Within the Gulf of Alaska, in the North Pacific Ocean, three major events - both natural and human-caused – resulted in large-scale ecosystem changes during the last 50 years
Using samples from an almost century-old, ongoing survey of marine plankton, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine suggest that rising levels of manmade chemicals found in parts of the world's oceans might be used to monitor the impact of human activity on ecosystem health, and may one day be used to study the connections between ocean pollution and land-based rates of childhood and adult chronic illnesses.
Years After the Pacific Marine Heat Wave, Ecosystem Shifts Persist
Researchers question whether Gulf of Alaska species will return to pre–heat wave conditions.
A humpback whale, one of the species affected by the Pacific marine heat wave, breaches in Kenai Fjords National Park in the Gulf of Alaska. Credit: Kaitlin Thoreson, National Park Service 3 May 2021
From 2014 to 2016, the Gulf of Alaska experienced the worst marine heat wave of the decade. From single-celled organisms to top predators, practically no level of the ecosystem was left unscathed. During the Pacific marine heat wave, tens of thousands of dead seabirds washed up on beaches, unusually low numbers of humpback whales arrived in their summer habitats, and toxic algal blooms spread along the West Coast of North America.
Environmental News For The Week Ending 16 May 2019
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at
GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
Covid seemed to drop out of the news this week; usually, I ll see virus stories on news sites most read or recent news lists; this week I had to go looking for them. Part of the reason was that the East Coast fuel pipeline shutdown dominated the headlines, but the underlying reason is that new cases in the US and globally are falling rapidly, even in India. And the news organizations are reluctant to cover a story that bleeds less this week than it did last week.