For over a decade, the inclusion of oceans in climate talks has been piecemeal and inconsistent. And yet, the ocean is critical to help balance the conditions we need to survive.
Virtual reality may be a useful tool to increase public awareness and empathy for ocean environments.
(Shutterstock)
Empathy is an important factor in getting people to act on environmental issues. Virtual reality can bring oceans closer to home for those who can’t experience the wealth of marine ecosystems.
Arctic sea ice has been declining overall since NASA began tracking it by satellite in the 1970s.
Miemo Penttinen
A closer look at how ice cover changed through the months offers some important insights into the role of climate change and why every year isn’t a record.
Litter hotspots were associated with socioeconomic factors such as a concentration of built infrastructure, less national wealth and the level of lighting at night.
A computer animation reflects the temperature change as eddies spin off from the Loop Current and Gulf Stream along the U.S. Coast.
Ida exploded from a weak hurricane to a powerful Category 4 storm in less than 24 hours, thanks to heat from an ocean eddy. An oceanographer explains its rapid intensification.
Some of the climate changes will be irreversible for millennia. But some can be slowed and even stopped if countries quickly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, including from burning fossil fuels.
Penguins are at risk as a warming climate affects sea ice in Antarctica.
Raimund Linke/The Image Bank via Getty Images
The Army Corps of Engineers is planning a sea wall 6 miles long and flood gates. The infrastructure might protect downtown from a hurricane storm surge, but most of the area will still be vulnerable.
Friday’s decision from the World Heritage Committee doesn’t change the irrefutable evidence that dangerous impacts are occurring on the Great Barrier Reef.
Corals are made of hundreds to thousands of tiny living polyps.
Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation
During a 2015 heat wave, scientists watched as a coral reef died before their eyes. By the end of the century, almost all the world’s corals will be gone if climate change continues at this pace.
Jim Underwood, Australian Institute of Marine Science
Traditional ecological and cultural wisdom was embraced and valued, enhancing Western scientific knowledge of a beautiful, fragile marine area.
The NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer used multibeam sonar to map the sharp Pao Pao seamount (right) and a flat-topped guyot (left) in New Zealand’s waters.
(NOAA)
An accurate seafloor map can improve oceanographic and climate models, secure marine navigation, inform defence operations, and guide environmental decisions.
Sharks’ teeth carry clues about the oceans they swam in.
Christina Spence Morgan
The WTO is set to wrap up negotiations on harmful fisheries subsidies This could help rebuild the oceans’ fish stocks, and support the communities that rely on them.
Plastic fragments washed onto Schiavonea beach in Calabria, Italy, in a 2019 storm.
Alfonso Di Vincenzo/KONTROLAB /LightRocket via Getty Images