Search Results for: ocean

When the European Huygens probe on the Cassini space mission parachutes down through the opaque smoggy atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan early next year, it may find itself splashing into a sea of liquid hydrocarbons. In what is probably the first piece of “extraterrestrial oceanography” ever carried out, Dr Nadeem Ghafoor of Surrey Satellite Technology and Professor John Zarnecki of the Open University, with Drs Meric Srokecz and Peter Challenor of the Southampton Oceanography Centre, calculate

Emissions from ships may bring as much nitrogen oxide to the atmosphere as the total amount of emissions coming from the USA. International shipping along the Norwegian coast and in the Northern Atlantic Ocean contributes largely to the formation of ground-level ozone and acidification of the shores.

Air pollution from ships may be twice as bad as shown by previous estimates. In high traffic areas emissions may affect the climate just as much or even more than other forms of emissions. This

The French explorer, Gilles Elkaïm, who left North Cape (Norway) in May 2000, has almost completed the seventh and final stage of his 12,000 km solo trek along the rim of the Arctic Ocean, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on foot, kayak, skis, by sled pulled by himself or by dogs… with help from ESA.

The “Arktika” expedition is nearing its conclusion. Gilles Elkaïm and his twelve sled dogs, who, last May, set up summer camp in a disused military base, close to Cape Shelagskiy (the most n

Under the right conditions, nanoparticles can form spontaneously in the air. Atmospheric nanoparticles are an important missing factor in understanding global climate change, because they could influence cloud formation and change how the Earth reflects or retains heat, said Anthony Wexler, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at UC Davis.

They may also have health effects. Wexler’s laboratory uses and develops equipment to detect these extremely small particles. On the

A species of fish that lives in Antarctic waters may hold clues to climate change and lead to advances in heart medicine. Researchers from the University of Birmingham and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) are investigating the behaviour and physiology of the ’Antarctic Cod’ (Notothenia coriiceps) which became isolated from its warmer water cousins around 30 million years ago when the Antarctic circumpolar current was formed.

The olive-coloured fish has broad head and a narrow bo

Dr. Tracey Sutton, a fish ecologist at the HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic Institution in Ft. Pierce, Fla., has discovered a new species in a bizarre and elusive family of deep-sea predatory fish known collectively as dragonfish. The find, reported in the current issue of the journal Copeia, is the first new dragonfish species discovered in more than a decade.

The first specimen of the new species, dubbed Eustomias jimcraddocki, was large, compared to the average pencil-sized dragonfish at abou