Indian shipping companies, reeling under low freight rates and high fuel prices, will face further cost pressure due to new emission norms set by International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Two Cuban research centres have started using bacteria to treat the oil contaminated water in several parts of the Caribbean island in order to reduce the presence of hydrocarbons in soil and water bodies in the country.

Ocean acidification (OA) refers to the ongoing decline in oceanic pH resulting from the uptake of atmospheric CO2. Mounting experimental evidence suggests that OA will have negative consequences for a variety of marine organisms. Whereas the effect of OA on the calcification of adult reef corals is increasingly well documented, effects on early life history stages are largely unknown.

The rising temperature of the world's oceans has become a major threat to coral reefs globally as the severity and frequency of mass coral bleaching and mortality events increase. In 2005, high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean resulted in the most severe bleaching event ever recorded in the basin.

Original Source

Coral reefs are in dramatic global decline, with seaweeds commonly replacing corals. It is unclear, however, whether seaweeds harm corals directly or colonize opportunistically following their decline and then suppress coral recruitment.

Disease, bleaching events killed corals in the Caribbean caribbean coral reefs have lost their complex structure and flattened over the past 40 years said a study by University of East Anglia in the UK. The marine population and fishing industry that depend on them feel the impact of this change the most. The coastline has become more vulnerable to wave action and hurricanes.

Tourists leave them injured

Action delayed: Even a 2oC rise above the pre-industrial levels would lead to 20-40 per cent of the Amazon dying within 100 years, said climate change experts from the UK. The study will appear in the journal Nature Geoscience. Declining corals: The number of fish in the Caribbean reefs has dropped since 1995 due to significant loss of corals, said a study published in the journal

BY MIKE MELIA

Miles from shore in the open Caribbean Sea, cruise ships are dumping ground-up glass, rags and cardboard packaging. But vessels in other waters such as the Baltic and North seas are prohibited from throwing any solid waste overboard other than food scraps.

The 15th tropical storm of a busy Atlantic hurricane season developed in the Caribbean on Tuesday while a 16th tropical system began to form off Central America and former Tropical Storm Nana unraveled and disappeared.

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