The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Using over 1.6 million profiles of salinity, potential temperature, and neutral density from historical archives and the international Argo Program, this study develops the three-dimensional field of multidecadal linear change for ocean-state properties. The period of analysis extends from 1950 to 2008, taking care to minimize the aliasing associated with …
Recent observational surveys have shown significant oceanic bottom-water warming. However, the mechanisms causing such warming remain poorly understood, and their time scales are uncertain. Here, we report computer simulations that reveal a fast teleconnection between changes in the surface air-sea heat flux off the Ad
Seasonal (spring and summer) depletion of dissolved inorganic carbon occurs in the surface mixed layers of most of the unproductive or oligotrophic regions of the world's oceans. The missing dissolved inorganic carbon is thought to be converted to particulate carbon by photosynthesis, yet there are seemingly insufficient dissolved nutrients present …
Fisheries bycatch is a primary driver of population declines in several species of marine megafauna (e.g., elasmobranchs, mammals, seabirds, turtles). Characterizing the global bycatch seascape using data on bycatch rates across fisheries is essential for highlighting conservation priorities. We compiled a comprehensive database of reported data on marine turtle bycatch …
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii blared a warning to countries around the Pacific Ocean on February 27, minutes after the 8.8 quake hit Chile. ThoUSAnds of people along the coast fled for higher ground. Barring a few islands like the French Polynesia, the 1.2-metre-high waves did not cause …
Warming decreases low-level cloud cover, contributes to its own increase WHEN the oceans warm, water evaporates and cloud cover increases. This is the well known science behind cloud formation. A new study begs to differ. Of the three major kinds
Feedbacks involving low-level clouds remain a primary cause of uncertainty in global climate model projections. This issue was addressed by examining changes in low-level clouds over the Northeast Pacific in observations and climate models. Decadal fluctuations were identified in multiple, independent cloud data sets, and changes in cloud cover appeared …
Mercury emissions are poisoning seafood amongst the chemicals that poison fish, methyl mercury is one. An environmental pollutant, it makes its way into the ocean where it enters the food chain and is consumed by fish which are eaten by humans. In the US, 40 per cent of all human …
Beneath the waves of this sapphire-blue corner of the East China Sea, a team of divers was busily at work. Hovering along the steep, bony face of a dying coral reef, some divers bored holes into the hard surface with compressed-air drills that released plumes of glittering bubbles. Others followed, …
Ocean currents work magic when they help ships navigate from one place to the other or bring rain. However, together with the Horse latitudes, they also have created a new continent as big as Africa and still expanding, which may never support life because it is plain garbage, dubbed the …
Marine litter is a global concern affecting all the oceans of the world. It poses environmental, economic, health and aesthetic problems that are rooted in poor solid waste management practices, lack of infrastructure, indiscriminate human activities and behaviours and an inadequate understanding on the part of the public of the …
The objective of this Pacific Ocean synthesis is to comprehensively and systematically survey the published scientific literature, government publications and other peer-reviewed reports to identify Pacific Ocean and regional threats as well as the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of those threats. In addition, the report highlights select regional and Pacific …
By Christopher Pala Off the palm-fringed white beach of Butaitari, Kiribati, the view underwater is downright scary. Corals are being covered and smothered to death by a bushy seaweed that is so tough even algae-grazing fish avoid it. It settles in the reef's crevices that fish once called home, driving …
Humpback whale numbers in the northern Pacific Ocean have ballooned to nearly 20,000, the largest population seen since the majestic mammals were hunted nearly to extinction half a century ago. The number of humpbacks hit an all-time low of1,400 or even lower by 1966, when their hunting was banned internationally. …
function open_new_popwin() { newwd=window.open("../files/images/20080531/Slide_show/photo_gallery.htm","","height=500,width=600,scrollbar=yes"); newwd.moveTo(200,75); } View the slideshow In the middle of the Northern Pacific Ocean, there is a swirling vortex of ocean currents, the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Although boundaries change, it stretches about 500 nautical miles off the coast of California, across the northern Pacific, to near …
A us-based fishery has been certified as the world's first sustainable tuna fishery. The American Albacore Fishing Association (aafa), based in San Diego, California, has been officially certified by the Marine Stewardship Council
