ocean

Oceanographers win PM’s science prize for climate work

by Gareth December 16, 2011

This year’s NZ Prime Minister’s Science Prize — worth $500,000 — has been awarded to a team of scientists working on climate-related issues at the joint Otago University and National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) Centre for Chemical & Physical Oceanography. The team carried out ground-breaking research on using iron to fertilise phytoplankton [...]

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The Climate Show #20: the boys are back (on Tuvalu)

by Gareth October 20, 2011

Battling against rural broadband that resembled digital molasses (or the bunker oil being pumped out of the Rena), Gareth returns to NZ and joins Glenn Williams and John Cook to discuss drought in Tuvalu, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), floods and sea level falls, ocean cooling (that isn’t), solar towers of power and much, [...]

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The Climate Show #15: Michael Ashley and the ineducable Carter

by Gareth June 29, 2011

We thought we’d try for a record short show — and failed, because once again there was just to much to talk about. We have more on Eritrean volcanoes, extreme weather over the last 18 months, a new report on the dire state of the oceans, and Stoat’s big bet. Special guest is Professor Michael [...]

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The state of the ocean (dire)

by Gareth June 23, 2011

Alex Rogers, Professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology at Oxford, and scientific director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean describes the main problems affecting the global ocean — and discusses some of the things we could do to address them in this new video. The IPSO has just [...]

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Earle: everything in the oceans at risk

by Bryan Walker March 19, 2011

“We are committed to developing deepwater energy supplies offshore.” Those blunt words from the US Administration were put to oceanographer Sylvia Earle by Stephen Sackur late in a captivating BBC Hardtalk interview I watched a few days ago. What chance, he asked, did her message about the plight of the oceans stand in the face [...]

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An immediate halt to CO2 emissions is an absolute necessity…

by Gareth February 8, 2011

…if we are to maintain the health of ocean ecosystems, says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in this video presentation, given to a symposium at the recent Our Changing Oceans conference in Washington DC. It’s sobering viewing. Here are the primary messages from the symposium: There [...]

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The Climate Show #6: Monckton and the iron in the ocean

by Gareth February 3, 2011

A very wide ranging Climate Show this week, with Dr Philip Boyd of NIWA and Otago University explaining why fertilising the oceans to soak up more carbon is not likely to be our “get out of jail free” card, John Cook of Skeptical Science introducing the new Monckton Myths section of the site, plus interesting [...]

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Bloomin’ marvellous

by Gareth December 11, 2010

A stunning image of a massive bloom of phytoplankton off the Chatham Islands (to the east of NZ — that’s Wellington and the Wairarapa in the top left corner), snapped by NASA’s Aqua satellite on December 5th and featured this week at NASA’s excellent Earth Observatory. Click on the image to see the full (4MB) [...]

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Every little bit hurts

by Bryan Walker December 8, 2010

“Coral reefs… once survived in a world where CO2 from volcanoes and methane was much higher than anything predicted today.”  That sounds like good news from John Veron, a world authority on coral. Not if you read on: “But that was over 40 million years ago, and the increase took place over millions of years, [...]

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Warm oceans killing coral

by Bryan Walker December 1, 2010

This has not only been a bad year for the Amazon rainforest, it has also been a year in which coral reefs, the rainforests of the ocean as they are sometimes called, have suffered severe bleaching because of raised ocean temperatures. Not a matter likely to strike the public consciousness. A recent Yale University survey [...]

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