EurekAlert! - Oceanography

Past climate of the northern Antarctic Peninsular informs global warming debate

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 years, which appears to show that the current warming and widespread loss of glacial ice are unprecedented.

AGU journal highlights -- Nov. 5, 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(American Geophysical Union) Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Antarctica warming a regional, not local, trend"; "New model factors storms into shoreline loss"; "Study agrees reservoir contributed to Wenchuan earthquake"; "Much Arctic warming linked to sea-ice, cloud-cover changes"; "Sorting out natural from human influences in ocean warming"; and "Meteoritic impacts may have cooked up life's components."

Coral reefs inspire rare consensus -- just save them

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Oregon State University) One of the first set of studies to examine what tourists and recreation enthusiasts actually think about coral reef ecosystems suggests they are a rare exception to controversies over human use versus environmental conservation -- their stunning beauty is so extraordinary that almost everyone wants them protected in perpetuity.

Massive Antarctic project takes Montana State University to one of Earth's final frontiers

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Montana State University) An "unparalleled opportunity" to drill through the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica and explore the world underneath it will involve Montana State University faculty and current and former students over the next five years.

Tackling new Arctic challenges from space

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(European Space Agency) International scientists, researchers and decision makers met at the Space and the Arctic workshop to identify the needs and challenges of working and living in the rapidly changing Arctic and to explore how space-based services can help to meet those needs.

Community education and evacuation planning saved lives in Sept. 29 Samoan tsunami

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Georgia Institute of Technology Research News) Community-based education and awareness programs minimized the death toll from the recent Samoan tsunami, according to a team of researchers that traveled to Samoa last month. Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, the team collected data to document the impacts of the earthquake and ensuing tsunami that occurred on Sept. 29.

Scientists are first to 'unlock' the mystery of creating cultured pearls from the queen conch

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Florida Atlantic University) In their natural form, conch pearls are among the rarest pearls in the world. For more than 25 years, all attempts at culturing pearls from the queen conch have been unsuccessful -- until now. For the first time, novel and proprietary seeding techniques to produce beaded and nonbeaded high-quality cultured pearls from the queen conch have been developed by scientists from FAU's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.

Tags reveal white sharks have neighborhoods in the north Pacific, say Stanford researchers

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Stanford University) A tracking study of white sharks in the northeastern Pacific Ocean shows they adhere to a rigid route of migration across the sea, returning to precisely the same spot along the California coast each time they come back, according to a team of researchers including some from Stanford University. Over time, this behavior has made the population in the northeastern Pacific genetically distinct from other white shark populations.

SMOS forms 3-pointed star in the sky

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(European Space Agency) Following the launch of ESA's SMOS satellite on Nov. 2, the French space agency CNES, which is responsible for operating the satellite, has confirmed that the instrument's three antenna arms have deployed as planned, and that the instrument is in good health.

K-State engineers strive to make algae oil production more feasible

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Kansas State University) The idea by Kansas State University's Wenqiao "Wayne" Yuan and Zhijian "Z.J." Pei is to grow algae in the ocean on very large, supporting platforms.

Mapping nutrient distributions over the Atlantic Ocean

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) Large-scale distributions of two important nutrient pools -- dissolved organic nitrogen and dissolved organic phosphorus (DON and DOP) have been systematically mapped for the first time over the Atlantic Ocean in a study led by Dr. Sinhue Torres-Valdes of the National Oceanography Center, Southampton. The findings have important implications for understanding nitrogen and phosphorus biogeochemical cycles and the biological carbon pump in the Atlantic Ocean.

Deep-sea ecosystems affected by climate change

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) The vast muddy expanses of the abyssal plains occupy about 60 percent of the Earth's surface and are important in global carbon cycling. Based on long-term studies of two such areas, a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that animal communities on the abyssal seafloor are affected in a variety of ways by climate change.

North Atlantic fish populations shifting as ocean temperatures warm

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center) About half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the last four decades, with some stocks nearly disappearing from US waters as they move farther offshore, according to a new study by NOAA researchers.

African desert rift confirmed as new ocean in the making

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(University of Rochester) In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans.

Climate variability impacts the deep sea

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) Deep-sea ecosystems occupying 60 percent of the Earth's surface could be vulnerable to the effects of global warming warn scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Iron controls patterns of nitrogen fixation in the Atlantic

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) Scientists including researchers from the National Oceanography Center, Southampton and the University of Essex have discovered that interactions between iron supply, transported through the atmosphere from deserts, and large-scale oceanic circulation control the availability of a crucial nutrient, nitrogen, in the Atlantic. Their findings have potentially important implications for understanding global climate, both past and future.

SMOS satellite successfully launched

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) A rocket carrying the European Space Agency's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellite blasted off successfully today. Professor Meric Srokosz of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton has been involved in the project since its inception. He said: "Obviously, I am excited and absolutely delighted that the launch has gone to plan. I am now looking forward to using data from the satellite in my research."

NOAA and Smithsonian project to improve Chesapeake and Delaware bays' nearshore habitat management

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NOAA Headquarters) NOAA has awarded the Smithsonian Institution's Environmental Research Center and several partner organizations $946,000 for the first year of an anticipated five-year, $5 million collaborative project to study the degradation of nearshore coastal habitats in the Chesapeake and Delaware bays.

NOAA, the Nature Conservancy address coral reef threats

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NOAA Headquarters) NOAA and the Nature Conservancy have entered into an agreement to protect the health of the nation's valuable but increasingly vulnerable coral reef ecosystems in the Caribbean, Florida, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. The four-year agreement will dedicate $3.6 million in NOAA funding and $3.6 million in matching funds from The Nature Conservancy to address the top three threats facing coral reef ecosystems: climate change, overfishing, and land-based sources of pollution.

NOAA awards $2.4 million to refine management strategies for the northern Gulf of Mexico dead zone

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NOAA Headquarters) Scientists researching the causes and impacts of the dead zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico have been awarded more than $2.4 million for the first year of an anticipated $12 million multi-year NOAA research investment.

HyBIS explores the Casablanca seamount

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) In October, the hydraulic benthic interactive sampler HyBIS maintained by the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton made 10 dives over the Casablanca Seamount, a four-kilometer high seamount located some 300 miles west of Morocco.

A new wrinkle in ancient ocean chemistry

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - Riverside) A research team led by University of California, Riverside geoscientists has corroborated evidence that oxygen production began in Earth's oceans at least 100 million years before the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). The researchers analyzed 2.5 billion-year-old black shales, which revealed that episodes of hydrogen sulfide accumulation in the oxygen-free deep ocean occurred nearly 100 million years before the GOE. Scientists have long believed that the early ocean was characterized by high amounts of dissolved iron.

Remotely operated vehicles and satellite tags aid turtle studies

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center) Researchers are using a remotely operated vehicle and satellite-linked data loggers to learn more about turtle behavior in commercial fishing areas and to develop new ways to avoid catching turtles in fishing gear. This marks the first time an ROV has been used to follow turtles in the wild to learn about their behavior and how they interact with their habitat.

Follow the launch of ESA's SMOS and Proba-2 satellites

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(European Space Agency) ESA's SMOS and Proba-2 satellites are scheduled for launch on Monday, Nov. 2, at 02:50 CET on a Russian Rockot launcher from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia.

Autosub6000 dives to depth of 3.5 miles

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) The United Kingdom's deepest diving Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Autosub6000, has been put through its paces during an extremely successful engineering trials cruise on the RRS Discovery, Sept. 27 to Oct. 17, 2009.