Category Archives: Oceans

Marine scientists ‘alarmed’ after four gray whales found dead in San Francisco Bay

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Deaths discovered over a course of nine days are ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ for the species, says expert

Four dead gray whales have washed ashore on San Francisco Bay Area beaches in the last nine days, with experts saying on Friday one had been struck by a ship. They were trying to determine how the other three had died.

“It’s alarming to respond to four dead gray whales in just over a week because it really puts into perspective the current challenges faced by this species,” says Dr Padraig Duignan, the director of pathology at the Marine Mammal Center.

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The rice of the sea: how a tiny grain could change the way humanity eats

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Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood. But then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden

Growing up in southern Spain, Ángel León paid little attention to the meadows of seagrass that fringed the turquoise waters near his home, their slender blades grazing him as he swam in the Bay of Cádiz.

It was only decades later – as he was fast becoming known as one of the country’s most innovative chefs – that he noticed something he had missed in previous encounters with Zostera marina: a clutch of tiny green grains clinging to the base of the eelgrass.

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Florida faces ‘imminent’ pollution catastrophe from phosphate mine pond

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  • Millions of gallons of toxic wastewater pumped into Tampa Bay
  • Governor DeSantis at scene as ‘20ft wall of water’ is feared

Work crews were pumping millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into an ecologically sensitive Florida bay on Sunday, as they tried to prevent the “imminent” collapse of a storage reservoir at an old phosphate mine.

Officials in Manatee county extended an evacuation zone overnight and warned that up to 340m gallons could engulf the area in “a 20ft wall of water” if they could not repair the breach at the Piney Point reservoir in the Tampa Bay area, north of Bradenton.

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Endangered North Atlantic right whales produce most calves since 2015

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  • Scientists caution high death rate is outpacing births
  • Population of whales estimated at around 360

North Atlantic right whales gave birth over the winter in greater numbers than scientists have seen since 2015, an encouraging sign for researchers who became alarmed three years ago when the critically endangered species produced no known offspring at all.

Related: The new humpback? Calf sighting sparks hope for imperilled right whale

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Net gains: how India trawlers’ plastic catch is helping to rebuild roads

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The waste caught by fishing boats used to be thrown back into the sea but in Kerala it is now turned into black gold

For years, plastic caught by fishing communities on the Kollam coast in India’s southern state of Kerala was thrown back into the water, damaging aquatic ecosystems and killing fish.

But fishers are spearheading an innovative initiative to clean up the ocean – along with their daily hauls of fish, they pull in and collect the waste that gets enmeshed in their nets.

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The beluga whale who became famous: Aleksander Nordahl’s best photograph

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‘He was called Hvaldimir and he would play in front of crowds at Hammerfest harbour in Norway. One woman dropped her phone and he fetched it for her’

In April 2019, a beluga whale appeared alongside fishing boats off the coast of Norway. He was wearing a harness. A fisherman called Joar Hesten freed him, and saw the harness had stamped on it “equipment of St Petersburg”. The media went crazy, with talk of a “spy whale”, and the creature was named Hvaldimir, a combination of hval, the Norwegian word for whale, and Vladimir, a nod to Russia’s President Putin.

The whale became famous. There were Instagram videos of him playing in Hammerfest harbour in front of crowds. One woman dropped her phone in the water and the whale fetched it for her. He would bring up bones from the depths to show people, almost like little gifts. It became this huge moment on social media: everyone in the country fell in love with the whale. Even the hardcore fishing villages melted for Hvaldimir.

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Stoked! Surfboard lost in Tasmania turns up 2,700km away in Queensland

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Board belonging to big wave surfer Danny Griffiths believed to have made the journey via New Zealand

An Australian surfer has found a surfboard he lost four years ago after it floated at sea for thousands of kilometres, from the bottom of Australia to the top – potentially via New Zealand.

Danny Griffiths, a big wave surfer, lost his favourite board after he crashed off a wave at the very southern tip of Tasmania. It was found, covered in barnacles, by two brothers near Townsville in north Queensland, more than 2,700km away.

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Walker ‘stunned’ to see ship hovering high above sea off Cornwall

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David Morris encounters rare optical illusion known as superior mirage while out on coastal stroll

There are only so many polite words that come to mind when one spots a ship apparently hovering above the ocean during a stroll along the English coastline.

David Morris, who captured the extraordinary sight on camera, declared himself “stunned” when he noticed a giant tanker floating above the water as he looked out to sea from a hamlet near Falmouth in Cornwall.

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Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest in a millennium, say scientists

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Decline in system underpinning Gulf Stream could lead to more extreme weather in Europe and higher sea levels on US east coast

The Atlantic Ocean circulation that underpins the Gulf Stream, the weather system that brings warm and mild weather to Europe, is at its weakest in more than a millennium, and climate breakdown is the probable cause, according to new data.

Further weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could result in more storms battering the UK, more intense winters and an increase in damaging heatwaves and droughts across Europe.

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‘I ate 40kg of chocolate’: Yorkshire teacher, 21, on rowing solo across the Atlantic

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Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to make the 3,000-mile journey alone, relished the freedom of doing it all by herself

It was always during the night when things went wrong for Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Like the time her boat hurtled into a huge wave at 19.2 knots and capsized, leaving her with a badly injured elbow.

“I was basically thrown at a wall at 20-odd miles an hour. That’s going to hurt, especially in the middle of your sleep,” she said. “Everything happened when I was asleep.”

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Giant worm’s undersea lair discovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan

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Scientists believe 2-metre-long burrow once housed predator that ambushed passing sea creatures

The undersea lair of a giant worm that ambushed passing marine creatures 20m years ago has been uncovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan.

Researchers believe the 2-metre-long burrow found in ancient marine sediment once housed a prehistoric predator that burst out of the seabed and dragged unsuspecting animals down into its lair.

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‘One of a kind’: calls to protect Alabama’s 60,000-year-old underwater forest

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Efforts are under way to designate site of submerged forest off the Alabama coast a marine sanctuary

When divers jump into a particular stretch of water off the coast of Alabama, they travel back to a time before humans arrived in the new world.

Submerged below the waters are the remains of a cypress tree forest that grew 60,000 years ago, but was inundated by the Gulf of Mexico and preserved from decomposition beneath sediment. Nothing like Alabama’s underwater forest, in terms of age or scale, has ever been found.

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‘Tree of life’: aerial photos reveal arboreal patterns at Lake Cakora in NSW – in pictures

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Amateur photographer Derry Moroney lives on the mid-corth coast of New South Wales in the community of Brooms Head. For the past three years he has been photographing landscapes, animals and insects. ‘With our pristine beaches and Yuraygir national park on my doorstep, I really didn’t have to travel very far,’ he says.

In July 2020 Moroney followed the water upstream from the estuary at Brooms Head and stumbled on to Lake Cakora. Using his drone he captured stunning images of arboreal-like drainage channels in Lake Cakora. ‘The tea trees along the banks colour the water running off into the lake after a big storm,’ he says, describing the patterns as ‘like a tree of life’.

You can see more of his work on Instagram at @derry_moroney_photography

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Why are ocean warming records being broken year after year?

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If you want to understand global heating, you have to measure and examine ocean warming trends

As if 2020 could get any worse, the latest research showed that oceans hit their highest recorded temperatures, a record that keeps getting broken year after year.

Why are the oceans so important? It is quite simple: almost all of the extra heat we gain because of greenhouse gases ultimately ends up in the oceans. In fact, the oceans absorb more than 90% of the excess heat. Consequently, if you want to understand global warming, you have to measure ocean warming.

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Baby sharks emerge from egg cases earlier and weaker in oceans warmed by climate crisis

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Weaker sharks are less effective hunters, which can upset the balance of the ecosystem, say authors of study into impacts of hotter oceans

Baby sharks will emerge from their egg cases earlier and weaker as water temperatures rise, according to a new study that examined the impact of warming oceans on embryos.

About 40% of all shark species lay eggs, and the researchers found that one species unique to the Great Barrier Reef spent up to 25 days less in their egg cases under temperatures expected by the end of the century.

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Bali’s beaches buried in tide of plastic rubbish during monsoon season

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Tourist drawcards Kuta and Legian beaches are being overwhelmed by up to 60 tonnes of plastic rubbish every day

Bali’s beaches have been covered in tonnes of ugly rubbish as a result of the monsoon and chronic failings in Indonesia’s waste management system.

Authorities say that between 30 and 60 tonnes of trash is being collected from the island’s most famous beaches each day.

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Calls from the deep: do we need to Save the Whales all over again?

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Fifty years ago, a hit album proved whales “sing” – and led to one of the great environmental success stories. But soon it could all be for nothing

In June 1975, a small group of activists set off from the coast of California in an 85ft boat. They were headed for the Dalniy Vostok factory ship, which was at sea conducting business as usual: harpooning sperm whales.

The activists were members of Greenpeace, an organisation that had only recently been founded, in Vancouver in 1971, and they were setting out to meet the Russian whaling ship under the banner of what would become one of the most famous slogans of the environmental movement, Save the Whales.

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New rules to tackle ‘wild west’ of plastic waste dumped on poorer countries

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International convention to stop richer countries exporting contaminated material for recycling could mean a cleaner ocean in five years

New international rules to tackle the “wild west” global trade in plastic, which has seen wealthy nations dump contaminated plastic waste on to poorer ones, will result in a cleaner ocean within five years, according to a UN transboundary waste chief.

The rules, which come into force on 1 January, aim to make the trade more transparent in order to allow developing nations such as Vietnam and Malaysia to refuse low-quality, difficult-to-recycle waste before it is even shipped.

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UK beach clean: disco ball and pink pants among oddest items found

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Crisp packets, cup lids and wet wipes among the more mundane objects commonly encountered

A full-size disco ball, a plastic Christmas tree and a double mattress were among the more unusual objects found by volunteers cleaning up the UK’s beaches this autumn.

The most common polluting items retrieved in the Marine Conservation Society’s annual clean of coastal areas were pieces of plastic or polystyrene, plastic takeaway cup lids and wet wipes.

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