Earth’s oceans currently take up almost 50% of our CO2 emissions and absorb over 90% of the heat the other half of the CO2 traps in the atmosphere. Both ocean CO2 and heat absorption will have major consequences for deep-sea … Continue reading →
“Over last 30 years 50% of coral has disappeared” “Based on current trends, within the next 30 years annual bleaching will kill most of the world’s coral” Earlier this month a new climate impact documentary was released, called Chasing Coral. … Continue reading →
As ocean temperatures rise, some species of corals are likely to succeed at the expense of others, according to a report published online on April 12 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology that details the first large-scale investigation of climate effects on corals.
Researchers at Oregon State University have definitively linked an increase in ocean acidification to the collapse of oyster seed production at a commercial oyster hatchery in Oregon, where larval growth had declined to a level considered by the owners to be “non-economically viable.”
In a new study reported in Nature, climate scientist Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere propose a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a series of extreme warming events about 55 million years ago, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), and a sequence of similar, smaller warming events afterward.
With atmospheric and oceanic CO2 levels rising and the consequent acidification of the oceans, marine life has to adapt rapidly if they want to stay around. Especially calcium carbonate skeleton building organisms are affected by the rapidly dwindling seawater pH … Continue reading →
As if anthropogenic pollution and overfishing isn’t damaging enough for coral reefs worldwide, now certain seaweeds seem determined to see the end of reefs as well. These macroalgae produce chemicals that inhibit the growth of reef-building coral or even kill … Continue reading →
The Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction was the largest in our planet’s history. Enormous disruptions of the carbon cycle led to climate change, ocean acidification and ocean anoxia – and with an estimated 90 percent of all species dying out Earth almost … Continue reading →
We recently reported on a possible negative carbon feedback of forest soils in higher latitudes: when such soils warm, nutrient availability may increase, as would (therefore) biomass production and CO2 uptake. But not all climate feedbacks operate through temperature. It … Continue reading →