Oceanus Online Archive
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…
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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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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…
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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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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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Scientists Find Trigger That Cracks Lakes
Graduate student Laura Stevens became a focal point of a research team that cracked a big mystery atop the Greenland Ice Sheet.
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One Algae, Two Fuels
New research shows a way to tap overlooked fats in marine algae to produce compounds used in jet fuel.
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The Jetyak
Oceanographers are always looking for cost-effective vehicles to help them explore risky regions. Scientists at WHOI have developed one: a robotic platform called the Jetyak.
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A Mooring in Iceberg Alley
WHOI scientists knowingly put a mooring in a fjord filled with icebergs near the terminus of a Greeland glacier. But it was their only way to learn if changing ocean conditions might be affecting how fast the glacier flowed into the ocean.
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Jet Stream Gets Fish in Hot Water
WHOI scientists traced a heat wave in the North Atlantic, and the disruption of fisheries that it caused, to an unusual pattern in air circulation months earlier.
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Detours on the Oceanic Highway
WHOI graduate student Isabela Le Bras is exploring newly discovered complexities of the Deep Western Boundary Current, a major artery in the global ocean circulation system that transports cold water south from the North Atlantic.
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The Decline and Fall of the Emperor Penguin?
Climate change is shifting conditions on which Emperor penguins in Antarctica depend to sustain their populations.
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Seabirds Face Risks from Climate Change
The research expedition ended in near-disaster. Stephanie Jenouvrier, aboard the ship Marion Dufresne II, was heading to the Southern Ocean to study seabirds. On Nov. 14, 2012, while making a…
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The Retreat of the Gualas Glacier
Like many mountain glaciers, the Gualas Glacier in the Patagonian region of Chile has retreated fast during the past century in the face of climate change. But not only for…
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The Glacial Chronicles
Graduate student Benjamin Linhoff spent several months in the summers of 2011 and 2012 studying a glacier at a remote camp on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Here are some excerpts…
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Storms, Floods, and Droughts
The source of the rain that filled your town reservoir, or flooded your nearby river, or never arrived to water your crops, is most likely the ocean. The ocean contains…
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New Weather-Shifting Climate Cycle Revealed
Scientists have uncovered evidence for another natural cycle that, like El Niño and La Niña, shifts Pacific Ocean winds and currents and rearranges rainfall and weather patterns around the globe.…
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Follow the Carbon
“Carbon is the currency of life,” said David Griffith, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). “Where carbon is coming from, which organisms are using it, how they’re…
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Mentors for Budding Scientists
For the fourth consecutive year, local high school students interested in science spent part of their summer vacations working on projects undertaken with Delia Oppo’s lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic…
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Climate Change Spurred Fall of Ancient Culture
The Harappans may be the most advanced ancient civilization that most Westerners have never heard of. They flourished in the Indus River basin on the Indian subcontinent around the same…
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Coral Sanctuaries in a Warming World?
Climate scientists have predicted that ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific will rise significantly by the end of the century, wreaking havoc on coral reef ecosystems. But a new study…
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