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Oceans-global

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This group is focused on issues pertaining to sustainability of the oceans of the world.

This group is focused on issues pertaining to sustainability of the oceans of the world.

Members

Kathy Gilbeaux mdmcdonald MDMcDonald_me_com Norea

Email address for group

oceans-global@m.resiliencesystem.org

Why Some Scientists are Worried About a Surprisingly Cold ‘Blob’ in the North Atlantic Ocean

      

January–August 2015 Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Percentiles. (NOAA)

CLICK HERE - PAPER - Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation

washingtonpost.com - by Chris Mooney - September 24, 2015

. . . we learned from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that the first eight months of 2015 were the hottest such stretch yet recorded for the globe’s surface land and oceans, based on temperature records going back to 1880. . . .

In the North Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland and Iceland, the ocean surface has seen very cold temperatures for the past eight months. . . .

. . . And while there may not yet be any scientific consensus on the matter, at least some scientists suspect that the cooling seen in these maps is no fluke but, rather, part of a process that has been long feared by climate researchers — the slowing of Atlantic Ocean circulation.

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Ocean Fish Populations Cut In Half Since The 1970s: Report

CLICK HERE - Living Blue Planet Report 2015

Populations of some commercial fish stocks, such as a group including tuna, mackerel and bonito, had fallen by almost 75 percent.

huffingtonpost.com - by Andy Campbell - September 16, 2015

A disturbing new report published by the World Wildlife Fund found that the world marine vertebrate population declined by 49 percent between 1970 and 2012.

The Living Blue Planet Report -- analyzed by the Zoological Society of London and issued as an update on our oceans' health -- also found that local and commercial fish populations have been cut in half, tropical reefs have lost nearly half of their reef-building coral, and there are 250,000 metric tons of plastic in our oceans.

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Warming Oceans Putting Marine Life ‘In a Blender’

 A lobsterman threw back a lobster near Mount Desert, Me. in 2012. The catch in the area has reached record highs. Credit Robert F Bukaty/Associated Press

Image:  A lobsterman threw back a lobster near Mount Desert, Me. in 2012. The catch in the area has reached record highs. Credit Robert F Bukaty/Associated Press

nytimes.com - September 3rd, 2015 - Carl Zimmer

Up in Maine, lobsters are thriving. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission reported last month that stocks there have reached a record high.

Down the coast, however, the story is different.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Revealed: The Ocean's Tiniest Life At The Bottom Of The Food Chain

Plankton collected in the Pacific Ocean with a 0.1mm mesh net. Seen here is a mix of multicellular organisms — small zooplanktonic animals, larvae and single protists (diatoms, dinoflagellates, radiolarians) — the nearly invisible universe at the bottom of the marine food chain. Christian Sardet/CNRS/Tara Expeditions

Image: Plankton collected in the Pacific Ocean with a 0.1mm mesh net. Seen here is a mix of multicellular organisms — small zooplanktonic animals, larvae and single protists (diatoms, dinoflagellates, radiolarians) — the nearly invisible universe at the bottom of the marine food chain. Christian Sardet/CNRS/Tara Expeditions 

npr.org - May 22, 2015 - Christopher Joyce

What's at the bottom of the bottom of the food chain? Well, think small ... smaller than you can see.

Tiny life forms in the ocean, too small for the naked eye to see.

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Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development on a Changing Planet

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet

As Science publishes the updated research, four of nine planetary boundaries have been crossed: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen). Image source: F. Pharand-Deschênes /Globaïa

stockholmresilience.org

Planetary Boundaries 2.0 – new and improved

As Science publishes the updated research, four of nine planetary boundaries have been crossed

Four of nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed as a result of human activity, says an international team of 18 researchers in the journal Science (16 January 2015). The four are: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen).

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Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says

         

A dead whale in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 2011. As container ships multiply, more whales are being harmed, a study said. CreditMarco De Swart/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean

nytimes.com - by Carl Zimmer - January 15, 2015

A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.

“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

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NOAA-led study shows Alaska fisheries and communities at risk from ocean acidification

Petersburg Harbor.Image: Petersburg Harbor.

research.noaa.gov - July 29th, 2014

Ocean acidification is driving changes in waters vital to Alaska’s valuable commercial fisheries and subsistence way of life, according to new NOAA-led research that will be published online in Progress in Oceanography.

Many of Alaska’s nutritionally and economically valuable marine fisheries are located in waters that are already experiencing ocean acidification, and will see more in the near future, the study shows. Communities in southeast and southwest Alaska face the highest risk from ocean acidification because they rely heavily on fisheries that are expected to be most affected by ocean acidification, and have underlying factors that make those communities more vulnerable, such as lower incomes and fewer employment opportunities.

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Undercover Activists Say They've Found A Factory In China Turning Endangered Whale Sharks Into Soup And Lipstick

Carving whale shark. Photo: WildLifeRisk

Image: Carving whale shark. Photo: WildLifeRisk

businessinsider.com.au - January 28, 2014 - Chris Pash

An activist group has uncovered what it says is a whale shark factory in China processing up to 600 of the endangered fish each year.

WildLifeRisk, a Hong Kong-based conservation group, says the whale sharks are being processed at the “China Wenzhou Yueqing Marine Organisms Health Protection Foods Co Ltd” in China’s PuQi township near Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province.

The factory is fed by a network of agents who pay fishermen up to $US30,000 for one whale shark which can grow to 12m and weigh 20 tonnes.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Stephen Palumbi: The Hidden Toxins in the Fish We Eat -- and How to Stop Them

ted.com - Filmed April 2010

There's a tight link between the ocean's health and ours, says marine biologist Stephen Palumbi. He shows how toxins at the bottom of the ocean food chain find their way into our bodies, with a shocking story of toxic contamination from a Japanese fish market. His work points a way forward for saving the oceans' health — and humanity's.

http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_palumbi_following_the_mercury_trail#t-923173

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The Blue Carbon Project

submitted by Joe Browder

      

Offsetting carbon emissions by conserving ocean vegetation

thebluecarbonproject.com

What is Blue Carbon?

The problem: The growing emission of carbon dioxide from a wide range of human activities is causing unprecedented changes to the land and sea. Identifying effective, efficient and politically acceptable approaches to reduce the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is one of society’s most pressing goals.

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