It turns out not all clouds are created equal. Though Seattle presents an ideal location for cloud-gazing, it can’t reproduce the unique clouds in a part of the world thought to play a key role in the planet’s climate. The vast Southern Ocean circling Antarctica soaks up a large portion of the carbon emissions taken up by the oceans and stores some of the extra heat trapped by the carbon emissions that remain in the air.
Read more at UW Today »ROV team with ties to UW Environment heads to the White House
AMNO & CO, a team of local students who design and build ocean-ready remote-controlled submersibles, was recently invited to attend the prestigeous White House Science Fair on April 13, 2016. According to the White House, students attending this year’s Science Fair—the last of six hosted by the Obama Administration—are tackling the nation’s greatest challenges, from combatting climate change to uncovering new ways to fight cancer and reaching farther beyond our atmosphere as part of the Mars generation.
Read more »Scientists recommend immediate plan to combat changes to West Coast seawater chemistry
Global carbon dioxide emissions are triggering troubling changes to ocean chemistry along the West Coast that require immediate, decisive actions to combat through a coordinated regional approach, a panel of scientific experts has unanimously concluded. A failure to adequately respond to this fundamental change in seawater chemistry, known as ocean acidification, is anticipated to have devastating ecological consequences for the West Coast in the decades to come, the 20-member West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia (OAH) Science Panel warned in a comprehensive report unveiled April 4.
Read more at UW Today »Global ocean fish populations could increase while providing more food, income
Most of the world’s wild fisheries could be at healthy levels in just 10 years, and global fish populations could greatly increase by 2050 with better fishing approaches, according to a new study co-authored by University of Washington researchers. The new report, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also explains how the world’s fisheries could produce more seafood and increase profits for fishermen by 204 percent by the year 2050, if reforms such as secure fishing rights are implemented now.
Read more at UW Today »Tracking 'marine heatwaves' since 1950 and how the 'blob' stacks up
Unusually warm oceans can have widespread effects on marine ecosystems. Warm patches off the Pacific Northwest from 2013 to 2015, and a couple of years earlier in the Atlantic Ocean, affected everything from sea lions to fish migrations to coastal weather. A University of Washington oceanographer is lead author of a study looking at the history of such features across the Northern Hemisphere.
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