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| Heat and cold damage corals in their own ways | | Around the world coral reefs are facing threats brought by climate change and dramatic shifts in sea temperatures. While warming has been the primary focus for scientists and ocean policy managers, cold can also cause significant damage. Scientists have shown that cool temperatures can inflict more damage in the short term, but heat is more destructive in the long run. |
| Global experts question claims about jellyfish populations | | Blooms, or proliferation, of jellyfish have shown a substantial, visible impact on coastal populations -- clogged nets for fishermen, stinging waters for tourists, even choked intake lines for power plants -- and recent media reports have created a perception that the world's oceans are experiencing increases in jellyfish due to human activities such as global warming and overharvesting of fish. Now, a new study questions claims that jellyfish are increasing worldwide and suggests claims are not supported with any hard evidence or scientific analyses to date. |
| Are jellyfish increasing in world's oceans? | | A global study has questioned claims that jellyfish are increasing worldwide. Blooms, or proliferation, of jellyfish have shown a substantial, visible impact on coastal populations -- clogged nets for fishermen, stinging waters for tourists, even choked intake lines for power plants -- and recent media reports have created a perception that the world's oceans are experiencing increases in jellyfish due to human activities such as global warming and overharvesting of fish. Now, a new global and collaborative study questions claims that jellyfish are increasing worldwide and suggests claims are not supported with any hard evidence or scientific analyses to date. |
| Tropical cyclones to cause greater damage, researchers predict | | Tropical cyclones will cause $109 billion in damages by 2100, according to researchers in a new paper. That figure represents an increased vulnerability from population and especially economic growth, as well as the effects of climate change. Greater vulnerability to cyclones is expected to increase global tropical damage to $56 billion by 2100 -- double the current damage -- from the current rate of $26 billion per year if the present climate remains stable. |
| First plants caused ice ages, new research reveals | | New research reveals how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. The research reveals the effects that the first land plants had on the climate during the Ordovician Period, which ended 444 million years ago. During this period the climate gradually cooled, leading to a series of 'ice ages.' This global cooling was caused by a dramatic reduction in atmospheric carbon, which this research now suggests was triggered by the arrival of plants. |
| Earth's energy budget remained out of balance despite unusually low solar activity, study finds | | A new NASA study underscores the fact that greenhouse gases generated by human activity -- not changes in solar activity -- are the primary force driving global warming. The study offers an updated calculation of Earth's energy imbalance, the difference between the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth's surface and the amount returned to space as heat. The researchers' calculations show that, despite unusually low solar activity between 2005 and 2010, the planet continued to absorb more energy than it returned to space. |
| Was the Little Ice Age triggered by massive volcanic eruptions? | | Scientists suggest that the Little Ice Age was triggered by an unusual, 50-year episode of four massive volcanic eruptions. This led to an expansion of sea ice and a related weakening of Atlantic currents that caused the cool period to persist for centuries. |
| New study may answer questions about enigmatic Little Ice Age | | According to a new study, the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism, and was sustained for centuries by a self- perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean. |
| What do killer whales eat in the Arctic? | | Killer whales are the top marine predator. The increase in hunting territories available to killer whales in the Arctic due to climate change and melting sea ice could seriously affect the marine ecosystem balance. New research has combined scientific observations with Canadian Inuit traditional knowledge to determine killer whale behavior and diet in the Arctic. |
| Good news about carbon storage in tropical vegetation | | Tropical vegetation contains 21 percent more carbon than previously thought. Using a combination of remote sensing and field data, scientists were able to produce the first "wall-to-wall" map (with a spatial resolution of 500 m x 500 m) of carbon storage of forests, shrublands, and savannas in the tropics of Africa, Asia, and South America. |
| What really happened prior to 'Snowball Earth'? | | The large changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates which occurred prior to the major climatic event more than 500 million years ago, known as "Snowball Earth," are unrelated to worldwide glacial events, a new study suggests. |
| Detecting detrimental change in coral reefs | | Over dinner on R.V. Calypso while anchored on the lee side of Glover's Reef in Belize, Jacques Cousteau told Phil Dustan that he suspected humans were having a negative impact on coral reefs. Dustan -- a young ocean ecologist who had worked in the lush coral reefs of the Caribbean and Sinai Peninsula -- found this difficult to believe. It was December 1974. But Cousteau was right. During the following three-plus decades, Dustan, an ocean ecologist and biology professor at the University of Charleston in South Carolina, has witnessed widespread coral reef degradation and bleaching from up close. |
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