Home/Posts Tagged ‘ocean’
Posts Tagged ‘ocean’
Nature, Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 10th, 2012,
Late spring and early summer in the southern hemisphere is the perfect time for the growth of microscopic plants: phytoplankton. Stimulated by sunlight it spreads enormously. It has been photographed by a spectroradiometer (MODIS) attached to a NASA satellite. The blue vortex visible in the picture, is the phytoplankton in a background of the turquoise Indian Ocean waters off the Southern coast of South Africa. The picture was taken on 26th December. It is the time of late spring and early summer in the southern hemisphere. The warm rays of the sun stimulate the life of these microscopic plants, causing…
Tags: eye, ocean, phytoplankton, South Africa, Vortex
Videos & Documentaries, Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 5th, 2012,
Over 2,000 meters beneath the surface of the Southern (aka Antarctic) Ocean lives a colorless collection of newly discovered life forms. The animals that make up this ghostly white ecosystem survive without sunlight, instead living off minerals and energy from volcanic vents, which make waters as hot as 382°C (720°F). That’s pretty hot, especially considering it’s deep-sea Antarctica. From the Christian Science Monitor: Unlike vents in other oceans, the Antarctic vents lack tube worms, mussels and shrimp. Instead they harbor new species of barnacles and anemones, as well as a large brown spiral-shelled snail. The researchers even saw ghost-pale octopuses, which…
Tags: Antarctic, deep sea, ghost, life, ocean, vents, video
Climate Change, Wildlife & Flora, Jun 27th, 2011,
Arctic ice melt due to warming temperatures is causing marine plankton to migrate from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic via Arctic waters. This may have huge consequences for marine ecosystems of which plankton form the basis. An EU-funded study, the CLAMER project, discovered that a species of phytoplankton called Neodenticula seminae has returned to the Atlantic Ocean, where it has not lived for 800,000 years. And it’s not just algae. Warming ocean temperatures are also causing animal plankton to migrate into new waters – and they are bringing along larger animals that feed on them. The appearance of a…
Tags: algae, arctic, Atlantic, Northwest Passage, ocean, Pacific, plankton, species, warm
Climate Change, Pollution, Science & Technology, Feb 22nd, 2011,
More and more goods are being shipped from China to Europe in an unstoppable relationship based on cheap production and ever-increasing consumption. This means more energy and greenhouse gas emissions. But freight companies are also developing and implementing ways to become more energy efficient and lower their emissions. Danish shipping giant Maersk has ordered 10 new mega ships (with an option for 20 more) to be used between China and Europe. These floating blocks of skyscrapers can carry 20% more than the largest freighters currently at sea and are too big to be used at ports in the Americas. Ocean…
Tags: China, emissions, Europe, freight, Gottard, Maersk, ocean, rail, shipping, trains, trucks, tunnel
Conservation, Politics, Sep 13th, 2010,
The Chagos Islands, aka British Indian Ocean Territory, is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom containing many small islands, the largest being Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia was famously – and forcibly – evacuated by the UK government in the 1960s to make way for a US military base. After several court cases, the islanders have still not been allowed to resettle their homeland. The Chagos’ only inhabitants are currently US military living on Diego Garcia. Furthermore, last April a 250,000 square mile (650,000 sq km) Marine Protected Area (MPA) was established around the archipelago prohibiting commercial fishing. From an…
Tags: billionaire, British, Chagos, Diego Garcia, government, Indian, islands, marine, Military, MPA, ocean, overseas territory, Swiss, UK, US
Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 24th, 2010,
A recent study attempting to measure the amount of plastic debris in the Atlantic has shed more light on the scale of this type marine pollution and its effects on ocean ecosystems. The findings, which analyze data collected from 22 years of oceanic surveys, list several impacts of plastic on marine life, including animals becoming entangled in plastic debris, animals eating plastic and debris facilitating the redistribution of certain species outside their normal habitat. From an article in Wired: The data were gathered by thousands of undergraduates aboard the Sea Education Association (SEA) sailing semester, who hand-picked, counted and measured…
Tags: Atlantic, debris, garbage, marine, ocean, Patch, plastic, sea, study
Climate Change, Nature, Aug 17th, 2010,
A new study explores the relationship between tropical storms and the color of the ocean. Areas of ocean with more chlorophyll-rich phytoplankton have a green tint. Chlorophyll prevents sunlight from penetrating deep into the ocean meaning surface temperatures remain higher. Warmer surface temperatures mean more tropical storms, such as cyclones or hurricanes. From an AFP report: Cold water in turn causes changes in air circulation patterns, forcing strong winds aloft, “which tend to prevent thunderstorms from developing the necessary superstructure that allows them to grow into hurricanes,” the researchers said. Massive spiraling ocean currents called gyres are areas with less…
Tags: chlorophyll, color, Green, Gyre, hurricanes, ocean, phytoplankton, storms, surface, temperatures, tropical
Videos & Documentaries, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 6th, 2010,
The Census of Marine Life is a 10-year worldwide project conducted by a network of researchers and coordinated in part by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. The aim of the census – the first global study of its kind – is to ‘explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans’. From an article in the Telegraph: They hope that by creating the first catalogue of the world’s oceans we can begin to understand the great ecological questions about habitat loss, pollution, overfishing and all the other man-made plagues that are being visited on the sea. The truth…
Tags: biodiversity, census, ecological, fish, life, marine, Mediterranean, ocean, overfishing, Pollution, sea
Climate Change, Pollution, Recycling, Jul 13th, 2010,
Eco-warrior and youngest air to a banking fortune, David de Rothschild set out in April on a well-publicized trip from California to Australia aboard a vessel constructed from recycled plastic bottles. The raft, christened the Plastiki, is set to arrive in Sydney in about two weeks time. The purpose of Rothschild’s journey: To draw attention to marine pollution – particularly from plastics – and the overfishing of the world’s oceans. Oceanographers estimate that there may be as much as 100 million tons of plastic suspended in the waters of the eastern garbage patch, a soup of plastic and other trash…
Tags: australia, Climate change, David, fish, marine, ocean, plastic, Plastiki, Pollution, Rothschild, Sydney
Climate Change, Health, Pollution, Science & Technology, Jul 9th, 2010,
I’ve assumed that transport via boat, whether shipping goods or people, is less polluting and has a lower carbon footprint than flying or road freight, for example. Not so, according to both scientific research and inside information from the maritime shipping industry. While diesel cars – once known as smelly, noisy polluters – have relatively cleaned up their act to the level of standard petrol or gasoline-fuelled cars, the heavy-duty diesel and low-grade fuel oil engines that power ships are a scourge on the environment and human health. From an article in the Economist: Research by James Corbett of the…
Tags: cargo, cars, Danish, deaths, denmark, diesel, emissions, environment, freight, H2O, Health, industry, nitrogen, ocean, oxide, Pollution, research, ship, shipping, ships, US
Nature, Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Jun 30th, 2010,
Scientists at the Royal Society – the UK’s national academy of science – have determined that the continent of Africa is literally splitting in two. According to Geologists, in 2005 a rift opened up in the Afar region of Ethiopia as a result of underground eruptions, which will eventually cause the horn of Africa to drift away and a new ocean to form. From a BBC News report: The sea will flood in and will start to create this new ocean. It will pull apart, sink down deeper and deeper and eventually… parts of southern Ethiopia, Somalia will drift off,…
Tags: Afar, Africa, Ethiopia, new, ocean, rift
Climate Change, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Jun 16th, 2010,
The history of oil drilling and oil spilling in the United States is riddled with disasters, political decisions as reactions to those disasters and then subsequent resumptions of drilling. The US has drilled deeper and further offshore as drilling technology has developed. Unfortunately, cleanup technology has not likewise progressed. Proper offshore oil drilling in the US began after the Second World War. Previously, ocean drilling was carried out on wharfs, the longest of which stretched 1,200 ft (400 meters) into the Pacific. By 1949 there were 44 exploratory oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. By the 1950s oil production…
Tags: cleanup, drill, drilling, Gulf, history, Maddow, Mexico, ocean, offshore, oil, Rachel, Santa Barbara, spill, spilling, technology, United States, US
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Jun 15th, 2010,
Scientists at the university of Colorado have discovered evidence that suggests that much of Mars was once covered by ocean. From an article by Australia’s ABC News: To test their theory Dr Hynek and Mr Di Achille used global databases of known deltaic deposits and valley networks, together with topography data from a laser altimeter aboard NASA’s Mars Observer spacecraft which is orbiting the red planet. If Mars had that much water 3.5 billion years ago, what happened to it? And did it once support life? While turning its sights towards Mars and Jupiter, NASA has turned away from the…
Tags: asteroid, Earth, Independent, Mars, moon, NASA, Obama, ocean, President, space
Climate Change, Weird Stuff, May 25th, 2010,
Recently, Coast Guard officials stated the impact of the Gulf Coast oil spill stretches across more than 150 miles. If you were to travel across these miles, you may find birds, turtles, fish and crustaceans covered in oil. You may find dolphins and sharks dying along the shorelines. You may find beaches covered with so many globs of oil that they had to be shut down until further notice. What you will not find is any end to the spill in sight. You won’t find a sure-fire way to clean up all the oil and animals on top of it….
Tags: animals, beaches, coast, damage, Gulf Coast Oil Spill, images, impact, ocean, photographers, photos, shocking, wetlands, wildlife
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, May 23rd, 2010,
Methane lakes, an orangey atmosphere and a ‘creme brulee-like’ surface make Titan – the largest of Saturn’s moons – sound almost inviting. The European probe named Huygens reached Titan aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in January of 2005. It has been sending signals Earthward ever since. What’s so remarkable about Titan is its resemblance to Earth. The main differences are that Titan is much colder and has vast bodies of liquid methane instead of water. The fact is that if Titan were not so cold, it would probably be bursting with life, so plentiful are its supplies of organic raw materials,…
Tags: Cassini, life, methane, moon, ocean, Saturn, Titan
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Videos & Documentaries, May 20th, 2010,
Inspired by the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, actor Kevin Costner has been investing in oil separation technology for the past 15 years. Costner, an avid fisherman and environmental activist, bought the technology from the government in 1995 and has invested some $24 million of his own money into its development under the company Ocean Therapy Solutions. Now BP are interested in OTS’ machines for cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico due to the Deepwater Horizon rig oil spill. From a New York Times blog: On Wednesday, BP’s chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, said that the company had approved six…
Tags: BP, cleanup, Costner, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf, Kevin, ocean, oil, spill, Therapy, WDSU
Nature, Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, May 13th, 2010,
A gray whale has been spotted in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel. Gray whales, thought to be extinct in the Atlantic Ocean – what to speak of the Mediterranean – are large baleen whales previously believed to only live in the North Pacific. From a BBC News report: Once, three major populations of gray (also spelt grey) whale existed: in the western and eastern North Pacific Ocean, and in the North Atlantic. However, the North Atlantic population of gray whale became extinct sometime in the 17th or 18th Century, for reasons that are not clear. Scientists are…
Tags: Atlantic, False Creek, gray, Mediterranean, north, ocean, Pacific, scientists, sighting, Vancouver, whale
Climate Change, Nature, Science & Technology, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 26th, 2010,
Many people love going to the beach. I’m actually heading there tomorrow. There are so many things you can do at (or in) the ocean, such as swimming, surfing, scuba diving, snorkeling, sailing, kayaking, whale watching, and so forth. It is an extremely vast ecosystem with so many life forms that scientists still haven’t finished counting them all yet and they’re still discovering more! However, it’s also changed a lot. According to the National Research Council, the chemistry of the oceans is changing faster now than it did hundreds of thousands of years ago, because of all the CO2 being…
Tags: acidity, carbon dioxide, changes, chemistry, Climate change, co2, emissions, global warming, measurement, ocean, pH, study
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Mar 29th, 2010,
A NASA physical oceanographer has found no slow down in the giant ocean currents that bring warm water from the tropical Pacific to the North Atlantic. These currents, which function like a ‘conveyor belt’ driven by ocean salinity, make much of Europe far more habitable than it would be without the constant influx of warm water. The observation that these currents are not slowing and probably have not slowed since the early 90s is good news for warm-current dependent regions like the UK. These latest findings, which draw on data from drifting sensors and satellites, support other recent evidence downplaying…
Tags: climate, conveyor, current, currents, Europe, ice, NASA, ocean, warming
Climate Change, Green living, Pollution, Recycling, Weird Stuff, Mar 17th, 2010,
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that stew of broken down plastic trash that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is getting bigger. An article in Tuesday’s Telegraph cites various estimates of the Patch’s size, which may have doubled over the past ten years: Dr Simon Boxall, a physical oceanographer at the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, goes even further: “It’s the size of North America. But although the patch itself is extremely large, it’s only one very clear representation of the much bigger worldwide problem.” Plastic waste spells death for a million birds and 100,000…
Tags: garbage, great, ocean, Pacific, Patch, plastic, Plastiki, Rothschild, Telegraph, trash
