Oceans

tags: Brian Skerry Reveals Ocean's Glory -- and Horror, conservation, marine biology, fish, marine mammals, oceans, sharks, leatherback sea turtle, right whale, overfishing, photographer, Brian Skerry, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video Professional photographer Brian Skerry shoots life above and below the waves -- as he puts it, both the horror and the magic of the ocean. Sharing amazing, intimate shots of undersea creatures, he shows how powerful images can help make change. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's…
The 2010 hurricane season has begun, and has done so with a hard blow to Guatemala, including dozens of fatalities (83 so far). Ironically, this storm was not particularily violent, not even getting above tropical storm status, but the rainfall was very intense. As always, the best place to follow the hurricane season is Jeff Master's Weather Underground. His introductory pst to this season lists the following reasons to worry about the months ahead: "unprecedented sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic" the ending of El Nino conditions a million refugees from the recent earthquake in…
A new study came out in Nature a couple of weeks ago that assesses multiple records of ocean temperatures over the last couple of decades and finds that there is "a statistically significant linear warming trend for 1993-2008 of 0.64âWâm-2". The challenge the paper took on was one of assessing the uncertainties and inconsistencies in the various records. The paper is Lyman, J.L., et al. 2010. Robust warming of the global upper ocean. Nature 465 and Real Climate had an article about it here. Also in that issue of Nature is an article by Kevin Trenbreth [PDF] that discusses that paper and…
This is very interesting! It was only after returning to shore and closely examining the photographs they had taken that the researchers allowed themselves to acknowledge that what they had seen was, in fact, a gray whale. There was only one problem. There are no gray whales off Israel. There are no gray whales in the Mediterranean. There are, in fact, no gray whales in the Atlantic The prevailing hypothesis is this whale got lost in the Northwest Passage and confused the east west coast of Europe with the east west coast of North America. (oops) Added Dr. Aviad Scheinin of IMMRAC: Due to the…
tags: How we Wrecked the Ocean, oceans, fish, fishing industry, introduced species, biological pollution, chemical pollution, climate change, coral bleaching, Jeremy Jackson, TEDTalks, TED Talks, streaming video In this bracing talk, coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson lays out the shocking state of the ocean today: overfished, overheated, polluted, with indicators that things will get much worse. Astonishing photos and stats make the case. So in a nutshell: we've wrecked everything around us: the water, the air, the animals, the climate, and any illusion of world peace we ever had. We're…
Ahoy mates, and welcome aboard the 36th edition of the Carnival of the Blue! The Oceans as a whole: As many of you might know, CITES had its once-every-three-years meeting during which it decides which organisms are to be regulated and how. As Rick MacPherson explains, the overall message was simple: FU, Ocean. He takes a closer look at the CITES listing process and digs a little deeper into the "secret ballots." Maybe CITES will take note if the world made it clear that oceans matter. There's no better time than now to take Oceana's Ocean Pledge. If you do, $1 will be donated to Oceana to…
A nice site about our blue planet's blueness, The Reef Tank, asked to repost a recent ocean related article of mine and did so here. Always worth checking them out!
When we think about the vast diversity of life in the ocean, we automatically picture pristine coral reefs teeming with life. This is especially true for rich, tropical locations like Hawaii. What we don't think of are the deep, dark depths of the canyons that lie just beyond the shallow paradises we know and love. Scientists have known for years that these deep water locations may contain a wide variety of species, but don't talk about them as much because no one had ever explored them to see what species lived there. Now, thanks to researchers from the University of Hawaii's School of Ocean…
You know it's been a while when you've forgotten your log in information for your blog. My habitual apologies for the long silence. A lot has happened lately so let's get to it: --CITES a Bust for Marine Life (Mar. 25): At the CITES meetings held in late March in Doha, there were winners and there were losers, except in the marine environment, where there were only losers. Opposition by Japan, China, and their allies led to the defeat of every proposal to give CITES protection to vulnerable marine species including hammerhead sharks, whitetip sharks, porbeagle sharks, spiny dogfish sharks…
The UN has rejected the proposal that Atlantic bluefin tuna be listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, which is currently in session. CITES regulates the international trade of threatened species. All imports, exports and re-exports of species included in CITES must be authorized by a licensing system that is administered by the individual parties of the convention. Japan, which imports 80 percent of Atlantic bluefin and has led the opposition to the ban, reiterated its arguments that CITES should have no role in regulating tuna and other marine…
In his seminal 1991 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction," the video artist Douglas Davis writes that digital bits "can be endlessly reproduced, without degradation, always the same, always perfect." This is different, Davis argues, from analogue information. In the past, copying an audio signal -- for example, dubbing a copy of a cassette tape -- always involved an unpredictable loss of clarity, which Davis compares to waves washing on a beach, always breaking slightly differently. But "digital bits, compatible with the new generation of tools that see, hear, speak,…
Here is a nice short film (~20 minutes) about ocean acidification, the "other carbon dioxide problem", the reason geoengineering "solutions" like orbiting sun shades are not solutions. It is only about one third doom and gloom, sandwiched between the natural beauty of what we have now in the beginning and some hopeful prospects for the future at the end. I found it worth watching: (thanks go to MT for posting it at his place.)
National Geographic has a series out about animals In the Womb and here is just one of the images: a representation of an eight-week dolphin fetus inside its mother's womb.
Darren Naish inspects "trace fossils" on Tetrapod Zoology, geologic records of footprints and other indentations left behind by animals. Although these telltale signs can "provide excellent information on behaviour and lifestyle," it can sometimes be hard to tell what kind of creature made them in the first place. Such is the case with a set of mysterious parallel grooves preserved in a Jurassic sandbar, which may have been formed by the snouts of ancient sea monsters trolling for snacks. On Laelaps, Brian Switek reconsiders unilinear assumptions of cetacean evolution, citing "a…
This week, an article I authored along with eight colleagues titled Conserving wild ï¬sh in a sea of market-based efforts appeared in Oryx: The International Journal of Conservation. Its publication led to some interesting media, including Larry Pynn's article on how domestic farm animals are devouring the world's fish stocks in the Vancouver Sun and Colleen Kimmett's blogpost for the Tyee on how sustainable shopping won't save the oceans. I also really liked Deborah Jones's coverage of our article for the AFP (and distributed broadly by media such as Yahoo! News) in her piece explaining…
This weekend, the BBC ran the first-ever photograph of a coral eating a jellyfish: If that doesn't suffice it for 'cool', there is always the blobfish, hauled up from the depths: Or, weirder still, the lumpsucker (both the blobfish and lumpsucker have names that betray their unappetizing beginnings--although all that has changed with overfishing):
My review of Brad Matsen's new book Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King is out today at SEED Magazine today (the SEED graphic is so cool). In reviewing the book two things struck me: 1) that I knew actually very little about a man who is considered a founding father of marine conservation and 2) that there had to be a reason for my ignorance (other than the obvious). My hypothesis is that his tumultuous personal life, particularly the loose strings left at death, has contributed to why the Cousteau legacy is fading. See if you agree.
A trawler off of Japan capsized as its three man crew tried to haul in their net containing dozens of huge Nomura jellyfish. The three men were rescued but the boat apparently sank. Read the full story in The Telegraph.
Oliver Morton wrote a delightful book all about photosynthesis called Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet, which I reviewed earlier this year for Search Magazine (R.I.P.) under the title "A Song for the Heartless". One of my favorite passages in the book beautifully explains the difference between art and science: Discoveries feel determined. They are there to be made, and if one person doesn't, another will. This doesn't lessen the achievement; indeed it can give it spice. The thought that 'this is the way the world is--and I am the first to see it as such' is an intoxicating…
As SciWo explained to daughter Minnow last week in a video on Sciencewomen, lakes, ponds, oceans and other natural bodies of water are as ecologically important as they are beautiful. But the ecological health of many is severely compromised due to widespread pollution, global warming, ocean acidification and other factors. GrrlScientist shed light on the origins of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating island of plastic debris covering an area twice that of Texas that has amassed by way of natural currents. She also shared a video that shows cell and molecular biologists how to reduce…