ocean
3 Antarctic glaciers show rapidly accelerated ice loss from ocean warming
SAN FRANCISCO — Several Antarctic glaciers are undergoing dramatic acceleration and ice loss. Hektoria Glacier, the worst affected, has quadrupled its sliding speed and lost 25 kilometers of ice off its front in just 16 months, scientists say. The rapid retreat “is really unheard of,” says Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College who was…
Ocean heat waves often lurk out of sight
Heat waves don’t just strike on land — they can also occur in the ocean. And roughly a third of marine heat waves aren’t detectable at the ocean’s surface, a new study reports. The findings, published in the December Nature Geoscience, suggest that far more of these potentially harmful events might be occurring than previously…
Cyanide in the ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus could be good for life
An illustration of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft diving through the plumes of Saturn’s moon Enceladus NASA/JPL-Caltech The plumes of water vapour erupting from the surface of Enceladus seem to contain hydrogen cyanide, which – perhaps counter-intuitively – is a sign that the the ocean that lies beneath the surface of this icy moon of Saturn could be…