North Atlantic sea ice anomalies are thought to play an important role in the abrupt Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) cycles of the last glacial period. This model study investigates the impacts of changes in North Atlantic sea ice extent in glacial climates to help provide geographical constraints on their involvement in D–O cycles. Based on a coupled climate model simulation of the Last Glacial Maxim...

Regional variation in PCBs and organochlorine (OC) pesticide concentrations was examined using the blubber of 155 minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) sampled in seven regions in the North Atlantic and European Arctic, including western and southeastern Greenland, the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea and the Barents Sea. The levels and relative proportions of OCs were also used to examine the ...

In 1988 and 1989, thousands of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) died in the North Sea from phocine distemper infection. The morphology of thyroid glands from 40 harbor seals found dead on the North Sea coastlines of Schleswig-Holstein, Federal Republic of Germany, during an epizootic of phocine distemper, was compared with the morphology of thyroid glands from five healthy harbor seals collected i...

Samples historically collected and analysed by the Continuous Plankton Recorder survey were used to examine long-term (1958 to 1994) patterns in the normal diel vertical migrat~on (NDVM) behaviour of 7 copepod taxa in the North Sea: Calanus finmarchicus C5-C6; Calanus spp. Cl-C4; Cenlropages typicus; Centropages hamatus; Temora longicornis; Acartia clausii and Para-Pseudocalanus (this last grou...

The European “Slope Current” provides a shelfedge conduit for Atlantic Water, a substantial fraction of which is destined for the northern North Sea, with implications for regional hydrography and ecosystems. Drifters drogued at 50 m in the European Slope Current at the Hebridean shelf break follow a wide range of pathways, indicating highly variable Atlantic inflow to the North Sea. Slope Curr...

We augment discussions about the Good Environmental Status of the North Sea by developing two extreme visions and assessing their societal benefits. One vision ('Then') assumes restoration of benthic functioning; we contend that trawling had already degraded the southern North Sea a century ago. Available information is used to speculate about benthic functioning in a relatively undisturbed sou...

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla L.) is distributed in coastal and inland habitats all over Europe, but spawns in the Sargasso Sea and is thus affected by both continental and oceanic factors. Since the 1980s a steady decline has been observed in the recruitment of glass eels to freshwater and in total eel landings. The eel is considered as critically endangered on the International Union fo...

Individual chlorinated biphenyls (CBs) and chlorinated pesticides (p,p'-DDT and metabolites, HCHs and HCB) were determined in blubber samples of 40 harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) of different age and sex from the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and Greenland coastal waters. Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) were analysed in a selected group of ...

We evaluate the hypothesis that Atlantic cod larvae are passively transported by sea currents from off-shore spawning areas to settle in coastal waters, a hypothesis which has recently gained support from genetic analysis of cod in the North Sea-Skagerrak area. Such larval transport has been suggested to be an important mechanism behind the commonly observed low spatial genetic differentiation ...

in the framework of the mytilos project (interreg iiib medocc), international research cruises were carried out in 2006 in order to evaluate the level of heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pah) along the coast of the western basin of the mediterranean sea. caged mussels (mytilus galloprovincialis) were placed in situ at six sites in the north coast of tunisia. results showed to...