An international team of researchers has found that the physical condition of beluga whales affects their capacity to store oxygen in their blood and muscle tissues, likely impacting their ability to dive.

The vast subtropical “gyres” – large systems of rotating currents in the middle of the oceans – cover 40 percent of the Earth’s surface and have long been considered biological deserts with stratified waters that contain very little nutrients to sustain life.

The cooling of the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, which began approximately 35 million years ago and gave rise to its present icy state, has for decades been considered a classic example of climate change triggering rapid adaptation.

Some 30 miles north of San Diego, along the Pacific Coast, sits the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest effort to turn salt water into fresh water in North America.

A recent forecast of the size of the “Dead Zone” in the northern Gulf of Mexico for late July 2019 reports that it will cover 8,717-square-miles of the bottom of the continental shelf off Louisiana and Texas.

NOAA scientists are forecasting this summer’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone or ‘dead zone’.

Visible imagery from NASA’s Terra satellite provided confirmation of the development of Tropical Cyclone 02A in the Arabian Sea, Northern Indian Ocean.

Leaving humans out of the picture, the researchers argue, contributes to a basic lack of awareness of how humans relate to water on Earth – and a false sense of security about future availability of this essential and scarce resource.

There’s no doubt that climate change is affecting ecosystems as well as the lifestyles of plants and animals around the globe. 

Extreme erosion of Arctic coastlines in a changing climate – up to a metre a day – has been revealed with drone surveys.