Oceanography

Figuring Out The Nitrogen Budget In The Oceans

Every organism needs nitrogen to survive and grow and many organisms do not have the ability to obtain nitrogen from molecular nitrogen (N2), the major component in the atmosphere because they lack the nitrogen fixation pathway and have to rely on supply ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 4 2013 - 5:12pm

Modeling Our Climate Past: Oldest Ice Core Could Be 1.5 Million Years

Climate understanding of the past is based primarily on ice cores.  By studying information about Earth's climate and greenhouse gases  in past, scientists can understand better how temperature responds to changes in greenhouse-gas concentrations in ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2013 - 11:25am

Contrary To What You May Think, Salmon Scatter When They Hit The Ocean

Basic ocean conditions such as current directions and water temperature play a huge role in determining the behavior of young migrating salmon as they move from rivers and hit ocean waters for the first time-  and how the fish fare during their first few ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 11 2013 - 11:25am

Subarctic Lakes Drying Up At A Rate Not Seen For 200 Years

There has been a snowfall decrease in Canada's subarctic regions and that has led to worrisome desiccation of the regions' lakes- this has happened in the past also, of course, but it was less noticeable.  Researchers came to this conclusion aft ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 27 2013 - 1:58pm

New Aquifer In The Greenland Ice Sheet Discovered

A new aquifer in the Greenland Ice Sheet holds liquid water all year long in the otherwise perpetually frozen winter landscape. And it's big- 27,000 square miles.  The reservoir is a "perennial firn aquifer" because water persists within th ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 22 2013 - 5:06pm

Global Warming Model Estimates Major Reductions In Seafloor Marine Life By 2100

An international team of scientists predicts that seafloor dwelling marine life will decline by up to 38 percent in the North Atlantic and over five percent globally over the next century, due to global warming. The changes will be driven by a reduction i ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 1 2014 - 10:55pm

Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Melt- Blame El Nino

Pine Island Glacier is one of the biggest routes for ice to flow from Antarctica into the sea and the floating ice shelf at the glacier's tip has been melting and thinning for the past four decades, causing the glacier to speed up and discharge more ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 2 2014 - 7:16pm

Carbon Spheres: First Ocean Vesicles Spotted, In Marine Cyanobacteria

Marine cyanobacteria are tiny ocean plants that produce oxygen and make organic carbon using sunlight and CO2, and so they are primary engines of Earth's biogeochemical and nutrient cycles. They nourish other organisms through the provision of oxygen ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 15 2014 - 1:34pm

An Unusual Pattern In The Antarctic Ice Sheet’s Elevation

Near the center of Antarctica, measurements from CryoSat- which exists to make comprehensive measurements of the polar regions in an unusually high-inclination orbit and latitudes of 88° north and south-  have detected an unusual pattern in the ice sheet’s ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 21 2014 - 11:04am

Climate Change Implicated In Polar Bear Stress

A group of researchers say they have established a new biomarker for how stressed polar bears are about climate change.     Last year, a team reported that fluctuations in climate and ice cover are closely related to stress among polar bears in East Green ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 26 2014 - 5:36pm