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Source: Ocean News & Technology

There’s been huge interest and controversy over how much of the sea we really need to protect in order to safeguard life there and the benefits it provides to humanity. The science says we should raise our ambitions and protect something of the range of 30 to 40 percent of the oceans from exploitation and harm.

This is well above the United Nations target of 10 percent protection by 2020, set under the Convention on Biological Diversity. But it is consistent with the recommendation of at least 30 percent protection made by the World Parks Congress in 2014. Currently, approximately 6 percent of the global ocean has been set aside as marine protected areas (MPA) or is earmarked for future protection, according to the MPAtlas.

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Sometimes in research you have a finding that’s bigger than you or your lab can tackle. If we can answer these questions, we will understand the whole relationship of microbiology in the oceans better and be able to treat this layer of life in the upper ocean like a layer of skin. We’ll know when it’s healthy, when it’s not, and how it functions. Understanding how our planet works at those fundamental levels is critically important.

Source: Major Source of Methanol in the Ocean Identified

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Climate-related changes are affecting the nation’s valuable living marine resources and the people, businesses and communities that depend on them. From warming oceans and rising seas, to droughts and ocean acidification, these impacts are expected to increase with continued changes in the planet’s climate system.

Marine and coastal fisheries generate approximately $200 billion in sales and support 1.7 million jobs in the U.S. each year. Coastal habitats help defend coastal communities from storms and inundation, and provide the foundation for tourism and recreation-based economies in many coastal communities.

Source: NMFS Climate Science Strategy

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From Prozac to caffeine to cholesterol medicine, from ibuprofen to bug spray, researchers found an alphabet soup of drugs and other personal-care products in sewage-treatment wastewater and in the tissue of juvenile chinook in Puget Sound.

Source: Cocaine, Prozac, other drugs found in Puget Sound salmon from tainted wastewater | The Seattle Times

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NOEP_National_Report_2016

New data on the economic health of the ocean and coastal economies suggest that future growth will largely take place in the narrow band of coastal lands threatened by climate change and sea level rise. The forecast is contained in the latest report from the National Ocean Economic Program (NOEP), a unit of the Center for the Blue Economy (CBE) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA.

Source: Center for the Blue Economy – 2016 NOEP Report

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The news just keeps getting worse for cold-temperature fish such as cod in the ever-warming waters of the Gulf of Maine.

A new study, conducted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers and appearing in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Oceans, reached an ominous conclusion: The waters of the Gulf of Maine, which a previous study showed to be warming faster than 99.9 percent of the rest of the planet’s oceans, are continuing to warm at an accelerated rate and are expected to continue doing so for at least the next 80 years.

Source: Study finds Gulf of Maine warming faster than thought — Bangor Daily News Maine

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Earlier this month, meteorologist blogger Cliff Mass announced the death of the “blob” in the northeast Pacific Ocean.

The “blob” refers to the large area of very warm waters that helped set up a bulging area of high pressure over Alaska, around which the jet stream flowed, directing impressive cold over the U.S. for the past two winters and blocking storms from hitting the West Coast.

Source: The Pacific ‘blob’ loses. El Niño wins. What comes next? – The Washington Post