Ocean – Page 3 – Desdemona Despair

A sick sea lion and her pup are shown recovering from domoic acid poisoning at the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro, California, on 6 July 2023. During the summer of 2023, the center cared for sea lions that were sickened by a historically bad algal bloom along California’s Coast. Photo: Yannick Peterhans / USA TODAY

July 9, 2023

“Death coming out of the ocean”: Red tide killing California sea lions, dolphins – “I have been a marine mammal veterinarian for 35 years, and this is definitely the worst in my professional lifetime”

By Amanda Lee Myers 8 July 2023 (USA TODAY) – Jalapeño the sea lion turned up on a crowded California beach in a daze, experiencing seizures and heavily pregnant. Instead of giving birth in a remote location like sea lions prefer, Jalapeño had her pup on Southern California’s Hermosa Beach on a busy Saturday, surrounded by throngs […]

A man carries his mother as he arrives at an emergency ward at a hospital in Ballia District in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, 21 June 2023. Photo: Adnan Abidi / REUTERS

July 2, 2023

Climate nears point of no return as land, sea temperatures break records, experts say – “We’ve run out of time because change takes time”

By David Stanway 30 June 2023 SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea. As envoys gathered in Bonn in early June […]

Tuvalu’s Minister for Justice, Communication, and Foreign Affairs, Simon Kofe, gives a COP26 statement while standing in the ocean in Funafuti, Tuvalu 5 November 2021. Photo: Tuvalu Ministry of Justice, Communication, and Foreign Affairs / REUTERS

June 30, 2023

What happens to a people when their land disappears – “We could lose our status as a state”

By Jonathan Watts 27 June 2023 (The Guardian) – Small island nations would rather fight than flee, but rising sea levels have prompted apocalyptic legal discussions about whether a state is still a state if its land disappears below the waves. The Pacific Islands Forum, which represents many of the most vulnerable countries, has invited international […]

A beachgoer walks through sargassum seaweed that washed ashore on 18 May 2023, in Key West, Florida. A huge mass of sargassum seaweed formed in the Atlantic Ocean is headed for the Florida coastlines and shores in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

June 3, 2023

Seaweed full of flesh-eating bacteria hitting Florida, creating a “perfect pathogen storm”

By Jess Thomson 30 May 2023 (Newsweek) – The massive blob of seaweed creeping across the Atlantic Ocean toward Florida may contain deadly flesh-eating bacteria. The 5,000-mile wide clump of seaweed is made up of sargassum seaweed, which has bloomed massively to form the “Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt.” A study from Florida Atlantic University published […]

a, Volume transport. Black symbols show estimates ± calculated total uncertainty made using joint mooring-model-hydrographic method (square/triangle/circle symbols, 84° E/140° E/170° E; equation (2), Extended Data Fig. 7 and Supplementary Section 2). White symbols show comparative estimates from other studies11,24,47,48,49,50 (Supplementary Table 3). Blue line, total volume transport for time periods of 1994–1996, 2007–2011 and 2016–2018, which estimates the strength of the lower limb of overturning circulation in the Australian Antarctic Basin (shading shows total error of 1.2 Sv; Supplementary Table 2). b, Oxygen transport. Black line, total oxygen transport that estimates abyssal ventilation ± total uncertainty of 290 Sv mol kg−1 (equation (3)). c, Comparison of lower limb of overturning circulation and shelf salinities from a site of DSW formation in Ross Sea (Terra Nova Bay; refs. 12,13,35). Dotted blue arrows show declining trend in overturning for 1994–2009 and 1994–2017 that have uncertainties of ±0.5 Sv decade−1. Graphic: Gunn, et al., 2023 / Nature Climate Change

May 29, 2023

Deep ocean currents around Antarctica headed for collapse – “Such profound changes to the ocean’s overturning of heat, freshwater, oxygen, carbon, and nutrients will have a significant adverse impact on the oceans for centuries to come”

By Kathy Gunn, Matthew England, and Steve Rintoul 25 May 2023 (The Conversation) – Antarctica sets the stage for the world’s greatest waterfall. The action takes place beneath the surface of the ocean. Here, trillions of tonnes of cold, dense, oxygen-rich water cascade off the continental shelf and sink to great depths. This Antarctic “bottom […]

Aerial view near Jungersen Gletschur in Greenland. The white lines show where scientists believe the glacier edges were in 1900. Photo: Bob Elberling

May 29, 2023

Accelerated melting of glaciers in Greenland – Greenland’s glaciers have lost at least 587 cubic km of ice over the last century

26 May 2023 (University of Leeds) – A study has found widespread mass loss of glaciers and ice caps in Greenland since the start of the 20th century. The research provides critical insights into long-term changes to the glaciers and ice caps as a result of climate change, which has contributed about one fifth to […]

Satellite view of Super Typhoon Mawar capture by the Japanese satellite Himawari on Friday morning local time, 26 May 2023. Photo: RAMMB / CIRA

May 27, 2023

Super Typhoon Mawar strengthens into most powerful storm on Earth in more than 2 years – Record-setting storm is among the 10 most powerful on record globally

By Matthew Cappucci 26 May 2023 (The Washington Post) – The most powerful storm system on Earth in more than two years, Super Typhoon Mawar, is raging through the Pacific, stirring up 70-foot waves amid 200 mph gusts as the atmospheric buzz saw cruises over warm ocean waters. The meteorological monstrosity could maintain Category 5-equivalent […]

During the last week of April 2023, temperatures in parts of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria were up to 20°C higher than normal for the time of year. Graphic: Met Office

May 21, 2023

Western Mediterranean heatwave rare even for today’s warmed world – Extreme April 2023 heat in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, and Algeria almost impossible without climate change

7 May 2023 (Climate Centre) – A rapid study of last month’s extraordinary heatwave in the western Mediterranean by World Weather Attribution scientists says that while Europe and North Africa have experienced more extreme heat in recent years, the April heatwave was “so extreme that it is also a rare event in today’s warmer climate”. During the […]

Global annual mean temperature anomalies with respect to pre-industrial conditions (1850-1900) for six global temperature data sets (1850-2022). Graphic: WMO

April 30, 2023

WMO annual report highlights continuous advance of climate change – “While greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the climate continues to change, populations worldwide continue to be gravely impacted by extreme weather and climate events”

Geneva, 21 April 2023 (WMO) – From mountain peaks to ocean depths, climate change continued its advance in 2022, according to the annual report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Droughts, floods, and heatwaves affected communities on every continent and cost many billions of dollars. Antarctic sea ice fell to its lowest extent on record […]

Coastal anemones found side-by-side with pelagic (open ocean) gooseneck barnacles and pelagic bryozoans on a derelict fish crate recovered from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Photo: Linsey Haram / Smithsonian Institution

April 19, 2023

Ocean plastic pollution reaches “unprecedented” levels – The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now so huge and permanent that a coastal ecosystem is thriving on it – “The problem is getting bigger and bigger by the minute”

By Ivana Kottasová 18 April 2023 (CNN) – Scientists have found thriving communities of coastal creatures, including tiny crabs and anemones, living thousands of miles from their original home on plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a 620,000 square mile swirl of trash in the ocean between California and Hawaii. In a new study published in the Nature […]