Science

This year’s algal bloom in western Lake Erie was about as bad as scientists expected. But it could have been worse.

More research is needed to understand its effects on fisheries and humans

Last week, I joined Joseph Colbert and Mallory Harmel to learn more about the rattlesnakes of Jekyll Island.

From October 31 through November 21, 2019, NOAA and partners will conduct mapping and remotely operated vehicle operations from NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to collect critical baseline information about unknown and poorly understood deepwater areas of the Southeastern U.S. continental margin.

The first meeting of the Special Legislative Commission Relative to Ocean Acidification is set for Friday, November 8 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The Commission was created by legislation passed by Senator Cyr and Representative Fernandes in 2018.

Seagrass, the ocean’s early warning system, may well be our secret weapon in the fight against climate change.

Scientists say a failure of national management means excessive amounts of harmful chemicals--many now banned in other countries such as the EU, USA and Canada--are damaging the nation's waterways and the Great Barrier Reef.

Portable, easy-to-use and low-cost technology could be used by fish farmers to monitor water quality quickly and conveniently. A team of engineers has developed a highly sensitive system that uses a smartphone to rapidly detect the presence of toxin-producing algae in water within 15 minutes.

Supported by the Office of the Provost, the first Abess Scholars have wide latitude to bridge the gap between science and environmental policy.

Early-career scientists came together recently to learn to use a suite of ocean biogeochemical sensors, with the goal of closing the knowledge gap between ocean technology and potential end users.

Insights from a new study could spark discoveries about Martian landscapes and also help researchers get to the bottom of canyon formation here on Earth.

Sea levels rose as much as three metres per century during the last interglacial period as Antarctic ice sheets melted, a pace that could be exceeded in the future, given the turbo-charged potential of human-led climate change.

The 200-mile zone that hugs the curvature of the coast bursts with life, from phytoplankton to whales. Out in the open ocean, this activity is comparatively diminished. Understanding how coastal water is moved offshore fertilizing the open ocean is a long-standing goal of ocean scientists.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is often held up as the poster child for ocean pollution. And while the collection of trash collecting in the Pacific Ocean certainly deserves attention, researchers at the University of Delaware are concerned about a smaller source of pollution, much smaller.

They’re barely visible, only 1/8-inch or smaller, so it might not seem like a big deal. But it is. Microplastic particles are floating around in Tampa Bay in alarming numbers. In fact, research scientists from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and Eckerd College estimate that there may be as many as 4 billion of these indestructible particles at the bottom of the Bay.

A new study has shown that Britain's puffins may struggle to adapt to changes in their North Sea feeding grounds and researchers are calling for better use of marine protection areas (MPAs) to help protect the country's best known seabirds. Britain's coasts support globally important populations of many species of seabird, but they face many challenges as their established habitats change.

Satellite technology has been helping scientists track the Pacific Ocean Blob since its discovery in 2014. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitoring satellite maps documented the return of this devastating surge of unnaturally warm water that is killing corals and other marine life.

Special report: After the Ice -- This is the second installment of a Seattle Times series exploring climate change in the northern Bering Sea region. The series is part of the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines reporting initiative. For more information, go to pulitzercenter.org/connected-coastlines

The blooms have the potential to kill marine mammals, but researchers don’t know why

Melville’s experience as a whaler equipped him with a deep knowledge of cetology and marine biology, making Moby-Dick a true novel of the sea

The governor’s Blue-Green Algae Task Force has prepared initial recommendations for the Legislature in 2020, which will make it harder for lawmakers to evade their responsibility.

The critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle had an offseason for nesting this year along Texas beaches, with 190 nests recorded in Texas.

Marine sediments play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle due to the oxygen consumption and CO2 respiration of the organisms that live in and on the ocean floor. To help predict the changing contribution of this respiration to the carbon cycle in a warming world, researchers from the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ) and universities in Taiwan have compiled the largest open-access database available of the sediment community oxygen consumption and CO2 respiration. Their findings are published in Nature Scientific Data.

Study may spawn ways to genetically alter and control red seaweeds

Half of the marine life in the world's oceans depends on the enrichment of phytoplankton by dissolved iron, just as plants at the base of the food chain on land need nutrients to help them grow.

In a warming ocean, Alexandrium algae are shredding marine food webs—and disrupting beloved Alaska traditions.

Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death.

The next five-year update to the state’s 2010 sea level rise assessment report will look all the way out to 2100, the science advisory panel to the state Coastal Resources Commission decided during its Oct. 18 meeting.

One proposed method for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere—and reducing the risk of climate change—is to capture carbon from the air or prevent it from getting there in the first place. However, research from Mark Z. Jacobson at Stanford University, published in Energy and Environmental Science, suggests that carbon capture technologies can cause more harm than good.

The largest synthesis of important marine areas conducted to date reveals that a large portion of Earth's oceans are considered important and are good candidates for protection. A first of its kind, the study was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers including Ellen Pikitch, Ph.D., and Christine Santora of Stony Brook University and Dr. Natasha Gownaris, a Ph.D. graduate of Stony Brook University. The team examined 10 diverse and internationally recognized maps depicting global marine priority areas. The findings, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, may serve as a roadmap for the goal set by the United Nations to create 10 percent of the ocean as marine protected areas (MPAs) by 2020.

Charles Darwin's ship was decommissioned in 1870, when it was thought to be have been dismantled by the person that bought it.

The recent Typhoon Hagibis—the most powerful storm to hit Japan since 1958—caused massive destruction. The reported death toll as of October 22 has climbed to 80, with another 398 injured and 11 people still missing. Tens of thousands of homes were flooded, damaged, or without power after torrential rain and powerful winds resulted in tornadoes, widespread mudslides, and overflowing rivers. In addition, an earthquake in the northeastern area of Japan (Chiba-Tokyo) compounded landslides and flooding. Insured losses throughout the country are estimated at more than US$10 billion.

Sand on beach may look all the same, but it's not. Researchers have found that the material has a "sound," one that can be linked to its home. Find the source, and we can learn more about how it moves around the world.

A detox therapy used to treat overdoses in humans may help save endangered sea turtles from red tide poisoning. (With American Shoreline Podcast).

Coral systems must adapt if they are to survive, and governments in countries with reefs can help them

Executive Director, Prof Edward Hill, from the UK National Oceanography Centre talks to SciTech Europa Quarterly about the issues the ocean is facing.

If overfishing and pollution don’t kill it, climate change will

Seafloor denuded, fisheries for red abalone and red sea urchin destroyed

Fish may be more tolerant than previously thought to periods of low oxygen in the oceans, new research shows.

Ryan Hoover teaches sculpture making at the Maryland Institute College of Art. So, why is he developing a product that could help oysters grow in the Chesapeake Bay?

Stunning footage has been captured of a critically endangered shark swimming at a gas field in the UK North Sea.

Alabamians love their beaches, but the relationship with tiny mammals that helped make the state’s coastal ecosystems has been somewhat more complicated.

Study finds even the tallest ice cliffs should support their own weight rather than collapsing catastrophically

[NOAA] On the morning of September 2, 2019, as a devastating Hurricane Dorian made landfall over three islands in the Bahamas, delivering torrential rain and sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, the VIIRS instruments on the NOAA-20 and NASA-NOAA Suomi-NPP (S-NPP) satellites captured infrared pictures from above. These images, caught at 2:13 am ET and 3:03 am ET respectively, showed a circular eye inside a nearly perfectly symmetrical Category-5 storm.

Study finds even the tallest ice cliffs should support their own weight rather than collapsing catastrophically.

In addition to their scientific value, many satellite images are simply intriguing to look at. Satellites capture an incredible variety of views of Earth. See the mesmerizing beauty of river deltas, mountains, and other sandy, salty, and icy landscapes. Some might even remind you of actual famous works of art!

As one of only a handful of animals on the planet to live many years after menopause, killer whales have just provided new insight into the benefits of this seemingly strange reproductive strategy. Females that are past their child-bearing years go on to become group leaders with valuable survival skills, scientists report today in the journal Current Biology.

A team of engineers and marine biologists built a better suction cup inspired by the mechanism that allows the clingfish to adhere to both smooth and rough surfaces. Researchers reverse engineered the clingfish's suction disk and developed devices that cling well to wet and dry objects both in an out of water. The devices can hold up to hundreds of times their own weight.