Environmental News
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OceanAcidification.netFebruary 21, 2011 Long committed to conservation, David and his team have become more aware of global ocean environmental issues during the filming and editing of Coral Sea Dreaming - Awaken and Antarctica Dreaming. Beyond obvious issues of pollution and over-exploitation of fisheries, it's increasingly clear that Carbon Dioxide (C02) emissions are impacting on the world's coral reefs with dual threats of rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification. Not just reefs, but whole food webs based on krill and plankton are under threat of extinction from changing water chemistry as oceans absorb CO2 emissions. For more information about Ocean Acidification, the other CO2 problem independant of climate change, visit the website here: 
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Coral Reefs and Climate Change: the guide for education and awarenessJune 23, 2010 The CoralWatch team at UQ has just produced a new book “Coral Reefs and Climate Change: the guide for education and awareness”. This book focuses on coral reefs, the astonishing abundance of life within them and the impacts of climate change on this beautiful environment. There is hope for reefs but we must act now. Coral reefs are being lost more than five times faster than rainforest and it is up to us to prevent their continued degradation. The book explains the effects of climate change by using coral reefs as an example. Its aim is to inform, educate and enable people to begin to question the future that we are creating right now. It combines some of the latest scientific research with informative imagery to cover topics such as oceanography, coral reef biology, the issues of climate change and suggestions for ways forward. The book is not aimed at scientists but at educators, students, reef enthusiasts, professionals and interested people. |
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Australia has suffered hellish wildfires and withering drought - and is asking for more through its massive coal exportsBy Guy Pearse Drought revealed the skeletons of trees once covered by Lake Hume, a massive manmade reservoir bordering the states of New South Wales and Victoria. If what Australia is experiencing is not global warming, it’s something that looks just like it. The driest inhabited continent has just endured its warmest decade on record and its worst drought in history. It’s finally started raining again, but not before the 10-year “Big Dry” cost a quarter of all farm jobs. Most state capitals are turning to desalinating seawater, and severe water restrictions will remain a fact of city life. |
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Book review for "Sea Sick" by Alanna MitchellMarch 3, 2009 Sea Sick is the first book to examine the current state of the world’s ocean system, and the dire impact of humankind. Human activity is altering the ocean in every way, from temperature to salinity, from acidity to circulation. Each of these changes not only drastically affects the marine world, but more alarming has dire consequences for all life on earth. This is where the planet's most serious ecological crisis is unfolding, and unfolding fast - in the Oceans. Author Alanna Mitchell joins the crews of leading scientists in nine of the global ocean’s hotspots to see firsthand what is really happening around the world. Whether it’s the impact of coral reef bleaching, the puzzle of the oxygen-less dead zones such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico, or the shocking implications of the changing pH balance of the sea, Mitchell explains the science behind the story to create an engaging, accessible yet authoritative account. Like countless scientists around the world, her research produces an alarming prognosis for the health of our planet, and reveals that we are at a critical 'tipping point'. |
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Corals in the Keppel Island Region Form New Heat-Beating PartnershipsMarch 20, 2008 In the first observation of its kind, a coral community in the southern inshore region of the Great Barrier Reef is showing signs of adjusting to higher sea surface temperature by quickly changing its main algal partners to types that can better cope with the heat. An AIMS field study near Miall Island, part of the Keppel group of 15 islands on the southern Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast near Rockhampton, has revealed a remarkable feat of acclimatisation; the only time such an event has been observed in natural conditions on a coral reef. The work, which appears today in the prestigious UK scientific journal the Proceedings of the Royal Society, has shown that a phenomenon known as "symbiont shuffling" took place after a bleaching event in 2006 in the Acropora millepora coral population studied. To read the full press release issued by AIMS visit |
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Alarm bells as Evidence of Slowed Coral Growth on the Great Barrier Reef EmergesMarch 5, 2008 Worrying signs that warmer seawater combined with a possible change in the ocean's acid balance may be curtailing the growth of an important reef-building coral species have been documented by a research team from AIMS in Townsville. The paper, published in the journal Global Change Biology*, points to a 21 per cent decline in the rate at which Porites corals in two regions of the northern Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have added to their calcium carbonate skeletons over the past 16 years. The AIMS research team analysed a total of 38 Porites colonies from the two regions. Porites are a common massive coral with a striking spherical appearance. They are long-lived and distributed widely around the Indian and Pacific oceans. To read the full press release issued by AIMS visit |
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Report Warns about Carbon Dioxide Threats to Marine LifeJuly 5, 2006 BOULDER - Worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning are dramatically altering ocean chemistry and threatening marine organisms, including corals, that secrete skeletal structures and support oceanic biodiversity. A landmark report released today summarizes the known effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on these organisms, known as marine calcifiers, and recommends future research for determining the extent of the impacts. "It is clear that seawater chemistry will change in coming decades and centuries in ways that will dramatically alter marine life," says Joan Kleypas, the report's lead author and a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder. "But we are only beginning to understand the complex interactions between large-scale chemistry changes and marine ecology. It is vital to develop research strategies to better understand the long-term vulnerabilities of sensitive marine organisms to these changes." |
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RealClimate.orgJune 6, 2005 RealClimate.org is an online commentary based climate awareness weblog. Climate scientists regularly contribute articles offering detailed responses and often clarification on global climate related news stories. |
