PMEL in the News
St. Lawrence Island tribal groups tried to protect walruses. Now the animal they rely on faces a threat they cannot control.
Long ago, the walruses were almost wiped out, and with them the people of St. Lawrence Island. Commercial whalers were the danger. Now a new threat is emerging from the changing sea. The island used to be home to an estimated 4,000 residents in dozens of villages. Today the population is 1,400, and they live in just two villages, Savoonga and Gambell.
Forget the 'warm blob' -- opposite 'cool blob' taking up roost in Pacific Ocean
It was the darling of the extended record warm stretch of weather we had in 2015 -- a pool of warm waters that had formed off our coast in the Pacific Ocean, given the nickname "The Blob" by our state climatologist. The warm blob is long gone -- you might have noticed it wasn't like 55 degrees every day in winter. But now it appears we have the opposite effect going, albeit it in much weaker form.
All Ears On Deck! A Gallery Of Noises From The Ocean Deep
We’re all about sound here at KLCC. And so is the Ocean Acoustics Program at NOAA’s facility in Newport. Its program manager, Bob Dziak and his team of nine researchers, analyze underwater recordings which help gauge the health and activity of the waters. KLCC’s Brian Bull visited Dziak recently as part of our ongoing 50th Anniversary Road Trip.
El Niño Again? This Is Why It’s Hard to Tell
The tropical Pacific Ocean is once again carrying on a will-it-or-won’t-it flirtation with an El Niño event, just a year after the demise of one of the strongest El Niños on record. The odds right now are about even for an El Niño to develop, frustrating forecasters stuck in the middle of what is called the spring predictability barrier. During this time, model forecasts aren’t as good as seeing into the future, in part because of the very nature of the El Niño cycle.
Soundscape of the deep ocean
The Economist Radio: A new form of bioengineering ditches the cell and could speed up innovation. Five giant tech firms are hoarding most of the world's data. Is it time to break up the oligopoly? Also, an ambient soundscape from the deepest known part of the ocean (STARTS AT 13:10)