Breaking Deep-Sea Waves Reveal Mechanism for Global Ocean Mixing
University of WashingtonOceanographers for the first time recorded an enormous wave breaking miles below the surface in a key bottleneck for global ocean circulation.
Oceanographers for the first time recorded an enormous wave breaking miles below the surface in a key bottleneck for global ocean circulation.
A University of Iowa researcher says that although microbes living in the so-called “dark ocean”—below a depth of some 600 feet where light doesn’t penetrate—may not absorb enough carbon to curtail global warming, they do absorb considerable amounts of carbon and merit further study.
Recent reports that lobster shell disease has turned up along the coast of Maine have Kathy Castro worried. The URI fisheries scientist has led a 15-year international effort to understand what causes the disease that has, until recently, been confined primarily to the waters of southern New England and Long Island Sound.
University of Michigan researchers and their University of Hawaii colleagues say they've solved the longstanding mystery of how mercury gets into open-ocean fish, and their findings suggest that levels of the toxin in Pacific Ocean fish will likely rise in coming decades.
A Florida State University research ship has returned from its first extended voyage, collecting more than 400 fishes in the northeastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico in an effort to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on marine life.
If history’s closest analog is any indication, the look of the oceans will change drastically in the future as the coming greenhouse world alters marine food webs and gives certain species advantages over others.
Research conducted in six bays of Long Island, NY, and led by scientists from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University (SBU) showed that local populations of winter flounder are inbred, which is a situation that is not usually considered in marine fisheries management.
A team of researchers from the University of Rhode Island, Brown University and Roger Williams University are working to identify the cause of a disease that is killing starfish from New Jersey to Maine.
University of Adelaide marine biologists have found that reducing nutrient pollution in coastal marine environments should help protect kelp forests from the damaging effects of rising CO2.
Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Western Australia have found that Fiji’s largest marine reserve contains more sharks than surrounding areas that allow fishing, evidence that marine protected areas can be good for sharks.
Recent research documents a dramatic, 40-year drop in a number of key fish species and a change in their community structure, according to a new study led by Eric Miller of MBC Applied Environmental Sciences (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and John McGowan of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Ocean experts had predicted a large “dead zone” area in the Gulf of Mexico this year, and according to the results from a Texas A&M University researcher just back from studying the region, those predictions appear to be right on target.
Collecting sediment spanning the past 30,000 years, Dal’s Markus Kienast and an international team of scientists have presented the first global synopsis of available sedimentary nitrogen isotope records from throughout the world’s oceans. Their research provides a bigger picture on the interplay between climate change and ocean biogeochemistry.
A McGill-led international research team has now completed the first global study of changes that occurred in a crucial component of ocean chemistry, the nitrogen cycle, at the end of the last ice age. The results of their study confirm that oceans are good at balancing the nitrogen cycle on a global scale. But the data also shows that it is a slow process that may take many centuries, or even millennia, raising worries about the effects of the scale and speed of current changes in the ocean.
Genetic research published June 12 in Nature by scientists from the University of Delaware and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reveals active bacteria, fungi and other microbes living in 5 million-year-old ocean sediment.
Climate is greatly influenced by the flow of heat energy carried by ocean currents. But precisely quantifying the mixing between the ocean and the atmosphere is hampered by a lack of detail in models of the ocean and of the water cycle. And in both models, knowing the salt content of the water is essential.
Scientists hope to learn more about how life thrives in these harsh environments
Coral reef fish species have proven invaluable for experimental testing of key concepts in social evolution and already have yielded insights about the ultimate reasons for female reproductive suppression, group living, and bidirectional sex change.
Ocean frontier explorer and world-renowned filmmaker James Cameron has been named by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego as the recipient of the 2013 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest. Cameron will deliver a presentation on his record-setting DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition and exploration of the frontiers of the deep sea on Friday, May 31, on the UC San Diego campus. Although the event is sold out, more information is available at: http://nierenberg.eventbrite.com/#
Using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy to examine crystals from the bodies of small marine organisms called sea squirts, scientists have solved the mystery of the crystal structure of the mineral called vaterite.
For much of Asia, the pace of life is tuned to rhythms of monsoons. The summer rainy season is especially important for securing the water and food supplies for more than a billion people. Its variations can mean the difference between drought and flood. Now a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego-led study reports on a crucial connection that could drastically improve the ability of forecasters to reliably predict the monsoon a few months in advance.
New research shows that many US marine mammal populations -- especially some seals and sea lions--have rebounded since 1972, because of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
With ocean life facing unprecedented threat from climate change, overfishing, pollution, invasive species and habitat destruction, a University of Florida researcher is helping coordinate national efforts to monitor marine biodiversity.
Study of world-famous Stingray City finds human interaction drastically alters stingray behavior.
Oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill acted as a catalyst for plankton and other surface materials to clump together and fall to the sea floor in a massive sedimentation event that researchers are calling a “dirty blizzard.”
Satellite tracking tags used to elucidate the migratory path of American eels from the St. Lawrence River to the Sargasso Sea prematurely detached from the specimens leading investigators to suspect significant predation during the eels' journey. Data from the tags revealed stomach temperatures and dive patterns consistent with porbeagle sharks. In addition to data collected by the satellite tags, only 4% of acoustically tagged eels were detected migrating into the Atlantic Ocean via the Cabot Strait (a major migratory pathway between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland). The study precedes the recent vote by CITES to more strictly enforce protection of five shark species including porbeagle sharks as well as recent international studies on the worldwide decline of sharks.
The world’s shark populations are experiencing significant declines with perhaps 100 million – or more - sharks being lost every year, according to a study published this week in Marine Policy.
Spiders that live along lake shorelines are good predictors of mercury pollution in and around bodies of water, according to a recent study by researchers at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
Nova Southeastern U. Professor Jim Thomas leads international expedition in Papua New Guinea that finds new species of sea slugs, feather stars and amphipods, a shrimp-like animal.
Changes in the amount of fish caught does not necessarily reflect the number of fish in the sea.
As the nations of the world prepare to vote on measures to restrict international trade in endangered sharks in early March, a team of researchers has found that one of these species – the oceanic whitetip shark – regularly crosses international boundaries.
Using underwater video cameras to record fish feeding on South Pacific coral reefs, scientists have found that herbivorous fish can be picky eaters – a trait that could spell trouble for endangered reef systems.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, Andrew Bass, professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University, is available to discuss the Plainfin Midshipman – a vocalizing fish that hums love songs to attract its female counterpart to den-like nests beneath rocks.
Shark attacks in the U.S. reached a decade high in 2012, while worldwide fatalities remained average, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File report released today.
NSU researchers study the bacteria of a shark’s mouth to improve medical treatment for shark bite victims
A hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has changed the way that waters in the southern oceans mix, a situation that has the potential to alter the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and eventually could have an impact on global climate change.
A study by University at Buffalo researchers finds that damaged coral colonies can take years to recover their reproductive prowess.
Two Santa Fe Institute researchers offer a coherent picture of how metabolism, and thus all life, arose. Their paper offers new insights into the likelihood of life emerging and evolving as it did on Earth, and the chances of it arising elsewhere in the universe.
NCAR has developed a prototype system to help flights avoid major storms as they travel over remote ocean regions. The 8-hour forecasts of potentially dangerous atmospheric conditions are designed for pilots, air traffic controllers, and others involved in flights over remote ocean regions where limited weather information is available.
A team of Roger Williams University (RWU), Boston University (BU), Conservation International(CI), and the New England Aquarium (NEAq) researchers have published their findings about this unique trade and its long-term implications.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists will discuss improving solar power forecasting, measuring the resources needed to grow algae for biofuel and predicting the environmental impacts of ocean energy at the 2012 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting this week.
Concern is growing that human-generated noise in the ocean disrupts marine animals that rely on sound for communication and navigation. In the modern ocean, the background noise can be ten times louder than it was just 50 years ago. But new modeling based on recently published data suggests that 200 years ago – prior to the industrial whaling era -- the ocean was even louder than today due to the various sounds whales make.
Global temperatures directly affect the acidity of the ocean, which in turn changes the acoustical properties of sea water. New research suggests that global warming may give Earth’s oceans the same hi-fi sound qualities they had more than 100 million years ago, during the Age of the Dinosaurs.
A University of Utah study suggests something amazing: Periodic changes in winds high in the stratosphere influence the seas by striking a vulnerable “Achilles heel” in the North Atlantic and changing mile-deep ocean circulation patterns, which in turn affect Earth’s climate.
Florida State University oceanographer Kevin Speer has a “new paradigm” for describing how the world’s oceans circulate — and with it he may help reshape science’s understanding of the processes by which wind, water, sunlight and other factors interact and influence the planet’s climate.
A new study finds surface water samples are insufficient in determining the prevalence of plastic debris in oceans.
Researchers monitor trout movement and diet to study causes of declining populations in Norway. The Ocean Tracking Network collaborates on the study by loaning trout monitoring equipment.
Virgin Oceanic is aiming its experimental, cutting-edge sub straight to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
It's "Waterworld" snail style: Ocean-dwelling snails that spend most of their lives floating upside down, attached to rafts of mucus bubbles.
Changing human activities coupled with a dynamic environment over the past few centuries have caused fluctuating periods of decline and recovery of corals reefs in the Hawaiian Islands, according to a study sponsored in part by the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University. Using the reefs and island societies as a model social-ecological system, a team of scientists reconstructed 700 years of human-environment interactions in two different regions of the Hawaiian archipelago to identify the key factors that contributed to degradation or recovery of coral reefs.