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A study by researchers at Brown University has found a quarter of posts about climate change on Twitter were written by bots. Bots are computer programs that can masquerade as humans to post or send messages on social media. Researchers discovered tweets posted by bots created the impression there was a high level of climate change denial.

The paper detailing the finds has not yet been published and was first reported by The Guardian newspaper.

The research team analysed 6.5 million tweets from the period surrounding President Donald Trump’s June 2017 announcement that he was removing the United States from the Paris climate accord.

The finding showed 25% of tweets on climate change were likely posted by bots...

Australian scientists and conservationists warned in the Guardian Thursday that the Great Barrier Reef could soon endure a third major coral bleaching event in just five years, highlighting how the human-caused climate crisis is already devastating crucial ecosystems worldwide.

Rising ocean temperatures – largely driven by human activities that produce climate-heating emissions, particularly fossil fuel extraction and use – have caused coral across the globe to bleach and die in recent years. Scientists concluded in 2018 that back-to-back marine heatwaves in 2016 and 2017 left the Great Barrier Reef “forever damaged.”

Bleached coral – which has expelled its main food source and turned white because of stressors such as warm water or pollution – is at greater risk of death but can recover i...

Scientists say they have seen a remarkable collection of blue whales in the coastal waters around the UK sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. Their 23-day survey counted 55 animals – a total that is unprecedented in the decades since commercial whaling ended. South Georgia was the epicentre for hunting in the early 20th Century.

The territory’s boats with their steam-powered harpoons were pivotal in reducing Antarctic blues to just a few hundred individuals.

To witness 55 of them now return to what was once a pre-eminent feeding ground for the population has been described as “truly, truly amazing” by cetacean specialist Dr Trevor Branch from the University of Washington, Seattle.

“To think that in a period of 40 or 50 years, I only had records for two sightings of blue whales around S...

Climate change could wipe out almost all coral reef habitats around the world by 2100, according to research released Monday. The bleak outlook forecasts that warming oceans and rising seas could have a devastating impact on ocean ecosystems, suggesting that efforts to restore dying corals will likely encounter difficulties as global warming continues to wipe out habitats that could once support healthy reef systems.

“By 2100, it’s looking quite grim,” Renee Setter, a biogeographer at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, said in a statement. She presented her findings at the annual Ocean Sciences Meeting, which is being held through Friday in San Diego.

Setter and her colleagues simulated ocean environments in which coral reefs currently exist based on projections of sea surface temperatur...

The overall health of coral reefs in Malaysia is considered to be “fair”, but has been slowly declining in the last five years, according to a report by Reef Check Malaysia. According to the 2019 annual survey report where a total of 180 sites across Malaysia were surveyed last year, average live coral cover was 40.63%.

In 2014, the average live coral cover was 48.11%, while in 2015, it dropped to 45.95% before declining in the following years.

Of the 180 sites surveyed last year, 97 were in peninsular Malaysia while the remaining 83 were in east Malaysia.

The surveys were conducted with the help of volunteers and dive centres around the country.

Reef Check Malaysia, a marine conservation organisation, has been monitoring coral reef health in Malaysia since 2007, and this is the thirt...

When ecologist Carly Randall first dove into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef in 2017, she was bracing herself for the worst. During the prior year or so, the reef had been ravaged by back-to-back heat waves and an invasion of crown-of-thorns.

In a population of animals or plants, genetic diversity can decline much more quickly than species diversity in response to various stress factors: disease, changes to habitat or climate, and so on. Yet not much is known about fish genetic diversity around the world.

The bottom of the sea can be a gassy place. Underwater volcanoes and vents spew carbon dioxide (CO2) near the crevices where tectonic plates rift apart. Hungry bacteria convert decomposing creatures of the deep into natural methane. And, new research from Japan reminds us, enormous, miles-wide reservoirs of greenhouse gases lurk in untouched pockets just below the seafloor.

In a study published Aug. 19 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team of researchers discovered one such pocket at the bottom of the Okinawa Trough, a massive submarine basin sitting southwest of Japan where the Philippine Sea plate is slowly sinking below the Eurasian plate. Using seismic waves to map the trough’s structure, the team found a huge gas pocket stretching at least 2...

Ocean acidification refers to the process of our planet’s oceans becoming more acidic due to the global increase in carbon dioxide emissions. Since the Industrial Revolution, experts estimate that Earth‘s oceans have absorbed more than a quarter of the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the burning of fossil fuels. Once in the ocean, the dissolved carbon dioxide undergoes a series of chemical reactions that increase the concentration of hydrogen ions while lowering the ocean’s pH and carbonate minerals — a process called ocean acidification.

Studies have shown that ocean acidification could have dramatic consequences for marine life and communities whose livelihoods depend on our ocean’s resources.

What causes ocean acidification?

When carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is ...