Quantcast
Channel: Ocean
Viewing all 630 articles
Browse latest View live

This Mind-Blowing Infographic Shows The Incredible Depth Of The Earth's Oceans

$
0
0

People sometimes forget that oceans contain a lot more than the water you see just beneath the surface.

The depths below the ocean's surface comprise a staggering 95% of the earth's living spaceand much of it is unexplored by humans.

To put into perspective just how deep the oceans go, Xkcd.com created this illustration (click the image for a larger version):

Ocean depths infographic

As you can see, most of the ocean doesn't even see sunlight. Even scientists aren't familiar with everything that's down there.

In fact, getting to the deepest reaches of the ocean is so expensive that some people — like Oscar-winning director James Cameron— take it upon themselves to explore underwater spaces rarely visited by humans.

Cameron visited the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on earth at seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in a minisubmarine in 2012. He was only the second person to visit that area of the ocean.

He didn't see any sea monsters, but he described the experience as out of this world.

SEE ALSO: You Won't Believe This Astronaut's Vine Of A Lightning Storm From Space

Join the conversation about this story »


Scientists Captured The Deepest-Dwelling Fish On Camera For The First Time

$
0
0

An apparently undiscovered fish species is now the deepest dwelling known, living more than 25,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

This video originally appeared on Slate Video. Watch More: slate.com/video

Jim Festante is an actor/writer in Los Angeles and regular video contributor to Slate. He's the author of the Image Comics miniseries The End Times of Bram and Ben.

Join the conversation about this story »

What It's Like To Explore The Deepest Depths Of The Ocean

$
0
0

Oceanlab, University of Aberdeen

It was our 14th expedition to the trenches of the Pacific Ocean, where depths can exceed 10,000m. And it was due to be our last for the foreseeable future.

We had been aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's (SOI) vessel RV Falkor for 30 days. It was almost over. Then, it turned out to be "the big one".

For this was the expedition in which my colleagues and I discovered a snailfish living some eight kilometres below the waves, deeper than any fish we know of. My colleagues from the University of Hawaii even recovered some in their traps.

In the past six years we have made many discoveries in the depths, such as the missing order of Decapoda (shrimps) that were long thought absent from the trenches but are actually rather conspicuous.

In the Kermadec Trench off New Zealand we found the "supergiant" amphipod, a crustacean 20 times larger than its shallow-sea relatives. We also filmed large numbers of tadpole-like snailfish in multiple trenches, and as deep as 7700m in the Japan Trench.

Snailfish surprise

Based on these observations we predicted that when exploring the Mariana Trench – the world's deepest – we would find the the Mariana's own personal snailfish, probably living between 6500m and around 7500m, with more being found at the deeper end of that range.

Exploring the Mariana Trench. The record-breaking fish appears at 1:45.

what oceanlab saw

We also predicted that we would see the decapods and supergiants in the upper depths of the trench, and right enough there they were.

A device used to gather samples of ocean floor had an inspection camera on it to monitor the equipment. One night after a dive to 7900m when watching the footage coming back in, a strange ethereal little fish swam past. That got our eyebrows raised. It looked like a snailfish, but was extremely fragile (even for a snailfish) and had a very distinctive appearance.

This prompted a case of "game on", to find it again, and sure enough we did. The deepest we found it was at 8145m, nearly 500m deeper than our personal record from the Japan Trench.

This of course means that our predictions were slightly wrong, but also makes it very exciting: there are still fish, and perhaps other things, down there to discover and this is what drives us to do more. Our work at the deepest place on Earth is not done yet.

Why we need to keep exploring

As much as we are excited about finds such as these, we are typically chased up by people who ask "why do we bother?", and add rather deflating comments such as "what benefit does this have to society?"

In response I explain that such exploration benefits responsible stewardship of the oceans. In the long term, conservation and maintenance of the our seas relies on us really understanding the ocean – that is, the ocean in its entirety from the surface to what lies beneath the deepest seafloor. The anthropocentric opinion of "out of sight, out of mind" simply doesn't cut it, and is sadly still common place.

Deep-sea divers: Stuart Piertney with colleague Thom Linley.

The deep ocean is far deeper than a person can dive to or fish from, but that doesn't mean that the things down there are of no consequence to society. We must not, however, confuse curiosity-driven exploration with the search for entertainment or stockpiling consumables.

We know that the deep sea is not exempt from a changing climate or man-made disturbances such as plastic pollution. The depths are intrinsically linked to processes in the upper ocean that we humans are continually meddling with.

Changes that happen in the upper ocean will have an effect on the largest habitat on Earth, yet people question why we study the deep sea. We say, how can we conserve the largest habitat on Earth if we know nothing about it? In the quest to understand the entire ocean, people have to study the shallow bits, the deepest bits and everything in-between.

The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

SEE ALSO: Scientists Have Explained The Origins Of A Mysterious Type Of Aurora

Join the conversation about this story »

Researchers Think Exoplanets Might Be Better At Creating Oceans Than Earth

$
0
0

cliff jumping ocean

New research suggests that some exoplanets are even better at establishing and maintaining oceans than our Earth. 

Oceans on super-Earths, exoplanets up to five times the mass, or 1.5 times the diameter, of our own planet, can last for billions of years, once they are established. 

A super-Earth is an extrasolar planet that is more massive than Earth, but less so than a gas giant like Uranus or Neptune, which hold up to 10 times the mass of our world. The first super-Earths to be found in a star's habitable zone, where liquid water could exist on a planet's surface, were discovered in 2007.

For other planets to develop life as we know it, those planets would need liquid water, or oceans. Geologic evidence suggests that Earth's oceans have existed for nearly the entire history of our world.

"When people consider whether a planet is in the habitable zone, they think about its distance from the star and its temperature. However, they should also think about oceans, and look at super-Earths to find a good sailing or surfing destination," says Laura Schaefer of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), and lead author of a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.

Earth is mostly rock and iron. Though water covers 70 per cent of Earth's surface, it makes up only about a tenth of a per cent of the planet's overall bulk.

"Earth's oceans are a very thin film, like fog on a bathroom mirror," explains study co-author Dimitar Sasselov (CfA).

However, studies have shown that Earth's water is not just on the surface. Our planet's mantle holds several oceans' worth of water. Earth maintains its oceans through planet-wide recycling as oceans are dragged underground by plate tectonics and subduction of the ocean seafloor, to return to the surface via volcanism (mainly at mid-ocean ridges). 

Schaefer's team used computer simulations to see if this recycling process would take place on super-Earths. They also studied how long it would take oceans to form after the planet cooled enough for its crust to solidify.

The team found that the oceans of super-Earths, two to four times the mass of Earth, would persist for at least 10 billion years (unless boiled away by an evolving red giant star).

The oceans on the largest planet (five times the mass of Earth) that the team studied didn't develop for about a billion years, due to a thicker crust and lithosphere that delayed the start of volcanic outgassing.

"This suggests that if you want to look for life, you should look at older super-Earths," Schaefer says.

"It takes time to develop the chemical processes for life on a global scale, and time for life to change a planet's atmosphere. So, it takes time for life to become detectable," added Sasselov.

According to the research, and assuming evolution takes place at a similar rate to Earth's, the search for complex life should begin on planets that are about five and a half billion years old, a billion years older than Earth.

Join the conversation about this story »

Crazy Clam Puts On A Light Show To Scare Off Predators

$
0
0

Many predators lurk in the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific Ocean, but the so-called disco clam has a flashy defense mechanism — a spectacular light show — to scare away potential threats.

These small, 2.8-inch-long (7 centimeters) clams have tiny shiny silica spheres in their lips that can reflect light and put on a glimmering underwater display. By studying the animal's flashes, researchers have determined that the disco clam (Ctenoides ales) may use this luminous ability to intimidate predators and attract light-loving prey, said the study's lead researcher Lindsey Dougherty, a doctoral candidate of marine biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Disco Clam

"When most people imagine clams, they imagine the things that make clam chowder," Dougherty said. "These clams are very different. They're reef-dwelling, they have bright-red tentacles, they have gills that stick out, they live in little crevasses [and] they are the only species of clam that flashes." [See video of a mantis shrimp trying to attack a disco clam]

disco clam cameraThe researchers placed the disco clams in an aquarium, and used a floating Styrofoam lid to mimic a looming predator, "which turned [out] to be very scary" for the clams, Dougherty told Live Science.

The clams' flash rate jumped from 1.5 times a second to 2.5 flashes a second when the lid was nearby, the researchers found. Disco clams may also use sulfuric acid to keep predators at bay, the scientists said.

Dougherty used calcium chloride, which makes a white precipitate in the presence of sulfuric acid. "I found about twice as much precipitate in the disturbed clam than in the calm clam that I just left alone," she said.

More tests are needed to verify that disco clams secrete sulfuric acid when threatened, but the defense is a common one among other marine creatures, including some snails and other clams.

The sulfuric acid could be a critical part of the clams' defense strategy. "If you're flashing and saying, 'I'm distasteful; don't eat me,' that's one thing, but you have to sort of back it up," with something like sulfuric acid, Dougherty said.

The one-two punch seemed to work wonders on a peacock mantis shrimp. At first, the mantis shrimp struggled to open the disco clam. But then, it suddenly recoiled and became went into a catatonic state, or a state of stupor, leaving the clam alone.

It usually takes a mantis shrimp about 45 minutes to crack open a clamshell, so "that is very strange behavior [for the mantis shrimp]," Dougherty said. "They're very aggressive critters, and to have a clam open and flashing, and the mantis shrimp not attacking, is very weird." [In Photos: Spooky Deep-Sea Creatures]

It's likely that the clam used sulfuric acid, or another irritating agent, to protect itself, Dougherty said.

Preliminary tests also showed that disco clams flash more times a second when prey, such as plankton, are nearby. But it's difficult to test the clam's eating habits in an artificial environment, so Dougherty and her colleagues plan to travel to Indonesia this year to study the disco clams in their natural ecosystem.

disco clam eyesAnother test found that, although the clams have about 40 tiny eyes, their vision likely isn't good enough to detect the flashing of other disco clams for mating purposes. Researchers think disco clams are born as males and then change into females as they age, but it's unlikely that the clams use their flashing light show to attract mates, she said.

"We did not find much chemical or visual attraction to one another, and research into their eyes suggests they may not be able to perceive the flashing in one another," Dougherty said.

The researchers also plan to study the origin of the tiny, reflective silica spheres in the disco clam's lips, and whether they come from ingested plankton, siliceous sponges or sand.

Dougherty's team may be the only group currently researching the disco clam, said Jeanne Serb, an associate professor of evolutionary biology at Iowa State University who was not involved with the study. Many people in the pet trade knew of the clam's light show, but "nobody knew why they did it or how they did this, and that's why Lindsey [Dougherty]'s work is so important," Serb said.

Many people have dismissed mollusks as "relatively simplistic" because they don't have heads, but research shows that they have complex behaviors and a unique set of genes, Serb said. For instance, the oyster genome has 28,027 genes, about a third of which are unique to the oyster, according to a 2012 study published in the journal Nature. Likewise, Serb found that a large portion of the DNA coding for the sea scallop's vision are unique to mollusks.

"What Lindsey's work is going to help with is, getting some focus on this large group of organisms that actually have lots of really strange and unusual functions and interesting traits," Serb said. "And I think this gets back to what is going on with their DNA."

The unpublished research was presented today (Jan. 4) at the 2015 annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Copyright 2015 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SEE ALSO: A Small Group of Humpback Whales In The Arabian Sea May Have Lived Alone For 70,000 Years

NOW READ: 17 Amazing Images Of Sea Creatures From The Bottom Of The Ocean

Join the conversation about this story »

Humans Are Damaging The High Seas — Now The Oceans Are Doing Harm Back

$
0
0

fishingAbout 3 billion people live within 100 miles (160km) of the sea, a number that could double in the next decade as humans flock to coastal cities like gulls. The oceans produce $3 trillion of goods and services each year and untold value for the Earth’s ecology. Life could not exist without these vast water reserves--and, if anything, they are becoming even more important to humans than before.

Mining is about to begin under the seabed in the high seas--the regions outside the exclusive economic zones administered by coastal and island nations, which stretch 200 nautical miles (370km) offshore. Nineteen exploratory licences have been issued. New summer shipping lanes are opening across the Arctic Ocean. The genetic resources of marine life promise a pharmaceutical bonanza: the number of patents has been rising at 12% a year. One study found that genetic material from the seas is a hundred times more likely to have anti-cancer properties than that from terrestrial life.

But these developments are minor compared with vaster forces reshaping the Earth, both on land and at sea. It has long been clear that people are damaging the oceans--witness the melting of the Arctic ice in summer, the spread of oxygen-starved dead zones and the death of coral reefs. Now, the consequences of that damage are starting to be felt onshore.

Thailand provides a vivid example. In the 1990s it cleared coastal mangrove swamps to set up shrimp farms. Ocean storm surges in 2011, no longer cushioned by the mangroves, rushed in to flood the country’s industrial heartland, causing billions of dollars of damage.

More serious is the global mismanagement of fish stocks. About 3 billion people get a fifth of their protein from fish, making it a more important protein source than beef. But a vicious cycle has developed as fish stocks decline and fishermen race to grab what they can of the remainder. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), a third of fish stocks in the oceans are over-exploited; some estimates say the proportion is more than half (see chart). One study suggested that stocks of big predatory species--such as tuna, swordfish and marlin--may have fallen by as much as 90% since the 1950s. People could be eating much better, were fishing stocks properly managed.

fishing

The forests are often called the lungs of the Earth, but the description better fits the oceans. They produce half the world’s supply of oxygen, mostly through photosynthesis by aquatic algae and other organisms. But according to a forthcoming report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; the group of scientists who advise governments on global warming), concentrations of chlorophyll (which helps makes oxygen) have fallen by 9-12% in 1998-2010 in the North Pacific, Indian and North Atlantic Oceans.

Climate change may be the reason. At the moment, the oceans are moderating the impact of global warming--though that may not last (see box on page 54). Warm water rises, so an increase in sea temperatures tends to separate cold and warm water into more distinct layers, with shallower mixed layers in between. That seems to lower the quantity of nutrients available for aquatic algae, and to lead to decreased chlorophyll concentrations. Changes in the oceans, therefore, may mean less oxygen will be produced.

This cannot be good news, though scientists are still debating the likely consequences. The world is not about to suffocate. But the result could be lower oxygen concentrations in the oceans and changes to the climate because the counterpart of less oxygen is more carbon--adding to the build-up of greenhouse gases. In short, the decades of damage wreaked on the oceans are now damaging the terrestrial environment.

A tragedy foretold

The oceans exemplify the "tragedy of the commons"--the depletion of commonly held property by individual users, who harm their own long-term interests as a result. For decades scientists warned that the European Union’s fishing quotas were too high, and for decades fishing lobbyists persuaded politicians to ignore them. Now what everyone knew would happen has happened: three-quarters of the fish stocks in European waters are over-exploited and some are close to collapse.

The salient feature of such a tragedy is that the full cost of damaging the system is not borne by those doing the damage. This is most obvious in fishing, but goes further. Invasive species of many kinds are moved around the world by human activity--and do an estimated $100 billion of damage to oceans each year. Farmers dump excess fertiliser into rivers, which finds its way to the sea; there cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) feed on the nutrients, proliferate madly and reduce oxygen levels, asphyxiating all sea creatures.

In 2008, there were over 400 "dead zones" in the oceans. Polluters pump out carbon dioxide, which dissolves in seawater, producing carbonic acid. That in turn has increased ocean acidity by over a quarter since the start of the Industrial Revolution. In 2012, scientists found pteropods (a kind of sea snail) in the Southern Ocean with partially dissolved shells.

It is sometimes possible to preserve commons by assigning private property rights over them, thus giving users a bigger stake in their long-term health. That is being tried in coastal and island nations’ exclusive economic zones. But it does not apply on the high seas. Under international law, fishing there is open to all and minerals count as "the common heritage of mankind". Here, a mishmash of international rules and institutions determines the condition of the watery commons.

Economist overfishing chart

The high seas are not ungoverned. Almost every country has ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which, in the words of Tommy Koh, president of UNCLOS in the 1980s, is "a constitution for the oceans". It sets rules for everything from military activities and territorial disputes (like those in the South China Sea) to shipping, deep-sea mining and fishing. Although it came into force only in 1994, it embodies centuries-old customary laws, including the freedom of the seas, which says the high seas are open to all. UNCLOS took decades to negotiate and is sacrosanct. Even America, which refuses to sign it, abides by its provisions.

But UNCLOS has significant faults. It is weak on conservation and the environment, since most of it was negotiated in the 1970s when these topics were barely considered. It has no powers to enforce or punish. America’s refusal to sign makes the problem worse: although it behaves in accordance with UNCLOS, it is reluctant to push others to do likewise.

Alphabet bouillabaisse

Specialised bodies have been set up to oversee a few parts of the treaty, such as the International Seabed Authority, which regulates mining beneath the high seas. But for the most part UNCLOS relies on member countries and existing organisations for monitoring and enforcement. The result is a baffling tangle of overlapping authorities (see diagram) that is described by the Global Ocean Commission, a new high-level lobby group, as a "co-ordinated catastrophe".

Individually, some of the institutions work well enough. The International Maritime Organisation, which regulates global shipping, keeps a register of merchant and passenger vessels, which must carry identification numbers. The result is a reasonably law-abiding global industry. It is also responsible for one of the rare success stories of recent decades, the standards applying to routine and accidental discharges of pollution from ships. But even it is flawed. The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, a German think-tank, rates it as the least transparent international organisation. And it is dominated by insiders: contributions, and therefore influence, are weighted by tonnage.

Other institutions look good on paper but are untested. This is the case with the seabed authority, which has drawn up a global regime for deep-sea mining that is more up-to-date than most national mining codes. For once, therefore, countries have settled the rules before an activity gets under way, rather than trying to catch up when the damage starts, as happened with fishing.

The problem here is political rather than regulatory: how should mining revenues be distributed? Deep-sea minerals are supposed to be "the common heritage of mankind". Does that mean everyone is entitled to a part? And how to share it out?

The biggest failure, though, is in the regulation of fishing. Overfishing does more damage to the oceans than all other human activities there put together. In theory, high-seas fishing is overseen by an array of regional bodies. Some cover individual species, such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT, also known as the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna). Others cover fishing in a particular area, such as the north-east Atlantic or the South Pacific Oceans. They decide what sort of fishing gear may be used, set limits on the quantity of fish that can be caught and how many ships are allowed in an area, and so on.

Here, too, there have been successes. Stocks of north-east Arctic cod are now the highest of any cod species and the highest they have been since 1945--even though the permitted catch is also at record levels. This proves it is possible to have healthy stocks and a healthy fishing industry. But it is a bilateral, not an international, achievement: only Norway and Russia capture these fish and they jointly follow scientists’ advice about how much to take.

Economist overfishing chart 2

There has also been some progress in controlling the sort of fishing gear that does the most damage. In 1991 the UN banned drift nets longer than 2.5km (these are nets that hang down from the surface; some were 50km long). A series of national and regional restrictions in the 2000s placed limits on "bottom trawling" (hoovering up everything on the seabed)--which most people at the time thought unachievable.

But the overall record is disastrous. Two-thirds of fish stocks on the high seas are over-exploited--twice as much as in parts of oceans under national jurisdiction. Illegal and unreported fishing is worth $10 billion-24 billion a year--about a quarter of the total catch. According to the World Bank, the mismanagement of fisheries costs $50 billion or more a year, meaning that the fishing industry would reap at least that much in efficiency gains if it were properly managed.

Most regional fishery bodies have too little money to combat illegal fishermen. They do not know how many vessels are in their waters because there is no global register of fishing boats. Their rules only bind their members; outsiders can break them with impunity. An expert review of ICCAT, the tuna commission, ordered by the organisation itself concluded that it was "an international disgrace". A survey by the FAO found that over half the countries reporting on surveillance and enforcement on the high seas said they could not control vessels sailing under their flags. Even if they wanted to, then, it is not clear that regional fishery bodies or individual countries could make much difference.

But it is far from clear that many really want to. Almost all are dominated by fishing interests. The exceptions are the organisation for Antarctica, where scientific researchers are influential, and the International Whaling Commission, which admitted environmentalists early on. Not by coincidence, these are the two that have taken conservation most seriously.

Empty promises

Countries could do more to stop vessels suspected of illegal fishing from docking in their harbours--but they don’t. The FAO’s attempt to set up a voluntary register of high-seas fishing boats has been becalmed for years. The UN has a fish-stocks agreement that imposes stricter demands than regional fishery bodies. It requires signatories to impose tough sanctions on ships that break the rules. But only 80 countries have ratified it, compared with the 165 parties to UNCLOS. One study found that 28 nations, which together account for 40% of the world’s catch, are failing to meet most of the requirements of an FAO code of conduct which they have signed up to.

It is not merely that particular institutions are weak. The system itself is dysfunctional. There are organisations for fishing, mining and shipping, but none for the oceans as a whole. Regional seas organisations, whose main responsibility is to cut pollution, generally do not cover the same areas as regional fishery bodies, and the two rarely work well together. (In the north-east Atlantic, the one case where the boundaries coincide, they have done a lot.) Dozens of organisations play some role in the oceans (including 16 in the UN alone) but the outfit that is supposed to co-ordinate them, called UN-Oceans, is an ad-hoc body without oversight authority. There are no proper arrangements for monitoring, assessing or reporting on how the various organisations are doing--and no one to tell them if they are failing.

Pressure for change is finally building up. According to David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary who is now co-chairman of the Global Ocean Commission, the current mess is a "terrible betrayal" of current and future generations. "We need a new approach to the economics and governance of the high seas," he says.

That could take different forms. Environmentalists want a moratorium on overfished stocks, which on the high seas would mean most of them. They also want regional bodies to demand impact assessments before issuing fishing licences. The UN Development Programme says rich countries should switch some of the staggering $35 billion a year they spend subsidising fishing on the high seas (through things like cheap fuel and vessel-buy-back programmes) to creating marine reserves--protected areas like national parks.

Galapagos marine reserve

Others focus on institutional reform. The European Union and 77 developing countries want an "implementing agreement" to strengthen the environmental and conservation provisions of UNCLOS. They had hoped to start what will doubtless be lengthy negotiations at a UN conference in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. But opposition from Russia and America forced a postponement; talks are now supposed to start by August 2015.

Still others say that efforts should be concentrated on improving the regional bodies, by giving them more money, greater enforcement powers and mandates that include the overall health of their bits of the ocean. The German Advisory Council on Global Change, a think-tank set up by the government, argues for an entirely new UN body, a World Oceans Organisation, which it hopes would increase awareness of ocean mismanagement among governments, and simplify and streamline the current organisational tangle.

According to Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2009, to avoid a tragedy of the commons requires giving everyone entitled to use them a say in running them; setting clear boundaries to keep out those who are not entitled; appointing monitors who are trusted by users; and having straightforward mechanisms to resolve conflicts. At the moment, the governance of the high seas meets none of those criteria.

Changes to high-seas management would still do nothing for two of the worst problems, both caused on land: acidification and pollution. But they are the best and perhaps only hope of improving the condition of half of the Earth’s surface.

Click here to subscribe to The Economist.

This article was from The Economist and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

Join the conversation about this story »

This Amazing Chart Shows How Big The Biggest Animals In The Ocean Get

$
0
0

Just how big are the biggest creatures in the ocean? Researchers from around the US and Canada have been trying to figure that out, and they've emerged with some illuminating results.

In a paper published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ, the researchers analyzed data on the body sizes of some of the largest animals in the sea. This handy chart, made to accompany the research, helps put it all into perspective. (If you have trouble reading the graphic, click here to see the full-sized version at PeerJ.)

Marine_megafauna_Infographic_2In each row, the human is scaled for comparison with the sea creatures described. The ocean's most impressive giants are shown in the top row — next to the 108-foot blue whale, the diver is like an insect:

Blue WhaleThe project started as a way to correct some misconceptions about the size of certain sea creatures. "Several years ago I noticed that people kept staying that giant squids reached 60 feet in length, which is amazingly long," said Craig McClain, assistant director of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, N.C., and the paper's lead author, in a statement. "When I started actually looking at the data, I found that that estimate was actually quite unrealistic."

blue whale underwaterMcClain and his team settled on a list of animals whose sizes are commonly misreported. Once the researchers got to work, they used all available sources of data for their analyses.

"This included finding data through literature searches via Google Scholar and Web of Science, fisheries data and governmental reports, stranding data, museum records and specimens, online auctions and sales, and personal communications with scientists conducting research on the organisms examined here," the authors wrote.

As it turns out, the largest known giant squid was about 40 feet long — not 60. Other species the researchers investigated included the lion's mane jellyfish (120 feet), whale shark (61.68 feet), the oarfish (26.25 feet), the Japanese spider crab (12.14 feet), and the giant clam (4.5 feet).

Many of these creatures are rare, or at least rarely observed — which may be one reason their sizes are so often misreported.

But they do surface occasionally. In October 2013, for instance, several elusive oarfish washed up on the California coast, making headlines. Although not quite 26 feet long, they still packed a substantial punch with one measuring in at 18 feet and the other a respectable 14 feet.

oarfish1920And last year, scientists dissected the only intact colossal squid specimen— a different, slightly smaller species than the giant squid — ever to be hauled from the ocean. That specimen, pulled from the Ross Sea off the coast of Antarctica, measured in at about 11.5 feet, although the researchers in the size study found that the largest ever observed was nearly 14 feet long.

Here's how those giant sea animals and their relatives actually stack up against humans:

giant squid, giant octopus, oarfish and human size comparison. Having more information about an animal's body size can help scientists make better inferences about its biology, the authors of the size study write.

For example, they explain, scientists believe the giant squid's body size may be decreasing due to the warming climate and overfishing by humans. Knowing its largest historical size is important for future comparisons.

IN PICTURES: 23 Fantastic Images Of The Incredibly Weird Things In The Ocean

NOW READ: Giant Eyes And Hooked Tentacles: Meet The Colossal Squid

Join the conversation about this story »

All Of These Beautiful Islands Will Be Destroyed By Rising Sea Levels

$
0
0

Solomon Islands

Climate change will have many devastating effects related to changes in weather patterns, but the greatest damage will be caused by rising sea levels — and nowhere is poised to suffer from this more than inhabited islands that will soon be underwater.

Global sea levels have risen by about 20 centimeters since 1870, and according to models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they could rise by another meter or more by the end of the century.

"No one better understands the grave risks posed by climate change than [Small Island Developing States]," said Baron Waqa, president of the Republic of Nauvu and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), at the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit in New York City. "Climate change and sea level rise are already threatening our viability and even our existence as sovereign nations."

The world's 52 island nations — home to an estimated 62 million people — are slowly being swept away by sea-level rise.

Source: United Nations Environment Programme



Depending on regional influences, like nearby melting glaciers, ocean currents, and even tectonic activity, sea-level rise can happen at different rates in different areas. The UN reports that sea-level rise on these islands is up to four times the global average, and it's already driving inhabitants away from their homes.

Source: United Nations Environment Programme 



This map shows the average annual sea-level rise for various Pacific islands between 1992 and 2010. You can see how variable these measurements are: The increase is 2.6 millimeters off the coast of Kiribati, but is nearly 17 mm in Micronesia.

Source: Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A Top Chinese Scientist Wants To Build The World's First Deep-Sea Commercial Fleet

$
0
0

Chinese Submersible Jialong 5 kilometers deep depth Pacific Ocean

A top scientist who pioneered China's record-breaking manned deep-sea submersible, the Jiaolong, hopes once again to boldly go where no man has gone before.

But this time, Professor Cui Weicheng goes not in search of national glory, but of commercial enterprise.

Cui, the first deputy chief designer of the Jiaolong, became a national hero in 2012 when the three-person vessel set a record by descending almost 7km into the Pacific Ocean.

The descent gained China entry to an exclusive group of five nations capable of sending manned vessels below 3,500 metres and prompted state media to compare the venture to the nation's more glamorous space mission.

So it came as a surprise to many when Cui left the Jiaolong project to join a little-known startup registered in Hong Kong with an ambitious goal - to build the world's first commercial deep-sea submersible fleet.

But Cui is candid about his motivations for giving up his well-funded government job for the high-risk venture.

"Profit," says Cui, with the enthusiasm one might expect had the Jiaolong just discovered a previously unknown deep sea creature.

He is confident the private company can put together the talent and resources to build a fleet capable of reaching anywhere in the ocean. And he's equally sure there will be sufficient commercial demand.

The fleet's first vessel, the Rainbow Fish, is scheduled to launch in 2019. Designed to reach depths of 11,000 metres, it will be able to visit the still unexplored deepest trenches of the oceans and dive deeper than any other vessel currently in use.

Cui envisages that the vessel will eventually be part of a fleet containing a large mother-ship fitted with several ultra-deep landers (unmanned devices a little like underwater elevators that are tethered to the ship) as well as manned and unmanned submersibles.

The landers will be used to study fixed spots while the submersibles will move about freely and be fitted with high definition cameras and robotic arms. All will be capable of reaching depths of 11km - equivalent to the deepest part of the oceans, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

Rainbow Fish Deep Sea Vessel China Infographic Mariana Trench 11 kilometersCui has already raised 300 million yuan (HK$379 million) for the project, mostly from private investors in Jiangsu - China's richest province, where businessmen are notorious for their prudence. He needs a further 200 million yuan and is looking for more investors, including those based in Hong Kong.

While some may question whether the project more closely resembles science fiction than a sensible investment plan, Cui is sure he will strike gold.

"When the Rainbow Fish is finished, we will rent the platform to the Chinese government. The demand for deep sea exploration equipment and services is strong, and growing," he says. "We will charge a reasonable fee which will generate a reasonable profit for our investors."

In recent years China has adopted an aggressive strategy of scouting the sea bed for energy and mineral resources such as copper. The Jiaolong is already fully booked with assignments for Beijing and Cui projects that the cost of that project - less than 500 million yuan - will be recovered in "just a few years".

Chinese Submersible Vessel Jialong 5 kilometers deep depth Pacific OceanIndeed, the Jiaolong's success provided a key incentive for Cui's departure from the project as he sought a new challenge.

While the Jiaolong is for the exclusive use of the Chinese government, Cui plans to make the Rainbow Fish available to other countries, too.

"The international demand will be considerable because no other platform can go as deeply as we do, and we can do a lot of things, from collecting biological samples to looking for missing airplanes," says Cui.

Tourists could provide another source of fat wallets.

Some foreign commercial companies have already started taking tourists down to the sea bed - although in relatively shallow waters - for sight seeing and for the thrill of experiencing an alien environment.

"Many Chinese entrepreneurs are fond of adventures, and they can afford the tickets," notes Cui.

Chinese Submersible Vessel Jialong 5 kilometers deep depth Pacific Ocean CreatureWith support from Shanghai's municipal government, Cui's company has established a research facility at Shanghai Ocean University to design and build Rainbow Fish.

The Hadal Science and Technology Research Centre at SOU was named after the Hadal zone, a term used by scientists for the parts of ocean deeper than 6km.

The centre will outsource the manufacture of critical components, such as hulls, from leading companies around the world.

Though design and assembly will take place in China, engineers will use parts from the United States, Europe and Russia as well as China - much as the International Space Station was a worldwide collaboration.

"It will be open to scientists around the globe so we can work together on some of the most intriguing and important issues to the human race," Cui says.

When construction is complete, Rainbow Fish will be capable of studying such deep topics as whether life on Earth originated in the oceans' trenches - a belief increasingly held by the mainstream scientific community after the discovery of ancient microorganisms on the sea bed.

"The sea trench is a paradise for strange, mysterious life forms. Some species could have stayed there and evolved for hundreds of millions of years without any contact with the world outside," says Cui. "If Chinese scientists are to make ground breaking discoveries, these are the last untapped zones on this planet."

He says the company is in a race against time to finish construction by 2019 and to help protect the deep sea environment.

"We must reach there and reveal the full picture of biodiversity in the ocean before the miners bring in their machines," he says. "Only with solid evidence can we argue with business and government for environmental protection in the deep. The Rainbow Fish is not built for the purpose of exploitation, but conservation."

Professor Yin Jianqiang, a marine biologist with China Academy of Sciences' South China Sea Institute of Oceanology who recently discovered a new species of shrimp, says deep sea exploration is important because "we know basically nothing about what's down there".

Manned or robotic submersibles have reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench only four times since the 1960s, with each journey limited to a small area with few samples.

Yin accepts that such projects are capital intensive and there are no guarantees of profit.

"It is unlikely that you will go down there and discover a gold mine. Scientific research usually does not generate sufficient, immediate profit to cover the cost, which can grow exponentially with the depth," he says. "The government should play a bigger role in such projects. They can afford it."

The key question for investors is: will there be gold at the end of the Rainbow Fish?

Join the conversation about this story »

2014 Was The Hottest Year Humans Have Ever Seen — And El Nino Is Set To Make 2015 Even Hotter

$
0
0

australia drought hottest year

It's confirmed: 2014 produced the highest global temperatures since records began in the 1880s. As if that's not cause enough for concern, this year threatens to see the return of El Niño, which like some enraged climate-driven Godzilla, could emerge from the depths of the South Pacific and lay waste to entire regions.

While the effects can be felt around the world, it is nations bordering the Pacific that are most affected by this natural phenomenon which puts parts of the Earth's climate into reverse. Rain that would have fallen in northern Australia and Southeast Asia falls instead on the west coast of the Americas. Messing with the hydrological cycle can cause both major droughts and floods on different continents. El Niño can at the same cause crops to fail because of lack of rainfall while on the other side of the world wash away entire communities.

El Niño and La Niña are the two opposing phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which is the name given to the phenomenon of regular and sometimes large annual variations in sea surface temperatures, air pressure and rainfall. El Niño is characterised by significant warming of portions of the Pacific while La Niña sees lower temperatures in these waters.

During an El Niño event, sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial regions of the Pacific increase significantly. This weakens the trade winds that blow westwards across the South Pacific. One result of this is that the warm waters that were previously concentrated into an area of the south west Pacific towards Australasia spread out eastwards across the whole ocean. This delivers a pulse of heat from the seas to the atmosphere.

El NinoIt is no coincidence that previous temperature records have been broken during El Niño years. One of the most significant El Niño events in the 20th century happened over 1997-98 and 1998 was, until last week, the hottest year ever. It hasn't escaped people's attention that 2014 snatched the title even without a helping hand from an El Niño.

This year we may well find out what El Niño-assisted temperatures might be like as a number of meteorological agencies are giving about a 60% chance for El Niño over the northern hemisphere winter in 2015, perhaps persisting until spring. This estimate is based on something called the Oceanic Niño Index which is a measurement of temperature anomalies in three regions of the equatorial Pacific. If this is greater than 0.5°C for three consecutive months then alarm bells start ringing.

That temperature change may not sound much, but a lot of energy is required to increase the temperature of billions of litres of water by even half a degree. Water stores an immense amount of heat compared with air such that it takes 1,000 times more energy to heat a cubic metre of water by 1°C as it does the same volume of air. Next time you boil the kettle, watch the electricity meter whizz round for a sense of this energy cost.

The bottom of the oceans are cold, approximately 4°C three kilometres down. That represents a massive heat sink in which to hide extra energy from the surface. Since the 1970s, more than 90% of the additional heat due to higher greenhouse gas levels has been absorbed into the oceans. Some have argued that avoiding certain changes in ocean heat content is a more useful safeguard against dangerous climate change than the currently employed 2°C threshold of surface warming.

Given their importance to climate dynamics, understanding what is going on in the oceans is vital if we are to produce useful scenarios for future climate change. Research published in the journal Science last year proposed the hypothesis that more heat is being drawn down into the ocean depths rather than warming the Earth's surface, perhaps explaining the global warming "hiatus" observed since 1998. The record breaking 1997-98 El Niño may even have been an important driver of this large scale change in ocean currents.

Does that mean there are reasons for optimism? Could a form of negative feedback be operating whereby higher surface temperatures lead to more heat being transferred from the surface to the ocean depths? Would this produce a braking effect on temperature increases? I think it's fair to say this would have to be pure speculation. Climate-ocean dynamics are too complex to be able to discern such a process right now.

What is certain is that there are large changes occurring in the amount of energy in the Earth's oceans. One way or another this will have an effect on atmospheric processes and us surface dwellers.

It's also worth remembering that since 1998 there has been a steady increase in both sea levels and ocean acidity while glaciers have continued to retreat.

El Nino 2The El Niño Southern Oscillation brings climate change into focus because it can produce such large and sudden changes in the weather. Current assessments are that an El Niño this year would likely be quite weak and nothing like the titan of 1997-98. The beast may continue to slumber. But unless there have been dramatic and long lasting changes to the El Niño Southern Oscillation, it will inevitably rise up and issue a roar that will be heard around the world.

For now, satellites peer down and monitor surface temperatures while arrays of buoys sample a range of parameters under the water. Fingers crossed they don't detect a monstrous shape forming any time soon.

The ConversationThis article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

SEE ALSO: It's Shocking What's Happening To Sea Ice In The Arctic

Join the conversation about this story »

This Insane Video Of What Happens When You Strap A Camera To A Human-Sized Squid

$
0
0

Humboldt Squid crittercam National Geographic

Researchers working out of California's Monterey Bay have released footage from their use of "Crittercams" attached to one of the Pacific Ocean's most elusive creatures: the Humboldt squid.

Also known as the jumbo flying squid, the cephalopod can grow to more than six feet in length and about a hundred pounds in weight. The Humboldt squid has eight arms, two tooth-studded tentacles, and a parrot-like beak for breaking up prey.

Anecdotes and studies have even found the squid to cannibalize: A marine biologist working out of Mexico analyzed the stomach contents of more than 500 Humboldt squid, and found evidence that they'd eaten their peers in a quarter of those cases.

The Crittercam was made by National Geographic to offer "rare views of the private lives of animals."

In this case, the technology was attached to an off-the-shelf swim shirt that researchers at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California then put over the squid's main part — sometimes known as the "tube." Researchers attracted the squid with glowing jig, capturing three of them before fitting them with cameras.

Humboldt squid hunt in shoals as many as 1,200 strong, so the usable footage — of which researchers got about an hour — provides some rich (and pretty scary) moments of the tentacled predators interacting with one another. One of the three squid was released with a light to capture footage at night, which attracted attacks from its peers, Rosen said.

Humboldt Squid toothed tentacles dark

One topic of curiosity is their communication system. The Humboldt squid is capable of quickly changing the color of its skin thanks to special cells called chromatophores, which is Greek for "color-bearing." The center of each chromatophore contains a small sac of variously colored fluid. The squid flexes certain muscles to change its color and pattern.

The footage here is black and white, but it's still plain to see that the Humboldt squid can change colors in the blink of an eye. Here a few specimen flash from white (their color at rest) to red.

Squid Flashing Chameleon Stanford Monterey

"The color of their muscle is actually white underneath their skin, so when they relax the chromatophores that's actually the muscle underneath," Hannah Rosen, one of the authors of a study analyzing the footage, told Business Insider.

Rosen calls any conclusions on what the creatures are "saying" speculative, but the researchers are confident that it is indeed a form of communication, "simply because it's such an attention grabbing display, and we only ever observed it with other squid nearby," she said.

The National Geographic's presentation of the research reports that the Humboldt squid's color changes could serve to assert dominance, attract mates, or even (as the study suggests) mimic the "reflections of down-welled light in the water column" as a means to camouflage.

Humboldt Squid footage Stanford researchers CrittercamFuture studies using the Crittercam could reveal more about the Humboldt squid. The Smithsonian National Zoological Park, for instance, notes that the creature's eggs have never been observed in nature.

"It's kind of a win win for the both of us," Rosen said about her team's use of National Geographic's camera, "because we get some great data for science and they get good footage."

The whole video is just incredible. See it below, or scoot on over to National Geographic

SEE ALSO: This Amazing Chart Shows How Big The Biggest Animals In The Ocean Get

SEE ALSO: 23 Fantastic Images Of The Incredibly Weird Things In The Ocean

Join the conversation about this story »

Ocean temperatures are so high NOAA had to make new charts

$
0
0

atlantic ocean

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had to redesign a graph of ocean heat content last week because data collected by the agency went off the charts.

The graph's upper bound was raised 25 percent in order to plot the rise in the amount of energy stored in the oceans, an event triggered by increasing amounts of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

It's not the first time the agency was forced to revise the size of its graphs.

NOAA has amended charts three other times, including once for sea level rise, since they began posting them in 2008.

"The ocean is in a state that has never previously been observed," Amy Clement, Associate Dean and Professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, told VICE News. "We're in unchartered waters."

According to research published by NOAA scientists in 2012, the spike in ocean heat content from 1955 to 2012 was around 24 x 10^22 Joules.

That's 2,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules.

NOAA Ocean temperature chart VICEFor perspective, if that amount of heat were transferred to the lower six miles of the atmosphere, temperatures would rise about 36 degrees Celsius (65 Fahrenheit).

The importance of the updated NOAA data, however, is less in the fact that the agency had to adjust its charts. Instead, say scientists, the new high temperature illustrates the dramatic warming of the oceans, which is frequently overlooked, with much greater attention being paid to atmospheric temperature increase.

Oceans can absorb about 1,000 times more heat than the atmosphere. At least 90 percent of extra heat trapped by human-generated greenhouse gases can be found in the world's oceans.

According to Clement, that makes NOAA's ocean heat content graph, which tracks warming from the surface down to a depth of 2000 meters (6562 feet), "the best measure" of the extent of global warming.

"It takes a lot more energy to heat water than to heat air," Jennifer Francis a climate scientist at Rutgers University, told VICE News. "The steady upward climb of deep ocean temperature is staggering. And nothing other than increased greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels can explain it."

heat_content2000mThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration updated its graph in order to accommodate rising ocean heat content.

"Oceans are always moving, not only horizontally, but vertically," NOAA oceanographer John Leslie, who believes the media and public focus too much on surface temperature, told VICE News. "This has the effect of removing the radiatively-heated water from the surface to the interior of the ocean and away from the influence of the surface, in effect sequestering heat."

A mean temperature rise of just 0.1 degrees Celsius in oceans corresponds to a temperature increase of 100 degrees Celsius in the atmosphere if all the heat associated with the ocean anomaly was transferred into the atmosphere.

"This is physically impossible," Leslie said. "It just illustrates the oceans' capacity to store heat."

Even with record levels of ocean heat content, though, there still might be a slight underestimating of ocean warming because the estimates neglect input below 2000 meters, Leslie said.

NOAA monitors ocean conditions with an array of satellites, balloons, buoys, and ships. Water temperatures are taken by a network of diving buoys managed by Argo, an international ocean-observing collaborative among 45 countries. Currently, there are more than 3,750 color- and country-coded Argo buoys collecting data from the ocean's surface to 2,000 meters deep worldwide.

The rise in ocean heat content is also significant because there El Nino conditions have occurred since 2010. El Nino is characterized as unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

el nino"The next El Nino will most likely cause another broken record, probably broken by a large margin," said Francis.

"Right now the warming is happening between 10 and 100 times faster than at any other time in the past 800,000 years," Chris Langdon, a marine biology and ecology professor at the University of Miami, told VICE News.

That spells big trouble for sea life, he said.

"Each year the oceans are becoming warmer and more acidic and that's stressful for many forms of marine organisms. The rates of change now are so fast they may not have time to evolve.

"We won't be certain until it's a little too late to do something about it," Langdon added.

Follow Erica K. Landau on Twitter: @ericakland

SEE ALSO: 2014 Was The Hottest Year Humans Have Ever Seen — And El Nino Is Set To Make 2015 Even Hotter

Join the conversation about this story »

Hundreds of manatees invaded and shut down a Florida wildlife refuge

$
0
0

manatee 2

A wildlife refuge in Florida experienced one of the most adorable wildlife invasions ever this week.

Three Sisters Springs, a complex of warm-water springs in Crystal River, Fla., had to close their doors on Monday, Feb. 2, even parts of Feb. 3 as well, after being swarmed by more than 300 manatees, according to Tampa Bay's WTSP-TV.

The springs are a natural refuge for these marine giants, many of whom migrate up from the Gulf of Mexico each fall to feed and rest in the warm waters. The springs are part of Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, and also a popular attraction for tourists, who visit to view the gentle, slow-moving animals. At Three Sisters Springs, visitors can swim, canoe, or walk along the water's edge to observe the manatees.

When more than 300 manatees suddenly moved into the narrow springs, likely swimming in from nearby Kings Bay, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked the park to close for the manatees' protection.

The incident isn't necessarily unusual, says Kimberly Sykes, assistant manager of the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. High volumes of manatees periodically move into the springs during cold weather events, where they rest and recharge in the warm waters.

Manatees

"Because manatees don’t have any blubber to help them stay warm, they have to come into these warm water springs to stay warm," she says. " If not, they could get cold-stress and die."

It's a typical Fish and Wildlife policy to shut down the area when large numbers of manatees are resting there, Sykes says. It's already happened a few times in Crystal River this season. And 300 manatees isn't the largest number she's see in the springs, either. "We've recorded over 580 in the springs at one time," she says.

Manatees are protected in the US under the Endangered Species Act, and keeping their habitat safe is a priority for Florida wildlife managers. Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge

With the park accommodating hundreds of visitors at a time — on Dec. 27, one of the busiest days of the year, there were 842 swimmers and 340 boaters at the springs, according to Sykes — closing the area during a manatee rush is essential to protecting the endangered animals from boisterous tourists and allowing them the space they need to rest and get warm.

Manatees

There's no "cut-off number" of manatees that need to come in before the area closes, Sykes adds. The call is made on a case-by-case basis and depends also on temperature, weather, visibility in the springs, and a variety of other factors.

On Tuesday, Feb. 3, for instance, the area reopened at 10 a.m., but was closed again at 2 p.m. It opened again Wednesday, Feb. 4 at 10 a.m., and Sykes expects it to stay open all day, but manatees can be unpredictable. "We're just assessing it on a daily basis," she says.

SEE ALSO: 76 beavers were forced to skydive into the Idaho wilderness in 1948

NOW READ: Bears in New Hampshire are dying from chocolate overdoses

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Research Reveals Why Men Cheat, And It's Not What You Think

Two shark attacks in Australia leave 1 dead and 1 injured

$
0
0

shark mouth

A person has reportedly died following a shark attack at Shelly Beach, Ballina, on the New South Wales far north coast

NSW Ambulance media said paramedics are on the scene treating the person, who was described as in a critical condition, but has subsequently died.

The beach has been closed.

The latest attack comes just 24 hours after a surfer was bitten by a 2-metre shark at Seven Mile Beach, south of Byron Bay on Sunday morning

Chef Jabez Reitman, 35, had puncture wounds in his buttocks and injuries to his back after the attack, 60 metres offshore, around 6.45am.

He paddled to shore and went to Byron Bay hospital before being transferred to the Gold Coast University Hospital for surgery.

 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists Discovered What Actually Wiped Out The Mayan Civilization

The world's oceans are getting clogged with millions of tons of plastic trash

$
0
0

Volunteers collect garbage along the shore off Manila Bay, during an environmental project marking World Oceans Day in Paranaque, Metro Manila in this June 8, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's oceans are clogged with plastic debris, but how much of it finds its way into the seas annually? Enough to place the equivalent of five grocery bags full of plastic trash on every foot (30 cm) of every nation's coastline around the globe.

That's according to scientists who released research on Thursday estimating that a staggering 8 million metric tones of plastic pollution enter the oceans each year from the world's 192 coastal countries based on 2010 data.

Based on rising waste levels, they estimated that more than 9 million tons would end up in the oceans in 2015.

Experts have sounded the alarm in recent years over how plastic pollution is killing huge numbers of seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles and other creatures while sullying ocean ecosystems.

China was responsible for the most ocean plastic pollution per year with an estimated 2.4 million tons, about 30 percent of the global total, followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria and Bangladesh.

The United States was the only rich industrialized nation in the top 20, and it ranked No. 20. Coastal EU nations combined would rank 18th.

The trash encompasses just about anything imaginable made of plastic including shopping bags, bottles, toys, food wrappers, fishing gear, cigarette filters, sunglasses, buckets and toilet seats.

"In short, you name it and it is probably somewhere in the marine environment," said Kara Lavender Law, a research professor of oceanography with the Massachusetts-based Sea Education Association.

The estimates were based on information including World Bank data for trash generated per person in all nations with a coastline, coastal population density, the amount of plastic waste countries produce and the quality of their waste-management practices.

"I think this is a wake-up call for how much waste we produce," said University of Georgia environmental engineering professor Jenna Jambeck.

The researchers calculated that 275 million tons of plastic waste was generated in the 192 coastal countries that year, with an estimated 8 million tons entering the ocean and a possible range between 4.8 million and 12.7 million tons.

"The most pressing need is to capture plastic waste to prevent it from entering the environment," Law said. "This means investing in waste management infrastructure, especially in those countries with rapidly developing economies."

"In high-income countries, we also have a responsibility to reduce the amount of waste, especially plastic waste, that we produce," she added.

The research was published in the journal Science.

(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists Discovered What Actually Wiped Out The Mayan Civilization


Humans are dumping 8 million metric tons of plastic into the ocean every year

$
0
0

plastic ocean

You might have heard the oceans are full of plastic, but how full exactly? Around 8 million metric tonnes go into the oceans each year, according to the first rigorous global estimate published in Science today.

That's equivalent to 16 shopping bags full of plastic for every metre of coastline (excluding Antarctica). By 2025 we will be putting enough plastic in the ocean (on our most conservative estimates) to cover 5% of the earth's entire surface in cling film each year.

Around a third of this likely comes from China, and 10% from Indonesia. In fact all but one of the top 20 worst offenders are developing nations, largely due to fast-growing economies but poor waste management systems.

However, people in the United States – coming in at number 20 and producing less than 1% of global waste – produce more than 2.5 kg of plastic waste each day, more than twice the amount of people in China.

While the news for us, our marine wildlife, seabirds, and fisheries is not good, the research paves the way to improve global waste management and reduce plastic in the waste stream.

Follow the plastic

Ocean PlasticAn international team of experts analysed 192 countries bordering the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Mediterranean and Black Seas. By examining the amount of waste produced per person per year in each country, the percentage of that waste that's plastic, and the percentage of that plastic waste that is mismanaged, the team worked out the likely worst offenders for marine plastic waste.

In 2010, 270 million tonnes of plastic was produced around the world. This translated to 275 million tonnes of plastic waste; 99.5 million tonnes of which was produced by the two billion people living within 50 km of a coastline. Because some durable items such as refrigerators produced in the past are also thrown away, we can find more waste than plastic produced at times.

Of that, somewhere between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes found its way into the ocean. Given how light plastic is, this translates to an unimaginably large volume of debris.

While plastic can make its way into oceans from land-locked countries via rivers, these were excluded in the study, meaning the results are likely a conservative estimate.

With our planet still 85 years away from "peak waste"— and with plastic production skyrocketing around the world — the amount of plastic waste getting into the oceans is likely to increase by an order of magnitude within the next decade.

Our recent survey of the Australian coastline found three-quarters of coastal rubbish is plastic, averaging more than 6 pieces per meter of coastline. Offshore, we found densities from a few thousand pieces of plastic to more than 40,000 pieces per square kilometre in the waters around the continent.

Where is the plastic going?

dead birds filled with plasticWhile we now have a rough figure for the amount of plastic rubbish in the world's oceans, we still know very little about where it all ends up (it isn't all in the infamous "Pacific Garbage Patch").

Between 6,350 and 245,000 metric tons of plastic waste is estimated to float on the ocean's surface, which raises the all-important question: where does the rest of it end up?

Some, like the plastic microbeads found in many personal care products, ends up in the oceans and sediments where they can be ingested by bottom-dwelling creatures and filter-feeders.

It's unclear where the rest of the material is. It might be deposited on coastal margins, or maybe it breaks down into fragments so small we can't detect it, or maybe it is in the guts of marine wildlife.

Wherever it ends up, plastic has enormous potential for destruction. Ghost nets and fishing debris snag and drown turtles, seals, and other marine wildlife. In some cases, these interactions have big impacts.

For instance, we estimate that around 10,000 turtles have been trapped by derelict nets in Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria region alone.

More than 690 marine species are known to interact with marine litter. Turtles mistake floating plastic for jellyfish, and globally around one-third of all turtles are estimated to have eaten plastic in some form. Likewise seabirds eat everything from plastic toys, nurdles and balloon shreds to foam, fishing floats and glow sticks.

While plastic is prized for its durability and inertness, it also acts as a chemical magnet for environmental pollutants such as metals, fertilisers, and persistent organic pollutants. These are adsorbed onto the plastic. When an animal eats the plastic "meal," these chemicals make their way into their tissues and — in the case of commercial fish species — can make it onto our dinner plates.

Plastic waste is the scourge of our oceans; killing our wildlife, polluting our beaches, and threatening our food security. But there are solutions – some of which are simple, and some a bit more challenging.

Solutions

If the top five plastic-polluting countries – China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka – managed to achieve a 50% improvement in their waste management — for example by investing in waste management infrastructure, the total global amount of mismanaged waste would be reduced by around a quarter.

Higher-income countries have equal responsibility to reduce the amount of waste produced per person through measures such as plastic recycling and reuse, and by shifting some of the responsibility for plastic waste back onto the producers.

The simplest and most effective solution might be to make the plastic worth money. Deposits on beverage containers for instance, have proven effective at reducing waste lost into the environment – because the containers, plastic and otherwise, are worth money people don't throw them away, or if they do others pick them up.

Extending this idea to a deposit on all plastics at the beginning of their lifecycle, as raw materials, would incentivize collection by formal waste managers where infrastructure is available, but also by consumers and entrepreneurs seeking income where it is not.

Before the plastic revolution, much of our waste was collected and burned. But the ubiquity, volume, and permanence of plastic waste demands better solutions.

The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

SEE ALSO: Discarded Russian submarines could cause a nuclear disaster in the Arctic

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists Discovered What Actually Wiped Out The Mayan Civilization

Here's why scientists think a tiny moon of Jupiter is the most likely place to find alien life

$
0
0

image of Europa's frozen surface

The big question that astrobiologists are asking is: Is there life on Europa?

Europa is a tiny moon that orbits the largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter.

Despite being about a quarter of the size of our planet, Europa has approximately two times as much liquid salt water than Earth, scientists estimate.

The vast and deep oceans that lie beneath Europa's outer icy shell are why scientists think that if there is life in our solar system that is not on Earth, then it's probably swimming in Europaian waters.

Thanks to additional funding this year, NASA is one step closer to launching a probe that would take detailed measurements of Europa's surface.

Check out this infographic of Earth and Europa — just about the only thing Earth has that Europa doesn't is (that we know of) is life.

europa

LEARN MORE: NASA just announced it'll be visiting this beautiful moon for the first time

CHECK OUT: Rosetta just did an extreme maneuver to get closer than we ever have to a comet — and came back with incredible pictures

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists Have A Pretty Good Idea What Aliens May Actually Look Like

Levels of toxic mercury in tuna just keep rising

$
0
0

Tuna

Whether man-made sources of mercury are contributing to the mercury levels in open-ocean fish has been the subject of hot debate for many years.

My colleagues Carl Lamborg, Marty Horgan and I analyzed data from over the past 50 years and found that mercury levels in Pacific yellowfin tuna, often marketed as ahi tuna, is increasing at 3.8% per year. The results were reported earlier this month in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

This finding, when considered with other recent studies, suggests that mercury levels in open-ocean fish are keeping pace with current increases in human-related, or anthropogenic, inputs of mercury to the ocean.

These levels of mercury – a neurotoxin– are now approaching what the EPA considers unsafe for human consumption, underscoring the importance of accurate data. With this article, I'll explain the evolution of the science to this point and our findings. I expect our analysis will either quiet the debate or add more fuel to the fire.

Ocean sensitivity

Motivated by the seminal environmental book Silent Spring, environmental chemists have long found widespread mercury pollution in wastewater from industrial activities.

Surprisingly, mercury also appeared far from point sources – in "pristine" lakes of Scandinavia and northeastern North America. It took many years and careers to understand why mercury wound up in these "pristine" lakes. Once emitted from natural or man-made sources, such as coal-burning power plants, mercury can travel as a gas many times around the globe before falling with rain, snow, or dust. Once out of the air and in the water, it can then be taken up by fish.

There has been a false perception, however, that the open ocean – far removed from point sources of pollution – is too voluminous to be polluted with mercury from atmospheric fallout.

The shorthand for saying oceans can't be significant sinks for air-borne pollutants is "dilution is the solution to pollution." The argument is that lakes are concentrated environments because they are in direct contact with their watersheds that collect rain and snow, but the deep open ocean is an extremely dilute environment.

Two manuscripts published in Science in the early 1970s supported this argument. The first stated that mercury pollution could only result in a negligible increase in mercury levels in open ocean water.

But my colleagues and I found these conclusions were based on faulty data. Before the advent of clean sampling techniques that prevent contamination before, during, or after collection, it was accepted that natural mercury levels of open ocean waters ranged in the low parts-per-billion. We now know that a typical mercury level is about 200 parts-per-quadrillion. That means the natural mercury level of open ocean water is about 5,000 times lower than previously thought and that it takes a lot less mercury from other sources to pollute the open ocean.

The second manuscript reported no difference in mercury levels in tuna between museum specimens dating from 1878-1909 and samples caught during 1970-1971. This finding may be true, but also has a critical error in that mercury levels in the museum specimens were not "corrected" for lipid (fat) loss. Mercury is primarily in fish muscle and preservation with ethanol causes significant loss of fats. The net effect is that this preservation technique "inflates" the mercury concentration in the tissue that remains.

As a result, we question how valid these findings are. In other words, this second study doesn't conclusively demonstrate whether mercury levels in fish have gone up, down, or stayed steady.

tuna tsukiji

Sources of mercury

More recently, the focus of debate has been on the source of mercury in open-ocean fish. The mercury absorbed by fish is a compound called methylmercury, a form readily taken up by plant and animal cells but not easily eliminated. Because of this, mercury is concentrated with each step of the food chain. As a result, methylmercury levels in predatory fish are about a million times greater than in the water in which they swim.

In lakes, there is overwhelming evidence that methylmercury is formed in sediments and bottom waters that are devoid of oxygen. But where is methylmercury in oceans formed?

In 2003, Princeton scientists published a hypothesis to answer the question of where methylmercury comes from in open ocean fish. The hypothesis was based on the observation, mentioned above, that there was no increase in mercury levels in yellowfin tuna near Hawaii between 1971 and 1998.

With no increase in mercury levels in tuna during a period of greatly increasing anthropogenic mercury emissions, the scientists presented the idea that methylmercury in the open ocean forms from mercury naturally present in deep waters, sediments, or hydrothermal vents.

Subsequently, however, independent studies have shown that there is not enough methylmercury in deep waters of the ocean to account for mercury in open ocean fish.

One of these studies also found that methylmercury is formed on sinking particles in the water that provide a micro-environment devoid of oxygen. That research showed that the methylmercury is formed from mercury coming from above – that is, the atmosphere – which we know is polluted from human activities. Finally and most importantly, we know mercury levels in ocean water are increasing globally.

What the numbers say

Given the ongoing debate, our study set out to test a simple question: have mercury levels in fish stayed the same over time?

We assembled data from published sources for mercury in yellowfin tuna from Hawaii to compare three different time periods: 1971, 1998, and 2008. The comparison had to factor in the size of each tuna for each time period, because mercury level increases with size.

The statistical comparison indicated mercury levels were higher in 2008 than in either 1971 or 1998. As a result, we concluded that mercury levels are increasing in yellowfin tuna near Hawaii. The rate of increase between 1998 and 2008 of 3.8% per year is equivalent to a modeled increase in mercury in ocean waters in the same location.

What's the source of the mercury? The overwhelming scientific evidence points to anthropogenic sources of mercury polluting open ocean waters and methylmercury being produced in the water column and then accumulating in fish.

The average mercury level in a Pacific yellowfin tuna is approaching a level the US EPA considers unsafe for human consumption (0.3 parts-per-million).

Fish are an important source of food for billions of people worldwide and a solution to the problem is not to eat less fish, but to choose fish lower in mercury, as the EPA and FDA jointly recommend.

The ultimate solution to the problem is to control mercury emissions to the atmosphere at their source, which is the aim of the new United Nations Environment Programme's Minamata Convention on Mercury.

The Conversation

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

SEE ALSO: Insects survive the winter through a trick right out of science fiction

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Scientists Discovered What Actually Wiped Out The Mayan Civilization

Duke Energy fined over $100 million for environmental violations

$
0
0

Barclay's specialist trader Frank Masiello (R) works at the post that trades Duke Energy on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, in this file photo taken July 10, 2012.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

(Reuters) - Duke Energy Corp has agreed to pay a fine of about $102 million for environmental violations related to a power plant's coal ash spill into a North Carolina river last year and the company's management of coal ash basins in the state.

Duke set aside $100 million in the fourth quarter in anticipation of the settlement, the company said in an earnings statement.

The U.S. Department of Justice fined the company for five Clean Water Act violations at its Dan River and Riverbend steam stations and four Clean Water Act violations at the company's H.F. Lee Steam, Cape Fear and Asheville electricity-generating plants, according to a company statement on Friday.

Apart from the monetary fines, Duke Energy will enter a five-year probation period, during which the company agreed to establish environmental compliance plans under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor, the cost of which shall be borne by the company.

Additionally, Duke Energy will have to maintain $500 million as security to meet their obligations under the plea agreements, the statement added.

A pipe break at a retired Duke coal plant triggered the third-worst coal ash spill in U.S. history, prompting North Carolina's state Senate to ask Duke to close 33 coal ash ponds in the state within 15 years.

Duke Energy sells power to 7.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

Underwater video captures sharks in feeding frenzy off the coast of the Bahamas

$
0
0

Professional wildlife videographer EunJae Im attached a fish head to an underwater camera before lowering it into shark-infested waters near the Bahamas. His stunning footage captures the sharks as they repeatedly lunge after the bait.

Produced by Jason Gaines. Video courtesy of Associated Press.

Follow BI Video: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Viewing all 630 articles
Browse latest View live


<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>