Study shows rapid warming on the West Antarctic ice sheet

Study shows rapid warming on the West Antarctic ice sheet

Dec. 23, 2012 — In a discovery that raises further concerns about the future contribution of Antarctica to sea level rise, a new study finds that the western part of the ice sheet is experiencing nearly twice as much warming as previously thought.

First evidence of ocean acidification affecting live marine creatures in the Southern Ocean

First evidence of ocean acidification affecting live marine creatures in the Southern Ocean

The pteropod (marine snail) Limacina helicina antarctica which is abundant member of the Southern Ocean zooplankton community. Specimens mainly inhabit the top 200 m of oceanic waters where they graze on phytoplankton and detritus. Their shells are made of aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate that can dissolve rapidly. (Credit: Image provided by Nina Bednarsek)

Irreversible warming will cause sea levels to rise for thousands of years to come, new research shows

Irreversible warming will cause sea levels to rise for thousands of years to come, new research shows

Scientists discover huge phytoplankton bloom in ice-covered waters

Scientists discover huge phytoplankton bloom in ice-covered waters

Ocean Acidification Frequent Questions Asked
http://www.epoca-project.eu/index.php/what-do-we-do/outreach/rug/oa-questions-answered.html

http://www.midwayfilm.com/

It is about what is hapening to life, in this small island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
It has to do with ourselves in our daily lives ! we must act urgently !

The World Oceans is what keeps OUR PLANET ALIVE !!

Strong images, great photography and a seriuos situation that has to do with our Oceans, Ourselves and Actions to be Taken to diminish the impact urgently ! Think about it because it has to do with the future of your family and children, and Life itself !!

They need donations for the project ! Please, visit the website and watch the film.
http://www.midwayfilm.com/

Dry lands getting drier, wet getting wetter: Earth's water cycle intensifying with atmospheric warming

Dry lands getting drier, wet getting wetter: Earth's water cycle intensifying with atmospheric warming

Deploying an Argo float in the Tasman Sea. (Credit: Image courtesy of CSIRO Australia )

ScienceDaily (May 21, 2012) — A clear change in salinity has been detected in the world's oceans, signalling shifts and an acceleration in the global rainfall and evaporation cycle.

n a paper just published in the journal Science, Australian scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear fingerprint of climate change.

Lead author, Dr Paul Durack, said that by looking at observed ocean salinity changes and the relationship between salinity, rainfall and evaporation in climate models, they determined the water cycle has strengthened by four per cent from 1950-2000. This is twice the response projected by current generation global climate models

Potential instability in West Antarctic Ice Sheet from newly discovered basin size of New Jersey

Potential instability in West Antarctic Ice Sheet from newly discovered basin size of New Jersey

ScienceDaily (May 10, 2012) — Using ice-penetrating radar instruments flown on aircraft, a team of scientists from the U.S. and U.K. have uncovered a previously unknown sub-glacial basin nearly the size of New Jersey beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) near the Weddell Sea. The location, shape and texture of the mile-deep basin suggest that this region of the ice sheet is at a greater risk of collapse than previously thought.

The hidden journeys of ocean giants

First satellite tag study for manta rays reveals habits and hidden journeys of ocean giants
ScienceDaily (May 11, 2012) — Using the latest satellite tracking technology, conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Exeter (UK), and the Government of Mexico have completed a ground-breaking study on a mysterious ocean giant: the manta ray.

The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) has launched its latest report card on 8^th May at the World Fisheries Congress in Edinburgh.

Introduction & climate narrative: www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.2230/abstract

Fish: www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.2244/abstract

Fisheries: www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.2248/abstract

Aquaculture: www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.2247/abstract

Pacific islands on equator may become refuge for corals in a warming climate due to changes in ocean currents

Pacific islands on equator may become refuge for corals in a warming climate due to changes in ocean currents

The Future: Global climate models predict a sea surface temperature rise of nearly 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F) by the end of the century. According to Karnauskas’s and Cohen’s fine-scale model, equatorial trade winds will weaken, causing a weakening of the surface current. In turn, the frictional drag on the EUC will lessen, and the EUC will strengthen, carrying more cool, nutrient-enriched water to the surface around the Gilbert Islands. The result will be enhanced productivity close to the islands, and slower warming during the coming century than neighboring islands not in the EUC’s path. The slower warming may allow corals to adapt and survive, making the Gilberts a refuge for coral reef ecosystems. (Credit: Illustration by Amy Caracappa_Qubeck, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2012) — Scientists have predicted that ocean temperatures will rise in the equatorial Pacific by the end of the century, wreaking havoc on coral reef ecosystems. But a new study shows that climate change could cause ocean currents to operate in a surprising way and mitigate the warming near a handful of islands right on the equator. As a result these Pacific islands may become isolated refuges for corals and fish.

Under climate change, winners and losers on the coral reef

Under climate change, winners and losers on the coral reef

Coral on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. (Credit: © StrangerView / Fotolia)

ScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 2012) — As ocean temperatures rise, some species of corals are likely to succeed at the expense of others, according to a report published online on April 12 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology that details the first large-scale investigation of climate effects on corals.

"The good news is that, rather than experiencing wholesale destruction, many coral reefs will survive climate change by changing the mix of coral species as the ocean warms and becomes more acidic," said Terry Hughes of James Cook University in Australia. "That's important for people who rely on the rich and beautiful coral reefs of today for food, tourism, and other livelihoods."

In an attempt to understand the sorts of changes that may take place as the world's oceans warm, the researchers examined the coral composition of reefs along the entire length of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Earlier studies of climate change and corals have been done on a much smaller geographical scale, with a primary focus on total coral cover or counts of species as rather crude indicators of reef health.

"We chose the iconic Great Barrier Reef as our natural laboratory because water temperature varies by 8 to 9 degrees Celsius along its full length from summer to winter, and because there are wide local variations in pH," Hughes explained. "Its regional-scale natural gradients encompass the sorts of conditions that will apply several decades from now under business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions."

In total, the researchers identified and measured more than 35,000 coral colonies on 33 reefs. Their survey revealed surprising flexibility in the assembly of corals. As they saw one species decline in abundance, some other species would tend to rise. The waxing or waning of any given coral species the researchers observed as they moved along the coastline occurred independently of changes to other coral species.

Hughes concludes that corals' response to climate change is likely to be more complicated than many had thought. Although he now believes that rising temperatures are unlikely to mean the end of the coral reef, critical issues remain.

"If susceptible table and branching species are replaced by mound-shaped corals, it would leave fewer nooks and crannies where fish shelter and feed," he said. "Coral reefs are also threatened by much more local impacts, especially by pollution and overfishing. We need to address all of the threats, including climate change, to give coral reefs a fighting chance for the future."

Evolution at sea: Long-term experiments indicate phytoplankton can adapt to ocean acidification

Emiliania huxleyi cells in an electro-microscopic picture. (Credit: Lennart Bach, GEOMAR)

Evolution at sea: Long-term experiments indicate phytoplankton can adapt to ocean acidification

ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2012) — Fossil fuel derived carbon dioxide has a serious impact on global climate but also a disturbing effect on the oceans, know as the other CO₂ problem. When CO₂ dissolves in seawater it forms carbonic acid and results in a drop in pH, the oceans acidify. A wealth of short-term experiments has shown that calcifying organisms, such as corals, clams and snails, but also micron size phytoplankton are affected by ocean acidification. The potential for organisms to cope with acidified oceanic conditions via evolutionary adaptations has so far been unresolved.

New Comparison of Ocean Temperatures Reveals Rise Over the Last Century

Argo's 3,500 ocean-profiling robots blanket the world's oceans. 

(Credit: Image courtesy of Scripps Institute of Oceanography)

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2012) — A new study contrasting ocean temperature readings of the 1870s with temperatures of the modern seas reveals an upward trend of global ocean warming spanning at least 100 years.

The research led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego physical oceanographer Dean Roemmich shows a .33-degree Celsius (.59-degree Fahrenheit) average increase in the upper portions of the ocean to 700 meters (2,300 feet) depth. The increase was largest at the ocean surface, .59-degree Celsius (1.1-degree Fahrenheit), decreasing to .12-degree Celsius (.22-degree Fahrenheit) at 900 meters (2,950 feet) depth

Carbon dioxide was hidden in the ocean during last Ice Age

Example of an icecore from 2590 metres depth, which is more than 150 000 years old. It is divided into pieces of one metre each for further analysis in the laboratory. Diametre of the icecore: 10 cm. (Credit: Hans Oerter, Alfred Wegener Institute)

Carbon dioxide was hidden in the ocean during last Ice Age

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329142020.htm

Um documentário sobre o processo de acidificação dos oceanos.

 
Its all about where all  the PLASTIC goes in our daily lives !
Well made and won the 2010 Blue Ocean film festival.


 

Ocean acidification rate may be unprecedented, study says

The single-celled organism Stensioeina beccariiformis survived the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago but went extinct 9 million years later, when the oceans acidified due to a massive CO2 release. It ranged across many depths, in all oceans. (Credit: Ellen Thomas)

Ocean acidification rate may be unprecedented, study says

ScienceDaily (Mar. 1, 2012) — The world's oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period.

Global sea level rise: NASA mission takes stock of Earth's melting land ice

Global sea level rise: NASA mission takes stock of Earth's melting land ice

Changes in ice thickness (in centimeters per year) during 2003-2010 as measured by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, averaged over each of the world's ice caps and glacier systems outside of Greenland and Antarctica. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Colorado)

ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2012) — In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.

Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.

The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth's glaciers and ice caps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.

"Earth is losing a huge amount of ice to the ocean annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet's cold regions are responding to global change," said University of Colorado Boulder physics professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study.  ( to continue read at Science daily website ... )

Global sea level rise: NASA mission takes stock of Earth's melting land ice

My Father, the Captain: Jacques-Yves Cousteau - Promo

Global experts question claims about jellyfish populations

Global experts question claims about jellyfish populations

Giant jellyfish clogging fishing nets in Japan. (Credit: Shin-ichi Uye)

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2012) — Blooms, or proliferation, of jellyfish have shown a substantial, visible impact on coastal populations -- clogged nets for fishermen, stinging waters for tourists, even choked intake lines for power plants -- and recent media reports have created a perception that the world's oceans are experiencing increases in jellyfish due to human activities such as global warming and overharvesting of fish.

Carbon dioxide is 'driving fish crazy'

Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes. (Credit: Image courtesy of ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies)

ScienceDaily (2012-01-20) -- Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found. Carbon dioxide concentrations predicted to occur in the ocean by the end of this century will interfere with fishes' ability to hear, smell, turn and evade predators, says a professor.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120120184233.htm

Unidentified pale octopus on the seafloor. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford

ScienceDaily (2012-01-03) -- Communities of species previously unknown to science have been discovered on the seafloor near Antarctica, clustered in the hot, dark environment surrounding hydrothermal vents. The discoveries include new species of yeti crab, starfish, barnacles, sea anemones, and potentially an octopus.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120103185246.htm

"Um Mundo Perdido" descoberto proximo das fendas vulcânicas termais, do Continente Anatartico.

Comunidades de espécies bentônicas, previamente não conhecidas pela ciência, foram descobertas no fundo do oceano próximo da Antartida, agregadas ao ambiente quente e escuro de fendas hidrotérmicas de origem vulcânica.As descobertas incluem novas espécies de caranguejos,estrelas,cracas,anemonas e em potencial,um polvo.