In overlapping venues on 17-18 April 2013, NCCOS co-led the Forum for Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Research Coordination and Advancement, and represented NOAA at the U.S. Mississippi River Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient (Hypoxia) Task Force Spring 2013 Public Meeting; both meetings aimed at advancing management mandates of the Hypoxia Task Force to reduce the [...]
‘Red tide’ and a loss of sea grass account for some manatee deaths, but researchers believe undiscovered factors are also at play. A record number of endangered manatees are dying in Florida’s waterways. So far this year, 582 manatees have died, more than any year on record, according to preliminary numbers from the Florida Fish [...]
On May 2, 2013, NOAA’s North Atlantic Regional Collaboration Team convened a workshop at the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region in Woods Hole, MA to explore regional capabilities and needs for ecological forecasting. Long-term science support from NOS’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science has led to a Harmful Algal Bloom forecast currently [...]
An NCCOS-funded research team led by Dr. Donald Anderson, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has deployed an autonomous ocean sensor, called the Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) in the Atlantic Ocean off Portsmouth, New Hampshire for monitoring and prediction of New England Red Tides. A key project goal this year is to maintain ESP coverage in [...]
For decades, those leading efforts to keep southeast Louisiana from being swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico have supported “Putting the river back into the marsh.” The thinking is that the river should be allowed to build new land, just as it had done for millennia before flooding was controlled. But what if pollutants in the [...]
The 2013 spring and summer red tide reason in New England is expected to be “moderate” according to NCCOS’s partner, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), forecast last month. Ocean and weather data from the Gulf of Maine buoys play an important role in this forecasting effort. When developing this new red tide forecast system, scientists depended on historical [...]
In a newly published study, NCCOS researcher link sharks and other top predators with primary producers (benthic algae) in pristine, healthy coral reef ecosystems. “We used chemical signatures of carbon and nitrogen found in the tissues of the algae, invertebrates, fish, and sharks from the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) to trace the extent benthic algae influences [...]
According to a new multi-investigator study, with contributions from researchers funded by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s (NCCOS) Ecological Forecasting Program in Lake Erie, the record-breaking 2011 Lake Erie cyanobacteria bloom was likely caused by a combination of changing farming practices and weather conditions; conditions predicted to continue under a changing climate. The study led [...]