EurekAlert! - Oceanography

AGU journal highlights - July 2, 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(American Geophysical Union) Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Ancient supervolcano's eruption caused decade of severe winters"; "Understanding fault movement during Wenchuan earthquake"; "First direct measurement of lunar backscatter from solar wind"; "Reducing uncertainty in estimates of global sea level rise"; "Boost in freshwater content of Arctic Ocean "; "Data gaps in records hinder detection of climate trends"; "Glaciers cause seismic activity in Iceland"; and more.

All in sight

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) A new measurement system for the detection of whales is used for the first time on board of the research vessel Polarstern. Visual sightings of whales by marine mammal observers are usually based on observations of the spout, the condensing and warm breathing cloud. It rises between one meter and ten meters over the water surface and remains visible for only a few seconds. A thermal imaging camera now uses the heat of this spout.

Evolution: Crabs go deep to avoid hot water

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) Researchers from the National Oceanography Center, Southampton, have drawn together 200 years' worth of oceanographic knowledge to investigate the distribution of a notorious deep-sea giant -- the king crab. The results, published this week in the Journal of Biogeography, reveal temperature as a driving force behind the speciation and radiation of a major seafloor predator -- globally, and over tens of millions of years of Earth's history.

Nursery programs for corals receive TLC from NOAA this Independence Day

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) As the nation celebrates its birth on the 4th of July, University of Miami Prof. Diego Lirman and fellow coral nursery scientists will be celebrating as well. NOAA announced that The Nature Conservancy and its partners' staghorn and elkhorn coral recovery projects, including Lirman's nursery in Biscayne National Park, will receive $350K in stimulus support from the ARRA to further develop large-scale, in-water coral nurseries and restore reefs along Florida's southern coast and in the US Virgin Islands.

Earth's most prominent rainfall feature creeping northward

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Washington) The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of freshwater to nearly a billion people throughout the tropics and subtropics has been creeping north for more than 300 years. If the band continues to migrate at just less than a mile a year, which is the average for all the years it has been moving north, then some Pacific islands near the equator may be starved of freshwater by midcentury or sooner.

Researchers survey Mid-Atlantic ridge looking for new life forms, clues to deep-sea communities

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service) An international team of researchers is surveying the Mid-Atlantic Ridge halfway between Iceland and the Azores to determine its biodiversity and perhaps discover new species and clues to deep-sea food webs. The project is part of a 16-nation effort to determine if the underwater mountain chain in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean has its own distinct animal communities.

Your own private global warming

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Society for Experimental Biology) Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey subjected species found in Antarctic waters to increasing levels of water temperature to learn how well they would cope with a warmer ocean. The study, to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on Tuesday, June 30, shows that several of these species are already living really close to their upper temperature range, and that further increases could easily provoke serious ecological imbalances in this region.

NSF provides $3.4 million to study climatically important Agulhas Current

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) The National Science Foundation is funding a study with the goal of building a multi-decadal time series of Agulhas Current transport. Led by Dr. Lisa Beal of the University of Miami, the 3-year, $3.4 million study will shed light on the seasonal to decadal variability of the Agulhas, which effect African rainfall rates, and which may have played a role in triggering the end of the last Ice Age.

First riser-drilling research operations undertaken

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International) IODP drilling vessel CHIKYU has resumed operations in the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone off the Kii Peninsula of Japan using riser technology successfully for the first time in scientific ocean research.

Little-known marine decomposers attract the attention of genome sequencers

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Stony Brook University) The US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute announced today that they will sequence the genomes of four species of labyrinthulomycetes. These little-known marine species were selected for sequencing as the result of a proposal submitted to the competitive JGI Community Sequencing Program by a team of microbiologists led by Dr. Jackie Collier, assistant professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University.

High carbon dioxide levels cause abnormally large fish ear bones

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - San Diego) Rising carbon dioxide levels in the ocean have been shown to adversely affect shell-forming creatures and corals, and now a new study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California - San Diego has shown for the first time that CO2 can impact a fundamental bodily structure in fish.

'Bycatch' whaling a growing threat to coastal whales

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Oregon State University) Scientists are warning that a new form of unregulated whaling has emerged along the coastlines of Japan and South Korea, where the commercial sale of whales killed as fisheries "bycatch" is threatening coastal stocks of minke whales and other protected species.

Nickel isotope may be methane producing microbe biomarker

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Penn State) Nickel, an important trace nutrient for the single cell organisms that produce methane, may be a useful isotopic marker to pinpoint the past origins of these methanogenic microbes, according to Penn State and University of Bristol, UK, researchers.

SMOS and Proba-2 launch rescheduled for November

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(European Space Agency) Following an agreement between ESA, Krunichev Space Centre and Eurockot Launch Services, ESA's next Earth Explorer mission SMOS and a secondary payload, the technology demonstrator Proba-2 satellite, will now launch on Nov. 2, 2009.

Close relationship between past warming and sea-level rise

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, along with colleagues from Tuebingen and Bristol have reconstructed sea-level fluctuations over the last 520,000 years. Comparison of this record with data on global climate and CO2 levels from Antarctic ice cores suggests that even stabilization at today's CO2 levels may commit us to much greater sea-level rise over the next couple of millennia than previously thought.

Subseafloor sediment in South Pacific Gyre

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Rhode Island) An international oceanographic research expedition to the middle of the South Pacific Gyre found so few organisms beneath the seafloor that it may be the least inhabited sediment ever explored for evidence of life.

Policy transparency key to saving world's fisheries

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Dalhousie University) The sustainability of fisheries depends on the transparency with which coastal states incorporate scientific advice into policies, reports a study led by researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and published in the journal PLoS Biology.

Geographic profiling applied to track hunting patterns of white sharks in South Africa

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science) A paper coming out in the Journal of Zoology describes the use of geographic profiling to examine the hunting patterns of white sharks of the coast of South Africa. The study was conducted by scientists at the University of Miami and University of British Columbia, using technology designed to locate criminal offenders of the two-legged variety by Texas State University.

Ice sheets can retreat 'in a geologic instant,' study of prehistoric glacier shows

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University at Buffalo) Modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo.

Ancient drought and rapid cooling drastically altered climate

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Ohio State University) Two abrupt and drastic climate events, 700 years apart and more than 45 centuries ago, are teasing scientists who are now trying to use ancient records to predict future world climate. The events -- one, a massive, long-lived drought believed to have dried large portions of Africa and Asia, and the other, a rapid cooling that accelerated the growth of tropical glaciers -- left signals in ice cores and other geologic records from around the world.

CO2 higher today than last 2.1 million years

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(The Earth Institute at Columbia University) Researchers have reconstructed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 2.1 million years in the sharpest detail yet, shedding new light on its role in the Earth's cycles of cooling and warming.

Rising acidity levels could trigger shellfish revenue declines, job losses

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Changes in ocean chemistry -- a consequence of increased carbon dioxide emissions from human industrial activity -- could cause US shellfish revenues to drop significantly in the next 50 years, according to a new study by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

ASU researcher is among authors of new US global climate change report

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Arizona State University) "This report is a very thorough, sobering synthesis of what we now know about the impacts of climate change on all of us," says Nancy Grimm, a professor at Arizona State University, one of the authors on the new federal study assessing the current and anticipated domestic impacts of climate change.

New report outlines current, future impacts of climate change

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Arizona) The University of Arizona's Jonathan Overpeck is among the lead authors of the national report that details risks from warming, as well as ways to adapt to future conditions.

Global sunscreen won't save corals

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

(Carnegie Institution) Emergency plans to counteract global warming by artificially shading the Earth from incoming sunlight might lower the planet's temperature a few degrees, but such "geoengineering" solutions would do little to stop the acidification of the world oceans that threatens coral reefs and other marine life, report the authors of a new study. The culprit is atmospheric carbon dioxide, which even in a cooler globe will continue to be absorbed by seawater, creating acidic conditions.