How do you make people care about protecting marine habitats and wildlife? You tell stories, says Enric Sala, an explorer-in-residence and founder of the Pristine Seas project at the National…
COLOMBO — The month of April is typically the warmest in Sri Lanka as the sun is positioned directly over the Indian Ocean island. Coupled with high humidity, the high…
Marine heat waves have led to widespread population declines of Australian shallow reef species, particularly those associated with temperate reefs, new research suggests. In a new study published in Nature,…
As mass coral bleaching events grow in frequency and intensity, scientists are finding out more about how corals, which make up the physical foundation of reefs, respond during times of…
Machine learning can help conservationists monitor climate impacts across large swaths of marine ecosystems over extended periods of time, a task never possible before. The Delta Maps machine learning tool…
Scientists remember the years between 2014 and 2017 as a particularly bad time for coral reefs. Elevated temperatures fueled by an El Niño climate pattern harmed about three-quarters of the…
Not quite aquatic but not fully terrestrial, mangrove forests are uniquely adapted to inhabit the interface between land and sea in the warmer parts of the world. Compared to the…
1. Negotiations for historic global plastics treaty break ground Global leaders cheered to the strike of a recycled-plastic gavel in March, signifying a landmark decision by the United Nations Environment…
A stone causeway connects an islet, the famed Aragonese Castle perched atop it, to the island of Ischia off the coast of Naples in southern Italy. Below water, along the…
If you have followed major climate change news in the last few years, you might believe coral reefs are going extinct. Global warming is resulting in more frequent bleaching events,…
Hours after being born, oysters are already working to form their protective, chalk-layered shells. Drawing calcium and carbonate from seawater, they combine the two to form hardened shells. But as…
Heat waves are reshaping life in the Mediterranean, with few of the sea’s coves, bays and shorelines untouched, according to a recent study looking at the impact of marine heat…
A new study has found that nearly 90% of assessed marine life will be at high or critical risk by the year 2100 if climate change accelerates along a high-emissions…
JAKARTA — Seagrass meadows are the fishing grounds of choice for many households in four Indo-Pacific countries, according to a new study that calls for better-informed management of these often-overlooked…
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Ashani Arulananthan says she can recall childhood visits to the beach in her home village in Sri Lanka’s northern district of Jaffna. She would collect washed-up…
JAKARTA — Coastal communities in the tropics that rely heavily on both agriculture and fisheries are most vulnerable to the losses caused by high global carbon emissions, a new study…
Between 1869 and 1870, the H.M.S. Porcupine sailed into the North Atlantic Ocean and scraped a dredge along the seafloor. When the sailors pulled the dredge back to the surface,…
The Great Barrier Reef is experiencing a sixth mass bleaching event, the marine park’s authority confirmed today after completing aerial surveys of the region. This is the fourth time the…
In 2010, an influx of cold air blew over the lower Florida Keys, chilling the subtropical waters to temperatures as low as 11° Celsius, or 52° Fahrenheit. The coral reefs…
On May 25, 1946, the United States detonated the first underwater nuclear bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands to see what kind of damage it would cause. This…
On March 9, a search expedition made a notable discovery: the 144-foot (44-meter) wooden ship known as the Endurance, that once carried explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew to Antarctica,…
Coral reefs are a unique and biodiverse natural ecosystem and economic keystones for many communities and nations. They only cover about 0.2% of the ocean floor but support 25% of…
AQABA, Jordan – Dozens of tiny, dazzlingly colorful fish swim around a maze of layer upon layer of corals. When divers approach, they hide near a dome-shaped colony. In the…
For years, Joaquim Garrabou donned scuba gear and dove into the waters of the Scandola Marine Reserve in Corsica to find a paradise. Twenty meters (66 feet) beneath the surface,…
In 2015 and 2016, record ocean temperatures triggered coral bleaching events around the world — from Hawai‘i to the Caribbean to Australia — turning once-healthy polyps into ghostly skeletons. But…
Escalating ocean temperatures stemming from climate change are devastating the world’s tropical coral reefs. In response to the stress, corals, which are animals, sometimes unceremoniously jettison the algae that live…
Ten countries in the western Indian Ocean are banding together to create a network of marine conservation areas under the banner of the Great Blue Wall. The idea is to…
A new study shows that two-fifths of coral reefs globally are seriously threatened by sediment runoff — the transportation of accumulated material from land to sea, often with harmful pollutants…
In the 1970s, coral reefs in the Western Indian Ocean were relatively untouched by people. Today, these same reefs are at a tipping point with more than 69 million people…
Scientific literature is rife with accounts of desolate reefs bereft of corals, drained of color and sea life. A meta-analysis published Sept. 17 shows that these are not isolated incidents…
