Skip to content

Raising Awareness

Outreach & Impact

Raising Awareness

Ocean-Climate News and Publications from Across WHOI

News

NEWS RELEASES

Some Forams Could Thrive with Climate Change, Metabolism Study Finds

Oceanic deoxygenation is increasingly affecting marine ecosystems. A new paper that examines two foram species found that they demonstrated great metabolic versatility to flourish in hypoxic and anoxic sediments where there is little or no dissolved oxygen, inferring that the forams’ contribution to the marine ecosystem will increase with the expansion of oxygen-depleted habitats.


Study Finds 6⁰C Cooling on Land during the Last Ice Age, With Implications about Future Global Warming

A recent report shows that prior studies have underestimated the cooling in the last glacial period, which has low-balled estimates of the Earth’s climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases. The rather high climate sensitivity is not good news regarding future global warming, which may be stronger than expected using previous best estimates.


WHOI to Launch New Center for Ocean and Climate Research

Today WHOI announced the establishment of the Francis E. Fowler IV Center for Ocean and Climate to seek new knowledge and solutions at the intersection of oceanography and climate science. A generous gift from Francis E. Fowler, IV established the center and will enable it to immediately commence operations.


WHOI and ADI Launch Ocean and Climate Innovation Accelerator

Today WHOI and Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) launched an Ocean and Climate Innovation Accelerator (OCIA) consortium, focused on the critical role of oceans in combatting climate change, and developing new solutions at the intersection of oceans and climate.


Climate Change Can Destabilize the Global Soil Carbon Reservoir, New Study Finds

The vast reservoir of carbon that is stored in soils probably is more sensitive to destabilization from climate change than has previously been assumed, according to a new study by researchers at WHOI and other institutions. The study found that the biospheric carbon turnover within river basins is vulnerable to future temperature and precipitation perturbations from a changing climate. Although many earlier, and fairly localized, studies have hinted at soil organic carbon sensitivity to climate…


WHOI | OCEANUS
COP 29

5 Takeaways for the Ocean from the COP29 Climate Conference

Explore the key outcomes from this year’s UN Climate Conference


Gulf Stream ocean currents

Ocean in Motion

How the ocean’s complex and chaotic physics defines life on our planet


For Ben Santer, the fingerprints of the climate crisis are very human

WHOI distinguished scholar explains the art of climate fingerprinting


Tom Bell

The 10,000-foot view

WHOI’s Tom Bell tracks changes to vulnerable coastal ecosystems with aerial imagery


Paul Salem

A new champion for ocean science

Gift from WHOI’s board chair Paul Salem to jump-start ocean-based climate solutions


Publications

IN THE NEWS - RESEARCH HIGLIGHTS

Study offers first definitive proof that Gulf Stream has weakened

“New research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution offers the first conclusive evidence that the Gulf Stream has weakened. The powerful ocean current off the East Coast influences regional weather, climate and fisheries, and the finding could have significant implications both for New England and the global climate.”


What Happens to Marine Life When There Isn’t Enough Oxygen?

In September of 2017, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution postdoctoral scholar Maggie Johnson was conducting an experiment with a colleague in Bocas del Toro off the…


Maine’s having a lobster boom. A bust may be coming.

The waters off Maine’s coast are warming, and no one knows what that’s going to mean for the state’s half-billion-dollar-a-year lobster industry—the largest single-species fishery in North America. Some fear that continued warming could cause the lobster population to collapse. To understand what’s happening to the ecosystem of the Gulf of Maine, says Glen Gawarkiewicz, an oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts, you have to look beyond it—see how it’s affected by the atmosphere, ocean currents, and rivers that flow into it.


Sign up to stay connected and receive the WHOI newsletter!