Survival at sea: Cuba is rewriting its coral story – Oceanographic

Christmas tree worms on coral, Jardines de la Reina, Cuba - 2017 (by q phia CC BY 2.0 via Flickr).

While ocean warming and coral bleaching events make the headlines around the globe, there’s a team of pioneering marine researchers quietly working on new methods to rebuild coral populations more resilient to rising temperatures through groundbreaking means. And it’s all happening in Cuba…

15 years after the BP oil spill disaster, how is the Gulf of Mexico faring? – Mongabay

Deepwater Horizon Fire - April 22, 2010 (courtesy of the US Coast Guard public domain via SkyTruth Galleries on Flickr).

The Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20, 2010, was the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, releasing an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico…Fifteen years later, the gulf ecosystem shows a complicated picture of both resilience and lingering damage, with some species, like brown pelicans, recovering, while others, like humans, dolphins and deep-sea corals, continue to struggle with long-term health impacts.

Caspian Sea’s rapid decline threatens endangered seals, coastal communities and industry, study warns – Physics.org

The northern shore of the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan captured from "Aeroflot" A350-900 flight from Sochi (AER) to Moscow (SVO), altitude 11,5 km or 7,1 miles over earth (by Sergey Tchernyakov CC BY-ND 2.0 via Flickr).

Water levels in the Caspian Sea—the world’s largest landlocked water body—are getting lower, as hotter temperatures cause more water to evaporate than is flowing in. Even if global warming is limited to below 2°C, it is likely that the level of the Caspian Sea will decline by 5 to 10 m, but if temperatures rise further, water levels could drop by as much as 21 m by 2100..