The American blue economy, which are resources and services provided by the oceans, contributed about $373 billion to the economy in 2018, and fisheries play a large role in that. Climate change, however, threatens commercial and recreational fisheries; changes in water temperature can affect the environments where fish, shellfish, and other marine species live, and cause them […]
SOLOMONS, MD (November 11, 2020)–Arctic researchers Jacqueline Grebmeier and Lee Cooper have been visiting the Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska for nearly 30 years, collecting information about the biological diversity of the watery world under the sea ice to understand how marine ecosystems are responding to environmental changes. This year, a late-season research cruise […]
The impacts of predator loss and climate change are combining to devastate living reefs that have defined Alaskan kelp forests for centuries, according to new research published in Science. “We discovered that massive limestone reefs built by algae underpin the Aleutian Islands’ kelp forest ecosystem,” said Douglas Rasher, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for […]
“We are headed towards a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, and this year is another nail in the coffin.” Arctic sea ice shrank to the second-lowest extent since records began over four decades ago, federal scientists said Monday, prompting renewed warnings about the climate crisis. The minimum ice cover for 2020 was likely reached on […]
The eastern Arctic Ocean’s winter ice grew less than half as much as normal during the past decade, due to the growing influence of heat from the ocean’s interior, researchers have found. The finding came from an international study led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Finnish Meteorological Institute. The study, published in the […]
A new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their international colleagues found that freshwater runoff from rivers and continental shelf sediments are bringing significant quantities of carbon and trace elements into parts of the Arctic Ocean via the Transpolar Drift—a major surface current that moves water from Siberia across the […]
Overlooked carbon source contributes to local coastal ecosystems A previously unknown, significant source of carbon discovered in the Arctic has National Science Foundation-funded scientists surprised — and concerned about what it may mean in an era of climate change. In a Nature Communications paper, chemists and hydrologists from The University of Texas at Austin and other institutions present evidence […]
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and North Pacific Gyre Oscillation are not as effective at helping us predict regional environmental and ecological change as in the past. A new study shows that two important indicators for understanding and predicting the effects of climate variability on eastern North Pacific marine ecosystems are less reliable than they were historically. […]
A container ship leaves a trail of white clouds in its wake that can linger in the air for hours. This puffy line is not just exhaust from the engine, but a change in the clouds that’s caused by small airborne particles of pollution. New research led by the University of Washington is the […]