The world's hypoxic zones—swaths of ocean too oxygen-deprived to support fish and other marine organisms—are rapidly expanding as sea temperatures rise, a new study suggests.
Note: Click here to read this article in National Geographic

Short-term exposure to smog, or ozone, is clearly linked to premature deaths that should be taken into account when measuring the health benefits of reducing air pollution, a National Academy of Sciences report concluded yesterday.
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Click here to read this AP article in the Boston Globe

A chunk of Antarctic ice seven times the size of Manhattan Island has suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, according to scientists.  Satellite images starting Feb. 28 show the runaway disintegration of a chunk covering 414 square kilometers, or 160 square miles. The ice was on the edge of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and had been there for possibly 1,500 years.

This is the result of global warming, David Vaughan, a scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, said Tuesday.
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Click here to read this International Herald Tribune article

"DEVASTATED" -- Erosion on Smith's Point is accelerating and land is washing away faster than homeowners can move their houses

Of the 57 houses and cottages on Smith's Point, the ocean has unmercifully harassed 15 of them over the last five years.  Smith's Point Association President Tom Erichsen estimates that the beaches from the west end of Millie's Bridge to the south end of Massachusetts Avenue have lost around 50 feet a year in that time.

The sea's inland advance has forced one house to be relocated, with five other property owners filing for permits to do the same; has prompted the demolition of two more houses; put five more in imminent danger of encroaching storm waves and exposed half of another house's foundation. These houses - including Erichsen's own home at 34 Rhode Island Ave. - sit anywhere from zero feet to 250 feet from the beach.  "We've spent 23 years on Smith's Point, and I'm familiar with the neighborhood and with knowing people and the kids growing up there; it's devastating," said Erichsen. "This is something you don't prepare for, this is something you have to deal with. I can't speak for the other neighbors, but again they feel basically the same way. We were all aware that the south shore did erode, but the rate of erosion in the last five years has been more than we could ever imagine."
Note: Click here to read this article in the Nantucket Independent

Cape Cod is a treasured natural resource and one of the most fragile. There is new evidence on how the Cape could be impacted by our warming planet.

It is some of the most beautiful scenery in the country but as glaciers melt thousands of miles away, the beaches of Cape Cod are threatened.

Matt Pawa is with CapeCodFlooding.org, an organization that created a series of interactive maps.
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Click here to view this WBZ-TV article

Click here to link to the interactive maps at Cape Cod Flooding

Click here to read a related AP article in the Boston Globe on December 12, "Arctic ice melt spurs a dire new warning"

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, describing climate change as "the defining challenge of our age," released the final report of a UN panel on climate change here yesterday and called on the United States and China to play "a more constructive role."

..."If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," said Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the IPCC. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future."

He said that since the IPCC began its work five years ago, scientists have recorded "much stronger trends in climate change," like a recent melting of polar ice that had not been predicted. "That means you better start with intervention much earlier."

Note: Click here to read this article in the Boston Globe

In their long, hard campaign against development of an offshore wind farm, defenders of Nantucket Sound have often characterized their beloved water body as "pristine." Former governor Mitt Romney dubbed the sound a "national treasure."

But the ferry boat operators who are among the leading opponents of the wind farm in Nantucket Sound have been flushing their toilets in it.

Nantucket Sound serves as a veritable outhouse for the 3 million people who take ferries back and forth from Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket every year. The Steamship Authority treats the waste before dumping it, but Hy-Line Cruises does not.
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Click here to read this article in the Boston Globe

The release of sulfur and nitrogen into the atmosphere by power plants and agricultural activities plays a minor role in making the ocean more acidic on a global scale, but the impact is greatly amplified in the shallower waters of the coastal ocean, according to new research by atmospheric and marine chemists.

Moses Calouro wants to "fire a shot across the bow" of those who oppose a wind farm in Nantucket Sound, and he figures his firepower comes in the form of unlikely questions:

Why are some of the biggest opponents of the wind farm dumping sewage into the Sound, a lot of it in the very same area where the wind farm might go?

And why isn’t the "Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound" screaming bloody murder about that – unless their name is just a smokescreen to cover their anti-wind farm activities?

"They keep talking about what a pristine resource Nantucket Sound is, and so there shouldn’t be a renewable resource [wind power] out there," says Calouro. "So let’s talk about that. How is it really being used?

"Dumping sewage is not a pristine way of using it."
Note: Click here to read this article in the Cape Cod Voice

Imagine Vermont without maple syrup, Maine with fewer lobsters, and New Hampshire without the brilliant red foliage that enlivens fall mornings. Unthinkable?  A new study by some of the region's top climate scientists projects that many of the things that define New England -- from knee-high snow drifts to lobster rolls -- could disappear if global warming continues at its current pace.