Word: ocean
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...September 2007 a record minimum ice coverage in the region - the result of a massive summer melt. And it was satellites that showed in 2008 and 2009 the modest recovery of late-summer Arctic ice that suggested to some that the specter of a totally ice-free polar ocean might be somewhat less imminent than feared...
...findings add another wrinkle to a problem climate scientists have been warning about since the record melt of 2007: after each summer meltback, the Arctic Ocean refreezes completely in winter. The problem is that much of that refreezing creates a relatively thin layer of so-called first-year ice. "It's weaker than thick, multiyear ice," says University of Colorado scientist James Maslanik, "and less resistant to melting...
...salmon, mackerel and sardines. Environmentalists fear that some species - especially a small filter feeder called menhaden, which plays a critical role in the aquatic food chain - are being overfished for oil supplements. Bigger fish prey on menhaden, which eat omega-3-rich algae and in doing so clean the ocean waters off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. By filtering up to 7 gal. (about 26 L) per min., menhaden help prevent oxygen-depleting algal blooms that lead to underwater dead zones. (See the top 10 green ideas...
...forecast. Their study is more of a thought experiment that includes a long list of necessary oversimplifications. "We're not projecting changes in population, property values, building codes or zoning regulations," says lead author Ross Hoffman of Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc., a private firm that does climate and ocean modeling, among other things, for companies and government agencies. "We're simply asking, If nothing else changed but sea level, what would the effect be on property damage...
Even oversimplified, it's an extremely complicated thing to figure out. Take sea level, for example. Most studies on climate change talk about the average rise worldwide. But things can look very different when you zoom into specific stretches of coast. Ocean currents can make local sea level higher or lower than the world average. So can the continuing rebound of land from the weight of glaciers from the last ice age, even though they melted more than 10,000 years ago. Factors like the extraction of oil and gas, like in the Gulf of Mexico, can also make...