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The tuna industry says climate change is bringing benefits. The chief executive of the Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Association, Brian Jeffriess, says Port Lincoln crews in South Australia are reporting an excellent quality and size catch. He says it can be partly attributed to the effects of climate change on the waters of the Great Australian Bight. "There's no doubt climate change will bring benefits to the Great Australian Bight ecology in the sense that there's more upwellings therefore more small pelagics as we call them - sardines, mackerel, red bait, other fish - and that will bring tuna so...

New Mexico Tech chemistry professor Oliver Wingenter and his colleagues believe modest fertilization of the Southern Ocean with iron might help slow some of the effects of global warming. The concept of climate engineering – or geo-engineering – has scientists, activists and politicians debating the ethics and merits of environmental manipulation. Wingenter has conducted ship-board experiments, fertilizing two small patches of the Southern Ocean with iron to study the atmospheric effects. He said small-scale fertilization may abate the loss of Antarctic ice. The general principle involves seeding the ocean with a liquid slurry of iron sulfide. German and Indian scientists...

Research funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution suggests underwater volcanoes up to a mile in diameter have erupted violently in the past decade beneath the Arctic ice cap. The eruptions coincided with growing hysteria over the unprovable theory that civilization is causing runaway global warming (which among other things is supposedly melting the ice cap), and with research irrefutably confirming that the Antarctic ice cap is growing and that the planet has cooled 1 F in the last decade. Scientists used to think deep-sea volcanoes dribbled lava because of the weight of the...

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Oil companies once viewed drilling in the deep waters off Florida as cost prohibitive. Politicians feared even the slightest sign of support would be career suicide. No more. Record crude oil prices are fueling support for oil and natural gas exploration off the nation's shores. In Florida, movement was underway even before President Bush called on Congress last month to lift a federal moratorium that's barred new offshore drilling since 1981. The early activity here stems from a 2006 Congressional compromise that allows drilling on 8.3 million acres more than 125 miles off the Panhandle _ an...

Lonely whales are 'losing the will to live' due to over-hunting By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 4:57 PM on 02nd July 2008 The steeply declining number of whales in the world's oceans is causing the remaining creatures to suffer loneliness and 'lose the will the live', a leading expert has claimed. The psychological impact of over-hunting on the highly intelligent and sociable animals has been identified as the latest threat to the survival of the species. The whale population has already fallen dramatically over the past few centuries because to culling by Japan, Norway and Iceland, and the...

AUSTIN, Texas—A class of powerful, invisible waves hidden beneath the surface of the ocean can shape the underwater edges of continents and contribute to ocean mixing and climate, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have found. The scientists simulated ocean conditions in a laboratory aquarium and found that "internal waves" generate intense currents when traveling at the same angle as that of the continental slope. The continental slope is the region where the relatively shallow continental shelf slants down to meet the deep ocean floor. They suspect that these intense currents, called boundary flows, lift sediments as the...

The dramatic proliferation of jellyfish in oceans around the world, driven by overfishing and climate change, is a sure sign of ecosystems out of kilter, warn experts. "Jellyfish are an excellent bellwether for the environment," explains Jacqueline Goy, of the Oceanographic Institute of Paris. "The more jellyfish, the stronger the signal that something has changed." Brainless creatures composed almost entirely of water, the primitive animals have quietly filled a vacuum created by the voracious human appetite for fish. Dislodging them will be difficult, marine biologists say. "Jellyfish have come to occupy the place of many other species," notes Ricardo Aguilar,...

Bush to urge lifting of ban on offshore drilling Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:55pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will make an announcement on Wednesday about energy and call on Congress to pass legislation lifting a ban on offshore oil drilling, the White House said. "With gasoline now over $4 a gallon, tomorrow he will explicitly call on Congress to also pass legislation lifting the congressional ban on safe, environmentally friendly offshore oil drilling," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Tuesday.

MADISON - If you are curious about Earth's periodic mass extinction events such as the sudden demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, you might consider crashing asteroids and sky-darkening super volcanoes as culprits. But a new study, published online today (June 15, 2008) in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment over the course of geologic time, that is the primary cause of the world's periodic mass extinctions during the past 500[sc1] million years. "The expansions and contractions of those environments have pretty...

Along the Emerald Coast, it's fairly common to see dolphins, manta rays, sea turtles and other marine animals. But manatees cause more of a stir. That's why Niceville veterinarian Jenny Fortune and her husband were slow to identify what was swimming between them in hip-deep water near Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park recently. "I'm looking at it, going ‘Oh my God, what is it?' " Fortune said. "These things are giant. Your brain just doesn't compute." She said they first thought it might be a large manta ray. They quickly realized that the creature wasn't flat, but very, very...

WASHINGTON — With oil and gas prices reaching record highs and little relief in sight, Republican members of Congress are looking at a long-sought, but so far unsuccessful plan to open American shores up to more petroleum exploration. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa. is leading the charge Wednesday, when he'll push for an amendment to a spending bill that would open up U.S. waters between 50 and 200 miles off shore for drilling. The first 50 miles off shore would be left alone. "For 27 years, Congress has deliberately locked up vast offshore oil and natural gas reserves," Peterson said, according...

Support S. 2766/H.R. 5949, the Clean Boating Act of 2008 Did you know that a recent court ruling about pollution being dumped from commercial ship ballast water will also require all recreational boats to get permits by September, 2008—despite the fact that 99% of recreational boats do not have ballast tanks? Boats and ships are different, and shouldn’t be treated the same. These costly permits—intended for commercial ships and supertankers that have brought harmful invasive water species into U.S. waters—are being developed right now to tax your boat’s engine cooling water, bilge water, and even deck runoff. This will seriously...

Rising sea levels threaten citiesBY ROSSLYN BEEBY SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT REPORTER 10/06/2008 7:22:00 AM Sea-level rise caused by global warning is already tracking above the global average along Australia's northern and western coastline, leading scientists have warned. Scenarios outlined in more than 40 submissions to a recent federal inquiry into environmental impacts of climate change on coastal communities included that the risk of storm surges and tidal damage to four of Australia's coastal capitals Darwin, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne had increased at least fourfold. And Cairns ''is particularly at risk'' from flooding with potential for a disaster similar to that...

Increasing carbon dioxide emissions could leave species such as coral and sea urchins struggling to survive by the end of the century because they are making the oceans more acidic, research led by British scientists suggests. The study of how acidification affects marine ecosystems has revealed a striking impact on animal and plant life. The findings, from a team led by Jason Hall-Spencer, of the University of Plymouth, indicate that rising carbon emissions will alter the biodiversity of the seas profoundly, even before the effects of global warming are taken into account. Greater concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere...

After five years of futile efforts to find or confirm sightings of any Caribbean monk seals — even just one — the U.S. government on Friday announced that the species is officially extinct and the only seal to vanish due to human causes.

Unravelling The Mystery Of The Kitty Litter Parasite In Marine Mammals ScienceDaily (Jun. 5, 2008) — Researchers at California Polytechnic State University have discovered what may be a clue to the mystery of why marine mammals around the world are succumbing to a parasite that is typically only associated with cats. The key may just be the lowly anchovy, according to research presented today at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite which causes toxoplasmosis, considered to be the third leading cause of death attributed to foodborne illness in...

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish tuna fishermen rammed their boat into a Greenpeace ship Friday and pelted it with lead fishing weights, the environmental group said. No one was injured. The fishing vessel was among several that swarmed the Arctic Sunrise, which was carrying activists campaigning against overfishing in the Mediterranean. The boat rammed the Greenpeace ship at high speed, said Yesim Aslan, a spokeswoman for the group. The barrage of lead weights damaged a helicopter that the activists had used earlier in the day to document the vessels' activities, Aslan said.

Climate report offers a dire look at next 50 years. Get used to it -- and be ready for water shortages, too, says a sweeping new scientific report rounding up likely effects of climate change on the United States' land, water and farms over the next half-century. Some effects already can be felt, says the report released Tuesday, which synthesizes results of more than 1,000 individual studies. And it's not just humans' food that's at risk, said witnesses at a congressional field hearing in Seattle on Tuesday. An intense and sudden acidification of the Pacific resulting from climate change presages...

ScienceDaily (May 24, 2008) — The results of several scientific studies conducted since 1993 have confirmed a 3.2 cm sea level rise. Although this variation might appear negligible, it has in fact turned out to be twice as high as that recorded over the whole of the previous century. This increase in sea level is a consequence of global warming. When sea temperature rises, the sea expands and therefore occupies a greater volume. This phenomenon is now well known to scientists, but other processes that have received less research attention, such as the tidal cycle, seem to contribute at global...

Energy Security: With the prospect of an oil shortage and $12 gas, the energy crisis is turning into a national emergency. One solution: Give states the option to develop offshore tracts. Uncle Sam bans states from drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf mainly to protect the environment. Some 85% of the U.S. coastline is off-limits to energy production - including huge reserves off Florida's coast, which China is exploiting in Cuban waters. To change that, a lawmaker is offering a novel idea. Rep. Sue Myrick of the House Energy and Commerce panel wants to let coastal states decide...