Archive for the ‘Ocean’ Category
Australia: Ice core research could back climate change claims
February 8th, 2010 
Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A 750-year-old core of ice showing a link between increased snow over Antarctica and drought in south-west Western Australia could provide evidence that the climate is changing because of human activity. Dr Tas van Ommen, from the Australian Antarctic Division, has studied the ice core taken from from Law Dome in eastern Antarctica. His research shows that rainfall over south-west Western Australia has decreased between 15 and 20 per cent since the 1960s, while snowfall at Law ...
86 percent of dolphins and whales threatened by fishing nets
February 7th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Mongabay: A new report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) finds that almost 9 out of 10 toothed whales--including dolphins and porpoises--are threatened by entanglement and subsequent drowning from large-scale fishing operations equipment, such as gillnets, traps, longlines, and trawls. These operations threaten the highest percentage (86 percent) of the world's toothed whales. "During the International Year of Biodiversity, the Convention on Migratory Species continues to ...
UN wildlife agency backs ban on bluefin tuna trade
February 6th, 2010 Ocean Conserve: Ocean Conservation RSS Newsfeed
Independent (UK): The UN's wildlife trade agency on Friday said it backed a proposed ban on the international trade in bluefin tuna, a prized delicacy in Asia, which is due to be examined by 175 countries next month. "We are recommending that the parties approve the proposals made by Monaco," said David Morgan, head of the scientific support unit at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Japan has opposed the ban proposed by Monaco, which would classify the ...
Explore the earth’s oceans without getting your feet wet
February 6th, 2010 Ocean Conserve: Ocean Conservation RSS Newsfeed
Independent (UK): A new feature on Google Earth lets you virtually dive with dolphins and follow the migratory paths of whales as they navigate their way through great blue oceans. Google launched their underwater tour, Ocean Showcase, on February 4. Google's Ocean Showcase opens up a whole new world of marine animals, shipwrecks, dive sites, and underwater terrain. "Dive into the ocean and discover who lives there - from a deep sea octopus to humpback whales. Explore lost shipwrecks, dive and ...
Netherlands Enters The Climate Fray
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
redOrbit: A claim made by the UN climate change panel in 2007 that half of the country of the Netherlands was below sea level, is being contested by the country itself. Dutch authorities estimate that only 26 percent of the country is below sea level and will be asking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to check its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP. The IPCC's calculation that 55 percent of the Netherlands was below sea level came from adding the ...
Whalers, activists clash again off Antarctica
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Associated Press: Anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in icy Antarctic waters in the second major clash this year in increasingly aggressive confrontations between conservationists and the whaling fleet. No one was injured in the clash Saturday, which each side blamed on the other. The U.S.-based activist group Sea Shepherd, which sends vessels to confront the Japanese fleet each year, accused the Japanese ship of deliberately rammed the Bob Barker -- named ...
Blue Whales Croon A New Tune
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
National Public Radio: Blue whales are updating their playlist, according to new research on the huge mammals. It's not quite West Side Story, but male blue whales use songs to warn away other males and attract females. It's a pulsing sound, more like a large piece of machinery than the Jets and the Sharks. But that song has been changing. John Hildebrand of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography studies whale sounds and says he's been hearing something new lately. "They've been ...
Arctic ice melt alarms scientists
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Winnipeg Free Press: A Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker makes its way through the ice in Baffin Bay. A local researcher says the melt of sea ice surpasses even pessimistic forecasts. (JONATHAN HAYWARD / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES) Sea ice in Canada's fragile Arctic is melting more quickly than anyone expected, the lead investigator in the largest climate change study done in Canada said Friday. University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System ...
Whaler and Activist Ship Collide Off Antarctica
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
New York Times: The anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in the icy waters off Antarctica on Saturday -- the second major clash this year in the increasingly aggressive confrontations between the two sides. No one was reportedly injured in the latest strike. The U.S.-based activist group Sea Shepherd, which sends vessels to confront the Japanese fleet each year, said a small hole was torn in the hull of its ship, but it was above the water line and the vessel was not ...
Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than ‘our most pessimistic models’: researcher
February 6th, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Vancouver Sun: Sea ice in Canada's fragile Arctic is melting faster than anyone expected, the lead investigator in Canada's largest climate-change study yet said Friday -- raising the possibility that the Arctic could, in a worst-case scenario, be ice-free in about three years. University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study, said the rapid decay of thick Arctic Sea ice highlights the rapid pace of climate change in the North and foreshadows ...
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