Skip to content

Multimedia Items


Why are emperor penguins an indicator of climate change?

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced a proposal to list the emperor penguin as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), based on evidence that the animal’s sea ice habitat is shrinking and is likely to continue to do so over the next several decades. Research from penguin scientists is key to informing policy around much-needed protections for the emperor penguin. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s additional collaborative research efforts suggest how conservation actions can help to increase species’ resilience to climate stress, including protecting habitat, increasing habitat connectivity, and reducing non-climate stressors, such as overfishing and ocean pollution.

Read More

From Corals to Climate Change

From Corals to Climate Change

WHOI paleoclimatologist Konrad Hughen snapped this photo of a hermit crab during a 2015 expedition to the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Hughen studies climate change by looking at…

Read More

Cores for Climate Change

Cores for Climate Change

Summer Student Fellow Yuxin Zhou, working with WHOI geologist Delia Oppo and physical oceanographer Jake Gebbie, cuts off sections of a multi-core taken from the research vessel Endeavor in spring of 2014…

Read More

Climate Change Chemist

Climate Change Chemist

In 2013, Summer Student Fellow Alterra Sanchez calibrated and tested low-cost commercial sensors in a local marsh to evaluate their accuracy. Back in the lab of marine chemist Zhaohui ‘Aleck’…

Read More

Culture and Climate Change

Culture and Climate Change

Climate change—particularly changes in the monsoon—prompted dramatic changes in how the peoples of ancient India lived. WHOI geologist Liviu Giosan, MIT/WHOI Joint Program student Camilo Ponton, and colleagues gathered evidence…

Read More

Emperor Penguins & Climate Change

Emperor Penguins & Climate Change

At nearly four feet tall, the emperor penguin is Antarctica’s largest sea bird—and one of the continent’s most iconic animals. Unlike other sea birds, emperor penguins breed and raise their…

Read More

Scoping Out Corals and Climate Change

Scoping Out Corals and Climate Change

WHOI scientist Pat Lohmann removes a core drilled from a living coral during a recent field expedition to Palau, a remote coral reef archipelago in the far western Pacific. The…

Read More

Coral clues to climate change

Coral clues to climate change

The Northern Star Coral, or Astrangia poculata, seen here with polyps extended, is a unique cold water coral that occurs in Woods Hole, MA, with (brown) and without (white) symbiotic…

Read More