Oceans

Scientists investigating global warming by broadcasting sound beneath the ocean want to temporarily modify the experiment to make it more efficient. The researchers, based at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, want to change the frequency of the low rumbles they transmit 50 miles off Half Moon Bay.

Using a giant straw to suck samples from beneath the ocean floor, oceanographers have found a thriving microbial zoo living deep within the ocean crust. Fluid collected from below the surface was chemically distinct from seawater and contained a variety of microbes, said University of Hawaii oceanographer James P. Cowen. The ecosystem has not been studied before because of the difficulty of reaching ocean crust fluids.

Vast amounts of organic matter in oceans, once thought to be inert, may help mitigate the greenhouse effect, bioengineers at the University of Washington report in Nature. Tiny chains of carbon-based molecules appear to be spontaneously assembling into molecular networks, called polymer gels, that could serve as a way for the carbon in dissolved organic matter to be recycled into the atmosphere or to be locked up in ocean sediments, the researchers said.

A preliminary experiment suggests that "fertilizing" the southern oceans to enhance algae growth could reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, tempering the greenhouse effect, researchers report in today's Nature. Growing algae would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and, when the plants die, send it to the ocean floor. But the algae need added iron to grow.

The world's oceans have been fished nearly to the limits, after decades of fishermen using bigger boats and more advanced hunting technologies, a report released Saturday says. "Although worldwide environmental degradation of the oceans contributes to the decline of marine life, overfishing is the primary cause of dwindling fish populations," says the report by the nonprofit Worldwatch Institute.

The oceans burped ... twice. About 13,000 and 18,000 years ago, carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere in two giant belches that drove concentrations of the greenhouse gas from 180 to 265 parts per million, where it held relatively steady until the Industrial Revolution. Scientists have long known about the jump in gas levels from looking at ice cores.

Re "Altered Oceans," five-part series, July 30 -- Aug. 3 Thank you for the excellent series on the state of our oceans. It should be required reading for anyone who refuses to admit that our beautiful little world is in deep trouble. We're all responsible for this mess. Not demanding that something be done to correct this horrible condition only compounds the sin. Where's the outrage and righteous anger over these deplorable conditions? It isn't as though nobody knew that the planet was in trouble.

New measurements reveal that the oceans are warming and rising about twice as rapidly as scientists had thought, strongly suggesting that global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels has already begun, researchers said Wednesday. Satellite data indicates that the temperature of the Earth's oceans has been rising at a yearly rate of nearly 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit through most of the 1980s, according to a report scheduled for publication today in the journal Nature. "We may be just beginning to witness the onset of warming" produced by the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, said oceanographer Alan E. Strong of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in Suitland, Md. Coincidentally, Richard Peltier of the University of Toronto reported Wednesday at an American Geophysical Union meeting in Snowbird, Utah, that the level of the oceans is rising about 1/12 of an inch per year--an outcome of warming caused by the greenhouse effect.

A senior scientist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has discovered evidence that seems to support a controversial theory that the oceans were created by trillions of small, water-bearing comets plunging into the Earth's atmosphere over the last 3 or 4 billion years.

A group of residents who worked for a year to raise enough money to buy a small piece of oceanview land at the top of Las Pulgas Canyon said Wednesday that they have reached their goal. Escrow on the one-third acre plot known as the Las Casas-Grenola Viewsite will close Aug. 31, said Blake Mirkin, who was among a small group of neighbors who solicited donations from neighbors and government agencies to buy the land for $265,000.