Many corals can’t make it through the bleaching events caused by warming ocean waters. But some can – and scientists are trying to learn more about the sources of their resilience.
Over the past five years we’ve seen a significant increase in research on ocean acidification and warming seas, and their effect on marine life. Overall, unfortunately, the news is not good.
One of the Australian government’s new research priorities is “environmental change”. But can be hard to know how to tackle such huge and interlinked issues as climate change and species extinctions.
A melting Arctic means new areas will be open to commercial fishing but scientists – and bordering countries – say they need time to study the ecological and economic risks.
Hundreds of meters below the surface of the freezing ocean surrounding Antarctica, the seafloor is teeming with life. The animals living there have no idea that an army is on the brink of invading their tranquil environment.
Failing to stick to the world’s agreed global warming limit of 2C won’t just affect the atmosphere - it will play havoc with the oceans too, potentially ruining ecosystems on which much of humanity depends.
With the United Nations set to decide on whether to list the Great Barrier Reef as officially in danger, we look at the various threats to the reef’s survival, starting with the biggie… climate change.
You may not have heard of them or given them much thought, but phytoplankton — the microscopic plants that grow throughout the world’s oceans — are the foundation of oceanic food webs. Although tiny, they…
The Great Barrier Reef is in trouble, and a draft government plan to ensure its survival does not go far enough. A number of submissions including those from the Australian Academy of Science and Environmental…
Reef historian Iain McCalman, in Sydney, and reef scientist Stephen Palumbi, in California, are monitoring reef degradation from opposite sides of the planet. They compared notes. Iain McCalman: A recent…
Scientists are coming to the conclusion that we are on the brink of a mass extinction — the sixth known in the history of the Earth, and the latest since an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs 65 million…
In many ways, Australia is defined by the oceans surrounding us. We have the world’s third largest ocean territory, most of our trade travels by sea, and we have vast offshore resources.
Scientists are meeting this week in Yokohama, Japan, to finalise and approve the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group II – the part of the IPCC process that…
Increasing carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans could hamper fishes’ eyesight, slowing their reaction times and leaving them vulnerable to predators or unable to hunt, new research has shown. Experts say…