Oceanus Online Archive
Oceans of Change
“THE SEA NEVER CHANGES, AND ITS WORKS, FOR ALL THE TALK OF MEN, ARE WRAPPED IN MYSTERY.” So observed the narrator of “Typhoon,” Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novella. But today, we […]
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The Ocean’s Moveable Feast
Over the past few decades, Carin Ashjian, a biologist at Woods hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has explored the marine food web and how it has responded to changing ocean conditions. […]
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Mining climate clues from our whaling past
Climate scientists work with historians to tap weather records from old New England whaling logbooks. They hope to leverage the historical data to gain new insights into modern-day climate conditions.
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A ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ in the Arctic
Scientists discover that the amount of heat in a major Arctic Ocean circulation system has doubled over the past 30 years. If the temperatures continue to spike, it could eventually spell trouble for the ice above.
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Gliders Reveal Tango Between Hurricanes and the Gulf Stream
Spray gliders cruising the east coast are collecting ocean measurement data that hurricane forecast modelers can use to improve storm intensity forecasts.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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Unearthing Long-Gone Hurricanes
A graduate student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution tracks a trail of clues left behind on the seafloor by hurricanes as they stream across the ocean.
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Will Oxygen in the Ocean Continue to Decline?
The living, breathing ocean may be slowly starting to suffocate. The ocean has lost more than two percent of its oxygen over the past-half century, and oxygen-depleted “dead zones” continue […]
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Up in the Sky!
Nope, it’s not a bird or a plane. It’s a drone on a scientific mission to restore a river long impaired by dams and to help bring back populations of […]
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A Double Whammy for Corals
Scientists know that gradually rising ocean temperatures can push corals past a threshold and cause them to bleach. But combine this chronic stress with an acute short-term weather shift, and […]
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Long-term Study Focuses on New England Ocean
The National Science Foundation has created a new Long Term Ecological Research site off the New England coast to increase understanding of an area of the ocean known for its abundant marine life and productive commercial fisheries.
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Extreme Climate
Extreme climatic events such as unusually severe storms and droughts can have profound consequences for life both on land and in the ocean. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution climate scientist Caroline Ummenhofer studies the ocean’s role in the global water cycle and its effects on extreme weather and climate.
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Blue Holes and Hurricanes
Scientists are digging into clues that settle into sinkholes in the seafloor to learn about hurricane patterns in the past and in the future.
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Scientist-Fisherman Partnership
WHOI physical oceanographer Glen Gawarkiewicz is enlisting the help of local fishermen to find out how climate change is affecting water conditions along the southern New England coast.
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Spring Arrives Earlier in the Ocean Too
Warmer oceans are triggering phytoplankton to start their annual blooms up to four weeks earlier than usual—a signal of how climate change can have far-reaching impacts on marine ecosystems.
From 2003 […]
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More Floods & Higher Sea Levels
A research team predicts potentially big changes within the next century that would have significant impacts on those who live on or near the coast.
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Signs of Big Change in the Arctic
The climate in the Arctic region once predictably shifted back and forth between two regimes. But now the system seems to be stuck.
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Coral Coring
Off a small island in the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biogeochemists Konrad Hughen and Colleen Hansel use a special underwater drill to take […]
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As Bay Warms, Harmful Algae Bloom
Warming coastal waters off southern Massachusetts are worsening the effects of pollution from septic systems, wastewater treatment plants, and fertilizer runoff—and causing a rise in harmful algal blooms.
Researchers at Woods […]
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See Those Black Dots? They’re Penguins. Now Count Them.
That’s exactly what a team of researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) did on a recent expedition to the Danger Islands off the Antarctic Peninsula. The islands are home […]
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Tracking a Trail of Carbon
Lake Titicaca in the Andes Mountains of South America is an extraordinary place to explore ancient human civilization, Earth’s climate history, and the flow of carbon through our planet.
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Coral Crusader
Graduate student Hannah Barkley is on a mission to investigate how warming ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and other impacts of climate change are affecting corals in an effort to find ways to preserve these vital ocean resources.
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