Blog Archives

The monster iceberg A68 was dumping more than 1.5 billion tonnes of fresh water into the ocean every single day at the height of its melting. To put that in context, it’s about 150 times the amount of water used daily by all UK citizens. A68 was, for a short period, the world’s biggest iceberg.

It covered an area of nearly 6,000 sq km (2,300 sq miles) when it broke free from Antarctica in 2017. But by early 2021, it had vanished.

One trillion tonnes of ice, gone.

• How a colossal block of ice became an obsession
• Iceberg that became a social media star melts away
• Polar seafloor exposed after 50 years of ice cover
• The museum at the end of the world reopens at last

Researchers are currently busy trying to gauge the impact A68 had on the environment.

And a team led from Leeds Un...

Marine explorers have discovered a “pristine” 3km (2-mile) coral reef at depths of 30m (100ft) off the coast of Tahiti, French Polynesia. It is one of the largest discovered at that depth, says the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which led the mission. Dr Julian Barbiere, from Unesco, said there were probably many more of these ecosystems “we just don’t know about”. 

“We should be working to map them and to protect them,” he said. 

Unesco director general Audrey Azoulay said the “remarkable” discovery extended our knowledge of “what lies beneath”. 

The reef was found in November, during a diving expedition to a depth known as the ocean’s “twilight zone” – part of a global seabed-mapping mission. 

French underwater photographer Alexis Ros...

Researchers from the University of Exeter and the Met Office analysed worldwide policies and found that on the “current trajectory” the Paris Agreement’s aim of limiting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is slipping out of reach. There could be global warming of 4C by the end of this century despite pledges made at the COP26 climate summit, according to a new report.

Researchers from the University of Exeter and the Met Office analysed worldwide policies and found that on the “current trajectory” the Paris Agreement‘s aim of limiting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is slipping out of reach.

Professor Richard Betts, who led the research, said the agreements made at COP26 in Glasgow “have reduced the likelihood” of warming reaching 4C “but it remains possible”.

Pollution from plastics is a global emergency in need of a robust UN treaty, according to a report. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) says there’s a cascade of evidence of harm from plastics. It argues that the plastic pollution threat is almost equivalent to climate change. The air we breathe now contains plastic micro particles, there’s plastic in Arctic snow, plastic in soils and plastic in our food.

It’s reported, for instance, that about 20 elephants in Thailand have died after eating plastic waste from a rubbish dump.

The authors urge nations to agree a UN treaty with binding targets for reducing both plastic production and waste.

“There is a deadly ticking clock counting swiftly down,” said the EIA’s Tom Gammage. 

“If this tidal wave of pollution continu...

The new study, published on 13 January 2022 in the journal Global Change Biologyand conducted by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, revealed that rising ocean temperatures due to climate change have significantly changed the locations and timings of tiger shark migration patterns in the western North Atlantic Ocean. 

Tiger sharks prefer tropical and warm to temperate seas and have historically not been found in the waters off the northeastern coastline of the USA. However, warming ocean temperatures now also make these previously unattractive habitats suitable for the cold-blooded predator. 

Neil Hammerschlag, director of the UM Shark Research and Conservation Program and lead author of the study, explained: “Tiger shark annual...

The ocean is now warmer than it’s ever been in recent history, according to a new study. And this isn’t the first time such a record has been set. For the past six years, ocean temperatures have exceeded each previous year in a trend one scientist calls “inexorable.”

Human-induced climate change is to blame, says John Abraham, co-author of the new study published Jan. 11 in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

 “We should be very concerned,” Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, U.S, told Mongabay in a video interview. “But frankly, we should have been concerned years ago.”

The research team used a network of high-tech autonomous ocean buoys to measure global ocean temperatures, which they compared to data from the 195...

The past seven years have been the hottest on record, according to new data from the EU’s satellite system.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service said 2021 was the fifth-warmest year, with record-breaking heat in some regions.

And the amount of warming gases in our atmosphere continued to increase. 

Governments are committed to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C to curb climate change. But scientists warn that time is fast running out.

The environmental, human and economic costs of hotter temperatures are already being seen globally. 

Europe lived through its warmest summer, and temperature records in western US and Canada were broken by several degrees. Extreme wildfires in July and August burnt almost entire towns to the ground and killed hundreds. 

“These events...

As part of the annual marine review conducted by the Wildlife Trusts’ Living Seas team, the number of humpback whale sightings around the UK have seen a significant increase. Until recently, sightings were extremely rare, but more than 75 sightings have been recorded since 2019, showing how populations are recovering after bans on commercial whaling. 

The Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust saw humpbacks feeding around the islands with one individual, named Pi, staying for over two months. More were seen in the Firth of Forth and off Shetland. Matt Slater, marine conservation officer for Cornwall Wildlife Trusts, says: “Only a few years ago, it would have been extremely rare to see a humpback whale around the UK...

Climate change is threatening coral-reef-associated ecosystem services and people’s well-being. Addressing direct On summer evenings in the 1980s, the residents of a houseboat community in Sausalito, California would often have trouble sleeping. A bizarre and persistent humming noise would keep them awake, and although they investigated, neither the residents nor the local authorities could pinpoint the problem. They ruled out noise from generators, and even considered the possibility of secret military tests. It was researchers at the nearby Steinhart Aquarium who finally identified the culprit. The strange noise was the courtship song of male toadfish who were doing their best to attract.

Back then, the field of bioacoustics – the scientific study of the production, transmissio...

A study presented on the side-lines of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference says Egypt’s coral reef tourism could lose more than 90% of its revenue due to climate change. The sector brings in about $7 billion in annual revenue for Egypt, 86% of which comes from coral reef tourism alone. 

Coral reef tourism revenues in Egypt could fall drastically due to global warming. In a report released on the side-lines of the United Nations climate talks, scientists warn that Egypt could lose more than 90 percent of its coral reef tourism revenue by 2100. Coral reefs are fragile ecosystems threatened with extinction around the world due to climate change, storms, pollution and overfishing.

“Although the situation of coral reefs in Egypt is not the worst among the list of countries ...