All posts tagged: ocean

El Niño has started and the weather could get weird

El Niño has started and the weather could get weird

Published by skeptic

Extreme weather caused by El Niño can include major flooding Antonio Masiello/Getty Images El Niño has officially begun, and it’s more likely than not that it will develop into a “super” El Niño. Either way, it will amplify temperatures and extreme weather around the world. El Niño is a natural climate phase that occurs when east-to-west winds weaken in the tropical Pacific, allowing water concentrated in the “warm pool” on the western side of the Pacific to wash back towards the eastern side. This broad smear of warm water heats the atmosphere, raising the global temperature. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has now declared the onset of El Niño because sea surface temperatures in the central-eastern Pacific have been more than 0.5°C above normal for the past month, and climate models project they will remain there for at least the next six months. The Japan Meteorological Agency has also declared that El Niño has begun. “We are seeing westerly wind anomalies from the dateline almost all the way to about 130° west, …

745-mile whale graveyard found at the bottom of Indian Ocean

745-mile whale graveyard found at the bottom of Indian Ocean

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. The ocean floor is covered with dead whales–but it is everything but a biohazard. When a whale dies, its body sinks to the ocean floor in a process called whale fall. The carcass then becomes its own complex ecosystem, nourishing and housing all types of marine life. Whale bones can then fossilize over time, leaving behind traces of what life looked like millions of years ago. Now, scientists in the Indian Ocean have discovered an enormous whale graveyard. The collection of bones and communities supported by these whale falls stretches 745 miles across the seafloor 13,779 to 22,965 feet deep. The oldest whale fossil is roughly 5.3 million years old and the graveyard even includes a new species of extinct whale. The findings …

Cuts to US ocean programme will hinder monitoring of El Niño and AMOC

Cuts to US ocean programme will hinder monitoring of El Niño and AMOC

Published by skeptic

One of the Ocean Observatories Initiative’s mooring spheres being lifted out of the sea Rebecca Travis / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution In the winter of 2013-2014, the strong winds of the jet stream shifted north, allowing a mass of warm water dubbed “the blob” to swell across more than 1500 kilometres of the north Pacific Ocean. Floating instruments moored to the seabed off Alaska, Washington and Oregon alerted scientists and the fishing industry to the arrival of this water, which was up to 4°C hotter than normal. They were part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), five mooring arrays off the US west and east coasts and Greenland. Announcing $220 million in funding for the programme in 2023, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) said the OOI was needed to monitor “critical organs of the Earth”. But last month the NSF announced that these arrays would be largely removed from the water following funding cuts by the administration of US President Donald Trump. As a planet-warming El Niño climate phase warmed the water further in …

Mysterious ‘cold blob’ in the Atlantic suggests the AMOC is weakening

Mysterious ‘cold blob’ in the Atlantic suggests the AMOC is weakening

Published by skeptic

The “cold blob” appears in a data visualisation showing average temperatures in 2015, relative to the 1951-80 average NASA Scientific Visualization Studio/Goddard Space Flight Center Over the past 150 years, Earth’s entire surface has been warming, except for one patch of the north Atlantic. Located south-east of Greenland, this area has cooled by as much as 1°C and is known as the “warming hole” or the “cold blob”. Scientists have been split over why this cold blob exists, but the latest evidence backs up the idea that it is caused by a weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system of currents that transports warmth from the tropics to Europe. The AMOC carries warm, salty water from the Gulf of Mexico towards the north Atlantic, where it cools and sinks, flowing back south along the ocean floor. Scientists are concerned that the surge of freshwater from Greenland’s melting ice is making this salty water less dense, so it sinks more slowly, weakening the circulation. Some research suggests the AMOC could cross a tipping …

Inside Jonah Hill’s jaw-dropping million Malibu pad with dreamy ocean views

Inside Jonah Hill’s jaw-dropping $13million Malibu pad with dreamy ocean views

Published by Daniella Wilson

Jonah Hill’s former Malibu retreat has officially hit the market, and it’s every bit the California dream home you would expect from one of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars. Nestled within the ultra-exclusive guard-gated Malibu Colony enclave, the newly redesigned property is listed for $13.25 million and offers a rare opportunity to own a slice of one of Southern California’s most coveted beachfront communities. The four-bedroom, four-bathroom residence spans approximately 3,653 square feet and has undergone a sophisticated transformation that blends laid-back coastal luxury with elevated contemporary design. While the home’s celebrity pedigree is enough to turn heads, it’s the breathtaking interiors, private outdoor oasis and enviable ocean access that truly steal the show. © Nate Williams A masterclass in California cool The residence has been newly staged and redesigned by Vesta Home, with designer Tiara Coughlan leaning into what she describes as the property’s “effortless California cool.” Rather than competing with the home’s architecture, the interiors have been carefully curated to enhance its strongest features, including soaring ceilings, dramatic black accent walls, oversized windows and …

David Attenborough Still Has Emmy Momentum With ‘Ocean’

David Attenborough Still Has Emmy Momentum With ‘Ocean’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Famed English broadcaster David Attenborough’s career has spanned nearly as many decades as his life. The historian, who turned 100 on May 8, began his career as a producer with the BBC nearly 75 years ago, in 1952. His hosting journey started not long after with the network’s 1954 multipart nature documentary, Zoo Quest.  It would be 30 years before Attenborough received his first Emmy nomination, in 1985, for writing PBS’ The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth. His first narrator nod wouldn’t come for yet another 30 years, in 2016, for the six-part BBC series Life Story. In 2018, Attenborough won his first Emmy for BBC’s marine life sequel Blue Planet II. Director of photography Doug Anderson films the coral reefs of Raja Ampat, Indonesia on Ocean With David Attenborough. Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios/Keith Scholey Two additional outstanding narrator wins followed in 2019 for Our Planet, Netflix’s first-ever nature doc, and in 2020 for the BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet. This year, Attenborough could score his 13th nod for National Geographic’s …

U.S. strike on alleged drug boat kills 3 in Pacific Ocean, in fourth attack this week : NPR

U.S. strike on alleged drug boat kills 3 in Pacific Ocean, in fourth attack this week : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Washington, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, looks on. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP WASHINGTON — The U.S. military said it carried out another strike Saturday on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three men in the fourth attack this week and putting the total death toll at 205. U.S. Southern Command announced the strike with its usual language that the vessel was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” and operated by a designated terrorist organization. It provided no evidence for the allegation. It’s the latest in a monthslong campaign against alleged drug boats traversing the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific. Video released by the military on social media shows a small vessel floating in the ocean before it’s hit and engulfed in a fireball. The attack brings the death toll to 205 in a series of U.S. strikes that began in early September, with other attacks announced on Tuesday, Wednesday …

Rare hybrid sea turtle released back into the ocean after rescue

Rare hybrid sea turtle released back into the ocean after rescue

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. A unique turtle is officially getting a second chance at life in the big blue. Last month we reported on a special resident at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center in Jekyll Island, Georgia: a first-generation hybrid sea turtle, the child of a Loggerhead sea turtle father (Caretta caretta) and a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) mother. Nicknamed Earl Grey, the reptile-turned-celebrity has returned to the wild.  Earl grey heads back into the ocean This Hannah Montana of turtles was slated to be released on Wednesday, but on Tuesday the Georgia Sea Turtle Center announced a change of plans because of “some unexpected pre-release complications.” Luckily, these complications must have been resolved. He was sent on his way Thursday morning, only one a …

A massive rift is splitting Africa apart forming Earth’s sixth ocean

A massive rift is splitting Africa apart forming Earth’s sixth ocean

Published by Jenni Sidey

The desert floor in Ethiopia looks fixed and ancient, but it is moving. Across the Afar region and down the East African Rift, the African continent is being pulled apart by forces deep below the surface, setting up a process that could, over millions of years, create a new ocean basin. That idea can sound like science fiction because the motion is so slow. But the change is measurable, and in geological terms it is already underway. A study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters examined how the Nubian and Somalian plates are shifting relative to one another, using GPS data to refine where the boundary lies and how fast different parts of the region are opening. The picture that emerges is not of one dramatic break, but of a continent stretching, fracturing, and reorganizing itself in ways that are already visible from the ground. At the center of that story is the East African Rift, a vast system of extensional structures that runs from about 11 degrees north to roughly 20 degrees south. At …