Science and the Sea Podcast

In the winter of 2022 and ’23, a dozen “atmospheric rivers” flowed ashore in California-dense bands of clouds that can carry more water than the Mississippi River. They spawned heavy rains, which helped relieve a nasty drought. But they also caused flooding, mudslides, and other problems.

A recent study says that atmospheric rivers could produce more soggy winters in California by the end of the century.

The change would be triggered by changes in a deep current in the North Atlantic Ocean that’s part of the “global ocean conveyor belt,” which distributes heat around the planet...

Some gray whales have been making dangerous detours in recent years. During their annual migrations along the Pacific coast of the United States, they’ve been ducking into bays to eat and rest. But that increases the risk of collisions with ships. To reduce the risk, researchers have developed some systems for tracking the whales and passing the details to mariners.

Eastern North Pacific gray whales spend the summer in the Arctic, where they feed. They head south in the fall, for the bays and lagoons of Baja California, where they give birth-a round trip of...

Biting into a bunch of sea grapes is a bit like having a mouthful of Pop Rocks-lots of little “pops,” followed by bursts of flavor. But in the case of the sea grapes, it’s the briny flavor of the ocean.

Sea grapes aren’t really grapes at all. They’re a form of seaweed-a type of green algae that’s especially common in parts of Asia and the western Pacific Ocean. It grows in shallow waters near the coast-usually at depths of no more than 10 feet or so-and usually on rocky bottoms. It can form large b...

If you put a lid on a pot of boiling water, most of the heat stays inside the pot. But when you take the lid off, a lot of heat escapes, warming the air around the pot.

The same thing has been happening in the Pacific Ocean. For several years, La Niña acted as a lid, trapping a lot of heat in the ocean. Then El Niño came along and took the lid off. That released huge amounts of heat into the atmosphere, helping to produce the hottest year ever recorded.

Fr...

When you clean out the attic, you never know what treasures you might find. For scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, it was a “golden oldie”-the earliest known audio recording of a whale. Scientists can study the recording to learn how whale songs might have changed, and how the ocean soundscape has changed-especially the sounds produced by people.

The sounds of a humpback whale were recorded near Bermuda in March of 1949. Researchers from Woods Hole and the Navy were testing sonar gear and studying ocean sounds. They used a type of dictation mach...

The ocean floor and the wind-swept prairies of the west have something in common: tumblin’ tumbleweeds. On the prairie, they’re nasty bushes teeming with sharp thorns. In the ocean, they’re growing clumps of red algae known as rhodoliths. They can tumble along with the currents until they get too heavy, when they settle down for good.

Rhodoliths are found in all the world’s oceans, from the tropics to the arctic. They often congregate in large, dense beds. They need sunlight to produce energy, so they’re most common in shallow coastal waters.

Man...

Young manta rays off the coast of Florida have something in common with pop stars and athletes: They have groupies. A recent study found that several species of fish like to hang out with the rays. That can provide advantages for the groupies.

Scientists have been watching a manta-ray nursery in South Florida for a decade. Most of the rays inhabit shallow waters less than a mile from shore. And most of them are juveniles.

The study looked at 465 videos of the rays. Researchers identified 59 individual rays in the images, some of which...

 Big swaths of the Southern Ocean have been going green. Summertime “blooms” of the tiny plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton are covering a much larger area. That makes the ocean look greener. And that could be kicking off big changes in the life around Antarctica.

The trend started in 2016 and ’17. Before then, the sea ice around Antarctica had been pretty stable for years. But it decreased dramatically—disappearing across an area as big as Texas and New Mexico combined. And the ice has been dwindling ever since—a loss seen year ’round.

To understand ho...

If you dig into the sand below the tide line along many of the world’s beaches, there’s a chance you’ll dig up some potatoes. They’re small, fuzzy, and fragile. But they’re not the kind of spuds you serve with butter and sour cream. Instead, they’re sea potatoes—a type of sea urchin—smaller cousins of the ones with long, painful spines.

A typical sea potato is maybe two or three inches long. It’s encased in a thin shell, known as a test. The shell is shaped a bit like a heart—hence...

Big tropical storms are slowing down in a hurry. If that sounds a little contradictory, think of it this way: More storms are slamming on the brakes as they get close to land. As a result, they spend more time along the coast before they move inland, making them even more dangerous.

Researchers poked through records of tropical cyclones across the globe from 1982 to 2023. They were looking for “rapid slowdown” events—storms that slowed their forward motion by a significant amount in just a few hours. They found that the rate of such events over the op...

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star” might not seem like an especially romantic song. Apparently, though, it works for male leopard seals. During the mating season, East Antarctic leopard seals sing underwater for hours on end. The songs resemble the structure of children’s nursery rhymes.

Leopard seals are named for the leopard-like spots on their coats. An adult male weighs about 700 pounds. Much of a seal’s diet consists of organisms known as krill. But they also eat penguins, fish, squid, and even the pups of other seal species.

The seals mate during the southern...

Part of the Indian Ocean has been freshening up a bit. Water at its surface is getting less salty—a result of climate change. That could impact everything from the health of fisheries to the severity of winters in Europe.

Researchers combed through decades of records of the southeastern Indian Ocean, off the coast of Australia. They also looked at changes in global winds and ocean currents over the same period. They found that the ocean’s top 600 feet or so has become much less salty since 1960. The change was like adding more than half the...

Unicorns graze among many of the world’s coral reefs. But instead of the graceful animals of mythology, they look more like cartoon characters. Their “horns” can be long, short, or even round and fat. And some have no horn at all.

These creatures are unicornfish. Biologists have identified about 20 species of them. They’re a type of surgeonfish—named for some scalpel-sharp spikes where the body and tail join. The adults of most species range from about one to two feet in length.

Unicornfish are found in tropical waters in much of the Indian...

The oceans provide the “fuel” for almost all the thunderstorms on Earth: water that evaporates from the ocean surface. But the oceans generally don’t provide the “trigger” for the big storms. As one indication of the difference, about 90 percent of all lightning happens over land.

A thunderstorm forms when warm, humid air rises high into the atmosphere and condenses to make clouds. The humidity comes from the oceans. Storms in the Great Plains, for example, are fed by water vapor from the Gulf of Mexico. And the summer monsoon in the Southwest is fed by the Gul...

At the time of the dinosaurs, the oceans were filled with lots of big, scary creatures. The biggest and scariest might have been some king-sized ancestors of the modern octopus. Some recent research says these monsters could have been as long as a big-rig truck. And they would have been smart—critters you wouldn’t want to see in the flesh.

Scientists looked at the fossilized jawbones of 15 specimens that were already known. And they used a sophisticated imaging technique plus AI to scan a dozen others that hadn’t been recognized as octopus relatives. All of...

Big ships can really stir things up—especially in shallow coastal waters. A ship’s wake can extend far below the vessel. It creates turbulence that mixes up the water. It can even extend into the sediments on the sea floor. And that can release a lot of methane—a gas that’s much more efficient than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere.

Researchers discovered the connection between ships and methane releases more than a decade ago. They were studying shipping in Neva Bay, a shallow extension of the Baltic Sea on the northwestern coast of Russi...