WHOI in the News
In the Sea, Not All Plastic Lasts Forever
Polystyrene, a common ocean pollutant, decomposes in sunlight much faster than thought, a new study finds.
Drone technology could better measure effect on right whales of food shortages, entanglements
Drone technology could better measure effect on right whales of food shortages, entanglements has been limited to dead specimens. Researchers at WHOI and Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies devised a measurement method for these ocean giants that yields accurate data that can be used for tracking the changes in body mass over time, providing clues to their daily energy requirements and the impacts of outside stressors.
Impacts of climate change on the ocean
Rick Murray of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution sees the impacts of climate change on the ocean and the ability of ocean-based activities to mitigate climate change as two sides of the same coin, and says both are critical to responding to climate change. (segment begins at 27:10)
Best of Constant Wonder
WHOI Research Engineer Jeff Kaeli talks about the 2017discovery of the San José, a sunken ship from 1708 loaded with treasure valued up to $17 billion. (segment begins 24:05)
Floating Light Sculpture Will Show New Yorkers Real-Time East River Water Quality
Shawnee Traylor, a science and technology advisor for the project, formerly at LDEO and currently at MIT/WHOI, developed a site-specific algorithm with McGillis that predictively measures the water’s quality based on historical data.
How Drones Are Helping Scientists Figure Out Whales’ Weight
Michael J. Moore, a biologist and director of the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, tells Jessica Leigh Hester of Atlas Obscura, body mass “tells you about the health of the animal, and in the context of its environment, it gives you a sense of how it’s doing nutritionally.”
Top of Mind with Julie Rose
Associate Scientist Joel Llopiz describes the vast, virtually unexplored ecosystem lurking beneath the surface of the ocean known as the twilight zone. It is deep enough that it hasn’t really been affected by humans yet. But commercial fishing companies are eyeing it now, so scientists who study the Twilight Zone are urging the UN to establish some rules for it soon. (segment begins at 23:08)
Is it too late to do anything about climate change?
Drone-Piloting Scientists ‘Weighed’ Whales From 130 Feet in the Air
A whale’s mass “tells you about the health of the animal, and in the context of its environment, it gives you a sense of how it’s doing nutritionally,” says Michael J. Moore, a biologist and director of the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Scientists Quantify Global Volcanic CO2 Venting; Estimate Total Carbon On Earth
Preparing to summarize and celebrate the 10-year Deep Carbon Observatory program at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, Oct. 24-26, DCO’s 500-member Reservoirs and Fluxes team today outlined several key findings that span time from the present to billions of years past; from Earth’s core to its atmosphere, and in size from single volcanoes to the five continents.
The History of Ancient Hurricanes Is Written in Sand and Mud
Over the past year and as a student fellow in 2017, I have been working with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Jeffrey Donnelly, who uses sediment cores—tubes of sand and mud layers that are extracted from coastal lake beds—to track ancient cyclones in the Atlantic and, recently, in the islands of the South Pacific.
Slimy lakes and dead dogs: climate crisis has brought the season of toxic algae
Dr Don Anderson, director of the US National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, described algae blooms as “formidable competitors” made all the more dangerous by warming water.
Climate Change on Cape Cod: At the Edge of a Warming World
In the 81 years since the 1938 storm, the sea level here has risen about a foot, said WHOI researcher Jeff Donnelly, and is now rising faster than it has in thousands of years.
Since When Did Animals Become Synonymous With Our Grief?
After a story about 52 Blue called “Song of the Sea, a Cappella and Unanswered” appeared in The New York Times in 2004, letters from heartsick readers flooded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the laboratories that had studied the whale. 52 Blue sang at a different frequency than all the other blue whales they had studied before.
How Will First Responders Deal With Oil Trapped Under Ice?
As sea ice continues to melt in the Arctic and oil exploration expands in the region, the possibility of an oil spill occurring under the ice is higher than ever, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) says. But how first responders will deal with oil trapped under ice in such an extreme and remote environment is a huge unresolved question.
Scientists blast Maine lobstermen’s whale safety stance
“Reducing entanglement in East Coast waters of the United States is a critical part of a comprehensive strategy for right whale survival and recovery,” Scott Kraus, chief scientist for marine mammals at New England Aquarium’s Anderson Center for Ocean Life, and Mark Baumgartner, associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and chairman of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, said in a letter Tuesday to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
James Cameron challenges Victor Vescovo’s ‘record breaking’ trip to deepest part of ocean: ‘it’s flat down there, impossible to dive deeper’
Cameron and researchers with the WHOI say the difference between the depth recorded by Deepsea Challenger and Vescovo’s submersible relates to the technology used. Measuring ocean depth is not as straightforward as measuring distance on land.
Whale populations in New York Harbor are booming—here’s why
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the New York Aquarium teamed up to deploy a high-tech acoustic buoy named Melville, 22 miles south of Fire Island. Whales communicate mostly via sound, and each species has distinct calls (and even dialects).
Making the planetary personal: the roots of climate science
In the 1950s, a timber cabin on the grounds of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts, became a hub for annual meetings where Simpson, meteorologist Jule Charney and other innovators teased out geophysical fluid dynamics. As Dry shows, imagination has been as important as mathematical skill in advancing planetary knowledge.
Researchers are exploring the SS Portland shipwreck. Here’s how to watch
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is working with NOAA’s Office of Marine Sanctuaries and Marine Imaging Technologies to explore the wreck of the SS Portland as part of a three-year project that will also include explorations of other nearby shipwrecks.
Exploring the wreck of the steamship Portland, ‘the Titanic of New England’
By visiting the final resting place of the Portland, researchers will document changes that have occurred at the site of the wreck and gain more insight into the fate of the doomed steamer.The expedition is being led by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Marine Imaging Technologies.
Waters off the coast of Maine vulnerable to changing climate
“As the Arctic’s atmosphere is heating up it is reducing the gradient, and that slows down the jet stream,” says Glen Gawarkiewicz, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who helped track the phenomenon. “It’s been having these big meanders and sometimes just gets stuck in one position for weeks at a time.”
New report takes in-depth look at three factors contributing to sea level rise along the U.S. East Coast
A new report from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) discusses some of the science of sea level rise and highlights three key processes that contribute to the phenomenon. Produced in conjunction with climate science expert Dr. Christopher Piecuch, the report also describes some of the research being conducted to better understand how and why sea levels are rising, so that we can more confidently predict future changes.
Up All Night- Atlantic hurricanes
BBC radio host Rhod Sharp and Jeff Donnelly of WHOI’s Coastal Research Lab trace the history of hurricanes in the Atlantic and discuss the frequency of intense storms. New sediment records indicate that historically unprecedented levels of intense hurricane activity impacted the eastern seaboard of the United States and northeastern Gulf Coast in the last two millennia.
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