What On Earth Happened Yesterday?

4 important Ocean news you missed yesterday. Find out what the UN decided, why October is so special, how Walrus stampedes come to be and what secret talent oceans have.

National Seafood Month started yesterday!

theendearingdesigner.com / Via nmfs.noaa.gov

October is National Seafood Month, a time to highlight smart seafood choices, sustainable fisheries, and the health benefits of eating a diet rich in seafood. It's also an opportunity to illustrate U.S. fisheries successes and challenges as we turn the corner on ending overfishing and begin to rebuild fish stocks. Don't forget to eat two six-ounce servings of [sustainably harvested] seafood every week. Btw, one six-ounce serving is the size of an iPhone.

UN charts a way to plastic free oceans

static.un.org / Via un.org

Yesterday the Global Meeting of the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans created a “visioning roadmap” to chart a way towards improving sustainable fishing, governance, climate change, ocean acidification and pollution. However the main concern of the conference was the accumulation of plastic waste in oceans, including micro plastics, pieces smaller than 1mm, which can have drastic physical and biological impacts on ecosystems.

Unusual walrus gathering in Alaska

pressherald.com / Via pressherald.com

35,000 Walrus' were photographed just 700 miles north of Anchorage, AK. This unusual gathering is due to the loss of summer sea ice which walrus' depend on during the warm summer months. So far 50 walrus carcasses have been found, most likely due to stampedes, which harm young walrus' born this past winter.

Oceans hide Global Warming

upload.wikimedia.org / Via abc.net.au

This year there has been a slower rate of temperature increases than in the past several years. This does not necessarily mean global warming is reducing, but instead suggests that, the oceans are absorbing 93% of extra heat from global warming. Water has the ability to absorb 3,000 more heat than air. As a result, the oceans have stored 250 zetajoules of energy on the last 50 years. Don’t know what a "zetajoule" is, no worries, I don’t either. But 250 of them are about 500 times the total annual energy generated by humans.