White abalone going extinct under current program

Scientists from the federal fisheries lab in La Jolla have reported a serious decline of white abalone along the San Diego coastline, confirming some of the worst fears about the species as it slides toward extinction. “In the absence of fishing, we hoped to see the population stabilize or increase,” said Kevin Stierhoff, a biologist …

Scientists have found the loneliest whale in the world

For decades now, scientists at the NOAA have been tracking a mysterious whale song that sounds like the ghostly howls of a drowned tuba player. The sounds have been identified as belonging to a single whale, who sings at a frequency unlike any other whale in the world. Dubbed “52 Hertz” after the frequency range …

U.S. global warming affects Texas, Midwest, and Northeast – the most

The United States recently went through the hottest 12 months ever, since record-keeping began in 1895. National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration said that for the period from May 2011 to April 2012, the nationally averaged temperature was 55.7 degrees, 2.8 degrees higher than the 20th century average. The national average temperature for April was 55 …

Marine Protected Area – MPA – saving our coasts with science and conservation

Marine Protected Areas are regions in which human activity has been placed under some restrictions in the interest of conserving the natural environment. This can include limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings, bans on removing or disrupting marine life of any kind. In some situations MPA’s also provide revenue for countries, often of equal …

We create our own stars – the satellites tracking U.S. weather

The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) brought online its latest weather satellite GOES-15, and pushed aside its predecessor GOES-11. It will be tracking the weather for California, the west coast, Hawaii, and the Pacific Ocean. The image above is the first infrared image it sent to NOAA, which it will continue to do every …