Friends of the Earth

An amazing shot in service of conservation:

The US actor Maggie Q swims with a whale shark off Cancun, Mexico, as part of a campaign to publicise the plight of marine animals threatened by the demand for shark fin soup. China has announced a ban on shark fin from all official banquets. Photograph: Paul Hilton/AFP/Getty Images.

(via guardian)

“Osteoporosis of the sea” is a terrifying phrase if you’re concerned about marine ecosystems like us. From saveplanetearth:

Rising ocean acid levels are ‘the biggest threat to coral reefs’: The speed by which oceans’ acid levels have risen has caught scientists off-guard, says the head of NOAA @ Guardian

Oceans’ rising acid levels have emerged as one of the biggest threats to coral reefs, acting as the “osteoporosis of the sea” and threatening everything from food security to tourism to livelihoods, the head of a US scientific agency said Monday.

The speed by which the oceans’ acid levels has risen caught scientists off-guard, with the problem now considered to be climate change’s “equally evil twin,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief Jane Lubchenco told The Associated Press.

”We’ve got sort of the perfect storm of stressors from multiple places really hammering reefs around the world,” said Lubchenco, who was in Australia to speak at the International Coral Reef Symposium in the northeast city of Cairns, near the Great Barrier Reef. “It’s a very serious situation.” (…)

A beautiful photograph of Arctic sea ice, which is vanishing faster than ever before in recorded history. (via geologise):

Ponds On The Ocean by NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr

(via mothernaturenetwork)

Study: Sea rise faster on East Coast than rest of globe

WASHINGTON (AP) – From Cape Hatteras, N.C., to just north of Boston, sea levels are rising much faster than they are around the globe, putting one of the world’s most costly coasts in danger of flooding, government researchers report.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists call the 600-mile swath a “hot spot” for climbing sea levels caused by global warming. Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three times to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

It’s not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway “jamming on the accelerator,” said the study’s lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950, and noticed a change beginning in 1990.

Read more. [Photo credit: Jim R. Bounds, AP]