Encyclopedia9 min read
Eisenia arborea: The Southern Sea Palm at the Warm Edge
Eisenia arborea, the southern sea palm, is the tree-like kelp of the California–Baja low shore. Profile of its ecology, range shifts and role.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
#climate-change
22 articles
Atlas9 min read
Glacier Bay, Alaska: New Kelp Forests on the Front Lines of Retreating Ice
Two centuries of retreating ice opened fjords that kelp, otters and whales are still colonising — a guide to Glacier Bay's young, fast-changing underwater forests.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas9 min read
The Gulf of Maine: Where Kelp Meets the Fastest-Warming Sea
The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than almost any body of water on Earth. What that means for its sugar kelp forests, its lobster economy, and its future.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas8 min read
Hudson Bay's Kelp Fringe: Subarctic Forests on the Churchill Coast
Sugar kelp under six months of sea ice, belugas in the estuary and a lengthening summer: a guide to the subarctic kelp fringe of Hudson Bay's Churchill coast.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science8 min read
Kelp Phenology: The Seasonal Clock of a Forest
Kelp forests run on an annual clock of light, temperature and nutrients. Learn how kelp phenology works, why it's shifting, and why timing runs restoration.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Encyclopedia9 min read
Long-Spined Sea Urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii): The Barren-Maker Marching South
The long-spined sea urchin is reshaping Australia's temperate reefs as warming currents carry it south — a species profile of the barren-builder of Tasmania.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Encyclopedia8 min read
Moon Jelly: The Calm Bloom That Sometimes Isn't
Why do moon jellies suddenly fill a kelp bay in their thousands? The science of jellyfish blooms — what triggers them, what they mean, when to worry.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Atlas12 min read
Nova Scotia: Kelp Beds of the North Atlantic
A guide to Nova Scotia's kelp beds of the North Atlantic — the species, the urchin wars, the invaders, the warming, and where to see kelp today.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Science8 min read
Ocean Acidification and Kelp: Winners, Losers and Open Questions
Rising CO₂ acidifies seawater — but it also fertilises algae. What ocean acidification really does to kelp growth, urchins and whole reef food webs.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Science8 min read
Tropicalization: When Warm-Water Species Move Into Kelp Country
As oceans warm, tropical herbivores and warm-adapted species are moving poleward into kelp reefs — reshaping forests from Tasmania to Japan. The science of tropicalization.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science9 min read
Sea-Level Rise, Explained: Thermal Expansion, Ice Sheets and the Coming Shorelines
Sea levels are rising faster than at any time in millennia. What actually drives it — expanding water, melting ice, sinking land — and what it means for coasts and kelp.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science8 min read
Storms and Kelp: Disturbance, Pruning and the Pulse of Renewal
Storms tear kelp forests apart — and keep them young. How wave forces damage kelp, why disturbance is essential to forest health, and what a stormier future means.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science9 min read
Boundary Currents: The Ocean Rivers That Decide Where Kelp Grows
Every great kelp forest sits in the shadow of a great current. Here's how western and eastern boundary currents shape temperature, nutrients and the world's temperate reefs.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas10 min read
The Cantabrian Coast: Kelp at the Southern Edge of Europe's Range
Northern Spain's Cantabrian coast holds kelp at the shrinking warm edge of its European range — the continent's best-documented climate front line underwater.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science9 min read
Ocean Acidification: The Other CO₂ Problem — Corrosive Water, Hatcheries and How Coasts Adapt
Ocean acidification goes far beyond a falling pH number. Here's where corrosive water actually shows up, what it does to hatcheries and fisheries, and how coasts adapt.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science9 min read
Ocean Acidification Explained: What Rising CO₂ Does to Seawater Chemistry
The ocean has absorbed about a third of our CO₂ emissions, quietly changing its chemistry. Here's the science of ocean acidification and what it means for sea life.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science9 min read
Ocean Stratification: Why Layers Decide Who Eats
The ocean stacks itself into layers by temperature and density. Here's how stratification controls nutrients, productivity — and the fate of kelp forests.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Atlas11 min read
Tasmania's Vanishing Giant Kelp: What Happened and What's Being Done
Tasmania lost around 95 percent of its giant kelp forests in decades. Here's the science of the collapse, the urchin invasion — and the restoration race to bring it back.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Atlas9 min read
The Strait of Magellan: Kelp at the End of the World
Inside the subantarctic kelp forests of the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego: cold clear water, drifting kelp highways, and science at the southern frontier.
Dr. Elias Brandt ·
Science6 min read
Marine Heatwaves: What They Are and Why They're Rewriting Kelp Coastlines
Marine heatwaves are weeks of anomalously hot ocean that can deforest entire coastlines. Here's the science behind them and what restoration can do.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science8 min read
Was This Heatwave Climate Change? The Science of Marine Event Attribution
How do scientists decide if a specific marine heatwave was caused by climate change? Inside event attribution, from FAR to counterfactual oceans.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Science8 min read
Life Under the Ice: How Sea-Ice Algae Prime the Arctic Food Web
The Arctic's first bloom happens in the dark, inside the sea ice. How sympagic algae prime the polar food web — and why thinning ice changes it all.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·