September 2, 2020 By Abigail Eisenstadt Smithsonian Magazine
Once in a while, scientists re-discover an unusual specimen hidden on the shelves of a museum collection. This time, they found a cast of a skull from a Southern elephant seal, Mirounga leonina, which swam upriver to Indiana over 1000 years ago. The cast had been hidden in a drawer of the fossil marine mammals collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History since the 1970s.
August 14, 2020 By Barbara Moran WBUR
Last October, lobstermen fishing off the coast of southern New England noticed the lobsters getting more active. That’s fairly common, says Mark Sweitzer, a commercial fisherman out of Port Judith, Rhode Island.
July 9, 2020 By Aryn Baker Time
A series of international policy meetings in 2020 was meant to set global targets for managing fish populations, restoring biodiversity and controlling pollution. As it did with so much this year, the coronavirus pandemic put those talks on hold. Nonetheless, environmentalists, scientists, policymakers and ocean advocates are working desperately to keep the momentum going, aware that this might be the last, best chance they have to reverse the tide.
June 3, 2020 By Ayana Elizabeth Johnson The Washington Post
Stopping climate change is hard enough, but racism only makes it harder
May 8, 2020 By Jonathan Watts The Guardian
Sea-level rise is faster than previously believed and could exceed 1 metre by the end of the century unless global emissions are reduced, according to a survey of more than 100 specialists. Based on new knowledge of climate sensitivity and polar ice melt, the experts say coastal cities should prepare for an impact that will hit sooner than predicted by the United Nations and could reach as high as 5 metres by 2300.