Search Results for: ocean

Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have demonstrated that sea spray over the oceans contributes to cleansing air that has been polluted overland. The air pollution is washed down by rain, which occurs because the rain-suppressing effect of such pollution is significantly neutralized. An article on this research appears in the online magazine Science Express, published today.

In previous studies, Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld of the Ring Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and collea

Commercial fishing practices can reduce genetic diversity in fish populations, possibly threatening their productivity and adaptability to environmental change, new research has found.

An Australian zoologist now at the University of Melbourne, along with colleagues from the United Kingdom and New Zealand, was the first to record a decline in the genetic diversity of a commercially exploited marine species.

Their findings, published in the latest volume of the “Proceedings of the

On the eve of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, scientists at UCL have detected a flaw in the Kyoto protocol`s global plans to reduce the impact of global warming, all because of something as simple as atmospheric dust.

Dr Mark Maslin of UCL`s Environmental Change Research Centre explains: “Dust is vital to the health of the planet. This is not household dust, but tiny fragments of rock and soil, almost too small to see with the naked eye”.

Billions of tons of this dust are blown a

Since the early 1980s, ocean phytoplankton concentrations that drive the marine food chain have declined substantially in many areas of open water in Northern oceans, according to a comparison of two datasets taken from satellites. At the same time, phytoplankton levels in open water areas near the equator have increased significantly. Since phytoplankton are especially concentrated in the North, the study found an overall annual decrease in phytoplankton globally.

The authors of the study,

Computer predictions of the effects of commercial sea-sand dredging on coastal erosion, produced by an international team headed by Dr Alan Davies of the University of Wales, Bangor`s School of Ocean Sciences, will play a key role in developing new European Guidelines for siting commercial sand dredging activities.

Increased demand for North Sea sand is anticipated, both for use as beach and sand dune nourishment and to meet demand for sand from large-scale European construction projects. Sa

Industrial fishing poses the biggest threat to life and fin for sharks, dolphins and billfish that inhabit the tropical and northern Pacific Ocean, says a new study forecasting the effects of commercial fishing on ocean ecosystems.

Though not targeted by the fishing industry, some ocean species often get caught unintentionally in nets or lines used to catch tuna and other commercially valuable fish, says a study presented to scientists today, Aug. 5, at the annual meeting of the Ecological