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Raising Awareness

Ocean-Climate News and Publications from Across WHOI

News

NEWS RELEASES
Missoula floods

Study reveals Missoula Floods impact on past abrupt climate changes

A new study shows for the first time how massive flood events in the eastern North Pacific Ocean—known as the Missoula Floods—may have in part triggered abrupt climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere during the last deglaciation (approximately 19,000–11,700 years ago).


Snapping shrimp

Warming oceans are getting louder

One of the ocean’s loudest creatures will get even louder and more troublesome to humans and sea life as the ocean warms.


For now, river deltas gain land worldwide

Delta areas worldwide have gained land in the past 30 years, despite river damming. However, recent land gains are unlikely to last throughout the 21st century due to expected, accelerated sea-level rise.


Clownfish can’t adapt to rapid environmental changes

The beloved anemone fish popularized by the movies “Finding Nemo” and “Finding Dory” don’t have the genetic capacity to adapt to rapid changes in their environment, according to a new study in the journal Ecology Letters.


penguins

Unless warming is slowed, emperor penguins will be marching towards extinction

Emperor penguins are some of the most striking and charismatic animals on Earth, but a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has found that a warming climate may render them extinct by the end of this century. The study, which was part of an international collaboration between scientists, published Nov. 7, 2019, in the journal Global Change Biology.


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.


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