Fulmars are effective biological indicators of the abundance of floating plastic marine debris. Long-term data reveal high plastic abundance in the southern North Sea, gradually decreasing to the north at increasing distance from population centres, with lowest levels in high-arctic waters. Since the 1980s, pre-production plastic pellets in North Sea fulmars have decreased by ∼75%, while user p...

We investigate the potential of multi-polarization and multi-frequency SAR systems to discriminate oil-in-sea-ice mixtures from newly frozen and young sea ice. The dielectric properties of oil emulsions, for a range of oil volume fractions, and theoretical co-polarization ratios for relevant media are modeled and discussed. We also compare the co-polarization ratios computed from actual detecte...

We recently have had a Japan-Russia-United States International Joint Project, 1997-2002. In this project, we have carried out intensive oceanographic observations in the almost entire Sea of Okhotsk for the first time, using a Russian research vessel; we have had four times cruises, changing seasons. This report summarizes several new findings for the Sea of Okhotsk which were obtained by this...

speckled shrimp (metapenaeus monoceros), is a commercially important prawn in the embayments and estuaries of the mediterranean sea. it is originally a lessepsian species which had migrated from the red sea into the mediterranean sea through the suez canal. this study was carried out in the north-eastern mediterranean sea between november 2009 and october 2010 with monthly sampling of speckled ...

Previous single-model experiments have found that Arctic sea ice loss can influence the atmospheric circulation. To evaluate this process in a multimodel ensemble, a novel methodology is here presented and applied to infer the influence of Arctic sea ice loss in the CMIP5 future projections. Sea ice influence is estimated by comparing the circulation response in the RCP8.5 scenario against the ...

Forty two Paleocene benthic foraminiferal species of the Midway Formation in the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas, USA were firstly investigated by Plummer (1927), and its paleogeographic distribution in some other countries in the Tethyan province were recorded: North America (USA, Mexico), South America (Argentina), Europe (North Sea Basin, Spain, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Bulgaria), North Af...

[1] Rafting is one of the important deformation mechanisms of sea ice. This process is widespread in the north Caspian Sea, where multiple rafting produces thick sea ice features, which are a hazard to offshore operations. Here we present a one‐dimensional, thermal consolidation model for rafted sea ice. We consider the consolidation between the layers of both a two‐layer and a three‐layer sect...

While gloom surrounds the prospects of many global fisheries, one species seems to have benefited from a range of, often controversial, conservation measures. North Sea cod, once on the brink of collapse as a result of decades of overfishing, looked set for the same fate as cod on the Grand Banks off northeast America, but new evidence suggests numbers are now recovering. In a rare positive con...

We investigate the sensitivity of the thermohaline circulation (THC) with respect to a subpolar salinity perturbation. Such perturbation simulates a fresh water release caused by retreating glaciers or anomalous sea ice. The feedback mechanisms amplifying or damping the initial anomaly are analyzed in the coupled ocean-atmospheresea ice model. Their understanding is essential for modelling clim...

Kelp forests are strongly influenced by macroinvertebrate grazing on fleshy macroalgae. In the North Pacific Ocean, sea otter predation on macroinvertebrates substantially reduces the intensity of herbivory on macroalgae. Temperate Australasia, in contrast, has no known predator of comparable influence. These ecological and biogeographic patterns led us to predict that (i) the intensity of herb...