Live Science

January 17, 2020
Five years ago, tens of thousands of emaciated seabirds washed ashore on the Pacific Coast. Now, scientists know why: a long-lived marine heat wave known as "the blob."

The common murre (Uria aalge) is a black and white seabird that reaches about 1 foot (0.3 meters) long and can dive hundreds of meters deep into water in search of prey. These seabirds feast on tiny "forage fish" such as sardines, herring and anchovies, and need to consume about half of their body weight every day in order to survive.

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InsideClimate News

January 14, 2020
In 25 years, the oceans have absorbed heat equivalent to the energy of 3.6 billion Hiroshima-size atom bomb explosions, the study's lead author said.

The world's oceans are warming at a rapidly increasing pace, new research shows, and the heat is having devastating effects on marine life and intensifying extreme weather. Last year, the oceans were warmer than any time since measurements began over 60 years ago, according to a study published Monday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

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CNN

January 13, 2020
The world's oceans are now heating at the same rate as if five Hiroshima atomic bombs were dropped into the water every second, scientists have said.

A new study released on Monday showed that 2019 was yet another year of record-setting ocean warming, with water temperatures reaching the highest temperature ever recorded.

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ZME Science

December 17, 2019
The recent bleak results at the COP25 climate summit in Madrid created enough reasons to be pessimistic about the future of the planet.

But next year could see a big shift thanks to three key summits, which could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity and look after the oceans. In many ways, it seems like 2020 will be a make-or-break year for the environment.

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IUCN

December 7, 2019
The loss of oxygen from the world’s ocean is increasingly threatening fish species and disrupting ecosystems, a new IUCN report warns. Ocean oxygen loss, driven by climate change and nutrient pollution, is a growing menace to fisheries and species such as tuna, marlin and sharks, according to the report released today at the UN Climate Change conference in Madrid.

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Phys.org

November 14, 2019
The ocean hosts an inconceivable wealth of marine life and diverse habitats, most of which remains unknown and unseen. International plans to mine minerals from the deep seafloor threaten this largely unexplored biodiversity hotspot. States are currently seeking to develop a legal framework for deep seabed mining. In cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, an international team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) has published a new study warning against a rush to exploit deep seafloor resources and calling for coordinated efforts to develop alternative approaches.

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UPI

October 28, 2019
For marine biodiversity, some regions of the ocean are more important than others. In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists compiled the findings of multiple studies to identify all of the most important marine areas.

The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, showed several important marine areas remain unprotected.

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The Costa Rica Star

October 26, 2019
This is a big year for Costa Rica’s one and only Isla del Coco, Cocos Island National Park, as it received this week the “Blue Park” award for its condition as Global Ocean Refuge in the Gold category of the Marine Conservation Institute which promotes Marine Protected Areas that comply with certain standards of management and effectiveness.

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National Geographic

September 25, 2019
On Wednesday, the IPCC released a major report on the state of the planet's oceans and ice. The 900-page report, which compiles the findings from thousands of scientific studies, outlines the damage climate change has already done to the planet’s vast oceans and fragile ice sheets and forecasts the future for these crucial parts of the climate system.

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National Geographic

September 25, 2019
In 2014, scientists called for 30 percent of the world’s oceans to be protected by a network of MPAs by 2030, yet it already seems likely the world will fall short of the UN’s goal to protect 10 percent of oceans by 2020. Though the UN says we’re 8 percent of the way there, experts caution that only 2.2 percent of the world’s oceans are fully off limits to commercial activity, and only 4.8 percent is actively managed.

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Energy Live

September 24, 2019
The UK has announced the launch of a new global alliance to help drive urgent action to protect the world’s oceans and their wildlife. The Global Ocean Alliance will push for the trebling of existing targets to ensure at least a third of the oceans is safeguarded in Marine Protected Areas by 2030.

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National Geographic

September 21, 2019
The United Nations (UN) Youth Climate Summit and the 74th session of the UN General Assembly are taking place in New York this week. Both events highlight the critical importance of taking swift, decisive action on climate change, including achieving sustainable land and ocean management practices and resilience and adaptation to climate change impacts.

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Campaign for Nature

August 29, 2019
This week in Nairobi, Kenya, the Convention on Biological Diversity, kicked off a year-long process to develop a post-2020 global biodiversity framework that will be adopted at the Conference of Parties meeting in China in October 2020. At this meeting, the 30X30 Ocean Alliance, that includes the Campaign for Nature, Conservation International, National Geographic Society, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Oceans5, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, submitted an intervention expressing the alliance’s goal of protecting or conserving at least 30 percent of the ocean through highly and fully protected marine protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures that demonstrate comparable benefits for biodiversity.

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National Geographic

August 26, 2019
On August 24 the council of Ascension Island, a UK Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, announced its support for the designation of a giant marine reserve around Ascension Island. At 440,000 square kilometers, the new reserve will be by far the largest in the Atlantic Ocean (roughly the size of the state of California). Once established, the marine protected area (MPA) will bring the highest level of protection to this region’s exceptional biodiversity by prohibiting commercial fishing and extractive industries.

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