Search Results for: ocean

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

Coral reefs and coastal upwelling ecosystems are the subjects of two new Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites awarded funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF). With the addition of the Moorea Coral Reef LTER Site and the California Current Ecosystem LTER Site, there are now 26 NSF-funded sites in the LTER network. The two newest sites will receive approximately $820,000 for the next six years, for a total of about $ 5 million each.

“These two new sites significantly augment th

Trees and grass are usually the only “heroes” that come to mind for consuming carbon dioxide and producing oxygen for planet Earth, but they have allies in the water: phytoplankton, or in another word, algae.

Phytoplankton are mostly single-celled photosynthetic organisms that feed fish and marine mammals. They are responsible for nearly 50 percent of the earth’s annual carbon-dioxide consumption and more than 45 percent of the oxygen production. Despite the important roles of modern p

Discovery suggests presence of diamonds in northern Saskatchewan

Researchers at the University of Alberta have found evidence that a 2,000-kilometre corridor stretching diagonally across northern Canada was under tremendous pressure to split in two about 2.7 billion years ago. It is the first evidence suggesting enormous continental landforms and plate tectonics existed that long ago. “Rifts are one hallmark of plate tectonics, and there is a huge debate in our field about wheth

Scientists investigating the possible effect of underwater seismic pulses on marine mammals have conducted a series of tests, designed to better understand the force of sound waves generated by shipboard airguns. These instruments are used by some 100 vessels worldwide to penetrate into the seabed for oil exploration and geophysical research, with an estimated 15 to 20 active on any given day.

Researchers from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University conducted tests in