Latest Oceanography Stories
[ Watch the Video ] After discovering an emerging crack that cuts across the floating ice shelf of Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica, NASA's Operation IceBridge has flown a follow-up mission and made the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of a major iceberg calving in progress. NASA's Operation Ice Bridge, the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown, is in the midst of its third field campaign from Punta Arenas, Chile. The six-year mission will yield an...
Swimming jellyfish and other marine animals help mix warm and cold water in the oceans and, by increasing the rate at which heat can travel through the ocean, may influence global climate. The controversial idea was first proposed by researchers out of the California Technical Institute in 2009, but new information may help the scientists support their claim. Dr. Kakani Katija Young, who worked on the original paper, and her team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute published an...
NASA said on Wednesday that its 15th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) ended earlier than planned due to Hurricane Rina. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) determined Rina posed a risk to the safety of the mission taking place near Key largo, Florida. The six aquanauts of the NEEMO crew left the facility and returned to the surface of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary on Wednesday. The crew kicked off the mission on October 20 after...
Glacial Melt Cycle Could Become Self-Amplifying, Making it Difficult to Halt The Greenland ice sheet can experience extreme melting even when temperatures don’t hit record highs, according to a new analysis by Dr. Marco Tedesco, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The City College of New York. His findings suggest that glaciers could undergo a self-amplifying cycle of melting and warming that would be difficult to halt. “We are finding that...
Increasing acidification in coastal waters could compromise the ability of oysters and other marine creatures to form and keep their shells, according to a new study led by University of Georgia researchers. Their findings will be published in the November 2011 issue of Nature Geoscience. The researchers determined the combined effects of fertilizer runoff carried by the Mississippi River to the northern Gulf of Mexico and excess atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels result...
During a summer expedition to the deepest region on the planet, the Mariana Trench, a team of researchers and engineers witnessed a breed of giant amoebas known as xenophyophores living at depths that had never been recorded before, various media outlets reported over the weekend. The team, which consisted of scientists representing the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and National Geographic engineers, used untethered landers known as dropcams, lights, and digital video...
News media representatives will have the opportunity to cover the 15th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, from up close or afar. On Oct. 24, journalists are invited to participate in a media day at the Mobile Mission Control Center, which supports the underwater crew of the NEEMO mission aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aquarius Undersea Laboratory. The laboratory is located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in Key Largo. Media...
Scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign began the mission's third year of surveys this week over the changing ice of Antarctica. Researchers are flying a suite of scientific instruments on two planes from a base of operations in Punta Arenas, Chile: a DC-8 operated by NASA and a Gulfstream V (G-V) operated by the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The G-V will fly through early November. The DC-8, which completed its...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Scientists with NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne research campaign began the mission's third year of surveys this week over the changing ice of Antarctica. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Researchers are flying a suite of scientific instruments on two planes from a base of operations in Punta Arenas, Chile: a DC-8 operated by NASA and a Gulfstream V (G-V) operated by the National Science Foundation and the...
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists have discovered that bacterial communication could have a significant impact on the planet's climate. In the ocean, bacteria coalesce on tiny particles of carbon-rich detritus sinking through the depths. WHOI marine biogeochemists Laura Hmelo, Benjamin Van Mooy, and Tracy Mincer found that these bacteria send out chemical signals to discern if other bacteria are in the neighborhood. If enough of their cohorts are nearby, then bacteria...
Latest Oceanography Reference Libraries
Baffin Bay, which is located between Baffin Island and the southwest coast of Greenland, is a marginal sea of the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s connected to the Atlantic by Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea. A narrower Nares Strait connects the Baffin Bay with the Arctic Ocean. The Baffin Bay is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is bordered by Baffin Island towards the west, Greenland towards the east, and Ellesmere Island towards the north. It is connected to the Atlantic through the Davis...
The sea levels all around the world are rising. Current sea-level rise has the potential to affect human populations and the natural environment. Two key factors have contributed to the observed sea level rise. The first is thermal expansion: as the ocean water warms, it expands. The second is from the influence of land-based ice because of increased melting. The major store of water on land is found in the glaciers and the ice sheets. The rising of sea levels is one of several lines of...
Ocean acidification is the name that was given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of Earth’s oceans, a cause of the uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. About 30 to 40 percent of the carbon dioxide that is released by humans into the atmosphere dissolves into the lakes, oceans, and rivers. To maintain the chemical equilibrium, some of it reacts with the water to create carbonic acid. Some of these extra carbonic acid molecules react with a water molecule to provide a...
Image Credit: Meteorologist Joshua Kelly When meteorologists are forecasting for ocean-going vessels, there are a few terms that we need to understand. The first term is wavelength. Wavelength is defined as the distance between two crests or between two troughs as seen in the image above. The example above highlights the crest to crest concept of wavelength. The next term that we use is wave height, and to determine this, we first must look at the wave when it passes our station. When...
Point #1: Warm finger- This region inside the area marked number 1, represents a warm finger of the ocean temperatures. What is occurring is that the warmer air is being pushed faster in this region than the surrounding locations giving us this little finger of warmer temps in that region. Point #2: Warm Eddie- This is a region of warmer temps surrounded on all sides by colder water. Eddies are a closed circulation of water in the ocean that has in this case warmer temps around it. These...
