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A Sea Far, Far Away

MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate students Alice Alpert (left) and Liz Drenkard (center), and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representative Kelsie Ernsberger (right), snorkel above a large coral at an atoll in the central equatorial Pacific in 2012. Alpert, Drenkard, and WHOI scientist emeritus George Lohmann, with the conservation organization Pangaea Exploration, sailed 2000 miles to these remote coral islands. They sampled seawater and coral and deployed instruments, part of a larger study by WHOI scientists Anne Cohen, Kris Karnauskas, and Delia Oppo aimed at gaining a better understanding of climate change and potential impacts of ocean warming and acidification on coral reef communities.(Photo by Chip Young, NOAA)