Breaking Waves: Ocean News

06/25/2025 - 13:00
Evolutionary change driven by intensive fishing led cod to ‘shrink’ from average 40cm length in 1996 to 20cm in 2019 Overfishing has led to a collapse in the eastern Baltic cod population, but over the past three decades the size of the fish themselves has also been dramatically and mysteriously shrinking. Now scientists have uncovered genomic evidence that intensive fishing has driven rapid evolutionary changes that have contributed to these fish roughly halving in average body length since the 1990s. Continue reading...
06/25/2025 - 12:22
Company’s Starbase launch site in Texas near the Mexican border has seen test failures resulting in large explosions Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has threatened legal action over falling debris and contamination from billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket launches across the border in the United States. Mexico’s government was studying which international laws were being violated in order to file “the necessary lawsuits” because “there is indeed contamination”, Sheinbaum told her morning news conference on Wednesday. Continue reading...
06/25/2025 - 09:00
Millions seek relief from a severe heat dome that’s led to lake drownings, leaking methane gas and affected farmers At a splash pad on the banks of the Great Miami River in downtown Dayton, Michelle Winston, her partner and their daughter have come to cool off from the brutal heat. “It’s our first time down here this year, but because it’s so hot, we’ll be coming back for sure,” she says as she helps her daughter clear water from her eyes. Continue reading...
06/25/2025 - 08:00
A conference in Cambridge this week will explore a raft of geoengineering ideas to cool the region down – and attempt to address the fears of those who argue the risks outweigh the benefits When the glaciologist John Moore began studying the Arctic in the 1980s there was an abundance of suitable sites for him to carry out his climate research. The region’s relentless warming means many of those no longer exist. With the Arctic heating up four times faster than the global average, they have simply melted away. Forty years on, Moore’s research network, the University of the Arctic, has identified 61 potential interventions to slow, stop and reverse the effects of the changing climate in the region. These concepts are constantly being updated and some will be assessed at a conference in Cambridge this week, where scientists and engineers will meet to consider if radical, technological solutions can buy time and stem the loss of polar ice caps. Continue reading...
06/25/2025 - 03:05
Amid abnormally high tides this week, councils report a rising frequency of inundation and erosion events due to climate change Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here Abnormally high tides, strong winds and large waves have lashed Australia’s south-eastern coastlines this week, damaging jetties and infrastructure in communities facing “no end of problems” from an increase in severe conditions. Prolonged winds whipped up large waves in the Southern Ocean, which have hammered south and west facing coastlines across South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, said the senior meteorologist Angus Hines from the Bureau of Meteorology. Continue reading...
06/25/2025 - 01:00
People are disgusted by the idea of eating bugs despite their lighter planetary cost compared to traditional livestock Recent efforts to encourage people to eat insects are doomed to fail because of widespread public disgust at the idea, making it unlikely insects will help people switch from the environmentally ruinous habit of meat consumption, a new study has found. Farming and eating insects has been touted in recent years as a greener alternative to eating traditional meat due to the heavy environmental toll of raising livestock, which is a leading driver of deforestation, responsible for more than half of global water pollution, and may cause more than a third of all greenhouse gases that can be allowed if the world is to avoid disastrous climate change, the new research finds. Continue reading...
06/25/2025 - 01:00
From peat bogs containing centuries of history to the fascinating world of sea creatures’ senses, the theme for this year’s annual event is ‘Biosphere’ Continue reading...
06/24/2025 - 23:00
More than 1,000 of one UK’s rarest butterflies seen around Holnicote Estate thanks to grazing cattle and good weather The combination of sunny spring weather and habitat improved by a herd of red Devon cattle has led to a surge in numbers of one of the UK’s rarest butterflies on moorland in the English west country. As well as increasing in established pockets on Exmoor, the heath fritillary is spreading to new areas, which experts say is highly unusual. Continue reading...
06/24/2025 - 23:00
Scrutiny of how companies plan to meet climate commitments is growing, with many successful legal challenges Judges across the world are proving sceptical of companies’ attempts to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by buying carbon credits, a report has found. In an analysis of nearly 3,000 climate-related lawsuits filed around the world since 2015, the latest annual review of climate litigation by the London School of Economics found action against corporations in particular was “evolving”, with growing scrutiny of how companies plan to meet their stated climate commitments. Continue reading...
06/24/2025 - 23:00
Maasai pastoralists living by the national park in Kenya’s capital are helping wildlife with a crucial migratory route through their land – at great risk to their cherished cattle Nairobi national park in Kenya is the only large wildlife conservation area to fall within a capital city. It is hemmed in on three sides by human development, and unfenced only on its southern boundary – this gap providing a crucial wildlife passageway, linking the park’s animals to other populations of wildlife and wider gene pools. The gap, however, is also home to a small Maasai community, where farmers face an agonising choice between protecting livestock and making space for the predators that prey on their cattle. Continue reading...