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Welcome to the archives of Oceans Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on September 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on ocean health and economy. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
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Exploring the impact of acidification, deoxygenation and other global warming effects on ocean biodiversity, habitats, fisheries, and economies.
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Carolyn Savoldelli, a research analyst for the World Resources Institute, explains her group’s effort to curate, decipher and connect a growing amount of open ocean data to aid scientists and policymakers.
NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch is in the midst of a global project to collect data and assess damage from marine heatwaves that devastated coral reefs worldwide. Scientists hope the data will improve future forecasts, helping ecologists take action before temperature spikes.
A 19-year-long study on the impact of bleaching and cyclones on a section of the Great Barrier Reef underscores the challenges of determining what a healthy coral ecosystem looks like in an era of rapidly accelerating climate change.
Ann Bucklin
Despite the critical role marine zooplankton play in ocean ecosystems, scientists know little about the tiny species. Ann Bucklin, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut, describes how her laboratory is changing that.
An extensive survey of the Great Barrier Reef finds that a spike in ocean temperatures in 2016 led to a fall in populations of parrotfish, which keep corals healthy and help them recover from bleaching events by eating harmful algae.
New research shows that snails that prey on coral play a bigger role than realized in coral health. But the good news is that reducing fishing can help keep snail populations in check.
Last year, a bold initiative set out to locate coral reefs most likely to survive global warming. That turned out to be far easier said than done – but now scientists hope the results will rally attention to regions where there’s hope to save crucial marine ecosystems.
Alistair Hobday Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere
Australian marine research scientist Alistair Hobday writes about why it’s important to start naming and classifying marine heatwaves as the phenomenon increasingly wreaks havoc on ocean ecosystems.
Sara Aminzadeh Executive Director, California Coastkeeper Alliance
Sara Aminzadeh, executive director of California Coastkeeper Alliance and a member of the California Coastal Commission, says there’s momentum for ambitious ocean commitments to be made at the upcoming Global Climate Action Summit.
Bermuda is home to one of the highest-latitude coral reefs in the world, and scientists there are working to decode the keys to its health as climate change devastates reefs elsewhere.
In the wake of catastrophic bleaching events, scientists find that coral cover on the world’s biggest reef system is near record lows, while other research shows recovery will be “slow and painful” as only a tiny number of coral larvae are repopulating devastated reefs.
As sea ice disappears and more ships ply routes like the Northwest Passage in the late summer, better safety and conservation measures will be needed to protect marine mammals, scientists say.
Researchers say the effects of more frequent and intense weather would hit hardest in developing countries that rely on fishing for livelihoods and sustenance. But few have studied the potential catastrophic impacts on global fisheries – or the potential solutions.
The future of krill – and all the marine wildlife that feed on them – is uncertain in the changing Southern Ocean. Krill biologist Stephen Nicol says they may be adaptable to climate change, but new technologies need to be deployed to study their enigmatic behavior.
Advanced cameras, including a 3D stereoscopic microscope, allow researchers to study how corals reproduce, grow and bleach at a micro-scale. That could aid efforts to save them.
Roberta Elias Deputy Director for Ocean Policy, World Wildlife Fund
Whitley Saumweber Ocean Policy Consultant
We must reorient our ocean management to adapt to new climate realities, say Whitley Saumweber, former ocean and coastal adviser to President Obama, and Roberta Elias of the World Wildlife Fund.
In India’s Gulf of Mannar, more than a decade of efforts have spurred a slow recovery of coral reefs that protect the coast and feed communities. But climate change has reversed that success.
Researchers studied more than 200 tropical reefs and found that few will grow fast enough to keep pace with higher water levels due to climate change. This means the reefs won’t be able to break destructive waves that can wreak havoc on coastal communities.
Kimberley Davies Postdoctoral Research Associate, Dalhousie University
The need for new protections for North Atlantic right whales in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence underscore these animals’ dire situation – and how little we still know about them.
Joanne Porter Associate Professor, Heriot-Watt University Orkney Campus
Clara Mackenzie Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling
The scuttling of 52 German warships off Scotland nearly a century ago during World War I spawned a habitat for a diverse array of crab, lobster, starfish, sea urchin and fish. Now bottom trawling and climate change is imperiling that refuge, say two researchers.
Robert Parker at the University of British Columbia has calculated greenhouse gas emissions from the global fishing industry. He talks about what the data show and why not all fisheries are alike.
Jefferson Keith Moore Professor of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine
Over the next two centuries, warming oceans could trap nutrients at the poles and starve out many of the world’s fisheries, according to a recent study.
As a mysterious but persistent pathogen threatens the last remaining healthy coral ecosystem in the continental United States, researchers are struggling to understand how the disease spreads and to devise ways to stop it.
At the Ocean Risk Summit in Bermuda, experts gathered to advance a new model for how insurance and reinsurance companies can leverage their products and balance sheets to restore marine ecosystems and slow climate change impacts.
Scientists modeled projected increases in ocean temperatures through the end of the century and found that even the largest and well-protected marine reserves will not blunt the impact of climate change on biodiversity.
The collapse of Thwaites Glacier would unleash catastrophic sea level rise. Erin Pettit, one of more than 100 scientists involved with a new international collaboration, discusses how better ocean data will help predict the glacier’s – and humanity’s – fate.
As the ocean’s pH drops, scientists are studying whether kelp and seagrass can create refuges that could help marine life survive acidifying waters.
Chip Cunliffe, director for sustainable development at XL Catlin, a global insurance and reinsurance group, explains why his company is hosting the first-ever Ocean Risk Summit in May and what it hopes to accomplish.
A new study finds that the extreme coral bleaching event of 2016 devastated the world’s largest coral reef and is dramatically altering coral ecosystems as marine heat waves become more frequent.
An international team of researchers finds that seabirds aren’t shifting their breeding times as ocean temperatures rise, which risks putting them out of sync with the availability of prey to find for their young.
There’s just one bottleneck to better real-time data about the organisms at the base of the ocean food chain – the artificial intelligence needed to process all of it.
Residents and scientists are working to cull urchins that ravage environmentally important kelp ecosystems. But experience shows that once urchins take over, restoration is difficult and may become even harder as the ocean warms.
The International Maritime Organization is under pressure to finalize long-delayed targets to reduce carbon emissions from the growing shipping industry. But governments remain divided on how aggressive to be in fighting climate change.
Scientists have identified a ‘biogeographic boundary’ for commercially valuable marine animals in the northwest Atlantic that divides genetically distinct populations of the same species. As temperatures rise, that dividing line is moving north.
Selina Ward Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland
It’s not the first time bleaching has hit this area, but it is another indication that waters around Australia, and the world, are warming rapidly, says University of Queensland coral researcher Selina Ward.
Ocean microbes are key to global carbon and oxygen cycles, but they aren’t well studied due to challenges observing them at the right time and place. Now researchers have developed a new autonomous robot and sampling device that could help crack the microbial code.
The activist group Greenpeace, which tracked krill fishing vessels near sensitive Southern Ocean habitats, argues that the fishery is putting pressure on an ecosystem already threatened by climate change.
Will the week’s sea ice be thin or thick or not there at all? New kinds of satellite data and better computer modeling will provide crucial information to Arctic Ocean communities and industries.
Scientists are investigating the role microbiomes play in coral health, trying to identity those microbial traits that make coral reefs resilient as ocean temperatures rise and bleaching events accelerate.
While changing ocean and sea ice conditions are hurting some of Antarctica’s Adelie penguins, a newly discovered “supercolony” of 1.5 million offers new information to guide marine conservation.
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