Oceanography News

January 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Cycle of Coral Bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef Now at 'Catastrophic' Levels

Jan. 21, 2025 — Marine scientists highlights the complex interplay between heat stress, disease onset and coral mortality. They found that 66 percent of the colonies were bleached by February 2024 and 80 per cent by ...

Critical Ocean Current Has Not Declined in the Last 60 Years

Jan. 15, 2025 — The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has not slowed down since the mid-20th century based on the North Atlantic air-sea heat fluxes over that time. This finding contrasts with studies that have estimated a decline in the AMOC, ...

Beach Guardians: How Hidden Microbes Protect Coastal Waters in a Changing Climate

Jan. 14, 2025 — Beneath sandy beaches, microbes filter chemicals from groundwater and safeguard ocean health. A new study reveals that sneaker waves provide a lens to explore the impending impacts of sea level rise ...

Study Highlights Key Factors for Successful Restoration of Elkhorn Coral Colonies

Jan. 10, 2025 — To help rare elkhorn corals survive in Florida waters, coral researchers should place them in shallow ocean locations with fast currents, scientists explained in a recent ...

Latest Headlines

updated 7:19pm EST

Coastal Waters: An Underestimated Source of Methane

Jan. 23, 2025 — Shallow coastal waters are hotspots for methane emissions, releasing significant amounts of this potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. This new research ...

Nord Stream Methane Spread Across the Southern Baltic Sea

Jan. 15, 2025 — Methane from the destroyed Nord Stream pipelines spread over a large part of the southern Baltic Sea and remained for several ...

Researchers Use Lab Data to Rewrite Equation for Deformation, Flow of Watery Glacier Ice

Jan. 9, 2025 — Laboratory experiments designed to deform ice at its pressure-melting temperature were like grabbing a bagel at the top and the bottom, then twisting ...

Pluto-Charon Formation Scenario Mimics Earth-Moon System

Jan. 7, 2025 — A researcher has used advanced models that indicate that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size ...

Marked Decrease in Arctic Pressure Ridges

Jan. 6, 2025 — In the Arctic, the old, multiyear ice is increasingly melting, dramatically reducing the frequency and size of pressure ridges. These ridges are created when ice floes press against each other and ...

Increased Wildfire Activity May Be a Feature of Past Periods of Abrupt Climate Change

Jan. 2, 2025 — A new study investigating ancient methane trapped in Antarctic ice suggests that global increases in wildfire activity likely occurred during periods ...

Paleobiologists Unlock 500,000 Years of Fossil Records: Climate Change Impacts and Risks of Marine Carbon Removal

Dec. 23, 2024 — Climate change impacts not only life on land but also the largely unexplored deep-sea ecosystem, home to unique and largely unexplored fauna. ...

ESA and NASA Satellites Deliver First Joint Picture of Greenland Ice Sheet Melting

Dec. 20, 2024 — Scientists have delivered the first measurements of Greenland Ice Sheet thickness change using data from ESA and NASA ice satellite missions. With ...

New Study Highlights the Correlation Between Live Corals and Fishing Yields

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new study examines the correlation between fish yield and live coral habitats. Researchers analyzed the yields of nine fisheries dependent on Australia's Great Barrier Reef from 2016 to 2020. ...

Changes in Store for Atmospheric Rivers

Dec. 19, 2024 — Communities up and down the West Coast of the United States can expect atmospheric rivers to evolve as the climate warms. But residents in Southern California will see much different changes than ...

Diversity of Novel Hydrothermal Vent Styles on the Arctic Ocean Floor

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new study about Earth's northernmost seafloor hydrothermal system shows even more variety in vent styles than previously thought. The study has important implications for understanding the ...

Living in the Deep, Dark, Slow Lane: Insights from the First Global Appraisal of Microbiomes in Earth's Subsurface Environments

Dec. 18, 2024 — Which microbes thrive below us in darkness -- in gold mines, in aquifers, in deep boreholes in the seafloor -- and how do they compare to the microbiomes that envelop the Earth's surfaces, on ...

Giant Virus Encodes Key Piece of Protein-Making Machinery of Cellular Life

Dec. 18, 2024 — Researchers recently discovered that a virus, FloV-SA2, encodes one of the proteins needed to make ribosomes, the central engines in all cells that translate genetic information into proteins, the ...

Prehistoric Rock in Japan Reveals Clues to Major Ocean Anoxic Event

Dec. 17, 2024 — Researchers analyzed radioisotopes in layers of fossilized volcanic ash. Decay of uranium to lead within tiny crystals enabled scientists to precisely pinpoint dates for certain events. They ...

Buried Landforms Reveal North Sea's Ancient Glacial Past

Dec. 13, 2024 — Glaciologists used sound waves to reveal Ice Age landforms buried beneath almost 1 km of mud in the North Sea. The results suggest that the landforms were produced about 1 million years ago, when an ...

Surveys Show Full Scale of Massive Die-Off of Common Murres Following the 'Warm Blob' in the Pacific Ocean

Dec. 12, 2024 — Colony surveys of common murres, an Alaskan seabird, show the full effects of the 2014-16 marine heat wave known as 'the blob.' Analysis of 13 colonies surveyed between 2008 and 2022 finds ...

How Helicopter Parenting Protects Baby Reef Fish

Dec. 12, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a rare example of 'great fish parenting' with a common coral reef species found to actively protect their young by eating ...

Tiny Poops in the Ocean May Help Solve the Carbon Problem

Dec. 10, 2024 — Some of the world's smallest animals and their tiny poops could aid in the fight against climate change. A study reports that clay dust sprayed on the surface of seawater converts free-floating ...

Antarctica's Irregular Heartbeat Shows Signs of Rapid Melting

Dec. 10, 2024 — Geoscientists have created a new climate record for early Antarctic ice ages. It reveals that the early Antarctic ice sheet melted more rapidly than previously ...

New Ocean Predator Discovered in the Atacama Trench

Dec. 9, 2024 — Characterized by darkness and intense pressure, the ocean's hadal zone seems uninhabitable, yet dozens of unique organisms call it home. Each species discovered there adds a crucial piece to the ...

Record-Low Antarctic Sea Ice Can Be Explained and Forecast Months out by Patterns in Winds

Dec. 6, 2024 — Researchers show that the all-time record low in winter sea ice extent in 2023 can be explained by warm Southern Ocean conditions and patterns in the winds that circled Antarctica months earlier, ...

How Do Marine Food Webs Respond to Increasing Alkalinity?

Dec. 6, 2024 — To mitigate climate change, human-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must be reduced as quickly and drastically as possible. Additionally, some of the CO2 already emitted needs to be safely removed ...

Rapid Surge in Global Warming Mainly Due to Reduced Planetary Albedo

Dec. 5, 2024 — Rising sea levels, melting glaciers, heatwaves at sea -- 2023 set a number of alarming new records. The global mean temperature also rose to nearly 1.5 degrees above the preindustrial level, another ...

Massive Asteroid Impacts Did Not Change Earth's Climate in the Long Term

Dec. 4, 2024 — Two massive asteroids hit Earth around 35.65 million years ago, but did not lead to any lasting changes in the Earth's climate, according to a new ...

Ocean Density Identified as a Key Driver of Carbon Capture by Marine Plankton

Dec. 3, 2024 — New findings have revealed that changes in ocean density have a significant impact on the rate at which marine plankton incorporate carbon into their shells. This has profound implications for carbon ...

Countdown to an Ice-Free Arctic: New Research Warns of Accelerated Timelines

Dec. 3, 2024 — Scientists demonstrate how a series of extreme weather events could lead to the Arctic's first ice-free day within just a few ...

New Approach to Measure Ocean Memory: North Atlantic Ocean Has Nearly Two Decades Memory, Study Finds

Dec. 3, 2024 — A research team has developed new approach to measure ocean memory and found that the North Atlantic Ocean has a memory of approximately one to two decades, significantly surpassing previous ...

The Melting of Greenland: A Climate Challenge With Major Implications for the 21st Century

Nov. 29, 2024 — The melting of Greenland is accelerating, with an estimated loss of between 964 and 1735 gigatons of ice per year by 2100 in a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions (SSP585), according to three ...

Coral Adaptation Unlikely to Keep Pace With Global Warming

Nov. 28, 2024 — Coral adaptation to ocean warming and marine heatwaves will likely be overwhelmed without rapid reductions of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to an international team of ...

Oceans Emit Sulfur and Cool the Climate More Than Previously Thought

Nov. 27, 2024 — Researchers have quantified for the first time the global emissions of a sulfur gas produced by marine life, revealing it cools the climate more than previously thought, especially over the Southern ...