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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Marine Heatwaves to Grow in Intensity
“We know marine heatwaves are on the rise globally, but policymakers, fisheries experts, aquaculture industries and ecologists need to know how this will play out at regional levels, especially in terms of where they will occur and how much hotter they will be,” said lead author from the ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes Dr. Hakase Hayashida.
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‘… Highest mercury and arsenic levels ever recorded in stranded dolphins and whales”
It’s much harder to track the effects of the tens of thousands of chemicals that are dumped in the ocean every day, through sewage, agricultural runoff, and industrial waste—most of which have unknown effects on wild ecosystems. What we do know is that the bodies of marine animals act like magnets for these toxics, which accumulate in their fat and are amplified up the food chain.
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A 25% Carbon Dioxide Increase Threatens Gulf of Mexico
“The overall big picture here is that surface water carbon dioxide levels are indeed increasing in the Gulf of Mexico (except in the central Gulf) and human activities are contributing to this acidification,” says Shamberger. “Also, coastal acidification is occurring faster than open ocean acidification, which is especially troubling for coastal coral reef and shellfish ecosystems that support many important fisheries species.”
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Mass Die-Offs Continue to Threaten Marine Life
Balmy temperatures can lead to conditions perfect for the spread of infectious diseases, Sanderson said. When sea ice melts too early in the season, seal pups must enter the water before they are ready to be weaned, leaving them weaker and more vulnerable to disease. Vanishing sea ice also means that seals and sea lions in cold regions will have less space to emerge from the water to rest, breed, or escape predators, forcing them to crowd more tightly together.
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Overfishing Expands
In 2017, 34.2% of the fish stocks of the world’s marine fisheries were classified as overfished, a “continuous increasing trend” since 1974 when it stood at just 10%.
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High Concentrations of Microplastics in Deep Sea Sediment.
It’s been calculated that something in the order of four to 12 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the oceans every year, mostly through rivers.
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Simmering Seas & Weather Ahead
Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans all hit the record books for warmth last month, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. The high temperatures could offer clues on the ferocity of the Atlantic hurricane season, the eruption of wildfires from the Amazon region to Australia, and whether the record heat and severe thunderstorms raking the southern U.S. will continue.
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MPAs Could Help Oceans Recover
“We are at a point where we can choose between a legacy of a resilient and vibrant ocean or an irreversibly disrupted ocean,” Carlos Duarte, a marine biologists at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and lead author of the new research, said in a statement.
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Air Guns Threaten Right Whale Extinction
In June 2017, NOAA Fisheries published proposed whale protections for the surveys. By winter the division’s biologists saw a problem: The protections for the North Atlantic right whale were too weak and put airguns in their direct path.
The agency had proposed a seasonal ban on using airguns up to 47 kilometers (about 29 miles) from shore between November and April, when the whales were known to migrate and give birth along the mid- and south-Atlantic coast.
But peer-reviewed research led by a NOAA Fisheries analyst concluded the whales were traveling farther from shore than ever before — and directly into the path of the proposed survey activity. A draft report for the Navy reached a similar conclusion.
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Two Marine Mammals Critically Endangered
(Vaquitas are) the world’s most rare marine animal, and it’s “on the edge of extinction,” WWF says.
Only 10 individuals are still living in Mexico — and it has already been declared “functionally extinct.”
