WAR ON MOTHER NATURE: Beneath The Waves - Haunting Photos From Scuba Divers Across The World Show DEVASTATING IMPACT Of Ocean Plastic!

© baretnewswire.org

March 5, 2016 - OCEAN - Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke is once quoted saying, "How inappropriate to call this planet earth when it is quite clearly Ocean." Well, perhaps if it were called ocean, people would be a lot more concerned about what is happening to our marine environments, which are in terrible trouble.

According to NOAA, the world's oceans hold more than 97 percent of the planet's water and may be home to as much as 80 percent of the world's plant and animal species. Without our oceans, life as we know it would cease to exist. These vast bodies of water help regulate weather patterns, they absorb almost one-third of the carbon dioxide we emit, provide many people with vital sources of protein, and most importantly, nearly 70 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere is produced by marine plants. Without healthy, thriving ocean ecosystems, we would be cooked!

Unfortunately, as we continue to dump more and more plastic into the oceans, this essential ecosystem is starting to collapse. Every year, around 8.8 million tons of plastic trash end up in the oceans. The majority of this trash ends up sinking to the bottom of the oceans or getting swept up in massive gyres, so it can be easy to overlook this problem from the vantage point of land. Scuba divers, who spend their time beneath the surface, however, are constantly faced with the reality of this plastic problem.

In an effort to bring the sights that these divers see and raise awareness for the sake of the oceans, the good folks at Project Aware have
launched a stunning photo campaign called, Beneath The Waves.

While it might just look like this is a mound of trash, this is actually a photo of a sea crab.

We have a tendency to think that when we throw out trash it just "goes away!" Well ... this is where "away" is.

Plants, animals, and trash all float in a tangled mass on the surface.

Many marine animals, some which have never even seen a human, are now finding themselves the victims of human behavior, many miles away.

Even creatures like coral, which are an essential nursery for ocean life, are coming under threat. This large piece was sliced off by a discarded fishing line.

It is estimated that around 700 marine species are in danger of extinction due to plastic pollution.

Lucky for those animals, these divers are here to help.

Discarded piles of rope and fishing nets like these are a hazard to aquatic life.

By working hard to clear out some of the trash accumulating on the ocean floor, the amazing people working with
Project Aware are making a difference, one trash bag at a time.

Hopefully, by documenting this problem and garnering clean up efforts, Project Aware will inspire others to help, in whatever way that they can. Cleaning up at your nearest river, lake or beach is a great way to help, but prevention is the best cure. - One Green Planet.

RATTLE & HUM: Mysterious Sounds Heard Across The Planet - Strange Inexplicable HUMMING SOUND Detected In The Dark Reaches Of The Ocean?! [AUDIO]

What could be making the deep ocean hum? (Photo: Pedro Fernandes/flickr)

February 27, 2016 - OCEAN - The deep sea is a forbidding place, inhabited by strange, monstrous creatures that haunt its pitch-black waters.

Now researchers have discovered an eerie new attribute of this little-known region: a subtle low humming sound that emanates from its depths every day around dawn and dusk.

“It’s not that loud, it sounds like a buzzing or humming, and that goes on for an hour to two hours, depending on the day,” said Simone Baumann-Pickering, co-author of the study, in a statement.

The source of the hum remains a mystery, to say the least. Researchers suspect that it may be coming from an organism, or perhaps many organisms chanting in unison, but no known marine creature could be matched to the noise.

It might be coming from a species yet to be identified, or it might be evidence of a new capability of an already-known creature. Then again, it might be coming from a non-living source too.

There's one clue, however. The sound comes from the ocean's mesopelagic zone, a region between 660 to 3,300 feet below the surface that's too dark for photosynthesis to occur. Since food is scarce there, many of the bizarre organisms that call this region home must migrate up and down the water column en masse on a daily basis to feed. These migrations typically happen at dawn and dusk, which coincides with the weird humming sound.

Researchers have theorized that the hum might be serving as some sort of "dinner bell" for the scores of marine creatures, a signal that tells them when to rise up or down in depth depending on the time of day.

Or perhaps the sound is just the wholesale noise of the migration itself, the cacophony of billions of creatures moving through the depths simultaneously.

The daily migration of organisms that inhabit the mesopelagic zone is no small matter. The region is home to an unfathomable — and largely unstudied — number of sea creatures, which are estimated to weigh around 10 billion tons all combined.

The planet's carbon cycle is likely tied in many fundamental ways to this global daily migration.

That we're just now detecting this omnipresent ocean hum is proof that there's much for us to discover about this little-known but vitally important region.

Though it's difficult to pick out from the background noise, you can listen to the hum yourself here, thanks to NPR:

- MNN.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: Satellite Captures Massive Storm Swirling Off Antarctica - Extends THOUSANDS Of Miles From Its Center; Cloud Tail Stretches Nearly 3,500 MILES!

March 07, 2014 - ANTARCTICA - A European satellite that flew over Antarctica on Wednesday captured a massive storm churning in the ocean off its northern coast.

Satellite image of a storm off the north coast of Antarctica, seen on March 5, 2014.
Image: Simon Proud/EUMETSAT

The satellite — known as EUMETSAT, which monitors weather and climate from space — was conducting an overflight when it caught the late summer storm with swirling clouds extending thousands of miles from its center.

According to Simon Proud, a postdoctoral associate at MIT's atmospheric, oceanic and climate sciences program, the cloud tail stretches nearly 3,500 miles.

A EUMETSAT satellite showing a late summer storm swirling along the northern coast of
Antarctica on March 5, 2014. Image: Simon Proud/EUMETSAT

Of course, big storms and harsh weather are not unusual for Antarctica, one of the most treacherous and isolated places on Earth.

Earlier this year, a Russian research vessel that was trapped in the ice off East Antarctica for 10 days led to a international effort to rescue the 52 people onboard. - Yahoo.

GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVAL: Slip-Sliding Away - Disassembling Hawaiian Volcanoes, When The Islands Collapse And Fall Apart In Landslides!

January 28, 2014 - HAWAII -In our January Volcano Watch articles — Hawaii Island’s fifth annual Volcano Awareness Month — we are exploring important questions about how Hawaiian volcanoes work. Last week, we discussed how Hawaiian islands grow; this week, we talk about how they fall apart.

Black dashed lines delineate 17 distinct landslides that have occurred around the Hawaiian Islands over the last
several million years. The largest slides originated from the north sides of Oahu and Molokai. Colors ranging
from pink to purple indicate the water depth around the islands, while shades of gray show land topography
above sea level. Red areas on the Island of Hawaii indicate lava flows erupted within the past 200 years.

In 1964, irregular submarine topography north of Oahu and Molokai was identified in newly available maps of the sea floor made by the U.S. Navy. James Moore, then Scientist-in-Charge at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, suggested that this odd bathymetry might reflect massive landslides originating from those islands.

Moore’s interpretation was disputed for more than 20 years until comprehensive mapping of the sea floor around the entire state of Hawaii was completed in the late 1980s. It turned out that Moore was right. Large — even catastrophic — submarine landslide structures litter the sea floor around the Hawaiian Islands. In fact, 17 major landslides have been identified off the shores of the main Hawaiian Islands. Fortunately, these slides are exceedingly rare — occurring, on average, only once every 350,000 years.

The largest landslides constitute significant portions of the islands from which they originated. Imagine if 10 percent of one of the islands suddenly collapsed into the ocean. Such an event would displace a huge amount of water and cause a large tsunami. Deposits of coral and sand have been found approximately 1,000 feet above sea level on several of the Hawaiian Islands. Catastrophic landslides are believed to have generated gigantic tsunami waves that washed ashore and left these deposits behind.

Evidence across the Hawaiian Islands suggests that landslides occur during all stages of a volcano’s life. The submarine volcano Loihi — the youngest in the Hawaiian chain, located southeast of Hawaii Island — is characterized by a number of small landslides, even though the volcano hasn’t yet breached the surface of the ocean. On the other hand, large landslides from Oahu and Molokai clearly occurred well after the islands were established above sea level.

We also know that not all landslides in Hawaii are catastrophic. The south flank of Kilauea is sliding continuously into the ocean at a rate of about 3 inches a year. This motion is punctuated by large, devastating earthquakes that can cause tens of feet of seaward motion in just a few seconds — as when the magnitude 7.7 temblor struck Hawaii Island in 1975 — as well as “slow earthquakes” that are associated with a few inches of seaward motion over the course of one to two days.

Will Kilauea’s south flank ever collapse suddenly? Since the shape of the south flank indicates that the slide has been active for thousands of years, there is no reason to expect that its behavior will change any time soon. Although most evidence suggests that it will continue to sag gradually, this question remains open to interpretation.

What, then, causes large landslides in Hawaii? Models suggest that magma pressure alone is not adequate to produce a massive landslide. One can imagine a scenario, however, in which a large eruption weakens an already unstable volcano, allowing gravity to pull the volcano apart.

Future scientific research must focus on the mechanism for giant landslides in Hawaii, which represent a major, infrequent hazard. Since other volcanic islands — such as the Canaries and the Azores — are also subject to catastrophic collapse, lessons learned from the Hawaii example might be fruitfully applied to mitigating hazards for the benefit of citizens elsewhere around the world.

Next week, our annual Volcano Awareness Month Volcano Watch series will conclude with an examination of questions related to volcano monitoring.

Until then, you’re invited to attend a talk about Kilauea Volcano’s gas emissions and vog Tuesday in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Details are posted at hvo.wr.usgs.gov. You can also email askHVO@usgs.gov or call 967-8844 for more information.

Kilauea activity update

A lava lake within Halemaumau produced nighttime glow visible via HVO’s webcam during the past week. After nearly a month without deflation-inflation cycles at Kilauea’s summit, a large DI event started late on Jan. 17. In response to the deflation, the lava lake level dropped from about 148 feet to about 230 feet below the rim of the overlook vent. DI inflation started Jan. 22 and was continuing as of Thursday.

On Kilauea’s east rift zone, the Kahaualea 2 flow continued to advance slowly into the forest northeast of Puu Oo, and satellite imagery showed the tip of the flow to have reached 4.8 miles northeast of Puu Oo by Wednesday. Activity, however, waned as the DI event progressed, probably causing the most distant parts of the flow to stagnate. Webcam imagery suggests that flow activity is now waxing, with the active front slightly closer to Puu Oo.

There were no earthquakes reported felt on Hawaii Island in the past week. - West Hawaii Today.

THE WAR ON MOTHER NATURE: The Ocean Is Broken - The Fish And Birds Are Missing, Hardly A Sign Of Life At All; Are We Approaching A Point Of Extinction Of Marine Life?!

October 20, 2013 - EARTH - It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it.

Not the absence of sound, exactly.

The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull.

And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris.

What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.

The birds were missing because the fish were missing.

Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.

"There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled.

But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.

No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.

"In years gone by I'd gotten used to all the birds and their noises," he said.

"They'd be following the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again. You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the distance, feeding on pilchards."

But in March and April this year, only silence and desolation surrounded his boat, Funnel Web, as it sped across the surface of a haunted ocean.

North of the equator, up above New Guinea, the ocean-racers saw a big fishing boat working a reef in the distance.

"All day it was there, trawling back and forth. It was a big ship, like a mother-ship," he said.

And all night it worked too, under bright floodlights. And in the morning Macfadyen was awoken by his crewman calling out, urgently, that the ship had launched a speedboat.

"Obviously I was worried. We were unarmed and pirates are a real worry in those waters. I thought, if these guys had weapons then we were in deep trouble."

But they weren't pirates, not in the conventional sense, at least. The speedboat came alongside and the Melanesian men aboard offered gifts of fruit and jars of jam and preserves.

"And they gave us five big sugar-bags full of fish," he said.

"They were good, big fish, of all kinds. Some were fresh, but others had obviously been in the sun for a while.

"We told them there was no way we could possibly use all those fish. There were just two of us, with no real place to store or keep them. They just shrugged and told us to tip them overboard. That's what they would have done with them anyway, they said.

"They told us that his was just a small fraction of one day's by-catch. That they were only interested in tuna and to them, everything else was rubbish. It was all killed, all dumped. They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing."

Macfadyen felt sick to his heart. That was one fishing boat among countless more working unseen beyond the horizon, many of them doing exactly the same thing.

No wonder the sea was dead. No wonder his baited lines caught nothing. There was nothing to catch.

If that sounds depressing, it only got worse.

The next leg of the long voyage was from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation was tinged with nauseous horror and a degree of fear.

"After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead," Macfadyen said.

"We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

"I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen."

In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes.

"Part of it was the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Japan a couple of years ago. The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And it's still out there, everywhere you look."

Ivan's brother, Glenn, who boarded at Hawaii for the run into the United States, marvelled at the "thousands on thousands" of yellow plastic buoys. The huge tangles of synthetic rope, fishing lines and nets. Pieces of polystyrene foam by the million. And slicks of oil and petrol, everywhere.

Countless hundreds of wooden power poles are out there, snapped off by the killer wave and still trailing their wires in the middle of the sea.

"In years gone by, when you were becalmed by lack of wind, you'd just start your engine and motor on," Ivan said.

Not this time.

"In a lot of places we couldn't start our motor for fear of entangling the propeller in the mass of pieces of rope and cable. That's an unheard of situation, out in the ocean.

"If we did decide to motor we couldn't do it at night, only in the daytime with a lookout on the bow, watching for rubbish.

"On the bow, in the waters above Hawaii, you could see right down into the depths. I could see that the debris isn't just on the surface, it's all the way down. And it's all sizes, from a soft-drink bottle to pieces the size of a big car or truck.

"We saw a factory chimney sticking out of the water, with some kind of boiler thing still attached below the surface. We saw a big container-type thing, just rolling over and over on the waves.

"We were weaving around these pieces of debris. It was like sailing through a garbage tip.

"Below decks you were constantly hearing things hitting against the hull, and you were constantly afraid of hitting something really big. As it was, the hull was scratched and dented all over the place from bits and pieces we never saw."

Plastic was ubiquitous. Bottles, bags and every kind of throwaway domestic item you can imagine, from broken chairs to dustpans, toys and utensils.

And something else. The boat's vivid yellow paint job, never faded by sun or sea in years gone past, reacted with something in the water off Japan, losing its sheen in a strange and unprecedented way.

BACK in Newcastle, Ivan Macfadyen is still coming to terms with the shock and horror of the voyage.

"The ocean is broken," he said, shaking his head in stunned disbelief.

Recognising the problem is vast, and that no organisations or governments appear to have a particular interest in doing anything about it, Macfadyen is looking for ideas.

He plans to lobby government ministers, hoping they might help.

More immediately, he will approach the organisers of Australia's major ocean races, trying to enlist yachties into an international scheme that uses volunteer yachtsmen to monitor debris and marine life.

Macfadyen signed up to this scheme while he was in the US, responding to an approach by US academics who asked yachties to fill in daily survey forms and collect samples for radiation testing - a significant concern in the wake of the tsunami and consequent nuclear power station failure in Japan.

"I asked them why don't we push for a fleet to go and clean up the mess," he said.

"But they said they'd calculated that the environmental damage from burning the fuel to do that job would be worse than just leaving the debris there." - Herald Sun.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: Massive Algae Overload Swamps Chinese Beaches - The Largest Algae Bloom EVER SEEN; Covers 11,500 Square Miles; Larger Than The State Of Massachusetts?!

July 09, 2013 - CHINA - More than 20,000 tons of bright green algae has washed ashore on China's beaches in recent weeks, but there's disagreement as to what caused the massive bloom.

A boy lies on the algae beach. Photograph: Imaginechina/Rex Features

A man buries himself with the algae that has covered beaches in the Qingdao area.
Photo: Jian Feng/Associated Press

The algae began washing ashore about a month ago in the city of Qingdao in China's eastern Shandong province, as it does every year. But this year's bloom is estimated to be twice the size of 2008's, when the Beijing Olympic sailing event was threatened by a similar bloom.

The Los Angeles Times reports that so far this year the algae has covered an area of about 11,500 square miles, which is larger than the state of Massachusetts.

A man swims in seawater covered by a thick layer of green algae on July 3, 2013, in Qingdao, China.
Photo by ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images

 A group swim at an algae. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

 A woman wearing mask plays at a beach. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images

 Two young tourists take photos on a beach. Photograph: Imaginechina /Rex Features

Some researchers believe the algae is from seaweed farms south of Qingdao, which grow nori on coastal rafts that attract algae. Others say it may be naturally occurring, or from fertilizer washed into the ocean from gardens, farms and golf courses.

Generally, the plant poses no danger to humans, but it can produce a toxic gas if left to rot, the LA Times notes. - Huffington Post.

WATCH: Chinese beaches overwhelmed by algae.

EARTH CHANGES: The New Normal - More Extreme Weather Predicted In National Climate Report!

February 02, 2013 - UNITED STATES - David Wolfe, professor of horticulture, was a lead author on a Northeast climate section, and Drew Harvell, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, was a lead author of an oceans and marine resources section in the Federal Advisory Committee's Draft Climate Assessment Report, released this month. Overall, the U.S. average temperature has risen by about 1.5 degrees since 1895, but 80 percent of that change has occurred in the last 32 years, according to the report.

By the end of the century, temperatures could rise anywhere from 3 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on human actions, or inaction, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The report's Northeast section points to climate-related issues facing 64 million people that live in a region marked by high-density urban, coastal, natural and agricultural areas. "This document will be an essential science-based resource for decision-makers in our communities and businesses who are rolling up their sleeves to take on the challenges and build resilience to climate change," said Wolfe, who chairs the Climate Change Focus Group at Cornell's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. 

Americans can expect more heat waves, heavy downpours, floods and droughts, sea level rise and ocean acidification, according to a draft national climate assessment report that included two Cornell researchers as lead authors.

Highlights from the section for 12 Northeast states find that:

• Heat waves, coastal flooding due to sea level rise and river flooding from extreme precipitation events will increasingly threaten the region's environmental, social and economic systems.
• These climate-related hazards, along with increased pressure from pests and disease, will stress agriculture and ecosystems. Research and outreach efforts are under way to help farmers cope.
• State and municipality-level measures to implement adaptations are still at early stages, even though many local and state governments and organizations have begun planning for climate changes. With regard to the nation's ocean areas and resources, the United States depends heavily on oceans for seafood, recreation and tourism, transportation, and critical resources, according to the report.

"The ocean resources chapter is new this year, reflecting the increasingly significant impacts being catalogued in marine ecosystems, in addition to the coastal impacts described in a separate chapter of the report," said Harvell, associate director for environment at the Atkinson Center. Over the past century, global sea levels have risen by 8 inches, while average U.S. coastal sea surface temperatures have risen by almost 1 degree Fahrenheit, greatly affecting coral and other ecosystems, while holding heat that will also warm the atmosphere. 

Key points from this section include:

• Sea levels will continue to rise, impacting climate, ocean circulation, chemistry and ecosystems. The ocean absorbs about 25 percent of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, which causes ocean acidification that will likely reduce growth and survival of shellfish stocks in all regions.
• Habitat loss will continue in places like the Arctic and coral reefs, while other areas will gain habitat for some species, thereby altering ecosystems. Coral reefs, for example, are extremely endangered and near collapse in some regions. Rising sea surface temperatures will lead to more diseases for both humans and marine life.
• Such human uses of the ocean as transportation, resource use and extraction, recreational and tourism activities and industries, will be affected in positive and negative ways by climate change.
• Some ocean policies, practices and management efforts—including increasing the resilience of built infrastructures or natural marine ecosystems—may serve as models for adapting to climate change in the oceans.

- PHYSORG.

MONUMENTAL EARTH CHANGES: USGS-NOAA - Climate Change Impacts To U.S. Coasts, Threaten Public Health, Safety And Economy; A Major Threat To 50 Percent Of Americans!

January 29, 2013 - UNITED STATES - The report, Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities: a technical input to the 2013 National Climate Assessment, authored by leading scientists and experts, emphasizes the need for increased coordination and planning to ensure U.S. coastal communities are resilient against the effects of climate change. The recently released report examines and describes climate change impacts on coastal ecosystems and human economies and communities, as well as the kinds of scientific data, planning tools and resources that coastal communities and resource managers need to help them adapt to these changes.

© Shutterstock.

"Sandy showed us that coastal states and communities need effective strategies, tools and resources to conserve, protect, and restore coastal habitats and economies at risk from current environmental stresses and a changing climate," said Margaret A. Davidson of NOAA's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management and co-lead author of the report. "Easing the existing pressures on coastal environments to improve their resiliency is an essential method of coping with the adverse effects of climate change." A key finding in the report is that all U.S. coasts are highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change such as sea-level rise, erosion, storms and flooding, especially in the more populated low-lying parts of the U.S. coast along the Gulf of Mexico, Mid-Atlantic, northern Alaska, Hawaii, and island territories. Another finding indicated the financial risks associated with both private and public hazard insurance are expected to increase dramatically. "An increase in the intensity of extreme weather events such as storms like Sandy and Katrina, coupled with sea-level rise and the effects of increased human development along the coasts, could affect the sustainability of many existing coastal communities and natural resources," said Virginia Burkett of the U.S. Geological Survey and co-lead author of the report.

The authors also emphasized that storm surge flooding and sea-level rise pose significant threats to public and private infrastructure that provides energy, sewage treatment, clean water and transportation of people and goods. These factors increase threats to public health, safety, and employment in the coastal zone. The report's authors noted that the population of the coastal watershed counties of the U.S. and territories, including the Great Lakes, makes up more than 50 percent of the nation's population and contributed more than $8.3 trillion to the 2011 U.S. economy but depend on healthy coastal landforms, water resources, estuaries and other natural resources to sustain them. Climate changes, combined with human development activities, reduce the ability of coasts to provide numerous benefits, including food, clean water, jobs, recreation and protection of communities against storms. Seventy-nine federal, academic and other scientists, including the lead authors from the NOAA and USGS, authored the report which is being used as a technical input to the third National Climate Assessment—an interagency report produced for Congress once every four years to summarize the science and impacts of climate change on the United States.

Other key findings of the report include:

• Expected public health impacts include a decline in seafood quality, shifts in disease patterns and increases in rates of heat-related morbidity. Changes in the location and the time of year when storms form can lead to large changes in where storms land and the impacts of storms. Any sea-level rise is virtually certain to exacerbate storm-surge and flooding related hazards. Because of changes in the hydrological cycle due to warming, precipitation events (rain, snow) will likely be heavier. Combined with sea-level rise and storm surge, this will increase flooding severity in some coastal areas, particularly in the Northeast.
• Temperature is primarily driving environmental change in the Alaskan coastal zone. Sea ice and permafrost make northern regions particularly susceptible to temperature change. For example, an increase of two degrees Celsius during the summer could basically transform much of Alaska from frozen to unfrozen, with extensive implications.
• As the physical environment changes, the range of a particular ecosystem will expand, contract or migrate in response. The combined influence of many stresses can cause unexpected ecological changes if species, populations or ecosystems are pushed beyond a tipping point.
• Although adaptation planning activities in the coastal zone are increasing, they generally occur in an ad-hoc manner and are slow to be implemented. Efficiency of adaptation can be improved through more accurate and timely scientific information, tools, and resources, and by integrating adaptation plans into overall land use planning as well as ocean and coastal management.
• An integrated scientific program will reduce uncertainty about the best ways coastal communities can to respond to sea-level rise and other kinds of coastal change. This, in turn, will allow communities to better assess their vulnerability and to identify and implement appropriate adaptation and preparedness options.  

- PHYSORG.

LIFE ON MARS: ESA's Mars Express Radar Gives Strong Evidence For Ancient Oceans on the Red Planet - Did Mars' 600-Million -Year Drought Drive Life Underground?!

ESA's Mars Express has returned strong evidence for an ocean once covering part of Mars. Using radar, it has detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor within the boundaries of previously identified, ancient shorelines on Mars.

The MARSIS radar was deployed in 2005 and has been collecting data ever since. Jérémie Mouginot, Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) and the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues have analysed more than two years of data and found that the northern plains are covered in low-density material. "We interpret these as sedimentary deposits, maybe ice-rich," says Dr Mouginot. "It is a strong new indication that there was once an ocean here." The existence of oceans on ancient Mars has been suspected before and features reminiscent of shorelines have been tentatively identified in images from various spacecraft. But it remains a controversial issue. Two oceans have been proposed: 4 billion years ago, when warmer conditions prevailed, and also 3 billion years ago when subsurface ice melted following a large impact, creating outflow channels that drained the water into areas of low elevation.   
   
Mars Express radar investigation.   

"MARSIS penetrates deep into the ground, revealing the first 60–80 metres of the planet's subsurface," says Wlodek Kofman, leader of the radar team at IPAG. "Throughout all of this depth, we see the evidence for sedimentary material and ice." The sediments revealed by MARSIS are areas of low radar reflectivity. Such sediments are typically low-density granular materials that have been eroded away by water and carried to their final destination. This later ocean would however have been temporary. Within a million years or less, Dr Mouginot estimates, the water would have either frozen back in place and been preserved underground again, or turned into vapour and lifted gradually into the atmosphere. "I don't think it could have stayed as an ocean long enough for life to form." In order to find evidence of life, astrobiologists will have to look even further back in Mars' history when liquid water existed for much longer periods.

Nevertheless, this work provides some of the best evidence yet that there were once large bodies of liquid water on Mars and is further proof of the role of liquid water in the martian geological history. "Previous Mars Express results about water on Mars came from the study of images and mineralogical data, as well as atmospheric measurements. Now we have the view from the subsurface radar," says Olivier Witasse, ESA's Mars Express Project Scientist. "This adds new pieces of information to the puzzle but the question remains: where did all the water go?" Mars Express continues its investigation. - ESA.

Mars may have been arid for more than 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet’s surface, according to researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analysing individual particles of Martian soil. The team also estimated that the soil on Mars had been exposed to liquid water --critical for life--for at most 5,000 years since its formation billions of years ago. The researchers, led by Dr Tom Pike, from Imperial College London, have spent three years analysing data on Martian soil that was collected during the 2008 NASA Phoenix mission to Mars. Phoenix touched down in the northern arctic region of the planet to search for signs that it was habitable and to analyze ice and soil on the surface.

"We found that even though there is an abundance of ice, Mars has been experiencing a super-drought that may well have lasted hundreds of millions of years," said Pike. "We think the Mars we know today contrasts sharply with its earlier history, which had warmer and wetter periods and which may have been more suited to life. Future NASA and ESA missions that are planned for Mars will have to dig deeper to search for evidence of life, which may still be taking refuge underground.” The results of the soil analysis at the Phoenix site suggest the surface of Mars has been arid for hundreds of millions of years, despite the presence of ice and the fact that previous research has shown that Mars may have had a warmer and wetter period in its earlier history more than three billion years ago.

Satellite images and previous studies have proven that the soil on Mars is uniform across the planet, which suggests that the results from the team’s analysis could be applied to all of Mars. This implies that liquid water has been on the surface of Mars for far too short a time for life to maintain a foothold on the surface. During the Phoenix mission, Dr Pike and his research group formed one of 24 teams based at mission control in the University of Arizona in the USA, operating part of the spacecraft’s onboard laboratories. They analysed soil samples dug up by a robot arm, using an optical microscope to produce images of larger sand-sized particles, and an atomic-force microscope to produce 3D images of the surface of particles as small as 100 microns across. Since the end of the mission, the team has been cataloguing individual particle sizes to understand more about the history of the Martian soil.

In the study, the researchers looked for the microscopic clay particles that are formed when rock is broken down by water. Such particles are an important marker of contact between liquid water and the soil, forming a distinct population in the soil. The team found no such marker. They calculated that even if the few particles they saw in this size range were in fact clay, they made up less than 0.1 percent of the total proportion of the soil in the samples. On Earth, clays can make up to 50 percent or more of the soil content, so such a small proportion in the Martian samples suggests that the soil has had a very arid history. They estimated that the soil they were analysing had only been exposed to liquid water for a maximum of 5,000 years by comparing their data with the slowest rate that clays could form on Earth.

The team found further evidence to support the idea that Martian soil has been largely dry throughout its history by comparing soil data from Mars, Earth and the Moon. The researchers deduced that the soil was being formed in a similar way on Mars and the Moon because they were able to match the distribution of soil particle sizes. On Mars, the team inferred that physical weathering by the wind as well as meteorites breaks down the soil into smaller particles. On the Moon, meteorite impacts break down rocks into soil, as there is no liquid water or atmosphere to wear down the particles. Image at the top of the page shows that Martian landscape may have contained lakes some 3.7 to 3 billion years ago. - The Daily Galaxy.

HIGH STRANGENESS: Glowing Waves in California are Attracting Surfers and Kayakers - What is Causing This Eerie, Otherworldly Phenomenon?

It looks like something from the movie "Avatar": ocean waters that light up like neon glow sticks when they splash. Beaches across southern California have recently been alight with eerie, glowing waves. What could be causing such an otherworldly phenomenon?

A recent report by Discovery News has provided an answer. According to marine biologist Jorge Ribas, the glowing is caused by a massive red tide, or algae bloom, of bioluminescent phytoplankton called Lingulodinium polyedrum. The microorganisms emit light in response to stress, such as when a wave crashes into the shore, a surfboard slashes through the surf, or a kayaker's paddle splashes the water. The result is a wickedly cool glowing ocean.


The phenomenon has been observed on a semi-regular basis since at least 1901 along the beaches around San Diego, Calif. By day the algal blooms give the water a soupy red coloration, which is why they're often referred to as a red tide. But unlike some forms of red tide that can be toxic to people and marine life, the glowing blooms occurring in San Diego waters are reportedly harmless.


For surfers who don't mind catching a wave in water teeming with a sludge of microorganisms, the glowing ocean offers the chance of a lifetime. Night swimmers also often delight in the opportunity to lounge in a bioluminescent sea. The organisms can also be present in wet beach sand, so even beach walkers can watch as the ground sparkles with every footstep.


Several videos posted on YouTube show the majestic effects of the phenomenon. Watch below as a surfer sets a wave aflame and a kayaker dazzles through calmer waters while the coastal city lights shine in the background. - MNN.

WATCH: Bioluminescent Ocean in California.

GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVAL: New Ocean Found Under Ethiopia's Deserts!

A giant underground reservoir of molten rock has been discovered under the deserts of Ethiopia by British geologists, The (London) Sunday Times reported.

They targeted the Afar region in the Horn of Africa after a recent surge in volcanic activity and earthquakes plus the appearance of giant cracks in the rocky surface. Tectonic plates in the area are pulling apart and gradually creating a new ocean. Now, the scientists have mapped the colossal underground lake of magma that lies up to 20 miles (32km) below the earth's surface. "We estimate that there is 3,000 cubic kilometers of molten rock under Afar -- enough to cover all of London ... with around a kilometer of rock," said Kathy Whaler, professor of geophysics at Edinburgh University. The reservoir is under such pressure that it has forced tongues of molten rock up towards the surface, producing eruptions and earthquakes. In 2005, a 25-foot (7.6m) wide tongue of lava spread 40 miles (64km) under Afar in 10 days and solidified, and many more followed.

Afar lies in east Africa's Great Rift Valley at a point where three tectonic plates are pulling apart from each other. Such movement creates gaps, or rifts, in the Earth's crust, which allows molten rock to well up from deep below. There are thousands of miles of these rifts around the world but almost all lie deep below the ocean. East Africa and Iceland are the only places where they emerge on to land. Much of Afar is already below sea level but is protected from flooding by a barrier of low hills in Eritrea. Geologists believe the protective barrier will be overcome in about one million years, allowing the Red Sea to inundate the whole area. Whaler, who presented her preliminary results to the UK's Royal Society last week, said, "Over geological time parts of southern Ethiopia and Somalia will split off and form a new island that moves out into the Indian Ocean." - MyFoxDFW.

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: Huge Swarms of Jellyfish Invades Mediterranean!

Enormous swarms of jellyfish - some of them deadly - are taking over the Mediterranean, a top scientist has warned.

The holiday hotspot, a favourite with Brits, has seen a sharp increase in numbers and could turn into an 'ocean of jellyfish'. Now researchers have set up a 'Jellywatch' so the public can report sightings via a website or by using a phone app. The scheme started in Italy and Israel three years ago after growing public fears over jellyfish 'blooms'. Monitoring has since begun in Spain. The man behind the plan, Professor of zoology Ferdinando Boero, warned: 'Jellyfish cause problems for swimmers, particularly as some species are a real health hazard. 'An Italian woman was killed last year after being stung by a Portuguese Man o' War.

'Jellyfish have clogged industrial marine cooling systems in Israel and they have also caused problems for power plants in the US and Scotland.' He added:, 'If we don't do anything about the situation, all the indications from Jellywatch suggest that the Mediterranean is moving towards a gelatinous future, just like the rest of the seas of the world.' Prof Boero, from the University of Salento, in Italy, will be addressing an international conference on the problem in Aberdeen tomorrow. He said: 'While jellyfish are a natural feature of the Mediterranean, 'jelly blooms' were rarely seen until the last few years when massive swarms became a frequent sight in coastal waters. 'This causes all sorts of problems and one of the biggest is obviously tourism.' Prof Boero believes over-fishing could be to blame for the increase. But climate change and the building of coastal defences could be factors, too. - Daily Mail.

Scientists: Global Increase In Wind Speed and Wave Heights?!

Published in Science, the study is the most comprehensive of its kind ever undertaken. Other authors include Swinburne University oceanographers Professor Alex Babanin and Dr Stefan Zieger. “Careful analysis of satellite data shows that extreme oceanic wind speeds and ocean wave heights have increased dramatically over the last 23 years,” Professor Young said.

“Off the southern coast of Australia, the highest one per cent of waves have increased in height from approximately five metres to almost six metres over the last 20 years. Extreme conditions are where we are seeing the largest increases, but mean conditions are also going up. Extreme wind speeds have increased over most of the globe by approximately 10 per cent over the last 20 years, or 0.5 per cent every year. Extreme wave heights have increased by an average of seven per cent over the last 20 years, or 0.25 per cent a year in equatorial regions and 0.5 per cent a year in higher latitudes. The results have potential impact on the design of coastal buildings and other structures as well as shipping. They could also have a profound effect on the transfer of energy (heat) between the sea and the atmosphere – one of the great unknowns of climate change. Using recently developed satellite data allowed us to investigate trends on a global scale for the first time. This has really given us a much clearer picture of what is happening in the world’s oceans.” The study looked at satellite data over 23 years from 1985 to 2008, and was funded under an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, with sponsorship from MetOcean Engineers. - Physics.