In recent years the double whammy of plastic trash and overfishing has drawn more attention to the plight of the world’s oceans. But another problem is that too many fishing vessels dump their gear, mostly fishing nets, which then endanger marine life long after they return to shore. This “ghost gea...
In november, the Russian K-550 nuclear ballistic submarine Alexander Nevsky, submerged in the Barents sea between Russia and the north pole, successfully launched a missile that travelled its prescribed course to Kamchatka in Russia’s far east. The Alexander Nevsky thus joins two other Russian nucle...
It may be time to sound the alarm and possibly try and find a cleaning solution. A recent study shows that there is much more plastic polluting the world’s oceans than researchers have previously estimated. And the number is staggering.
In what is being described as the most comprehensive m...
A major new study of the world's oceans has reached a shocking conclusion: Thanks to humans, there are now over 5 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing more than 250,000 tons, floating in water around the world.
With a global population of about 7.2 billion, that's nearly 700 pie...
The waters off the coast of New England are warming more rapidly than almost any other ocean region on earth. Scientists are now studying the resulting ecosystem changes, and their findings could provide a glimpse of the future for many of the world’s coastal communities.
by rebecca kesslerAfter ha...
Most of the concerns about climate change have focused on the amount of greenhouse gases that have been released into the atmosphere.
But in a new study published in Science, a group of Rutgers researchers have found that circulation of the ocean plays an equally important role in regulat...
The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation provided USD 2 million to Oceans 5, an international funders’ collaborative dedicated to stopping overfishing and establishing marine reserves in the world’s five oceans.
The funds will support projects creating large protected areas in the Pacific Islands and ...
For the third month this year, the world's oceans set a record for the warmest they have ever been since at least 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported on Monday.
September had the highest global average sea surface temperatures of any month on record s...
The RV Kaharoa motored out of Wellington, New Zealand on Saturday, loaded with more than 100 scientific instruments, each eventually destined for a watery grave. Crewmembers will spend the next two months dropping the 50-pound devices, called Argo floats, into the seas between New Zealand and Maurit...
How is a warming climate impacting life in the oceans? Fish can move to cooler areas, but coral reefs are anchored in place.
Late-summer water temperatures near the Florida Keys were warmer by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last several decades compared to a century earlier, according to a new ...
Official trailer for Mission Blue, a Netflix original documentary.
Mission Blue tells the story of world-renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle as she travels the globe on an urgent mission to shed light on the dire condition of Earth's oceans....
A new study by a team of Chinese and American conservation biologists quantifies the serious consequences of China's recent economic growth on its coastal ecosystems.
By several measures, 1978 was the beginning of a hugely successful surge in the nation's ability to produce economic value, ...
The ocean’s upper levels contain three times the amount of mercury as they did before the industrial revolution, according to a new study.
The study, published this week in Nature, is the first to create a comprehensive overview of the mercury in the ocean. The study also determined where the ...
Even when the sea looks clean, its surface can be flecked with tiny fragments of paint and fiberglass. That’s the finding from a study that looked for plastic pollution in the uppermost millimeter of ocean. The microscopic fragments come from the decks and hulls of boats, and they could pose a ...
Here's what we know about white-band disease: It has already killed up to 95 percent of the Caribbean's reef-building elkhorn and staghorn corals, and it's caused by an infectious bacteria that seems to be transmitted through the water and by coral-eating snails.
Here's what we don't know: ...
The tiny plastic particles polluting our seas are not only orally ingested by marine creatures, but also enter their systems through their gills, according to a new study led by the University of Exeter.
Scientists also discovered that when microplastics are drawn in through this ...
Without aggressive management, most of the Caribbean coral reefs will disappear in the next 20 years, according to a recent UNEP press release.
“Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970-2012,” a recent report compiled by Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN), the International Union ...
In the Pacific Ocean, four ocean currents merge to form the North Pacific gyre, also known as the North Pacific Subtropical High, which spans the western US to Japan, and Hawaii to California. This enormous rotating vortex has collected floating garbage from across the Pacific, but much of the debri...
-Kiribati, a Pacific island nation, recently purchased land on the Fijian island Vanua Levu in preparation for climate change. The president doesn’t expect to move everyone there, “but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it," he said. The Guardian
- The International...
Some Norwegian participants in last week’s oceans conference in the U.S. said international policymakers demonstrated a commitment to ocean health but more research is needed to show how emerging Arctic industries affect nearby water ecology.
The two-day “Our Ocean” conference ...
