Surfing from / October, 2015
Flowers Bloom in the Atacama Desert – in Pictures
The Atacama desert, covering a 600-mile (1,000 km) strip of land on the Pacific coast west of the Andes mountains, is experiencing a rare springtime bloom of flowers after El Niño brought the heaviest rainfall in two decades earlier this year. The desert is usually one of the driest places on Earth.
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Rare Cyclone Heads for Arabia
Citizens of the arid Arabian Peninsula were bracing for strong winds, a storm surge, and extreme rainfall as Category 4 Cyclone Chapala was forecast to make landfall in Yemen. Only two tropical cyclones have hit the Peninsula since reliable records started in 1979, and Chapala has the potential to be the strongest of them all.
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Plastic Contaminates Ocean Sourced Table Salt
When researchers analyzed fifteen brands of common table salt bought at supermarkets across China, they found among the grains of seasoning micro-sized particles of plastic. The highest level of plastic contamination was found in salt sourced from the ocean.
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Harmful Algal Blooms and Climate Change: Preparing to Forecast the Future
Marine scientists have warned that the future may bring more harmful algal blooms (HABs) that threaten wildlife and the economy, and called for changes in research priorities to better forecast these long-term trends.
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Could We Run Out of Sand for Eroded Beaches?
With king tides, persistent winds and large waves from Tropical Storm Erika and Hurricane Joaquin making erosion particularly bad this year, the demand for sand is high – but is it possible we could run out?
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Mexico Deploys its Navy to Face its Latest Threat: Monster Seaweed
From Barbados to Belize, Cancun to Tulum, a viny brown seaweed known as sargassum has invaded the Caribbean basin this year. For Mexico, whose Caribbean coastline attracts more than 10 million visitors and generates $8 billion in tourism-related revenue a year, the arrival of sargassum became a cabinet-level crisis.
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Before We Drown We May Die of Thirst
The island nation of Kiribati is one of the world’s most vulnerable to rising sea levels. But residents may have to leave well before the ocean claims their homes.
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22 Ancient Shipwrecks Discovered Near Greek Island
Shipwrecks were the stuff of lore around the craggy coasts of Fourni, a Greek archipelago close to Turkey in the eastern Aegean Sea. But last month, a group of marine archaeologists finally investigated the waters, and their wealth of findings far exceeded expectations.
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Tsunami-Vulnerable Towns Grapple With How to Save Lives
Bracing for a tsunami like the one that devastated Japanese communities during a 2011 mega-earthquake, coastal communities from British Columbia to California have been grappling with how to protect people from a similar catastrophe.
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