Great areas of rubbish – known as ‘garbage patches’ – are known to form in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but not the southern Indian Ocean. Why is that?
- Professor in Oceanography and Public Engagement, Utrecht University
A chance discovery of some kelp that floated for 20,000km before washing up on an Antarctic beach has opened up a new chapter in our understanding of the currents that swirl around the Southern Ocean.
De nouvelles méthodes d’évaluation donnent une ampleur inédite à la pollution des eaux par les matières plastiques.
New method tallies microplastics in southern oceans, yielding a total that’s 37 times higher than previous estimates.
By 2050, 99% of the world’s seabird species will be accidentally eating plastic, unless we take action to clean up the oceans. And some of the highest risk to wildlife is in the Southern Ocean off Australia.
Some people might argue that the greatest moral challenge of our time is serious enough to justify deliberately tampering with our climate to stave off the damaging effects of global warming. Geoengineering…
Most of us have littered at one time or another, and in the process we probably contributed to the enormous of amounts of plastic that enter the ocean every year, eventually ending up in one of the five…
The animated movie Finding Nemo is responsible for most children’s (and parents’) image of the East Australian Current. Marlin: “I need to get to the East Australian Current – E A C.” Crush: “You’re ridin…
The search for missing flight MH370 isn’t over in the Southern Indian Ocean – it’s just going deeper in an attempt to cover the ocean floor over a much wider area. Much of the search effort so far has…
As the effort to find Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 moves inexorably towards the recovery stage, the challenge of finding the plane’s flight recorder (called the “black box” even though it’s actually…
Searching for the debris of flight MH370 in the Southern Ocean is not just a case of looking for a needle in a haystack; it is a case of searching for a needle that moves hundreds of kilometres every day…
With more than half a million people participating in last Sunday’s Clean Up Australia Day, it’s perhaps not surprising that some odd objects came to light. Not all the rubbish was on land, and not all…
The fisherman who washed up on the Marshall Islands last weekend was very lucky to have stranded on a remote beach there. The currents in the Pacific Ocean would have inevitably taken him into the great…
Antarctica is a desolate place. That much we know, but nothing prepares you for it until you actually get there. It’s cold, windy and lonely. Everything about it is the exact opposite of my normal summer…
Recent plans to clean plastics from the five massive ocean garbage patches could do more damage to the environment than leaving the plastic right where it is. There is no doubt that the focus on cleaning…
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