Judging the effect of climate change on ocean currents could take longer than we thought. The circulation of warm water in the North Atlantic is suspected to be slowing, and the worry is that global warming is to blame.
An outstanding climate anomaly 8200 years before the present (B.P.) in the North Atlantic is commonly postulated to be the result of weakened overturning circulation triggered by a freshwater outburst. New stable isotopic and sedimentological records from a northwest Atlantic sediment core reveal that the most prominent Holocene anomaly in bottom water chemistry and flow speed in the deep limb of the Atlantic overturning circulation begins at '8.38 thousand years B.P., coeval with the catastrophic drainage of Lake Agassiz.
European fisheries ministers have agreed on a 15-year plan to tighten rules protecting threatened tuna fish stocks in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. The plan obliges member
In the third week of August, hurricane Dean battered America's mid-western and southern states, and raced through the Gulf of Mexico. Weathermen did not expect the hurricane to intensify sharply.
Tropical cyclones—variously defined as hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones—regularly impact human populations and periodically produce devastating weather-related natural disasters. The epidemiology of tropical cyclones is fundamentally determined by the physical forces of massive cyclonic systems intersecting with patterns of human behavior. The destructive forces of cyclonic winds, inundating rains, and storm surge are frequently accompanied by floods, tornadoes, and landslides.
Human activities are releasing tiny particles (aerosols) into the atmosphere. These human-made aerosols enhance scattering and absorption of solar radiation. They also produce brighter clouds that are less efficient at releasing precipitation. These in turn lead to large reductions in the amount of solar irradiance reaching Earth's surface, a corresponding increase in solar heating of the atmosphere, changes in the atmospheric temperature structure, suppression of rainfall, and less efficient removal of pollutants.
At least 10 people died and a few were seriously injured when the world's largest oilrig (located 130 km off the northeastern coast of Brazil) sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Petrobrasthe
