REAL TIME OCEAN ACIDIFICATION WATCH - GO TO THE LINK TO SEE!

Scientific American - Watch ocean acidification in Real Time  By Brian Kahn and Climate Central

"Oceans are taking in about 90 percent of the excess heat created by human greenhouse gas emissions, but they’re also absorbing some of the carbon dioxide (CO2) itself. According to the European Space Agency, about a quarter of all human CO2 emissions are being taken in by the world’s oceans.

A complex set of chemical processes dissolves that CO2 and turns it into carbonic acid,  which dissolves shells and coral, creating a cascade effect that could disrupt entire marine ecosystems. The current rate at which oceans are acidifying has been unseen in 300 million years and the consequences could be costly..."

ALBINO DOLPHIN SPOTTENED IN ESTUARY OFF FLORIDA COAST

NATURE WORLD NEWS - FIRST ALBINO DOLPHIN IN HALF CENTURY  full article

Biologists have confirmed instances of albinism among 20 species of dolphins, whales and porpoises, with only 14 previous sightings of albino bottlenose dolphins. But Danielle Carter, a volunteer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), shot video of what is now number 15 on Dec. 10 in an estuary off Florida's east coast.

ENDANGERED POD IN PUGET SOUND - FIRST BIRTH OF BABY ORCA IN 2 YEARS

SCIENCE RECORDER - RARE NEWBORN BABY ORCA OFF WASHINGTON COAST full article from early January 2015...

This is good news for the pod, which has not seen a new addition to its community in more than two years.

Balcomb was monitoring the pod, known as J-pod, in the Puget Sound when he noticed the just-born baby orca, dubbed J-50 for now.

According to Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the birth of the baby whale is an encouraging sign for the pod, which was listed as endangered in 2005, a report by Live Science said. This is especially true since the pod lost a pregnant female earlier in December, probably caused by a bacterial infection following the death of her fetus.

“The loss of J-32 was a disturbing setback,” Hanson told Live Science. “We lost a lot of reproductive material.”

Balcomb does not yet know which whale is the calf’s mother—it could be an older 43-year-old female called J-16, who has given birth to three other surviving calves, or a younger whale, J-36, according to the Live Science report. Sadly, deaths among newborn killer whales are not uncommon. About 35 to 45 percent of all newborn orcas fail to survive past their first year, according to NOAA.

DEEP SEA HATCHETFISH

RICK GERMAN'S ENCOUNTER WITH FIVE KILLER WHALES NEAR LAGUNA NIGEL

KTLA - PADDLE BOARDER AND FIVE KILLER WHALES    video

EXCERPT:

A man paddle boarding off the coast of Laguna Beach captured amazing video of his close encounter with killer whales.

Through the years, Rich German said he has had several interactions with animals while paddle boarding, but always wanted to see killer whales upclose.

The avid paddle boarder heard about the orca pod swimming along the Southern California coast and tracked their location. By using his GoPro camera, German took video of the whales playing around whale watching tour boats. They even swam underneath his board.

German said he was “too excited to be scared.” He kneeled down at one point because he was worried one of the whales...

VINTAGE VALENTINE WITH HERRING

SIX FOOT LONG EEL LIKE FRILL SHARK CALLED "A LIVING FOSSIL"

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - SHARK THAT INSPIRED SEA MONSTER MYTHS

EXCERPT:
With its gaping, tooth-filled mouth and its slender, eel-like body, it’s not hard to see why scientists think the frilled shark may have inspired ancient tales of sea monsters. Looking like something out of a nightmare, the deep-sea creature is rarely seen. But fishers in Australia pulled one up this week.

The frilled shark is often called a “living fossil” because it is thought to have changed little in about 80 million years. The fish also bears a resemblance to ancestor species that lived during the time of the dinosaurs...

 

Siren here!  There's more to read at the National Geographic Link

FRILL SHARK LIVING FOSSIL TURNS UP IN AUSTRALIAN FISHERMENS NET

HUFFINGTON POST - LIVING FOSSIL SHARK CAUGHT OFF AUSTRALIA

This link has photos and videos!

EXCERPT:

Fishermen in Australia were stunned last month when they hauled up a shark so strange-looking that it's been called a "living fossil"--300 teeth and all (scroll down for photos).

The super-rare frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus) showed up in the nets of a trawler operating near in waters off Victoria, Australia, The Telegraph reported.

SUB GLACIAL LAKES OF GREENLAND ARE MISSING BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF WATER

ABC - MYSTERY OF GREENLANDS DISAPPEARING LAKES

EXCERPT:  Scientists are baffled after two lakes in Greenland were mysteriously drained of billions of gallons of water.

One lake was so large that a mile-wide crater was left behind after it was drained in the span of a few weeks. Another sub-glacial lake has been filled and emptied twice in the last two years. ... Ian Howat, a professor at Ohio State University, who studied the lake that left behind a mile-wide crater, said the findings of the study were "catastrophic."

 

Siren here!

 

.... TAKE A LOOK AT THIS SITE WITH MAPS OF THE MISSING LAKES!

HOW ROSE COLORED SEA SLUGS CAN HELP PREDICT EL NINO RAINS

INDEPENDENT : SEA SLUGS AS EL NINO FORCASTERS

EXCERPT:

Hopkins’ rose nudibranchs , as the sea slugs are known, travel as larvae at the whim of warm ocean currents, floating to the bottom as they grow during their first couple months. There they feed exclusively on a pink-colored bryozoan — a diminutive aquatic organism known as a “moss animal” that clusters in colonies — which grows all the way up to British Columbia and imparts the Okenia rosacea‘s remarkable color. Goddard knew that spotting the nudibranchs in high numbers near Morro Bay in mid-January was significant, since they usually hunt down in Southern California. They reminded him of the flourishing pink populations he’d seen near Santa Cruz during 1977’s weak El Niño.

After Morro, Goddard headed up to Monterey to check the tidepools. Along with reports from researchers at UC Santa Cruz, the Bodega Marine Laboratory, and San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences, his hypothesis was confirmed: The little creatures were everywhere, as far north as Humboldt — sometimes by the dozens per square meter....

VIPERFISH