Carin Ashjian
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 know that his mariner protagonist…
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. She wants to know how…
Are Jellyfish Populations Increasing?
Delicate but armed, mindless yet unstoppable, jellyfish sometimes appear abruptly near coasts in staggering numbers that cause problems and generate headlines: Jellyfish fill fishing nets in Japan, sinking a boat. Jellyfish clog nuclear plant water…
Will Climate Change Disrupt the Arctic Ecosystem?
After long, dark winters, sunlight returns to the Bering Sea in spring, re-launching a bountiful food chain that fills the Arctic with life. In March 2008, an ambitious research team, led by biologist Carin Ashjian…
Abandoned Walrus Calves Reported in the Arctic
Researchers on an oceanographic voyage in the Arctic Ocean report, for the first time, baby walruses unaccompanied by mothers in areas far from shore and over deep water, where they likely could not survive. The phenomenon was coincident with movement of warm water into Arctic basins and subsequent melting of the sea ice that walruses normally utilize as resting platforms.
What Brings the Food that Brings the Whales?
Watching the gray, pitching ocean from the beach in Barrow, Alaska, Carin Ashjian, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), wonders if the seas are too rough for the Annika Marie, the 43-foot boat…