Ocean sciences articles within Nature

Featured

  • News Feature |

    She set out to revolutionize US ocean management — but first she faced the oil spill. Jane Lubchenco is Nature 's Newsmaker of the Year.

    • Richard Monastersky

  • News Feature |

    Marine scientists are prowling the Bering Sea to learn how climate affects minute sea creatures and the lucrative fishery that depends on them.

    • Wendee Holtcamp

  • Letter |

    The behaviour of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), about 21 kyr ago, remains uncertain, with different lines of evidence arguing for either no change or a sharp reduction. These authors present an analysis of flow-sensitive protactinium and thorium isotopes from the North and South Atlantic oceans, showing that the previously contradictory results can be integrated in a new framework supporting a reversed Atlantic MOC at the LGM.

    • César Negre
    • , Rainer Zahn
    •  & José L. Mas

  • Letter |

    Phosphorus is a biolimiting nutrient that is important in regulating the redox state of the ocean–atmosphere system. Here, the ratio of phosphorus to iron in iron-oxide-rich sedimentary rocks through time has been used to evaluate the evolution of the marine phosphate reservoir. Phosphate concentrations have been relatively constant over the past 542 million years of Earth's history, but were high in the aftermath of the 'snowball Earth' glaciations some 750 to 635 million years ago, with implications for the rise of metazoan life.

    • Noah J. Planavsky
    • , Olivier J. Rouxel
    •  & Timothy W. Lyons

  • News & Views |

    The ratio of nutrient elements in marine subsurface waters is much the same everywhere, even though biogeochemically distinct ocean biomes exist. A modelling study that includes mixing solves this conundrum. See Article p.550

    • Raymond N. Sambrotto

  • News Feature |

    The ten-year Census for Marine Life is about to unveil its final results. But how deep did the $650-million project go?

    • Daniel Cressey

  • Article |

    The major nutrients nitrate and phosphate have one of the strongest correlations in the sea, with a slope similar to the average nitrogen to phosphorus content of plankton biomass (16:1). Why this global relationship exists, despite the wide range of nitrogen to phosphorus ratios at the organism level, is unknown. Here, an ocean circulation model and observed nutrient distributions have been used to show that the covariation of dissolved nitrate and phosphate is maintained by ocean circulation.

    • Thomas S. Weber
    •  & Curtis Deutsch

  • News Feature |

    When oil stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the ecosystems under assault started on a long road to recovery. Amanda Mascarelli meets the researchers assessing their chances.

    • Amanda Mascarelli

  • Letter |

    At the end of the last ice age, rising atmospheric CO2 levels coincided with a decline in radiocarbon activity, suggesting the release of highly radiocarbon-depleted CO2 from the deep ocean to the atmosphere. These authors present radiocarbon records of surface and intermediate-depth waters from two sediment cores and find an decrease in radiocarbon activity that precedes and roughly equals in magnitude the decrease in the atmospheric radiocarbon signal during the early stages of the glacial–interglacial climatic transition.

    • Kathryn A. Rose
    • , Elisabeth L. Sikes
    •  & Howard J. Spero

  • News Feature |

    Every summer for the past nine years, water with lethally low concentrations of oxygen has appeared off the Oregon coast. The hypoxia may be a sign of things to come elsewhere, finds Virginia Gewin.

    • Virginia Gewin

  • Careers and Recruitment |

    Marine biologists are developing an appreciation for conservation, a change that is creating new jobs. Emma Marris reports.

    • Emma Marris

  • News |

    New species are continually emerging from the ocean depths, comprehensive record of biodiversity reveals.

    • Melissa Gaskill

  • News |

    Independent researchers claim oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico is real, but a US government report advises caution.

    • Amanda Mascarelli

  • News |

    A generation of sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico is to be lifted out of the oil spill's way.

    • Melissa Gaskill

  • Review Article |

    Global climate and the atmospheric partial pressure of carbon dioxide are correlated over recent glacial cycles, with lower partial pressure of carbon dioxide during ice ages, but the causes of the changes in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide are unknown. Here the authors review the evidence in support of the hypothesis that the Southern Ocean is an important driver of glacial/interglacial changes in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide.

    • Daniel M. Sigman
    • , Mathis P. Hain
    •  & Gerald H. Haug

  • News |

    The Deepwater Horizon oil spill puts ocean-current modelling to the test.

    • Janet Fang

  • News & Views |

    Fossils from the famed Burgess Shale continue to deliver fresh perspectives on a dramatic episode in evolutionary time. The latest revelations bear on the early history of cephalopod molluscs.

    • Stefan Bengtson

  • News & Views |

    A reappraisal of the messy data on upper-ocean heat content for 1993–2008 provides clear evidence for warming. But differences among various analyses and inconsistencies with other indicators merit attention.

    • Kevin E. Trenberth

  • Editorial |

    Governments have typically regulated their coastal waters as if fishing, shipping and the like were separate entities. A new, integrated approach could change all that — while greatly boosting marine science.

  • News Feature |

    A conduit from the Red Sea could restore the disappearing Dead Sea and slake the region's thirst. But such a massive engineering project could have untold effects, reports Josie Glausiusz.

    • Josie Glausiusz

  • News |

    Experts debate how much emergency-response planners should rely on tsunami forecasts.

    • Quirin Schiermeier

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