News Releases
Ocean Observatories Initiative‘s Pioneer Array Relocating to Southern Mid-Atlantic Bight
New location offers opportunities for new science observations with continued open access
Read MoreWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution Receives $2 million from State for CWATER project
Funding is part of $3 million economic development package secured by Falmouth legislators.
Read MoreResilient Woods Hole Awarded Grant from Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management
Resilient Woods Hole (RWH), a private/public collaboration to prepare the village and blue economy of Woods Hole for major climate impacts such as sea-level rise, coastal flooding, and shoreline loss, has been awarded a second grant from the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management to continue its work in implementing community climate resiliency solutions.
Read More“Digital Reefs” awarded $5 million
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) $5 million to participate in NSF’s ground breaking Convergence Accelerator Program. The project, led by WHOI scientist Anne Cohen, builds the world’s first Coral Reef Digital Twin, a 4-dimensional virtual replica of a living coral reef powered by state-of-the art data and models.
Read MoreA recent reversal in the response of western Greenland’s ice caps to climate change
New collaborative research from the WHOI and five partner institutions published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals that during past periods glaciers and ice caps in coastal west Greenland experienced climate conditions much different than the interior of Greenland. Over the past 2,000 years, these ice caps endured periods of warming during which they grew larger rather than shrinking.
Read MoreWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution Elects New Corporation Members
The Board of Trustees of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) today announced the ten new corporation members who were elected at its Spring Joint Meeting of the Board and Corporation. They…
Read MoreAntarctic Ice Sheet Loss Expected to Affect Future Climate Change
The research team reports that their new models with the added ice melt information reveal important interacting processes and demonstrate a need to accurately account for meltwater input from ice sheets in order to make confident climate predictions.
Read MoreFor now, river deltas gain land worldwide
Delta areas worldwide have gained land in the past 30 years, despite river damming. However, recent land gains are unlikely to last throughout the 21st century due to expected, accelerated sea-level rise.
Read MoreClimate Change Likely Caused Migration, Demise of Ancient Indus Valley Civilization
More than 4,000 years ago, the Harappa culture thrived in the Indus River Valley of what is now modern Pakistan and northwestern India, where they built sophisticated cities, invented sewage systems that predated ancient Rome’s, and engaged in long-distance trade with settlements in Mesopotamia. Yet by 1800 BCE, this advanced culture had abandoned their cities, moving instead to smaller villages in the Himalayan foothills. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found evidence that climate change likely drove the Harappans to resettle far away from the floodplains of the Indus.
Read MoreGeologic History of Ayeyawady River Delta Mapped for the First Time
The Ayeyawady River delta in Myanmar is home to millions of people, and is a hub of agricultural activity. Unlike other large rivers across the world, however, the Ayeyawady has been relatively untouched by large infrastructure and dam projects for the past 50 years, and its geologic evolution has never previously been studied.
Read MoreRadioactivity Lingers from 1946-1958 Nuclear Bomb Tests
Scientists have found lingering radioactivity in the lagoons of remote Marshall Island atolls in the Pacific Ocean where the United States conducted 66 nuclear weapons tests in the 1940s and…
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 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 MoreAccelerated Warming of the Continental Shelf Off Northeast Coast
A new study by physical oceanographers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, shows that water temperatures in this continental shelf region have been trending upward, with unprecedented warming occurring over the last 13 years. The study also suggests a connection between sea level anomalies and water temperature along the continental shelf.
Read MoreSudden Draining of Glacial Lakes Explained
In 2008 scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Washington documented for the first time how the icy bottoms of lakes atop the Greenland Ice Sheet can crack open suddenly—draining the lakes completely within hours and sending torrents of water to the base of the ice sheet thousands of feet below. Now they have found a surprising mechanism that triggers the cracks.
Scientists had theorized that the sheer weight of the water in these supraglacial lakes applied pressure that eventually cracked the ice, but they could not explain why some lake bottoms cracked while others did not.
Read MoreCoral Reefs Threatened by a Deadly Combination of Changing Ocean Conditions
As the ocean ‘s pH decreases and acidifies, coral reefs are more likely to begin dissolving and “drown”. A new study shows exposing corals to added nutrients increases their erosion and dissolution rate tenfold.
Read MoreChief of Naval Operations Visits WHOI
Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, visited Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Nov. 6 for firsthand discussions with scientists and engineers conducting research and building technology with potential to enhance Naval capabilities and operations.
Read MoreUnderstanding the Ocean’s Role in Greenland Glacier Melt
The Greenland Ice Sheet is a 1.7 million-square-kilometer, 2-mile thick layer of ice that covers Greenland. Its fate is inextricably linked to our global climate system. In the last 40…
Read MoreA Look Back and Ahead at Greenland’s Changing Climate
Over the past two decades, ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet increased four-fold contributing to one-quarter of global sea level rise. However, the chain of events and physical processes…
Read MoreStudy Offers Economical Solutions for Maintaining Critical Delta Environments
Millions of people across the world live or depend on deltas for their livelihoods. Formed at the lowest part of a river where its water flow slows and spreads into…
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