Oceanography

The Ocean's Unseen Waves: Where Heat, Energy And Nutrients Go

We've all been captivated by ocean waves, we accept (everyone except Galileo anyway) that the moon has an impact on tides and waves, but less well known is that the ocean contains rolling internal waves beneath the surface that displace massive amoun ...

Article - News Staff - May 14 2015 - 3:00pm

It's A Brand New Planktonic World

When you mention rich ecosystems that are vital for life on Earth, people tend to think of rainforests, but ocean plankton are actually just as crucial. The microscopic beings that drift on the upper layer of the oceans are globally referred to as "pl ...

Article - News Staff - May 21 2015 - 3:56pm

Evolution Of The Antarctic Ice Sheet And How It Resists Climate Change

A new analysis of the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet shows that ice rises (pinning points that keep the floating parts of ice sheets in place) are formed during the transition between glacial and interglacial periods, which significantly slows down t ...

Article - News Staff - May 26 2015 - 2:18pm

The Atlantic Ocean's Cool Phase Will Change The World's Weather

The Atlantic Ocean’s surface temperature swings between warm and cold phases every few decades. Like its higher-frequency Pacific relative El Nino, this so-called “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation” can alter weather patterns throughout the world. The war ...

Article - The Conversation - May 29 2015 - 11:30am

ODIP II: Global Marine Data, Unified And Accessible

Currently different data formats between research centers pose a challenge to oceanographic researchers, but a new project is going to make marine data sets more easily accessible to researchers worldwide.  The ODIP II project will use NERC’s vocabulary se ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 7 2015 - 10:30am

During Ice Age Cycles, Weathering And River Discharge Were Surprisingly Constant

Over geologic time, the work of rain and other processes that chemically dissolve rocks into constituent molecules that wash out to sea can diminish mountains and reshape continents. Scientists are interested in the rates of these chemical weathering proc ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 13 2015 - 1:01pm

Riddle Of Resilience: Coral Reefs In Palau Thrive Under Acidification

Though ocean acidification and corals have been a concern, not all coral reefs are at risk. Instead, some thrive as they have absorbed atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) released by the burning of fossil fuels. In ocean acidification, the CO 2 reacts with ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 8 2015 - 9:29pm

Arctic Ocean Rapidly Becoming More Corrosive To Marine Species

New research shows that surface waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas could reach levels of acidity that threaten the ability of animals to build and maintain their shells by 2030, with the Bering Sea reaching this level of acidity by 2044.  "Our r ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 15 2015 - 8:30pm

Ocean Mixing Model Reveals Insight On Climate

Scientists have developed a computer model that clarifies the complex processes driving ocean mixing in the vast eddies that swirl across hundreds of miles of open ocean. The Lagrangian In-situ, Global, High-performance particle Tracking (LIGHT) model is ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 29 2015 - 12:22pm

Glacial Quakes As Indicators Of Glacier Disruption

Observations of Greenland's Helheim Glacier link the process through which chunks of ice at the edge of a glacier break away, which has been hard to study, to seismically detectable events known as glacial earthquakes, which have been increasing in n ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 5 2015 - 5:03am