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Aquarius to Illuminate Links Between Salt, Climate

By Guest PostMay 12, 20111 commentEnvironment, Scienceage of aquarius, arctic ocean, Argentina, broadway musical, california, climate, climate change, concentration of salt, earth, evaporation, founder of buddhism, freshwater, gary lagerloef, gautama siddhartha, global precipitation patterns, hair, heavens, ice melt, jupiter, mars, moon, NASA, national space agency, ocean, ocean circulation, ocean surface roughness, ocean surface salinity data, rainfall, river runoff, salinity, salt seeking aquarius, satellite studies, scatterometer, tropical rainfall measuring mission, vandenberg air force base, water cycle, waves

When NASA’s salt-seeking Aquarius instrument ascends to the heavens this June, the moon above its launch site at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base won’t be in the seventh house, and Jupiter’s latest alignment with Mars will be weeks in the past, in contrast to the lyrics of the song from the popular Broadway musical “Hair.” Yet for the science team eagerly awaiting Aquarius’ ocean surface salinity data, the dawning of NASA’s “Age of Aquarius” promises revelations on how salinity is linked to Earth’s water cycle, ocean circulation and climate.

Salinity – the concentration of salt – on the ocean surface is a key missing puzzle piece in satellite studies of Earth that will improve our understanding of how the ocean and atmosphere are coupled and work in tandem to affect our climate. While satellites already measure sea surface temperature and winds, rainfall, water vapor, sea level, and ocean color, measurements of ocean surface salinity have, until quite recently, been limited to sparse data collected from ships, buoys and a small number of airborne science campaigns. (more…)

“Fool’s Gold” from The Deep is Fertilizer for Ocean Life

By Guest PostMay 10, 2011Environment, Scienceamy gartman, atmospheric oxygen, bacteria, barbara ransom, carbon dioxide levels, clara chan, deep sea, fools gold, george luther, humans, hydrothermal vents, iron, iron disulfide, microscopic pyrite particles, mineral pyrite, multivitamins, mustafa yucel, nanoparticles, ocean, ocean bottom, organisms, phytoplankton, pyrite nanoparticles, pyrite particles, seawater, tiny plants, university of delaware

*Pyrite nanoparticles from hydrothermal vents are a rich source of iron in the deep sea*

Similar to humans, the bacteria and tiny plants living in the ocean need iron for energy and growth. But their situation is quite different from ours–for one, they can’t turn to natural iron sources like leafy greens or red meat for a pick-me-up.

So, from where does their iron come? (more…)

Eddies Found to be Deep, Powerful Modes of Ocean Transport

By ShamsMay 1, 2011Environment, Scienceadams, computer models, deep sea phenomenon, deep-sea moorings, dennis j mcgillicuddy, diane k adams, east pacific rise, east scotia ridge, el niño, eruption, hydrothermal vents, indian ridge, jets, lauren s mullineaux, mid atlantic ridge, ocean, ocean bottom, ocean eddies, sea creatures, surface ocean dynamics, underwater mountain range, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution

*Study Finds Connection between Atmospheric Events and the Deep Ocean*

Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their colleagues have discovered that massive, swirling ocean eddies–known to be up to 500 kilometers across at the surface–can reach all the way to the ocean bottom at mid-ocean ridges, some 2,500 meters deep, transporting tiny sea creatures, chemicals, and heat from hydrothermal vents over large distances.

The previously unknown deep-sea phenomenon, reported in the April 28 issue of the journal Science, helps explain how some larvae travel huge distances from one vent area to another, said Diane K. Adams, lead author at WHOI and now at the National Institutes of Health. (more…)

Researchers Find That Pollution Forms an Invisible Barrier for Marine Life

By Guest PostMarch 18, 2011Environmentanthropogenic factors, bacteria, chemicals, chlorinated hydrocarbons, coastal areas, coastal water ecosystems, contaminants, discharge, ecosystem based management, evolutionary trajectory, heavy metals, human impacts, human stressors, jon puritz, larvae, los angeles, marine life, municipal treatment plants, nutrients, ocean, pacific coast, petroleum hydrocarbons, plankton, pollutants, population, rob toonen, sea stars, sewage, southern california bight, species, starfish, toxic, united states, urban runoff, urban runoff plumes

Over 50 percent of the population in the United States and over 60 percent in the world live in coastal areas. Rapidly growing human populations near the ocean have massively altered coastal water ecosystems.

One of the most extensive human stressors is the discharge of chemicals and pollutants into the ocean. In the Southern California Bight, more than 60 sewage and urban runoff sources discharge over 1 billion gallons of liquid on a dry day with the two largest sources of contaminants being sewage from municipal treatment plants and urban runoff from highly modified river basins. (more…)

‘Undersea Methane Could be Contributor to Increased Ocean Acidity’

By Guest PostDecember 7, 2010Environmentacidity, algae, bacteria, bottom of the ocean, carbon dioxide, chris osburn, CO2, cold seeps, degradation, dissolved organic carbon, doc, fluids, marine science, methane, methane-derived doc, microbial processing, ocean, ocean acidification, oceanic microorganisms, pacific ocean, phytoplankton, seawater, sediments, undersea, undersea ecosystems

A North Carolina State University researcher is part of a team which has found that methane from “cold seeps” – undersea areas where fluids bubble up through sediments at the bottom of the ocean – could be contributing to the oceans’ increasing acidity and stressing already delicate undersea ecosystems.

Oceanic microorganisms and bacteria survive by consuming dissolved organic carbon, or DOC. A byproduct of this consumption is CO2 – carbon dioxide – which, in large enough concentrations, makes seawater more acidic. (more…)

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2010Environment, Scienceadam soule, atmosphere, baja peninsula, bathymetry, carbon, climate, CO2, crust, daniel lizarralde, earth, gas, giora proskurowski, greenhouse gases, guaymas basin, gulf of california, hydrothermal vent, jeff s seewald, methane, molten magma, north guaymas, ocean, red sea, s adam soule, seafloor, tectonic plates, undersea ridges, volcanic rocks

The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet’s metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere.

Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have observed ocean crust forming in an entirely unexpected way—one that may influence those cycles of life and carbon and, in turn, affect the much-discussed future of the world’s climate.

Working at the Guaymas basin in the Gulf of California, WHOI scientists confirmed what they suspected from brief glimpses of the area during previous missions: The inner Earth is injecting swaths of magma called sills as far as 50 kilometers away from the plate boundary, on each side of the ridge —nearly 10 times farther from such an active ocean ridge than had been observed before. (more…)

Mysteries of Unpredictable Tsunami Waves

By PravdaOctober 30, 20101 commentScienceanton evseev, atmospheric pressure, balearic islands, betu monga, earthquake, epicenter, indonesia, krakatoa, kuril islands, mentawai archipelago, mentawai islands, new guinea tsunami, ocean, offshore quakes, pacific ocean, predictions, rissaga, seismic gaps, seismologist, sergey fedotov, south island pagai, tsunami, tsunami warning center, tsunami waves

One of the most terrible consequences of offshore quakes is giant tsunami waves, sweeping everything on their way. Until now, scientists cannot answer a simple question: why in some cases they happen, and in others they do not? If it was established, then a tragedy like the one that has recently occurred in Indonesia could have been avoided.

An earthquake measuring 7.5 points, which occurred late on Monday, October 25 in Indonesia, caused a tsunami, which affected Mentawai islands in the western part of the country. Interestingly, the epicenter of the aftershocks of this earthquake was located 78 km west of the South Island Pagai of the Mentawai archipelago, at a depth of 20 km below the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Apparently, this is why the first few minutes after the earthquake the Indonesian government reported the tsunami threat, but later canceled the alert. (more…)

Listen Up: Ocean Acidification Poses Little Threat to Whales’ Hearing

By Guest PostOctober 13, 2010Environmentabsorption, acidic, animals, atmospheric carbon dioxide, boric acid, CO2, decibel, hearing, ilya udovydchenkov, ivan lima, mathematical models, noise levels, ocean, ocean acidification, scott doney, seawater, sound propagation, sound waves, tim duda, whales, whoi, woods hole oceanographic institution

Contrary to some previous, highly publicized, reports, ocean acidification is not likely to worsen the hearing of whales and other animals, according to a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientist who studies sound propagation in the ocean. (more…)

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