Oceanography

This post is not even remotely about a cephalopod, but because I mentioned polyps yesterday I feel justified in discussing a cnidarian. Besides, these headlines really got me steamed, and what better place to vent than a blog?

Enormous Jellyfish Sink Japanese Fishing Boat (Fox News)
Japanese fishing trawler sunk by giant jellyfish (Telegraph)

I need to call my broker and get in on some Arm&Hammer stock, because, according to Steve Levitt, we're going to need a lot of base:

Of course, ocean acidification is an import issue. Now, there are ways to deal with ocean acidification, right, it's actually, that's actually, we know exactly how to un-acidifiy the oceans, is to pour a bunch of base into it, so, so if that turns out to be an incredibly big problem, then we can deal with that.

Scientists hope weather data from 18th century ships' logbooks will shed light on how the climate has changed in the past 200 years, according to this BBC report.

The Eastern Seaboard had higher than normal sea levels in June and July and a new NOAA technical report blames persistent winds and a weakened current in the Mid-Atlantic . 

After observing water levels six inches to two feet higher than originally predicted, NOAA scientists began analyzing data from select tide stations and buoys from Maine to Florida and found that a weakening of the Florida Current Transport—an oceanic current that feeds into the Gulf Stream—in addition to steady and persistent Northeast winds, contributed to this anomaly.

Scientists have been thinking increasingly about whether or not animals in the ocean might play a role in larger-scale ocean mixing, says John Dabiri, a Caltech bioengineer. Ocean mixing is the process by which various layers of water interact with one another to distribute heat, nutrients and gasses throughout the oceans.

"The perspective we usually take is how the ocean--by its currents, temperature, and chemistry--is affecting animals," says Dabiri, who, along with graduate student Kakani Katija, discovered the new mechanism.

When glaciers advanced over much of the planet's surface during the last ice age, what kept  Earth from freezing over entirely?  Climate scientists are unsure because popular numerical models indicated that over the past 24 million years geological conditions should have caused carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to plummet, possibly leading to runaway "icehouse" conditions - yes, we needed CO2-related global warming, they said - but researchers writing in Nature claims plants are a missing piece of the puzzle.

Very cool news- a ROV recently dove to the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.  Here's the basics over at Discover.

I can't wait until they release more images.  It's very exciting that technology is starting to catch up with our desire to know more about the oceans, and pictures of crazy ocean critters are good attention-getters, particularly for my students.  (Also, the kid inside me can't help but hope that the bottom of the Marianas Trench is kinda like this.)

The potential contribution to sea level rise from a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) have been greatly overestimated, according to a new study in Science.   These scientists estimate global sea level would rise 3.3 metres, not five or six, which were some previous estimates.

You probably envision ocean currents as a 'conveyor belt'  - that's okay, so do oceanographers.  But at least in the Atlantic, it doesn't work quite the way scientists have believed, according to new research led by Duke University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.  Their analyses showed that much of this water, originating in the sea between Newfoundland and Greenland, rather than flowing southward from the Labrador Sea, is diverted generally eastward by the time it flows as far south as Massachusetts. From there it disperses to the depths in complex ways that are difficult to follow.