News Releases
Study Offers Clues to Better Rainfall Predictions
WHOI scientists have found a potential path to better seasonal rainfall predictions. Their study shows a clear link between higher sea surface salinity levels in the North Atlantic Ocean and increased rainfall on land in the West African Sahel, the area between the Sahara Desert and the savannah in Sudan.
Read MoreWHOI Technology Used in Locating El Faro Data Recorder
Technology and vehicles developed and operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists and engineers were instrumental in assisting the NTSB in locating the voyage data recorder (VDR) of El Faro.
Read MoreWHOI Assists in Locating El Faro Voyage Data Recorder
A team of scientists and engineers from the NTSB, Coast Guard and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have located the voyage data recorder (VDR) of the sunken El Faro cargo ship.
Read MoreWHOI to Assist in NTSB Search for El Faro Data Recorder
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will assist the National Transportation Safety Board as it undertakes its second search April 18, 2016, for the vessel data recorder (VDR) of the sunken El Faro cargo ship.
Read MoreSteve Elgar Named National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow
Steve Elgar, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has been selected as a 2016 National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow (NSSEFF) by the Department of Defense.
Read MoreWHOI Ocean Science Exhibit Center Opens for 2016 Season
The WHOI Ocean Science Exhibit Center opens for another fun and engaging summer season on April 18, 2016.
Read MoreSwarming Red Crabs Documented on Video
A research team studying biodiversity at the Hannibal Bank Seamount off the coast of Panama has captured unique video of thousands of red crabs swarming in low-oxygen waters just above the seafloor.
Read MoreR/V Neil Armstrong Arrives in Woods Hole
On April 6, the research vessel Neil Armstrong was met by a jubilant crowd at the WHOI dock as it arrived to its home port for the first time, escorted by the WHOI coastal research vessel R/V Tioga, two Coast Guard boats and fireboats from neighboring towns.
Read MoreNewly Upgraded ROV Jason: Bigger and Better
A major, $2.4 million upgrade funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has made the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason more capable than ever.
Read MoreMajor Source of Methanol in the Ocean Identified
Scientists have long known methanol exists in the ocean, and that certain microbes love to snack on it, but they’ve been stymied by one key question: where does it come from? Researchers at WHOI have solved this mystery through the discovery of a massive ‘ and previously unaccounted for ‘ source of methanol in the ocean: phytoplankton.
Read MoreFukushima Site Still Leaking After Five Years, Research Shows
Five years after the Fukushima accident, scientific data about the levels of radioactivity in the ocean off our shores are available publicly thanks to ongoing efforts of independent researchers, including WHOI radiochemist Ken Buesseler, who has led the effort to create and maintain an ocean monitoring network along the U.S. West Coast.
Read MoreFiamma Straneo Selected for Prestigious Sverdrup Lecture
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has chosen Fiamma Straneo, a physical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), to deliver the Sverdrup Lecture at this year’s meeting of the Ocean Sciences section held in New Orleans from February 21-26, 2016. The lecture is one of the highest awards the section bestows on its members.
Read MoreCan animals thrive without oxygen?
In 2010, a research team garnered attention when it published evidence of finding the first animals living in permanently anoxic conditions at the bottom of the sea. But a new…
Read MoreStudy Reveals Climate Change Impacts on Buzzards Bay
Utilizing 22 years of data collected by a network of citizen scientists, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their colleagues at the Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program, the Buzzards Bay Coalition, and the Marine Biological Laboratory found that average summertime temperatures in embayments throughout Buzzards Bay warmed by almost 2 degrees Celsius—roughly 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
Read MoreRobotic Vehicles Offer a New Tool in Study of Shark Behavior
The dramatic video footage of a great white shark attacking the “REMUS SharkCam” autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) brought some of the highest ratings to Discover Channel’s Shark Week 2014 and went viral on the Internet.
But while the footage was unprecedented, the scientific understanding enabled by the REMUS SharkCam is just as groundbreaking. The AUV was used during a science expedition in 2013 to better understand white shark behavior and represents the first successful efforts to autonomously track and image any animal in the marine environment. The research provides critical data to efforts to conserve these animals.
“We wanted to test the REMUS SharkCam technology to prove that is was a viable tool for observing marine animals – sharks in this case – and to collect substantial data about the animals’s behavior and habitat,” said WHOI engineer Amy Kukulya, one of REMUS SharkCam’s principal investigators.
The research results were recently published in the Journal of Fish Biology. The paper’s lead author is Greg Skomal, a biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. In addition to Kukulya, co-authors include biologist E. M. Hoyos-Padilla of Pelagios-Kakunjá, a Mexican marine conservation organization, and WHOI engineer and REMUS SharkCam software developer Roger Stokey.
Read MoreAmy Apprill Featured in Science’s Video Series
Amy Apprill, a microbiologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is one of the extraordinary women scientists featured in Science Magazine’s online video series, “XX Files: Extraordinary Science, Extraordinary Women.” The eight-part series, which highlights diverse projects led by a group of impressive female scientists, began in early October. The video featuring Apprill’s work, “The Humpback Microbiome,” debuts on December 15 and is the last in the special series.
Read MoreDrag from Fishing Gear Entanglements Quantified
In a paper published online Dec. 9, 2015, in Marine Mammal Science, a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has for the first time quantified the amount of drag on entangled whales that is created by towing fishing gear, such as rope, buoys, and lobster and crab traps. The study provides important data for teams evaluating the risks and benefits of whale disentanglements.
Read MoreGalapagos Expedition Reveals Unknown Seamounts, New Species
During a three-week expedition in August, an international team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), in partnership with the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galápagos Islands and in close collaboration with the Galápagos National Park Directorate, conducted the first scientific expedition to map and characterize the seamounts on the Galápagos platform and the diverse marine life that these underwater mountains support.
Read MoreHigher Levels of Fukushima Cesium Detected Offshore
Scientists monitoring the spread of radiation in the ocean from the Fukushima nuclear accident report finding an increased number of contaminated sites off the US West Coast, along with the highest detection level to date, from a sample collected about 1,600 miles west of San Francisco. The level of cesium in the sample is 50 percent higher than other samples collected, but is still more than 500 times lower than US government safety limits for drinking water and well below limits of concern for direct exposure while swimming, boating, or other recreational activities.
Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and director of the WHOI Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity, was among the first to begin monitoring radiation in the Pacific, organizing a research expedition to the area just three months after the start of the ongoing accident. Through a citizen science sampling effort, Our Radioactive Ocean, as well as research funded by the National Science Foundation, Buesseler and his colleagues are using sophisticated sensors to measure minute levels of ocean-borne radioactivity from Fukushima. In 2015, they have added more than 50 new sample locations in the Pacific to the more than 200 previously collected and posted on the Our Radioactive Ocean web site.
Read MoreWarming Ocean Worsened Australia’s Fatal 2010/2011 Floods
A study by a team of U.S. and Australian researchers shows that long-term warming of the Indian and Pacific oceans played an important role in increasing the severity of the devastating floods that struck Australia in 2010/2011. The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Read MoreSan Francisco Is First Port of Call for Nations Newest Research Ship
California welcomed the most recent addition to the US’s academic research fleet, the Neil Armstrong, as it made its first port of call in San Francisco over the weekend. The 238-ft., state-of-the-art ship made its way down the West Coast from Anacortes, Wash., where it was built.
Read MoreNew Study Provides First Field Observations of Rare Omura’s Whales
In a paper published October 14, 2015, in the Royal Society Open Science journal, the researchers describe the whales’ foraging and vocal behaviors, and habitat preferences in the shallow waters of coastal Madagascar.
Read MoreNew Study Projects That Melting of Antarctic Ice Shelves Will Intensify
New research published today projects a doubling of surface melting of Antarctic ice shelves by 2050 and by 2100 may surpass intensities associated with ice shelf collapse, if greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption continues at the present rate.
Ice shelves are the floating extensions of the continent’s massive land-based ice sheets. While the melting or breakup of floating ice shelves does not directly raise sea level, ice shelves do have a “door stop” effect: They slow the flow of ice from glaciers and ice sheets into the ocean, where it melts and raises sea levels.
Read MoreWHOI Elects New Officers to its Board and Corporation
Today, the Board of Trustees of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) elected David B. Scully as the new chairman of the Board. Scully was elected to the WHOI Corporation in 2010 and to its Board in 2012. In addition to Scully’s appointment, Jefferson Hughes, Jr. has been elected vice chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Steven Hoch has been elected chairman of the WHOI Corporation.
Read More