Search Results for: ocean

Scientists are embarking on a project which will explore how global warming is devastating one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems.

One sixth of the world’s coral reefs died due to bleaching in 1998, and the situation is getting worse. Bleaching occurs when tropical seas heat up above there normal maximums, killing the corals.

These events are equally catastrophic for the quarter of all known marine species which make their home in the reefs and for the coastal commun

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Obtains Unique Spectrum of a Meteor
While observing a supernova in a distant galaxy with the FORS instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory (Chile), astronomers were incredibly lucky to obtain serendipitously a high quality spectrum of a very large meteor in the terrestrial atmosphere.

The VLT spectrograph provided a well calibrated spectrum, making it a reference in this field of research. From this spectrum, the temperatu

Scientists studying a whale carcass in Monterey Canyon recently announced the discovery of two new species of unique worms that feed on the bones of dead whales. In the July 30 issue of Science, the researchers describe these worms, whose bodies and feeding strategies differ from those of any other known animal. The worms have no eyes, legs, mouths, or stomachs, but they do have colorful feathery plumes and green “roots.” They use the roots to infiltrate the bones of dead whales, digesting the fats

Robert L. Fisher, research geologist emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, has been awarded the inaugural Drake Medal by the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) organization. Fisher received the medal at a reception hosted by the Ocean Studies Board of the National Academies on July 7 in Woods Hole, Mass.

The Drake Medal was created specifically to honor Fisher and is a replica of the medal given to Sir Francis Drake by England’s Qu

A five-nation oceanographic team is taking the first steps in a $3.6 million project studying the major flow of ocean currents between Asia and Australia and how they influence rainfall across Southern Australia and Indonesia.

Scientists are investigating fluctuations in the flow of warm waters from the western Pacific Ocean draining through the Indonesian Archipelago into the Indian Ocean north of Australia.

“Our climate, and particularly the amount of rainfall across the

Recent efforts to improve hurricane tracking and intensity predictions have focused on the effect the ocean has on the movement of hurricanes. University of Rhode Island oceanographers have demonstrated how the roughness of the ocean surface affects the speed and intensity of these powerful storms.

“Hurricanes are very complex weather systems that are affected by any number of parameters in the atmosphere, the ocean, and on land,” said URI Oceanography Professor Isaac Ginis. “The more para