WHOI in the News
Drone-Piloting Scientists ‘Weighed’ Whales From 130 Feet in the Air
A whale’s mass “tells you about the health of the animal, and in the context of its environment, it gives you a sense of how it’s doing nutritionally,” says Michael J. Moore, a biologist and director of the Marine Mammal Center at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Scientists Quantify Global Volcanic CO2 Venting; Estimate Total Carbon On Earth
Preparing to summarize and celebrate the 10-year Deep Carbon Observatory program at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, Oct. 24-26, DCO’s 500-member Reservoirs and Fluxes team today outlined several key findings that span time from the present to billions of years past; from Earth’s core to its atmosphere, and in size from single volcanoes to the five continents.
The History of Ancient Hurricanes Is Written in Sand and Mud
Over the past year and as a student fellow in 2017, I have been working with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Jeffrey Donnelly, who uses sediment cores—tubes of sand and mud layers that are extracted from coastal lake beds—to track ancient cyclones in the Atlantic and, recently, in the islands of the South Pacific.
Slimy lakes and dead dogs: climate crisis has brought the season of toxic algae
Dr Don Anderson, director of the US National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, described algae blooms as “formidable competitors” made all the more dangerous by warming water.
Climate Change on Cape Cod: At the Edge of a Warming World
In the 81 years since the 1938 storm, the sea level here has risen about a foot, said WHOI researcher Jeff Donnelly, and is now rising faster than it has in thousands of years.
Since When Did Animals Become Synonymous With Our Grief?
After a story about 52 Blue called “Song of the Sea, a Cappella and Unanswered” appeared in The New York Times in 2004, letters from heartsick readers flooded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the laboratories that had studied the whale. 52 Blue sang at a different frequency than all the other blue whales they had studied before.
How Will First Responders Deal With Oil Trapped Under Ice?
As sea ice continues to melt in the Arctic and oil exploration expands in the region, the possibility of an oil spill occurring under the ice is higher than ever, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) says. But how first responders will deal with oil trapped under ice in such an extreme and remote environment is a huge unresolved question.
Scientists blast Maine lobstermen’s whale safety stance
“Reducing entanglement in East Coast waters of the United States is a critical part of a comprehensive strategy for right whale survival and recovery,” Scott Kraus, chief scientist for marine mammals at New England Aquarium’s Anderson Center for Ocean Life, and Mark Baumgartner, associate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and chairman of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, said in a letter Tuesday to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
James Cameron challenges Victor Vescovo’s ‘record breaking’ trip to deepest part of ocean: ‘it’s flat down there, impossible to dive deeper’
Cameron and researchers with the WHOI say the difference between the depth recorded by Deepsea Challenger and Vescovo’s submersible relates to the technology used. Measuring ocean depth is not as straightforward as measuring distance on land.
Whale populations in New York Harbor are booming—here’s why
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the New York Aquarium teamed up to deploy a high-tech acoustic buoy named Melville, 22 miles south of Fire Island. Whales communicate mostly via sound, and each species has distinct calls (and even dialects).
Making the planetary personal: the roots of climate science
In the 1950s, a timber cabin on the grounds of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts, became a hub for annual meetings where Simpson, meteorologist Jule Charney and other innovators teased out geophysical fluid dynamics. As Dry shows, imagination has been as important as mathematical skill in advancing planetary knowledge.
Researchers are exploring the SS Portland shipwreck. Here’s how to watch
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is working with NOAA’s Office of Marine Sanctuaries and Marine Imaging Technologies to explore the wreck of the SS Portland as part of a three-year project that will also include explorations of other nearby shipwrecks.
Exploring the wreck of the steamship Portland, ‘the Titanic of New England’
By visiting the final resting place of the Portland, researchers will document changes that have occurred at the site of the wreck and gain more insight into the fate of the doomed steamer.The expedition is being led by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Marine Imaging Technologies.
Waters off the coast of Maine vulnerable to changing climate
“As the Arctic’s atmosphere is heating up it is reducing the gradient, and that slows down the jet stream,” says Glen Gawarkiewicz, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who helped track the phenomenon. “It’s been having these big meanders and sometimes just gets stuck in one position for weeks at a time.”
New report takes in-depth look at three factors contributing to sea level rise along the U.S. East Coast
A new report from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) discusses some of the science of sea level rise and highlights three key processes that contribute to the phenomenon. Produced in conjunction with climate science expert Dr. Christopher Piecuch, the report also describes some of the research being conducted to better understand how and why sea levels are rising, so that we can more confidently predict future changes.
Up All Night- Atlantic hurricanes
BBC radio host Rhod Sharp and Jeff Donnelly of WHOI’s Coastal Research Lab trace the history of hurricanes in the Atlantic and discuss the frequency of intense storms. New sediment records indicate that historically unprecedented levels of intense hurricane activity impacted the eastern seaboard of the United States and northeastern Gulf Coast in the last two millennia.
(segment begins at 02:05:00)
Oceanographer wins big money in rainfall forecasting contest
Rainfall forecasting is big money! For over 40 years, Ray Schmitt has been a physical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
A shipwreck worth billions off the coast of Cartagena
On 27 November 2015, the San José was “officially” discovered by a robotic submarine called the REMUS 6000, which is operated by the US-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Climate change doesn’t only mean rising oceans — your health is at risk, too
According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution website, diarrhetic shellfish poisoning produces gastrointestinal symptoms, usually beginning within 30 minutes to a few hours after consumption of toxic shellfish. Although not fatal, the illness is characterized by incapacitating diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.
The Ocean’s Eerie Twilight Zone is in Murky Legal Water
“The most striking thing is just how far down it is and how the light dissolves away,” says Joel Llopiz, a biologist with Woods Hole Oceanographic.
How a Volcanic Eruption Set Off a Phytoplankton Bloom
Lava-driven nutrient fountains “could be a pretty important driver of phytoplankton ecology in the broader ocean,” said Harriet Alexander, a biological oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who was not involved in the latest study.
Scientists tag deep-sea shark hundreds of feet underwater—a first
When asked what remains mysterious about them, Simon Thorrold, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution laughs, explaining: “It will be way quicker to go over what we do know. And that is almost nothing.”
Microplastics Found In The Ocean And In Human Poop
Where are the sources of these microplastics? Well, as a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution video explains, some of the microplastics may be coming from larger plastic objects such as bottles and other households goods being ground up by the elements.
Why we must protect the ocean’s ‘twilight zone’
The twilight zone can be found 200 to 1,000 meters (about 650 to 3,300 feet) below the ocean surface, at the point where the sun’s rays can no longer reach, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) in Massachusetts. Because it’s so deep and there’s no sunlight, it’s cold and dark.