Author Archives
Reporter, journalist and author who has owned and operated a bookstore, a pool and spa full service business, an apple farm, and is now committed to environmental issues.
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Nitrite Pollution Increase in Ocean Water
Researchers have more than once warned of “dead zones” and toxic algal blooms as a consequence of changing climatic conditions. Ocean temperatures are increasing, and this in turn encourages a new set of biochemical processes.
Professor Hollibaugh and a colleague report in the journal Environmental Science and Technology that over the course of eight summers they measured peaks of nitrite, alongside massive increases in the numbers of the microorganisms that produce it, in coastal waters off Georgia.
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NOAA Reports Elevated Humpback Whale Mortalities
So far, 15 additional dead humpback whales have shown up along the east coast, bringing the total to 41. The high number led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to open an investigation into what is now officially classified as an unusual mortality event.
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Coral Reef Death Impacting Sea Levels
In the Florida Keys, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Maui, coral reef degradation has caused sea floor depths to increase as sand and other sea floor materials have eroded over the past few decades, the USGS study found. In the waters around Maui, the sea floor losses amounted to 81 million cubic meters of sand, rock and other material – about what it would take to fill up the Empire State Building 81 times, the researchers calculated.
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Plastic Debris Swarms Arctic Ocean
Hundreds of tonnes of plastic are cluttering the once pristine Arctic Ocean and doing great damage to the planet, a new report has found. On top of the danger of fish and other wildlife swallowing the plastic, the material contains… Read More ›
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Researchers Explains Coral Reef Bleaching
We now have a 2017 event, which is not quite as bad as 2016, but certainly worse than the first two events that we studied [in 1998 and 2002]. That is significant because it postpones any hope of recovery. The current bleaching occupies a different geographical footprint from last year, which is bad news because it means between last year and this year a much greater extent of the Great Barrier Reef has now been damaged. In 2017, the hot water was in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, the central section; last year it was in the north.
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Whalers Take 333 Minke Whales
Japan intends to take nearly 4,000 whales over the next 12 years as part of its research program and has repeatedly said its ultimate goal is the resumption of commercial whaling.
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California Sea Otters Amaze Observer
“What I saw next really surprised me. There was indeed a dead otter on the beach but there was another otter touching it with its nose and paws almost as if it was trying to revive the deceased otter. This continued for several minutes.”
