Credit: CC0 Public Domain The world’s oceans were the hottest in recorded history in 2019, scientists said on Tuesday, as manmade emissions warmed seas at an ever-increasing rate with potentially disastrous impacts on Earth’s climate. Oceans absorb more than 90 percent of excess heat created by greenhouse gas emissions and quantifying how much they […]
IUCN Climate change and nutrient pollution are driving the oxygen from our oceans, and threatening many species of fish. That’s the conclusion of the biggest study of its kind, undertaken by conservation group IUCN. While nutrient run-off has been known for decades, researchers say that climate change is making the […]
Sea turtle equipped with an animal-borne sensor. Credit: Miquel Gomila/SOCIB Sharks, penguins, turtles and other seagoing species could help humans monitor the oceans by transmitting oceanographic information from electronic tags. Thousands of marine animals are tagged for a variety of research and conservation purposes, but at present the information gathered […]
A plastic bottle on Henderson Island in the Pacific, June 13 2019 Most of the plastic bottles washing up on the rocky shores of Inaccessible Island, aptly named for its sheer cliffs rising from the middle of the South Atlantic, probably come from Chinese merchant ships, a study published Monday […]
Earth’s crust is literally tearing apart to form this volcanic seascape. The volcanic complex was found beneath the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Italian coast. (Image: © FrankRamspott/iStock/Getty Images Plus) Hidden beneath the waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea near southwestern Italy lies a newfound volcanic mosaic dotted with geothermal chimneys and […]
‘Blue finance’ aims to help raise funding for the responsible use of oceans The world’s oceans are set to become an increasingly vital resource for helping the planet cope with soaring population growth, but officials are only beginning to craft regulatory frameworks that would ensure “blue financing” goes where it’s […]
On Aug. 24, explorer Victor Vescovo dove to the deepest part of the Arctic Ocean. (Image: © Five Deeps Expedition/Discovery Channel) Hidden beneath the Fram Strait, a passage that separates Greenland and Svalbard, lies the deepest point in the Arctic Ocean, where the seafloor plunges some 18,209 feet (5,550 meters) […]
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Researchers at Stanford University say they have found an aquatic highway that lets nutrients from Earth’s belly sweep up to surface waters off the coast of Antarctica and stimulate explosive growth of microscopic ocean algae. Their study, published June 5 in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that hydrothermal […]
Hirondellea gigas (left) is a type of amphipod that lives in the Mariana Trench. It is just one of the deep-sea crustacean species affected by nuclear weapons that were tested decades ago. Credit: Daiju Azuma, CC BY 2.5/U.S. Department of Energy Crustaceans that live in the deepest part of the […]
MICHELLE YUN/QUANTA MAGAZINE; SOURCE: BRGFX EVERY TIME YOU swallow a mouthful of seawater while swimming at the beach, you’re downing about as many viruses as there are people in North America. However, despite the staggering abundance of marine viruses—and the key role that these infectious agents seem to play in global processes like the carbon cycle—scientists […]