Archive for the ‘Ocean’ Category
France backs ban on tuna exports
February 3rd, 2010 
Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
BBC: France has added its voice to calls for a ban on the global trade in bluefin tuna, the numbers of which have dwindled through overfishing. France wants a ban after an 18-month delay to allow scientists time to study the data on tuna stocks, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said. The bluefin tuna trade might be curbed at world conservation talks in March. France is among the Mediterranean countries that fish bluefin tuna for export to Japan, the main ...
Global warming may cook sea turtle eggs
February 3rd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Discovery News: When they emerge onto beaches around the world to lay their eggs in the sand, sea turtles expose themselves to a trio of threats from climate change: cyclones, rising seas and warming temperatures. A new study finds that for the world's largest population of sea turtles -- in Australia's northern Great Barrier Reef -- blazing hot sands pose the greatest threat to the animals' breeding success over the long term. The researchers predict that from now until 2030, sea level rise ...
France to support bluefin tuna trade ban: source
February 3rd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Reuters: France will support a ban on global trade in bluefin tuna, a government official said on Wednesday, bowing to environmentalists' concerns about stocks of the giant fish found mainly in the Mediterranean. France's iTele news channel reported that the proposed ban would not come into force for 18 months. There was no immediate confirmation of this and full details of the French stance were due to be released later in the day. Environmentalists have warned that a prolonged delay ...
UK marine energy industry enjoys £22m funding wave
February 3rd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Business Green: The Carbon Trust will today announce the long-anticipated award of its £22m Marine Renewables Proving Fund (MRPF), dishing out freshing funding to six marine energy firms to help them prepare their wave and tidal energy systems for the water. Atlantis Resources, Aquamarine Power, Hammerfest Strom UK, Marine Current Turbines, Pelamis Wave Power and Voith Hydro were selected to receive grants under the scheme, which was launched last year and is designed to bridge the funding gap that ...
Australia: Report undercuts Kevin Rudd’s Great Barrier Reef wipeout
February 3rd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Australian: KEVIN Rudd's insistence that the Great Barrier Reef could be "destroyed beyond recognition" by global warming grates with new science suggesting it will again escape temperature-related coral bleaching. The Prime Minister yesterday put the reef at the centre of political combat over climate policy, telling parliament it would be obliterated in the worst-case scenario that "temperatures went through the roof". But for the second year running, the reef has defied predictions of ...
Sea level rise may sink island nations
February 3rd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Discovery News: There are few legal precedents for how these nations can exist without dry land. Island states need to act now if they want to preserve even their ocean territories. Sea level rise from anthropogenic global warming could erase some island states from the face of the Earth -- but those nations could survive even without land, say researchers. Governments and people of lost islands could survive "in exile," build structures to mark their submerged territory, retain their ...
NASA: Arctic melt season lengthening
February 3rd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Mongabay: Newly released images from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center show that the Arctic's melt season has lengthened significantly over the past few decades. The melting season--i.e. the length of time in which continuous melting occurs--has increased on average by 6.4 days for every decade between 1979 and 2007. Around the lower-latitude edges of the ice pack, however, this lengthening was far above the average. According to NASA, researchers collect this data by using ...
United States: In Bay Area, battle against crumbling coast
February 2nd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
National Public Radio: Construction crews are battling the Pacific Ocean to save a cliff-top apartment building in Pacifica, a San Francisco suburb. It's the kind of scenario likely to occur up and down the West coast in years to come, as climate change and rising sea levels threaten oceanfront properties. Copyright (c) 2010 National Public Radio(r). For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: From NPR News, it's ALL ...
Bloom and bust: How volcanoes suffocated ocean life
February 2nd, 2010 Ocean Conserve: Ocean Conservation RSS Newsfeed
Times (UK): A spate of volcanic activity may have triggered environmental changes that led to widespread destruction of life in the oceans, according to a new report. Oxygen disappeared from much of the seas nearly 100 million years ago, wiping out one third of ocean life. Sulphur from volcanoes could have been the cause. Today's oceans may face a similar threat because of the warming of the seas and use of fertiliser. When the Earth erupted in a flurry of volcanic activity during the ...
The Bigger Kahuna: Are More Frequent and Higher Extreme Ocean Waves a By-Product of Global Warming?
February 2nd, 2010 Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin
Scientific American: Armand Thibault looked out over the Pacific's rumbling winter waves from his balcony in Neskowin, Ore. "The predicted high tide today is a 10.1 [feet]," he relayed via YouTube on Friday, January 29. "I'm very glad we don't have a storm surge behind this one. Tomorrow is supposed to be a 10.2, so it should be interesting." Fortunately, Neskowin didn't experience a storm surge on Saturday either. But like a growing number of seaside towns along the Pacific Northwest coast, it is only a ...
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