Unstudied at sea until recently, this huge, fast-moving ocean current may hold a key to resolving climate change uncertainties. But doing remote research in southern oceans poses financial, data gathering, and unexpected challenges.
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…
Balintang, PHILIPPINES — “Seaweeds are important to me because they give me joy when we plant them,” says Melinda Gimotea, as she crouches down among the pile of seaweed seedlings…
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…
MEDAN, Indonesia — On a recent morning in Kampung Nelayan, a village on the northeastern coast of the island of Sumatra, fisherman Heri Gunawan returned home frustrated and dissatisfied. Heri…
DHAKA — Wasim Ali, 45, lived in one of the 55,000 houses destroyed by the deadly Super Cyclone Amphan in May of 2020. The tropical storm whipped up a tidal…
Antarctic krill — tiny, filter-feeding crustaceans that live in the Southern Ocean — have long existed in mind-boggling numbers. A 2009 study estimated that the species has a biomass of…
DJERBA, Tunisia, and SICILY, Italy — On the deck of the Ghanem, which in Arabic means “winner,” sit eight boxes crawling with life. Blue legs and claws teem with each…
A new model that links climate change-reduced oceanic oxygen levels to smaller ectotherms predicts marine microorganisms could shrink as the world gets warmer, with impacts up the food chain, impacting fisheries.
In late June, New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer boarded an international flight to begin a 40-hour journey to Lisbon to attend the U.N. Ocean Conference. At various…
Earth’s vast underwater kelp forests are a vital source of food, pharmaceuticals, and more, while storing huge amounts of carbon. These undersea forests are also at risk, but researchers are working to restore them.
In 2004, Charles Clover published a book called The End of the Line that painted a dismal view of our oceans due to rampant overfishing. The book, as well as…
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,…
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — As dawn breaks, the fishing wharf at Tamba Kula in Freetown buzzes with the movement of early-morning commerce. Fishers just back from days spent far out…
In the past, ocean carbon data was sparse, mostly gathered by ships. But the future of monitoring belongs to robot floats that deliver real-time data across vast oceans — even in the remote Antarctic Southern Ocean.
International delegates representing governments, businesses, academic and research institutions, civil society, youth leaders and philanthropic organizations announced major commitments worth more than $16 billion to protect ocean health at the…
With a four-page letter, the Pacific island nation of Nauru pushed the world closer to a reality in which large-scale mining doesn’t just take place on land, but also in…
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…
Arctic sea ice extent continued its trending decline in winter 2022, while the Antarctic saw a record low summer minimum extent. Both regions also saw extraordinarily high temperatures for this time of year.
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,…
ACCRA, Ghana — White waves collide in a crash where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean near Ada Foah. Warm, tropical air hovers over Ghana's coastline – but as…
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…
When conservation ecologist Rob Harcourt went surfing off the coast of Sydney, Australia, he immediately knew the water was warmer than usual. “We had at least 23 [degrees Celsius, or…
At the start of each year, southern elephant seals living on Kerguelen Island above Antarctica shed the thick mat of their winter fur, while growing in a fresh layer of…
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…
Initiatives to inject billions of aerosol particles into the stratosphere to deflect solar rays and cool Earth are too risky to go forward; governments must act fast to rein in potentially disastrous planetary-scale solar geoengineering, say critics.
