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NEWS RELEASES
New study finds rate of U.S. coastal sea level rise doubled in the past century
The study finds that the rate of U.S. coastal sea-level rise has more than doubled in the past 125 years.
New program aims to improve hurricane predictions with ocean data
The coordinated combination of in situ observations, satellites, and high-resolution models will allow us to fill gaps in our knowledge of air-sea interactions.
WHOI scientists aim to improve the study of marine heatwaves
Researchers call for regional and context-specific approaches to these extreme events
Coastal retreat in Alaska is accelerating because of compound climate impacts
Observations have shown coastal erosion as an increasing Arctic hazard, but other hazards—including sea level rise and permafrost thaw subsidence—have received less attention.
A new report on coastal resilience
New report released during NY Climate Week and upcoming UN General Assembly high-level plenary meeting on threats posed by sea level rise
WHOI | OCEANUS
Morss Colloquia Focus on Science and Society
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution launched a new program, hosting three “Morss Colloquia” since October 2006. Enabled by a generous grant from Elisabeth and Henry Morss Jr., the public colloquia concerned “issues of global importance that are con-nected to human society and involve some aspect of science.” In October, hazard management officials, scientists, and coastal managers assembled to consider “Lessons from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.” Organized by WHOI marine policy researcher Di Jin and geophysicist…
Scientists Unearth Long Record of Past Hurricanes
Reaching down into the muck below a lagoon off Puerto Rico, two geologists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reached back 5,000 years to compile the longest record of strong hurricanes in the Atlantic region. The record showed that the dominant forces spawning heightened hurricane activity appeared to be atmospheric conditions generated by weak El Niños in the tropical Pacific and strong West African monsoons, Jeff Donnelly and Jon Woodruff reported May 24, 2007, in the…
Cell-sized Thermometers
Climate shifts are a repeating feature in Earth’s history, but humans have added so much greenhouse gas (especially carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere that climate is warming in our lifetimes. We know that past climate changes have concurred with changes in the circulation and temperatures of the deep ocean. So understanding how and why deep-sea temperatures changed could help us understand past climate changes and predict future changes. But estimating the past temperature of the…
Letter from Kangiqsujuaq
Charlie’s Motel was a welcome break from Kangiqsujuaq’s airport in northernmost Quebec, where we had just spent six hours uselessly waiting for the plane that would take us home. But it was too windy for the plane to land that August day in 2006. Charlie’s place was not much of a motel at all. It looked like a house, with no neon sign and, in fact, no vacancies—the house was rented to miners for the…
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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.