SeaHarmony welcomes all ocean scientists, ocean educators, resource managers, artists, and ocean related organizations and community groups.
Rip currents, narrow plumes of water flowing out to sea, can move as quickly as eight feet per second. While panicked swimmers often try to fight the current, the easier way to get out of a rip current is to swim parallel to shore until the current releases you, and then swim back to land.
Ground breaking scientific research has found that the hole in the ozone layer caused by the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) is actually driving a change in the wind patterns and the current patterns around the South Pole. It’s important to remember that activities we do and the products that we use on a daily basis can have a drastic effect on our planet.
If you could take all of the bigger organisms of the ocean (whales, sharks, fish, squid) and add up their total weight, and then took all of the microscopic organisms (like plankton) in the ocean and added up their total weight, which one would weigh more? You might be surprised to hear that the microscopic organisms weigh over 40 times more than all other organisms in the ocean combined!
So little is still understood about our deep oceans. One study recently discovered that the deep ocean had 898 species in an area about half the size of a tennis court. Over half of these species had never been identified before by scientists, and that’s not even including all the microscopic organisms that can be found.
The ocean plays a huge role in controlling Earth’s climate. Large amounts of energy from the sun are absorbed by the ocean, and that heat gets redistributed around the world by large-scale ocean currents. Changes in these currents are predicted to occur as the earth warms, resulting in changes to both small scale and large scale weather and climate.
Photo Credit: WHOI A new scientific study published in the October issue of Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, Jordi Vives i Batlle describes the status of research and findings on the impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident that occurred five years ago in Japan. It is estimated that 80% of the radioactive discharge fallout was over the Pacific Ocean, striking concern for the long-term impacts on marine life. The impacts of radioactivity on marine organisms throughout the food chain are influenced by a few key factors: How long the organisms are... (more)