Blog Archives

UN climate talks in China have ended without a major breakthrough and with angry words about the US from Beijing.

At the talks in Tianjin, China blamed the US for failing to meet its responsibilities to cut emissions and for trying to overturn UN principles.

The US accused China of refusing to have its voluntary energy savings verified internationally.

But there was some progress toward the next round of climate talks in Mexico in November.

There are hopes that the meeting in Cancun could agree details of a fund to transfer $100bn (

Coral reefs in the Caribbean are in danger of bleaching, researchers say.

Scientists attribute the bleaching, caused by high water temperatures, to global climate change.

Mark Eakin, coordinator of Coral Reef Watch at the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, said coral bleaching is hitting more areas and some corals in the Caribbean that were spared in 2005, a year in which ocean temperatures were extremely warm, The New York Times reports.

“I’ve heard of lots of bleaching and lots of dead corals in Panama,” Eakin told the Times. “The bleaching is really kicking in strong at this point.”

Bleaching occurs when high heat and sunshine cause the coral to “spit out” the algae that live symbiotically inside them. Severe bleaching can lead to coral death.

A study released ...

A fascinating document has fallen into my lap from a meeting now going on in Madrid looking at tuna stocks and catches.

The question it asks – perhaps without intending to – is this: can the Mediterranean bluefin industry ever be properly monitored?

With the bluefin having become something of a cause celebre recently, it’s a question with major ramifications politically, commercially and ecologically.

To begin at the beginning: this week’s meeting brings together members of the Standing Committee on Research and Statistics (SCRS).

It advises the government representatives who make decisions within the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat).

Anyone familiar with the field will know that the Atlantic bluefin is in trouble, having undergone a swift population ...

Scientists are investigating ways of dealing with the millions of tonnes of floating plastic rubbish that is accumulating in our oceans.

They are a quirk of ocean currents – a naturally created vortex known as a gyre – where floating rubbish tends to accumulate.

The largest is in the North Pacific and covers an area twice the size of France. Others have since been discovered in the North Atlantic and most recently the South Atlantic.

Scientists now fear the same process is probably taking place in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.

As well as damaging coasts and killing marine life who mistake the plastic for food, contaminants in the water, which attach to the plastic debris, are transporting waste chemicals across the world’s oceans.

‘Plastic munching’

At the UK’s University of Sheffie...

Europe’s smallest marine fish, the Guillet’s goby, has been found in Scottish waters for the first time.

Keen-eyed divers photographed the tiny fish while surveying marine life around the Shetland Islands.

Previously, Guillet’s goby has only been recorded in British waters three times and never before in Scotland.

The discovery, published in the journal Marine Biodiversity Records, is the most northerly record of the fish and extends the goby’s range by 140 miles.

The Shetland Islands are better known for marine life at the larger end of the scale, attracting dolphin and whale-watching tourists.

However, independent marine biologists Dr Richard Shucksmith and Rachel Hope were documenting the islands’ smaller species when they made their unusual discovery.

They photographed Guillet’s gobie...

It may be not be as visable as tropical rainforests or wetlands but seagrass plays a vital role in the global ecosystem, says Richard Unsworth, filtering pollution and providing food to fish.

Whilst it

A researcher at James Cook University in Cairns has produced a three-dimensional bathymetry model of the entire Queensland coast, Great Barrier Reef, and the Coral Sea almost to New Caledonia.

Robin Beaman said the depth model can represent seabed features down to 100 metres in size, revealing the seafloor in unprecedented detail for such a large area.

The first Census of Marine Life (CoML) hopes to act as a baseline of how human activity is affecting previously unexplored marine ecosystems.

The international project involved more than 2,700 researchers from 80 nations, who spent a total of 9,000 days at sea during at least 540 expeditions.

It has been described as the most comprehensive study of its kind.

“This co-operative international 21st Century voyage has systematically defined for the first time both the known and the vast unknown, unexplored ocean,” said Ian Poiner, chairman of the Census Steering Committee, speaking before a conference that is being held in Central London to mark the “decade of discovery”.

“All surface life depends on life inside and beneath the oceans,” he added.

“Sea life provides half of our oxygen, a lot of...

When two dolphin species come together, they attempt to find a common language, preliminary research suggests. Bottlenose and Guyana dolphins, two distantly related species, often come together to socialise in waters off the coast of Costa Rica.

Both species make unique sounds, but when they gather, they change the way they communicate, and begin using an intermediate language.

That raises the possibility the two species are communicating in some way.

Details are published in the journal Ethology.

It is not yet clear exactly what is taking place between the two dolphin species, but it is the first evidence that the animals modify their communications in the presence of other species, not just other dolphins of their own kind.

Biologist Dr Laura May-Collado of the University of Puerto Rico ...

The Kuwait Diving Team announced, based on a comprehensive survery of the territorial waters, death of 90 percent of the coral reefs surrounding the Kuwaiti shores.

Head of the Kuwait Diving Team Walid Al-Fadhel said in a statement to KUNA, “this requires quick action by the competent authorities to find out the real causes, as well as solutions.” He also called on frequent goers to these marine natural sites to refrain from any action that may inflict damage in the reefs or kill the creatures co-existing with them.

The comprehensive survey, conducted by the team, included the major locations of coral reefs 50 miles along the shores and 70 km from the southern coast borders, with depths ranging from 1-13 meters.

The combing covered Um Al-Maradim, Kheiran, Ras Al-Zor, Garouh, Um Diera, Teyl...