PMEL in the News
Scientists just measured a rapid growth in acidity in the Arctic ocean, linked to climate change
The Arctic is suffering so many consequences related to climate change, it’s hard to know where to begin anymore. It’s warming more rapidly than almost any other part of the planet; its glaciers are melting and its sea ice is retreating; and its most iconic wildlife, including polar bears and walruses, are suffering.
International research team reports ocean acidification spreading rapidly in Arctic Ocean in area and depth
Ocean acidification (OA) is spreading rapidly in the western Arctic Ocean in both area and depth, according to new interdisciplinary research reported in Nature Climate Change by a team of international collaborators, including University of Delaware professor Wei-Jun Cai.
Too Hot to Handle: 7 Sizzling Places on Planet Earth
Voodoo may not be the hottest place, but it's a bustling paradise for countless marine creatures. "Imagine a vast deep-sea desert, where there is not enough food or energy to survive. It's cold and inhospitable," said David Butterfield, a principal research scientist of oceanography at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, a collaboration between the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "In the middle of that desert, there are these amazing oases of life."
Arctic 2.0: What happens after all the ice goes?
As the Arctic slipped into the half-darkness of autumn last year, it seemed to enter the Twilight Zone. In the span of a few months, all manner of strange things happened. The cap of sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean started to shrink when it should have been growing. Temperatures at the North Pole soared more than 20 °C above normal at times. And polar bears prowling the shorelines of Hudson Bay had a record number of run-ins with people while waiting for the water to freeze over.
With lowland snow, have Washington winters returned to ‘normal?'
The lowland snows are back. Temperatures have dropped. After three unusually warm winters, does the current winter's cold mark a return to a "normal" winter for western Washington? "It's not just normal, it's below normal," said Washington state Climatologist Nick Bond.