- al Meeting of the Steelhead Society of B.C. The most recent science seems to indicate that ecosyslems need to move approximately 150 kilometres for each degree Celsius of shift in average temperature. Work done on temperature trends by NASA, and other possessors of Mega computers, provides some frightening models that show many ecosystems will be unable to maintain the torrid pace. Unlike many other species salmon depend on a number of habitals, said Groot. Stream, river, estuary, and occan, the health of each habitat in this chain is critical to the biological success of anadromous fish. Temperature seems to play a key role in triggering salmon migration. A warmer slream means tarlier emergence of fry and carlicr migration. In one example given by Dr. Groat a three degree increase prompted fish to move fifty days earlier. The question is, given the unending oscillation of nature, will the receiving habitat provide the proper require- ments for the smolts at an earlier time? Seeking the cold comfort of the northem cur- rents, Pacific salmon migrate North. Sockeye, Pink, Chum and Steelhead make the longest migrations along the coast before striking out into the northern Pacific. Apparently they are extraordinarily sensitive to water temperature, Why this is so is not entirely clear, but Dr. Groot suggested that the cooler temperatures may have a great deal to do with food produc- lion. In fact, the fisheries research arms of both our governments have joined forces to monitor the migration of salmon over the next few years to see if a reduced area of cool water Dr. Groot likened to a shrinking veil has resulted in the dramatically reduced nuns of salmon to rivers in Oregon, Washington, and, lately, to some Van- couver Island streams, Bruce Ward, who has been monitoring the Keogh River on Vancouver Island for MOELP has seen a pronounced decline in a relatively unfished, intact watershed, suspects this might be largely attributable to ocean survival. Changes in temperature and their effect on food production may have created thermal deserts with the result that migrant salmon may not be getting enough food to sustain themselves on their long journcy through the salt chuck. One steelhead returned to the formerly fish- rich Big and Little Qualicum Rivers of Van- couver Island, this year. We can only hope such fish are not coal mine canaries, By DOYLE POTENTEAU WITH A TEAM comprised mostly of grade 11 students, Caledonia wasn’t expected to fare very well at the boys AAA basketball tournament in Vancouver last week. “We came here to learn,’’ said coach Cam Mackay. “We have a young, in- experienced team and our main goal was to lear about the tournament in preparation for next year." And it appears Cal is doing quite a bit of learning as they got schooled twice by two powerful clubs in their first two games, New Westminster dumped the Kermodes 86-68 in their first match, while Vernon hit the locals 85-67. In the New West match, the Hyacks smothered the Kermodes with a very cffec- tive full-court press, which forced several turnovers that led lo points. From the beginning of the match, though, it appeared Cal could keep pace with the lower mainland school, as they Ied 20-18 after the first quarter. But a turnover-filled second quarter, com- bined with hat shooting from New West, saw the lead change hands for good as the Hyacks went up 47-39. The Kermodes tried to keep pace, but they couldn’t as they only netted 25 points, while New West sunk 40 in the final half. Fraser de Walle led Cal in scoring with 15 points, Teammates Chesley Neufeld and “TERRAC E. STANDARD. Tyson Hull, who hauled in nine rebounds, both chipped in with 11. Against Vernon, Cal had trouble with the same type of aggressive play, and the Panthers forced the Kermodes to cough up the ball several times. That proved to be vital, because it put Terrace out of the match early. After a 31- 16 first quarter, the Panthers went ahead 53-27 at the half and coasted to victory. Fraser deWalle led his team in scoring with 19 points. Also figuring in on the scor- ing was Neufeld with 10, plus David Kelly and Chad Taylor who both had seven. Rory MacPherson bad a very good defensive game. “Turnovers really cost us because you can’t win the game if you don’t have the ball,” said Mackay, who’s team had trouble with in-your-face defence. But Mackay said with time, that problem should be climinated. ‘It’s just a lack of experience when it comes to this type of pressure. I’m sure that with time they'll know how to handle themselves,’’ Cal’s third game was played against Vic- toria’s Mount Douglas in the cavernous GM Place. Tyson Hull and Fraser deWalle both had good games but it was to no avail and the Kermodes went down 76-56. CHESLEY NEUFELD dodges a Veron Panther in Caledonia's second match of the Senior Boys’ AAA Provinicial Basketball Finals in Vancouver last week. Neufeld went on to score 10 for the Kermades in this game, but they lost 85-67. Skaters strike gold at meet SKATERS WERE leaping and flowers were flying this past weekend as hundreds of figure skaters from clubs all over the northwest con- verged in Terrace to com- pete in the annual Kia-How- Ya interclub competition. Skaters from Prince Rupert to Bums Lake flocked to the Terrace Arena for a weekend of fun and competition. Everyone from little Pre-Beginners to Juve- niles and adults performed at the three-day tournament, Hundreds of spectators also turned out and they were treated to full-costume displays of skill and grace. Events included team manoeuvres, solo per- formances in both mens’ and ladies’ categories, rock and ral] interpretive, dance and others. The award-winning Ter- race precision teams also performed an exhibilion on Saturday night for delighted fans, Terrace Skating Club coach Harold Shear was all smiles Saturday afternoon. So were his skaters as they loudly cheered on fellow team members, ‘Things are going very well,’ Shear said. ‘A num- ber of our skaters have scored very high.’” A complete list of Terrace medal winners was not available at press time. Look for the winners to be named in the next edition of the Standard, 638.7283 FRASEP DEWALLE moves in for two. Girls settle for 16th place OUR CAL girls’ basketball team also had a liitle trouble with the tough competition at the Provincial Finals in Vancouver two weeks ago. The Kermodes fost 89-31 in their first game of the Finals against top-ranked Salmon Arm. That blow-out tock the wind right out of their sails and the girls lost their next match against New Westminster, 73-27. “It was really tough on them,’’ says coach Jorge Silva. ‘‘Salmon Arm was so quick, It was something the girls baven’t seen all season.” Silva says the squad played much better in their third match against J.N. Bamett, but they still fell behind and weren’t able to catch up. Their last match of the tournament saw the girls go up against Prince George to battle it out for 15th and 16th place, Silva says the last game was probably their best, but the Kermodes stil] couldn’t pull it off and the team ended up 16th overall, Although the tournament was hardly a big success for the Cal team, Silva says they all had a great time and got to experience some really high-calibre ball, ‘Now they know what to expect next year,”’ he says. And next year could be a good one, Silva says be plans to continue coaching and he looks forward to workiig with a strong new group of Grade 11’s from Skeena, Thomhill and Centennial schools. HUNDHEDS OF skaters came to town last weekend for the Kla-How-Ya tournament, Above is Terrace's Megan Mahoney performing, while on the lett, that's Kasia Lamb and Caitlin Westerman who snagged sil- ver in the Preliminary Ladies event,