Far away from California’s coast, where the Pacific Ocean currents swirl, the blue of the sea was replaced by fishing nets, buckets, buoys, laundry baskets and unidentifiable pieces of plastic that floated past the Ocean Star, a ship carrying a… Read More ›
NOAA is declaring the recent deaths of 30 large whales in the western Gulf of Alaska an “unusual mortality event,” triggering a focused, expert investigation into the cause. An unusual mortality event is a stranding event that is unexpected, involves… Read More ›
In many ways, these storms are a foreshadowing of the challenges we face as a result of rising seas.
That culprit, ocean acidification, is the caustic cousin of climate change, and it shifts the chemistry of ocean water, making it harder for oysters to grow. That’s because about 30 percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, causing pH levels to plummet and making the water more acidic. The more pollution in the air, the more carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs.
By: Peter Murphy for the NOAA Marine Debris Program SEATTLE, WASHINGTON — a football-field sized barge carrying nearly 3,400 super-sacks of marine debris from remote and rugged beaches from Alaska and British Columbia docked at the Waste Management facility in… Read More ›
by nicola jones In Hawaii this summer, as corals engage in their once-a-year courtship ritual of releasing sperm and eggs into the water by moonlight, Ruth Gates will oversee a unique mating: the coming together of “super-corals” in her lab…. Read More ›
A crowdfunding project called Snotbot, which aims to fund quadcopter-enabled research of whales by collecting their projectile exhalations, has been getting a lot of attention. … Since 2013, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the National… Read More ›
“From a scientific standpoint it’s fascinating,” Odell says. “From a sea life and human health view point, it’s pretty scary. Because it’s so big and it’s so toxic and it’s not really giving sea life a chance.”
Weird things are happening off the Pacific Coast.
And at the center of the action is a warm-water mass that scientists call “the blob.”
It’s turning the coastal ecosystem on its head. Species are dying along Washington, Oregon and northern California: sea stars, marine birds and sardines, among them.
Neptune 911! 