Tag Archives: ocean temperatures

What the recently stalled polar vortex over much of the eastern half of the United States makes clear is that we humans are, by nature, not well equipped to think globally. At least not when it comes to their physical surroundings. After all, cold is cold. So, for instance, if there is two inches of snow outside my Atlanta home and a city brought …

Preliminary results from CryoSat-2--the first satellite capable of very accurately measuring ice sheet volumes across the Arctic region-- indicate summer sea ice is being lost at a rate 50% greater than previously estimated, raising the prospect of profound local and global changes in climate and environment.

Atlantic mackerel are moving north and east, dispersing more widely into warmer waters off the US and Canadian continental shelves, according to new research from NOAA fisheries scientists. The findings are of significance to commercial and recreational fishermen, and indicate broader changes within the regional marine food web are likely underway.

  Even now, three-quarters of all coral reefs around the world are threatened. By 2050 “nearly all” coral reefs will be gone unless something is done soon to stop it, according to a report released last week by the World Resources Institute. Assaulted by warming temperatures, acidifying waters, pollution, and overfishing, coral reefs are aptly described as the “rainforest of the sea,” supporting a …

A global coral bleaching event is underway that many scientists fear will surpass 1998, the last global coral die-off that bleached and killed 16 percent of the world’s coral. Already, rising sea surface temperatures have devastated coral off the coast of Indonesia after ocean temperatures in the coastal waters spiked to 93 degrees Fahrenheit earlier this year. The record heat and sea surface temperatures …

Water temperatures reaching as high as 93 degrees Fahrenheit in Southeast Asia’s Andamann Sea have led to a large die-off of coral reef off the coast of Indonesia, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) reported earlier this week. The abnormally high ocean temperatures lasted for about a month, the report said. Surveys conducted in May, when temperatures started to peak, revealed that more than 60 …

NOAA is expanding its network of ocean and atmospheric CO2 monitors on remote mooring stations at sea.