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Linking Climate Change Across Time Scales
What do month-to-month changes in temperature have to do with century-to-century changes in temperature? At first it might seem like not much. But in a report published in this week’s Nature, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found some unifying themes in the global variations of temperature at time scales ranging from a single season to hundreds of thousands of years. These findings help place climate observed at individual places and times…
Walrus Calves Stranded by Melting Sea Ice
Scientists have reported an unprecedented number of unaccompanied and possibly abandoned walrus calves in the Arctic Ocean, where melting sea ice may be forcing mothers to abandon their pups as the mothers follow the rapidly retreating ice edge north. Nine lone walrus calves were reported swimming in deep waters far from shore by researchers aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy during a cruise in the Canada Basin in the summer of 2004. Unable to…
Warmer than a Hot Tub: Atlantic Ocean Temperatures Much Higher in the Past
Scientists have found evidence that tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures may have once reached 107°F (42°C)about 25°F (14°C) higher than ocean temperatures today and warmer than a hot tub. The surprisingly high ocean temperatures, the warmest estimates to date for any place on Earth, occurred millions of year ago when carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere were also high, but researchers say they may be an indication that greenhouse gases could heat the oceans in the…
Fine-tuning the Steps in the Intricate Climate Change Dance
New scientific findings are strengthening the case that the oceans and climate are linked in an intricate dance, and that rapid climate change may be related to how vigorously ocean currents move heat between low and high latitudes. The research, by Candace Major, an investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was presented today at a press conference at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the North Atlantic region, the…
New Coral Dating Technique Helps Resolve Changes in Sea Level Rise in the Past
Corals from Papua New Guinea and Barbados indicate that changes in sea level, one of the key indexes for global climate change, may have been more frequent in the past than previously thought, according to a report in today’s issue of Science. Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Columbia University developed a new set of dating equations to determine the ages of corals from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to help resolve…
WHOI | OCEANUS
Ships in the Strait of Hormuz are becoming invasive species breeding grounds
Beneath the waterline of every ship stalled in the Persian Gulf, a thriving underwater city takes shape—barnacles, algae, mussels, sea squirts. Some of those hitchhikers could reach coastlines they’d never find on their own.
Is the ocean carbon sink at risk of faltering?
WHOI scientists explain how the ocean mitigates climate change—and could be compromised by it
The world’s most abundant fish once thrived in an extreme climate
Fossilized teeth show bristlemouth fish evolved during one of the ocean’s hottest periods
Luxury cruises with a side of climate science
A new partnership gives scientists rare access to remote Antarctic glaciers—and a new way to engage the public
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.