When scientists say the planet is warming, they usually point to rising air temperatures as proof. That's reasonable enough, especially since the warmth of the air temperature affects us directly so we feel the change the scientists are measuring. But it's also misleading: while the lower atmosphere has been gradually warming over the past 50 years, it happens unevenly, rising sharply for a year or two or even ten, then flattening out.

By Sebastian Smith (AFP) NEW YORK — The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 unless fishing fleets are slashed and stocks allowed to recover, UN experts warned Monday. "If the various estimates we have received... come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, are out of fish," Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN Environment Program's green economy initiative, told journalists in New York.

A new state-of-the-art global observatory currently under construction is about to launch ocean science light years ahead

May/June 2010

By Annie Reisewitz Imagine an underwater world with flying androids whizzing thousands of feet below and robotic creatures crawling along vast stretches of ocean floor.