Oceanus Online Archive
Science in Service to the Nation
In 1863, as the Civil War raged, Congress established the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), an honorary society of scholars that any government department could call upon to “investigate, examine,…
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Sam Zipper
It might seem strange that Sam Zipper spent his summer on balmy Cape Cod studying the western Canadian Arctic. But for Zipper, examining sediment cores from the Mackenzie River Delta…
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Getting to the Bottom of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Greenland—the world’s largest island—is also home to one of the world’s largest ice sheets (after Antarctica). If Greenland’s two-mile-thick ice sheet melts completely, it would ultimately raise global sea level…
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Hurricane Hunter
Soon after they married, Jon Woodruff asked his new wife Akiko Okusu if she’d like to take a trip to her native Japan. Not for a belated honeymoon, but to help…
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A Tale of Two Oceans, and the Monsoons
Every summer, the continent of Asia takes a big breath. This inhalation pulls moisture-laden air from the Indian Ocean over India and Southeast Asia, causing torrential rains known as the…
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WHOI Scientists Bring Expertise to Capitol Hill
Several WHOI scientists have traveled to the nation’s capital, supplying Congress with scientific information and advice on problems ranging from toxic algae and oil pollution in the oceans to climate…
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Will Climate Change Disrupt the Arctic Ecosystem?
After long, dark winters, sunlight returns to the Bering Sea in spring, re-launching a bountiful food chain that fills the Arctic with life. In March 2008, an ambitious research team,…
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Knorr Shoots the Moon (Pool) to Drill for Coral
The Knorr’s so-called “moon pool” is a section of the hull that can be removed to give scientists direct access from the deck to the sea.
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New System to Take Long Seafloor Cores Is Ready to Go
Over five years, engineers had designed, built, and tested components for a new, one-of-a-kind system to extend the length of sediment samples cored from the sea floor. In September, they…
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To Fertilize, or Not to Fertilize
Global warming is “unequivocal,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in November 2007. Human actions—particularly the burning of fossil fuels—have dramatically raised carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases…
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Melting Ice Threatens Polar Bears’ Survival
The Department of Interior’s imminent decision on whether to place polar bears on the federally protected endangered species list has focused attention on a recent study that documents for the…
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Dumping Iron and Trading Carbon
Debating the idea of fertilizing the ocean with iron can feel a little like riding a seesaw. On the up side is iron’s eye-catching potential to set off enormous plankton…
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Lessons from Nature, Models, and the Past
The first part of biogeochemist John Martin’s famous prediction—“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age”—has been proved partly right: Iron is the only…
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Will Ocean Iron Fertilization Work?
In this age of satellites, it’s fairly easy to answer the basic question of whether adding iron to the ocean can stimulate a plankton bloom. When storms over land blow…
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Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron
“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age” may rank as the catchiest line ever uttered by a biogeochemist. The man responsible was…
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Morss Colloquia Focus on Science and Society
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution launched a new program, hosting three “Morss Colloquia” since October 2006. Enabled by a generous grant from Elisabeth and Henry Morss Jr., the public colloquia concerned…
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Scientists Unearth Long Record of Past Hurricanes
Reaching down into the muck below a lagoon off Puerto Rico, two geologists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reached back 5,000 years to compile the longest record of strong hurricanes…
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Cell-sized Thermometers
Climate shifts are a repeating feature in Earth’s history, but humans have added so much greenhouse gas (especially carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere that climate is warming in our lifetimes.…
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Letter from Kangiqsujuaq
Charlie’s Motel was a welcome break from Kangiqsujuaq’s airport in northernmost Quebec, where we had just spent six hours uselessly waiting for the plane that would take us home. But…
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