Ocean Mapping Key to Survival

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• Coral Reef's Slow Growth Worries Scientists

  Jan 2, 09 11:40 AM CST
  The Great Barrier Reef isn't growing as fast as it should, and the consequences could be devastating for the vast species of marine life that it supports, say Australian scientists. A 13% decline in coral growth rate since 1990 is the first such drop in 400 years, says their report in Science. Global warming is one of the culprits, along with increasingly acidic seawater, notes the BBC. 
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• Global Warming Battle Hits Malibu Beach

  Jan 1, 09 11:50 AM CST
  Malibu's scenic Broad Beach is vanishing between the rising sea and the sea walls homeowners are building to protect million-dollar properties from global warming, the Los Angeles Times reports. Ocean levels are projected to rise at least a couple feet in the next century, wiping away this and many other iconic beaches in California, where an inch ocean rise claims 50 inches of land.
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• Climate Change Pushes Aspens to Brink

  Dec 21, 08 5:53 AM CST
  Huge swaths of the Rocky Mountain landscape is being transformed as the region's signature tree, the aspen, goes into rapid decline, reports the Smithsonian. Climate change and surging population of the bark beetle is causing the grim phenomenon known as SAD (sudden aspen decline). The beetle is a mere twelfth-of-an-inch long but is capable, en masse, of cutting off trees’ nutrient supply. More »

• Arctic Melt Speeds Up

  Dec 16, 08 9:27 AM CST
  The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world, scientists have found, in a phenomenon not expected for at least another decade. This fall, temperatures in some areas of the Arctic were as much as 10 degrees warmer than normal thanks to Arctic amplification, which could mean the Arctic has already passed a “point of no return” in which summers will be ice-free, the Independent reports.
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• Will Undersea Methane Kill Us or Save Us?

  Dec 14, 08 12:46 PM CST
  If warnings about undersea methane are true, we can "kiss our winter boots goodbye," Kirsten Weir writes in Salon. In the doomsday scenario, vast stores of undersea gas deposits will melt and send heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere. But such a crisis would require a 10-to-15 degree Celsius shift, others say, and much methane would simply dissipate in ocean waters.
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