oceans

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    Oxygen Levels in Oceans Plummet as Planet Warms

    Oxygen Levels in Oceans Plummet as Planet Warms

    By Tim Radford U.S. scientists who have been warning that warmer oceans are more likely to be poorer in dissolved oxygen have now sounded the alarm: ocean oxygen levels are indeed falling, and seemingly falling faster than the corresponding rise in water temperature. That colder water can hold more dissolved gas than warmer water is […]

    22-Year-Old Raises $21.7 Million to Rid Pacific Ocean of Plastic

    22-Year-Old Raises $21.7 Million to Rid Pacific Ocean of Plastic

    The Ocean Cleanup—the ambitious Dutch venture devoted to ridding the world’s oceans of plastics—announced this week that it has raised $21.7 million in donations since last November. This latest round of funding brings The Ocean Cleanup’s total funding since 2013 to $31.5 million and allows the startup to initiate large-scale trials of its cleanup technology […]

    NOAA Launches Investigation Into Unusually High Humpback Whale Die-Offs

    NOAA Launches Investigation Into Unusually High Humpback Whale Die-Offs

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Thursday it is investigating the unusually high number of humpback whale deaths off the U.S. Atlantic Coast. A total of 41 humpback whales died in the waters off Maine to North Carolina since January 2016, including 15 that washed up dead this year. That’s about three times […]

    Trump Plans to Aggressively Expand Offshore Drilling in Protected Areas

    Trump Plans to Aggressively Expand Offshore Drilling in Protected Areas

    President Trump plans to sign an executive order today intended to aggressively expand drilling in protected waters off the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. The new EO will direct U.S. Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke to review the current offshore drilling plans, which limits most drilling to parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet, […]

    Ocean Farmers Begin 3-Day Journey to ‘Climate March by Sea’

    Ocean Farmers Begin 3-Day Journey to ‘Climate March by Sea’

    By Jonathan Hahn On President Trump’s first Earth Day in the White House, he declared on Twitter that “we celebrate our beautiful forests, lakes and lands”—an amiable if blasé arm-punch to the planet from the leader of the free world. Until a few hours later that is, when the president resorted to his usual right […]

    This Tiny Caterpillar Could Help Solve the World’s Plastic Crisis

    This Tiny Caterpillar Could Help Solve the World’s Plastic Crisis

    A research team discovered that the caterpillars of the greater wax moth—considered a pest in Europe because it eats the beeswax from honeycombs—also has the ability to biodegrade polyethylene, the same material used in whale-choking, landfill-clogging plastic shopping bags. Incredibly, this discovery was all down to chance. Scientist and amateur beekeeper Federica Bertocchini of Spain’s […]

    Trump to Launch Unprecedented Attack on National Monuments

    Trump to Launch Unprecedented Attack on National Monuments

    President Trump is poised to threaten more than 1 billion acres of national monument protection in a devastating and unprecedented attack on America’s public lands and oceans. Trump is expected to issue an executive order April 26 calling for a review of every national monument that’s been protected by presidential proclamation since 1996. His goal […]

    Giant Waterfall in Antarctica Worries Scientists

    Giant Waterfall in Antarctica Worries Scientists

    By Tim Radford Scientists poring over military and satellite imagery have mapped the unimaginable: a network of rivers, streams, ponds, lakes and even a waterfall, flowing over the ice shelf of a continent with an annual mean temperature of more than -50C. In 1909 Ernest Shackleton and his fellow explorers on their way to the […]