Grist | Topics | 18 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 18 of 18
Headline	Author	Published	Section
Tide to be Fit On sea-level rise	Umbra Fisk	16 Jul 2008	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, I'm a bit confused about the possible rise in sea level that may be caused by global warming. I know that in general water expands when warmed, and that is one cause of sea level elevation with respect to global warming. The larger cause for alarm seems to be the melting or collapse of the polar ice caps. I recently read an article that warned that Antarctica, which stores 70 percent of the world's fresh water, could lose the ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, climate, climate change impacts, oceans, scientific research (all these topics)

Getting a Rise Out of You Oceans warming faster than thought, says research		18 Jun 2008	News
Posted at 3:39 PM on 18 Jun 2008 The world's oceans have warmed 50 percent faster over the last four decades than what was previously thought, according to a new study published in Nature. The new research helps to explain recent sea-level rise that climate models weren't accounting for; melting ice gets all the press, but since heat expands, hotter water also contributes to rising seas. The research gives ''significant ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate science, news, oceans (all these topics)

Reef, or Madness Ocean acidification to weaken coral reefs, make islands more vulnerable to storms		02 Jun 2008	News
Posted at 6:51 AM on 02 Jun 2008 Acidification of the ocean could make low-lying island nations like the Maldives and Kiribati more vulnerable to storms since it can significantly weaken coral reefs, according to a new report. When the oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, carbonic acid forms, which makes it more difficult for sea critters like coral and starfish to form shells and sk ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, news, oceans, wildlife (all these topics)

Threatened to the Gills World fisheries still in danger of imminent collapse, says U.N.		25 Feb 2008	News
Posted at 10:07 AM on 25 Feb 2008 When last we checked in on the world's commercial fish stocks, they were in danger of collapsing within decades. And, sorry to say, they still are, according to a United Nations Environment Program report ominously titled "In Dead Water." Factor in climate change, overfishing, and pollution "and you see you're potentially putting a death nail in the coffin of w ...
Topics: agriculture, climate, climate change impacts, fishing, food, news, oceans, water pollution (all these topics)

Assail the Seven Seas Nearly all of world's oceans tainted by human activity, says study		15 Feb 2008	News
Posted at 2:52 PM on 15 Feb 2008 Human activity has tainted all but 3.7 percent of the world's oceans, and 41 percent of the world's waters have been heavily impacted, says a new study in Science. A graphic map illustrates in all-too-clear terms that the briny deep has taken a terrible toll from 17 human threats, including climate change, overfishing, fertilizer runoff, coastal development, and shipping pol ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, habitat loss, news, oceans, scientific research (all these topics)

Greenland study Sea-level rise could be double IPCC projections	Joseph Romm	12 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Last year, Nature Geoscience and Science (PDF) published major articles suggesting that the consensus projection for sea-level rise this century was far too low -- and could be as high as five feet. Now the Journal of Glaciology joins in with a remarkable analysis, 'Intermittent thinning of Jakobshavn Isbr�, West Greenland, since the Little Ice Age' (PDF). The lead author, Beata Csatho from the University of Buffalo, explains implications of this work for the traditi ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate science, IPCC, oceans (all these topics)

U.S. miscalculates threat of global warming Sea-level rise at our doorstep; puts nation at risk	Edward Mazria	03 Jan 2008	Gristmill
What the scientific community has failed to communicate, and the public has failed to grasp, is that the U.S. is particularly vulnerable to very small increments of sea-level rise. The IPCC Fourth Assessment projects a sea-level rise of 0.18 meters to 0.59 meters this century. Even though the report includes a caveat that this range does not include any significant contribution from the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets, global warming skeptics continua ...
Topics: climate change impacts, oceans, climate science, climate (all these topics)

The rising tide Sea levels may rise five feet by 2100	Joseph Romm	31 Dec 2007	Gristmill
A recent Nature Geoscience study, 'High rates of sea-level rise during the last interglacial period,' ($ubs. req'd) finds that sea levels could rise twice what the IPCC had project for 2100. This confirms what many scientists have recently warned (also see here), and it matches the conclusion of a study (PDF) earlier this year in Science. [As an aside, in one debate with a denier -- can't remember who, they all kind of merge together -- I was challenged: 'Name one ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate science, oceans (all these topics)

I Don't Think You're Ready for This Jelly Northern Ireland and Japan plagued by jellyfish		27 Nov 2007	News
Posted at 10:34 AM on 27 Nov 2007 We're sure you have plenty of fodder for eco-nightmares, but let us add another: killer jellyfish. Last week, a horde of jellies covering an area of 10 square miles (!) attacked Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, killing some 100,000 fish. The mauve stinger jellyfish were well north of their favored Mediterranean habitat, thanks to warmer-than-normal water. Another type, ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, fishing, insanity, Ireland, Japan, news, oceans, wildlife (all these topics)

A problem of Florida-sized proportions Arctic sea ice continues to melt at alarming rate	Andrew Sharpless	20 Sep 2007	Gristmill
A chunk of Arctic sea ice roughly the size of Florida melted in just six days, according to scientists who warn that ice in the region continues to melt at an alarming rate. Reports are already surfacing of the detrimental effects such rapid habitat loss is having on marine mammals, such as polar bears, which use the ice to hunt and migrate. Most recently scientists have said polar bear populations could drop by 66 percent by mid-century. Virtually every d ...
Topics: Arctic, climate, climate change impacts, oceans (all these topics)

A meter of sea level rise by 2100? Sea levels may rise much faster and higher than predicted	Joseph Romm	21 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Popular Science has published a terrific article, 'Konrad Steffen: The Global Warming Prophet,' about one of the world's leading climatologists. Steffen has spent '18 consecutive springs on the Greenland ice cap, personally building and installing the weather stations that help the world's scientists understand what's happening up there.' The article notes: Water from the melting ice sheet is gushing into the North Atlantic much faster than scientists had previousl ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, climate science, oceans (all these topics)

Hansen 2: Iowa edition of Declaration of Stewardship Hansen gives a talk in Iowa about climate change impacts	Joseph Romm	09 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Hansen writes faster than I can blog. He has posted a 'talk given at Des Moines last Sunday, with description of Declaration of Stewardship slightly edited for clarity.' He talks about the 'three major consequences of global warming, if we go down the business-as-usual path, with fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions continuing to increase': First, there is the extermination of species. We could drive half of the plant and animal species on the planet to extincti ...
Topics: biodiversity, climate, climate change impacts, oceans, severe weather (all these topics)

Hansen 1: Sea-level rise More thoughts on how sea level will be influenced by global warming	Joseph Romm	09 Aug 2007	Gristmill
Hansen has posted some important thoughts about sea level rise on his website. In particular, he has shortened his 'Scientific reticence and sea level rise' paper and New Scientist has published it. The key conclusion: [I]ce sheets will respond in a non-linear fashion to global warming --- and are already beginning to do so. There is enough information now, in my opinion, to make it a near certainty that business-as-usual [emissions] scenarios will lead to disastro ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, oceans (all these topics)

Global warming: It's hard out here for a gray whale The LA Times reports on global warming and skinny whales	Kit Stolz	06 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Kenneth Weiss, a surfer/reporter who last year headed the team that won a Pulitzer for the Los Angeles Times for a series on our trashed oceans, returns to the front page today with a story about how global warming appears to be damaging the arctic feeding grounds of the gray whale, leading to 'skinny whales' and unusual behaviors. The whales are journeying far to the north of their usual territory looking for the sea-bed crustaceans that make up the bulk of their diet ...
Topics: biodiversity, climate, climate change impacts, oceans (all these topics)

Hot planet, poison fish This one will hit harder in the global south	Tom Philpott	04 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Climate change is affecting the oceans in any number of unpredictable ways. For example, under pressure from rising ocean temperatures (and toxic waste), coral reefs -- those glorious engines of biodiversity -- are degrading. I knew that. But this one was new to me: They also become breeding grounds for poisonous algae. And that poison accumulates in the big fish that eat the little fish that eat the algae -- making coral-dwelling fish toxic and sometimes even deadly ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, fishing, food, oceans (all these topics)

A Fine Discovery Some coral may be resistant to acidification, reefs still doomed		30 Mar 2007	Daily Grist
A Fine Discovery Some coral may be resistant to acidification, reefs still doomed The world's oceans are on track to be more acidic by 2100 than they've been for 20 million years, thanks to our fiendish friend carbon dioxide. But research by Israeli scientists shows that the coral polyps living in underwater reefs may be able to survive, even as the reefs themselves are destroyed. Marine zoologist Maoz Fine p ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, news, oceans (all these topics)

Something Fishy: Smack is wack Overfishing, global warming causing increases in jellyfish populations	Sarah van Schagen	27 Sep 2006	Gristmill
Ahoy, me hearties! Me hopes ye've now recovered from Talk Like a Pirate Day. Turned out to be a jolly good time here at Grist HQ aboard me ship -- a good lot of pirate jokes and a few noggins o' rum and me timbers were shivered, if ye know what I mean. Well, this week mateys, me post was inspired by the maritime adventures of a coworker shipmate during his travels in Cabo. Apparently, after a dip in the refreshing waters, his partner started to develop a large wel ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, oceans, wildlife (all these topics)

Walk the plankton Global warming could wipe out the bottom of the food chain.	Sarah K. Burkhalter	19 Jan 2006	Gristmill
When you woke up this morning, did you thank [God, your lucky stars, the Big Bang] for plankton? If you didn't, consider adding it to your daily routine. Sure plankton are teeny-tiny and look like scary aliens, but they're also moderately important, in that sustaining-life sort of way. Sadly, global warming could kill them off. The Independent wins my nomination for 'Most Sinister Opening Paragraph o' the Day': The microscopic plants that underpin all life in ...
Topics: climate, climate change impacts, oceans (all these topics)

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