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7 November 2017
Scientists may have solved mystery of rapidly rising Indian Ocean sea level
Sea levels around the world have risen by 1.7 millimeters (0.07 inches) on average each year since 1880, but in recent years, scientists have observed a rapid increase in sea level in the north Indian Ocean. Tide gauge records and other datasets reveal the pace of sea level rise in the north Indian Ocean has accelerated to 3.1 millimeters (0.12 inches) per year within the last three decades. The accelerating sea level rise has confounded scientists but new research claims weakening of South Asian monsoons may be to blame.
12 June 2017
New study evaluates efficiency of oceans as heat sink, atmospheric gases sponge (plus video)
A new study is one the first to estimate how much and how quickly the ocean absorbs atmospheric gases and contrast it with the efficiency of heat absorption. Using two computer models that simulate the ocean, scientists found that gases are more easily absorbed over time than heat energy.
11 July 2016
Climate tipping points: What do they mean for society?
The phrase “tipping point” passed its own tipping point and caught fire after author Malcolm Gladwell’s so-named 2000 book. It’s now frequently used in discussions about climate change, but what are “climate tipping points”? And what do they mean for society and the economy?
28 June 2016
Climate change causing oceanic boundary currents to intensify and shift poleward
Weather along the eastern coasts of South Africa, Asia, Australasia and South America will get significantly warmer and stormier on average over the next 100 years, a new study finds. The culprit? Climate changes that are causing ocean currents next to these coastal regions, called western boundary currents, to become stronger and extend further toward the poles, according to the new study.
20 June 2016
Observing bubbles from underwater gas seeps (video)
Natural oil and gas seeps exist on the ocean floor all over the world. Although humans have known about and exploited these natural resources for thousands of years, scientists know little about how oil and gas droplets disperse in deep water and how they affect underwater ecosystems.
24 May 2016
Watch underwater canyons take shape in real time
Submarine canyons are major underwater routes for transporting rapidly-moving water that is heavy with sediment from the continental shelf to the deep ocean. Here, a group of researchers uses a sandbox experiment to simulate how a fast, sediment-laden current carves these canyons out of the continental slope. They recorded the entire experiment with time-lapse video, shown here.
1 February 2016
Understanding the 2015–16 El Niño and its impact on phytoplankton
This is part of a new series of posts that highlight the importance of Earth and space science data and its contributions to society. Posts in this series showcase data facilities and data scientists; explain how Earth and space science data is collected, managed and used; explore what this data tells us about the planet; and delve into the challenges and issues involved in managing and using data. This series …
13 January 2016
Ocean circulation changes may have killed cold-water corals
Successive and abrupt changes in North Atlantic ocean circulation over the past 4,500 years seem to have caused major reductions in some cold-water coral ecosystems, finds a study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
The new study shows changes in sea surface circulation over the last few thousand years were more sudden than previously thought and in some cases led to abrupt collapses of cold-water coral ecosystems. The researchers found the first evidence that perturbations in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) led to cold-water coral ecosystems decline from 100 to 1,200 years ago.
19 September 2014
Pulling secrets from deep-sea, drillbit-eating rocks
Amy West is the science writer and outreach and education officer for the JOIDES Resolution, a drill ship operated by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) that is on a two-month expedition studying the Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc in the region where the Pacific Plate is descending under the Philippine Plate to form the Mariana Trench and the deepest point in the ocean–the Challenger Deep.
This is her latest blog post about the expedition.
13 December 2013
Microbial memories carry the pulse of past ocean climates
New data from ocean microbes in the Soledad basin off the coast of Baja, Calif., confirms a La Niña-like effect cooled surface waters 4,000 to 10,000 years ago.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.