WhaleVis turns more than a century of whaling data into an interactive map

WhaleVis world map showing data on global whale catches and whaling routes.

Even though they’re the largest animals on earth, whales remain difficult to track. So experts often turn to historical whaling data to inform current research. A dataset maintained by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) contains detailed information on commercial whale catches — more than 2.1 million records, predominantly from 1880 until the IWC banned whaling in 1986. Yet for researchers, distilling that data can prove its own challenge. 

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UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences maintains No. 1 global ranking; more than two dozen UW subjects in top 50

Bus driving past University of Washington's "W" sculpture on a sunny day

Six University of Washington subjects ranked in the top 10, and atmospheric sciences maintained its position as No. 1 in the world on the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects list for 2023. The ranking, released at the end of October, was conducted by researchers at the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, a fully independent organization dedicated to research on higher education intelligence and consultation. 

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North Atlantic’s marine productivity may not be declining, according to new study of older ice cores

Ursula Jongebloed works in a lab.

A prominent 2019 study used ice cores in Antarctica to suggest that marine productivity in the North Atlantic had declined by 10% during the industrial era, with worrying implications that the trend might continue. But new research led by the University of Washington shows that marine phytoplankton — on which larger organisms throughout the marine ecosystem depend — may be more stable than believed in the North Atlantic. 

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