Oceanus Magazine - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Searching for ‘Super Reefs’

Some corals are less vulnerable to ocean acidification. Can the offspring from these more resilient corals travel to other reefs to help sustain more vulnerable coral populations there?

Ocean & Human Lives

MIT-WHOI Joint Program Marks 50th Year

In 1968, two esteemed scientific institutions launched an unorthodox academic experiment: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean Engineering. This year, it celebrated its golden anniversary.

How the Ocean Works

The Current that Feeds the Galápagos

A small fleet of robotic undersea vehicles paints the first detailed picture of a vast and important current within the ocean that had remained beyond our purview.

Follow the Trails of Nitrogen Through Hydrothermal Vents

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Ocean Tech

Journey to the Bottom of the Sea

My eyelids were tightly pressed down as I mustered all the tricks I could think of to get myself to sleep. I rolled around with no sign of getting close…

How the Ocean Works

Marshes, Mosquitoes, and Sea Level Rise

In the 1930s, the Cape Cod Mosquito Control Project dug approximately 1,500 miles of ditches across marshes on the Cape to drain their water and reduce the number of ponds…

How the Ocean Works

Can We Improve Monsoon Forecasts?

Scientists are exploring the ocean to gain new insights into forecasting the still-unpredictable monsoon rains that billions of people depend on to irrigate their crops

How the Ocean Works

Computer Simulations of Ocean Circulation

Ocean Life

The Unseen World on Coral Reefs

We have learned that microbial communities on and within us—a microbiome—keep people healthy. Corals reefs also have their own microbiomes that they couldn’t function without.

Ocean & Human Lives

Autonomous Ocean Vehicles Supply Key Data on Hurricane Florence

With Hurricane Florence bearing down on the North Carolina coast, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have mobilized autonomous vehicles and instruments to track changes in the ocean ahead of and beneath Florence.

How the Ocean Works

Diving in Eddies

How the Ocean Works

Following the Eddies

Ocean Life

The Recipe for a Harmful Algal Bloom

Harmful algal blooms can produce toxins that accumulate in shellfish and cause health problems and economic losses. They have increased in strength and frequency worldwide. Can we get advance warnings of when and where they will occur?

How the Ocean Works

Life at the Edge

What makes the shelf break front such a productive and diverse part of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean? A group of scientists on the research vessel Neil Armstrong spent two weeks at sea in 2018 as part of a three-year, NSF-funded project to find out.

Climate & Weather

A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Ocean

Like someone monitoring the traffic flow on a road system, MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Sam Levang is examining the flow of the ocean’s global circulation, which has big impacts of our climate.

Ocean Life

Sharks Take ‘Tunnels’ into the Depths

By tagging sharks, WHOI scientists have revealed their surprising behavior.

How the Ocean Works

Forecasting Where Ocean Life Thrives

The ocean, like the atmosphere, has “fronts,” and it’s hardly quiet on them. In fact, that is where the plankton that provide the foundation of the ocean food web are most prolific.

Climate & Weather

A Change Has Come in the Arctic

On a long voyage across the Arctic Ocean, an MIT-WHOI graduate students finds chemical clues that climate change has already had impacts on the region.

Ocean Tech

The Discovery of Hydrothermal Vents

In 1977, WHOI scientists made a discovery that revolutionized our understanding of how and where life could exist on Earth and other planetary bodies.

Ocean & Human Lives

Forecasting Future Hurricanes

Ocean Tech

Students Get Their Sea Legs

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is known for its ocean-going research. But some incoming graduate students in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program may never have set foot a large research ship before. A new orientation cruise aboard the research vessel Neil Armstrong is introducing students to shipboard life and oceanographic research.

Ocean Life