Bright Lights and Dark Nights: The Challenge Facing Sea Turtles in the City

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July 30, 2020 By Annemarie Mannion Hakai Magazine
Sea turtles became an unexpected passion for Jones, who now often wears sea turtle T-shirts or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (TMNT) garb instead of his old Florida Gators shirts. (The TMNTs aren’t sea turtles, but Jones’s link to the superheroes is irresistible: the human vigilante who fought alongside them was also named Casey Jones.) He began searching for ways to help conserve the reptiles, which is how he learned about a pervasive and preventable risk to their well-being: light pollution. Artificial bright lights are a deadly hazard that can lead sea turtles astray. Jones had found his mission.

Rising Seas Could Menace Millions Beyond Shorelines, Study Finds

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July 30, 2020 By Brad Plumer The New York Times
As global warming pushes up ocean levels around the world, scientists have long warned that many low-lying coastal areas will become permanently submerged. But a new study published Thursday finds that much of the economic harm from sea-level rise this century is likely to come from an additional threat that will arrive even faster: As oceans rise, powerful coastal storms, crashing waves and extreme high tides will be able to reach farther inland, putting tens of millions more people and trillions of dollars in assets worldwide at risk of periodic flooding.

Opinion: Marie Tharp Pioneered Mapping the Bottom of the Ocean 6 Decades Ago – Scientists Are Still Learning About Earth’s Last Frontier

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July 28, 2020 By Suzanne OConnell The Conversation
July 30 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Marie Tharp, a geologist and oceanographer who created maps that changed the way people imagine two-thirds of the world. Beginning in 1957, Tharp and her research partner, Bruce Heezen, began publishing the first comprehensive maps that showed the main features of the ocean bottom – mountains, valleys and trenches.