Ocean Conservation News
Courtesy of Ocean Conserve

Extreme global warming seen further away than previously thought Reuters: Extreme global warming is less likely in coming decades after a slowdown in the pace of temperature rises so far this century, an international team of scientists said on Sunday. Warming is still on track, however, to breach a goal set by governments around the world of limiting the increase in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, unless tough action is taken to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions. "The most extreme rates of warming simulated by... Author : Reuters: Alister Doyle Publ.Date : Sun, 19 May 2013 17:42:00 -0500 Caribbean Scientist Warns of Climate Change Disaster Inter Press Service: The Caribbean does not have the luxury of time for decisive action on climate change and global warming. In fact, it is on the brink of calamity, according to a prominent scientist. Conrad Douglas, a Jamaican scientist who has published over 350 reports on environmental management and related matters, has warned that "urgent action at all levels [is] required now", cautioning the region against complacency in dealing with climate change. Noting that earlier models forecast that an atmosphere... Author : Inter Press Service: Desmond Brown Publ.Date : Sun, 19 May 2013 13:28:00 -0500 Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming 'not as likely' BBC: Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term. Since 1998, there has been an unexplained "standstill" in the heating of the Earth's atmosphere. Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades. But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly. The slowdown in the expected rate of global warming has been studied for several years... Author : BBC: Matt McGrath Publ.Date : Sun, 19 May 2013 12:31:00 -0500 Rebuilding the coastline, but at what cost? New York Times: When a handful of retired homeowners from Osborn Island in New Jersey gathered last month to discuss post-Hurricane Sandy rebuilding and environmental protection, L. Stanton Hales Jr., a conservationist, could not have been clearer about the risks they faced. “I said, look people, you built on a marsh island, it’s oxidizing under your feet — it’s shrinking — and that exacerbates the sea level rise,” said Dr. Hales, director of the Barnegat Bay Partnership, an estuary program financed by the Environmental... Author : New York Times: Jenny Anderson Publ.Date : Sun, 19 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 Invasive species: 'away-field advantage' weaker than ecologists thought ScienceDaily: For decades, ecologists have assumed the worst invasive species -- such as brown tree snakes and kudzu -- have an "away-field advantage." They succeed because they do better in their new territories than they do at home. A new study led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center reveals that this fundamental assumption is not nearly as common as people might think. The away-field advantage hypothesis hinges on this idea: Successful invaders do better in a new place because the environment... Author : ScienceDaily: None Given Publ.Date : Sat, 18 May 2013 17:18:00 -0500 Delaware: Council members disagree on risk of sea level rise Sussex County Post: Sussex County Council members are not on the same wave length regarding the debatable issue of sea level rise. At the May 7 council meeting, Susan Love, a planner with the Department of Environmental Control and Natural Resources’ Coastal Management Program, delivered an update on progress made by the state’s Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee, which is developing an adaptation plan for the state that will provide a path forward for planning for impacts of sea level rise. Ms. Love’s presentation... Author : Sussex County Post: Glenn Rolfe Publ.Date : Sat, 18 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 Study quantifies sea level rise from melting glaciers Summit Voice: The world`s major ice sheets -- on Greenland and Antarctica -- haven`t really started a major meltdown yet. But the rest of the world`s glacial regions have been losing ice at a rate of about 260 billion metric tons annually, raising sea level by about 0.03 inches per year -- about a third of the observed sea level rise. The biggest ice losses are happening in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalaya. Combined, the areas contribute as much to sea level rise... Author : Summit Voice: None Given Publ.Date : Sat, 18 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 Why Canada should back Antarctica North Globe and Mail: Another kind of Canadian government would take this opportunity as Arctic Council chair to lead a diplomatic effort to demilitarize the region, to make it a northern Antarctica where, by international treaty, military activities are banned. Of course, the Arctic Council alone couldn't bring about demilitarization since it has no such power, but it could become an important place to put the issue on the international agenda. Canada should borrow a slogan from someone Americans love - Ronald Reagan,... Author : Globe and Mail: Jeffrey Simpson Publ.Date : Sat, 18 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 Villages in Trinidad embrace threatened sea turtles, spark tourist boom Associated Press: Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed headlamps in the dark. Their black carapaces glistening, the turtles inch along the moonlit beach, using their powerful front flippers to move their bulky frames onto the sand. In years past, poachers from Grande Riviere and nearby towns would ransack the turtles' buried eggs and hack the critically... Author : Associated Press: None Given Publ.Date : Sat, 18 May 2013 03:16:00 -0500 Fish Feeling the Heat from Global Warming EcoWatch: A study featured in the current issue of Nature reveals that ocean warming has already affected fisheries around the world over the past four decades as fish populations shift in response to changing sea temperatures. The findings provide an indicator of the effect that climate change has on the distribution and abundance of fish. The study also points to the need for wildlife officials in New England and around the world to give fish and the ecosystems they rely upon a better chance to adapt to... Author : EcoWatch: None Given Publ.Date : Fri, 17 May 2013 11:47:00 -0500 Fiji's villagers move uphill to escape global warming's rising seas Telegraph: Fiji's picturesque Natewa Bay must be a hard place to leave, and for none more so than the villagers of Vunidogoloa, who are preparing to abandon their ancestral home in the face of the rising sea. But they have little choice: big waves now overtop a once-protective sea wall, their salt-polluted vegetation is dying. They are to move as a community a mile inland, and uphill, to a new site on the northern island of Vanua Levu. Devout Methodists, they have named Kenani, Fijian for Canaan – the promised... Author : Telegraph: Geoffrey Lean Publ.Date : Fri, 17 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 EU fisheries reform plan falls short of outright discards ban Guardian: Fisheries ministers from across Europe came to an agreement on a sweeping reform of fisheries policies early on Wednesday morning, but fell short of the most ambitious changes that green campaigners had demanded. They agreed to ban the wasteful practice of discarding healthy fish at sea, but most of the ban will be phased in from 2015 instead of this year as had been proposed, and there are significant caveats for some species. Fish quotas will be based on scientific advice on what is the "maximum... Author : Guardian: Fiona Harvey Publ.Date : Fri, 17 May 2013 03:18:00 -0500 Smaller Glaciers Boost Sea Level as Much as the Giants Climate Central: As the planet warms under the influence of rising greenhouse gases, and melting ice drives sea level higher, scientists have focused mostly on changes in the vast ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica. If either one melts substantially or slides into the ocean, the results would be catastrophic. But there's another ice reserve to worry about: the many thousands of smaller glaciers unconnected to continental-scale ice sheets. They're melting, too, and a new report in Science shows that... Author : Climate Central: Michael D. Lemonick Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 17:30:00 -0500 Everest Ice Shrinking Fast, Scientists and Climbers Say National Geographic: Everest isn't the same mountain it was when Jim Whittaker became the first U.S. climber to summit the peak in 1963. The world's highest peak has been shedding snow and ice for the past 50 years, possibly due in part to global warming, new research says. (Take an Everest quiz.) New analyses show Mount Everest has lost significant snow and ice cover over the past half century. In nearby Sagarmatha National Park, glaciers have shrunk by 13 percent. Weather data reveal the larger Everest region has... Author : National Geographic: Brian Handwerk Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 15:58:00 -0500 World's biggest ice sheets likely more stable than previously believed ScienceDaily: For decades, scientists have used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today's largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Markings of a high shoreline from three million years ago, for example -- when Earth was going through a warm period -- were thought to be evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at that time. This assumption has led many scientists to think that if the world's largest ice sheets collapsed in the past, then they may do just the same in our modern,... Author : ScienceDaily: None Given Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 14:52:00 -0500 World's melting glaciers making large contribution to sea rise ScienceDaily: While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder. The new research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas.... Author : ScienceDaily: None Given Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 14:52:00 -0500 EU Ice2sea report offers new estimates of sea level rise Summit Voice: After four years of studies and more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, The EU-funded ice2sea program has concluded that melting ice may not contribute as much to sea level rise as some other studies have suggested. Under a moderate greenhouse gas emissions scenario, the contribution from continental ice will likely amount to between 3.5 and 36.8 centimeters (1.4 to 14.5 inches) by 2100, the program`s leaders said this week, unveiling a new report that summarizes their research. The report is online... Author : Summit Voice: None Given Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 Amazing Sea Butterflies Are the Ocean’s Canary in the Coal Mine Smithsonian: The chemistry of the ocean is changing. Most climate change discussion focuses on the warmth of the air, but around one-quarter of the carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere dissolves into the ocean. Dissolved carbon dioxide makes seawater more acidic--a process called ocean acidification--and its effects have already been observed: the shells of sea butterflies, also known as pteropods, have begun dissolving in the Antarctic. Tiny sea butterflies are related to snails, but use their muscular... Author : Smithsonian: None Given Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 In Post-Tsunami Japan, A Push To Rebuild Coast in Concrete Yale Environment 360: In the years leading up to the massive tsunami of March 11, 2011, it seemed that Japan’s coastal ecosystems could hardly decline in health any further. Decades of coastal engineering had divided land from ocean, turned quaint seaside towns grey with concrete, and pushed once-familiar species like loggerhead sea turtles and common orient clams towards extinction. Nearly half of the island nation’s perimeter was modified in some way; cliffs comprised most of what remained untouched. Even within the... Author : Yale Environment 360: Winifred Bird Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 08:01:00 -0500 The rising red tide with climate change PhysOrg: The tattoos on Ashley Cryan's ankles depict a chicken and a pig. Since the days of Captain Cook, sailors have donned the animals' likenesses to help them walk on water and guard against drowning. According to folklore, the animals-which survived shipwrecks more often than humans-had a special power that protected them from succumbing to the sea. Cryan, whose grandfather taught her to sail when she was 11, got her tattoos after surviving a shipwreck. She said they symbolize strength and survival,... Author : PhysOrg: None Given Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 06:35:00 -0500 Why Warming Oceans Could Mean Dwindling Fish Time: It’s easy to forget that global warming doesn’t just refer to the rising temperature of the air. Climate change is having an enormous, if less well understood, impact on the oceans, which already absorb far more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere. Like so much of what goes on in the vast depths that cover more than two-thirds of our planet’s surface, the effect of climate change on the oceans remains a black box--albeit one that scientists are working to illuminate. Here’s one way: fisheries.... Author : Time: Bryan Walsh Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 04:54:00 -0500 Canada: After Upset Election, Route for Tar Sands to Pacific Doesn't Close InsideClimate: Environmentalists suffered a setback on Tuesday when British Columbia re-elected a premier who left the door open for approval of two oil pipelines that would carry tar sands oil across B.C. to the Pacific Coast, where it could be exported to the world market. Despite trailing in the polls, incumbent Christy Clark, the leader of B.C.'s Liberal Party, defeated Adrian Dix and his New Democratic Party. Dix had opposed both pipelines, and environmental groups had hoped his win would signal the end of... Author : InsideClimate: Lisa Song Publ.Date : Thu, 16 May 2013 02:00:00 -0500 World's most distinct mammals and amphibians mapped BBC: Scientists have developed the first map of the world's unique and most endangered mammals and amphibians. The map highlights the fact that only a fraction of the areas identified as critical for the conservation of these species are protected. Among the species highlighted by the map are the Mexican salamander, the Sunda pangolin and the black and white ruffed Lemur. The research is published in the journal Plos One. The Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) project has... Author : BBC: Matt McGrath Publ.Date : Wed, 15 May 2013 20:37:00 -0500 Climate change threatens global fish stocks Conversation: Ocean warming has already affected global fisheries in the past four decades, a new international study has found, driving up the proportion of warm-water fish being caught and posing a threat to food security worldwide. The new study, conducted by researchers from the University of Tasmania’s specialist… Ocean warming has already affected global fisheries in the past four decades, a new international study has found, driving up the proportion of warm-water fish being caught and posing a threat... Author : Conversation: None Given Publ.Date : Wed, 15 May 2013 17:11:00 -0500