Water & Oceans

"The amount of coral in some areas of the Great Barrier Reef is at its highest in 36 years, according to a new report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science."

"The United Nations warned on Tuesday that the two biggest water reservoirs in the United States have dwindled to “dangerously low levels” due to the impacts of climate change."

"Drought made the Mississippi River sluggish and led to a smaller than average dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico — an area where there’s too little oxygen to support marine life, the scientist who’s been measuring it for decades said Wednesday."

"Near-record amounts of seaweed are smothering Caribbean coasts from Puerto Rico to Barbados, killing fish and other wildlife, choking tourism and releasing stinky, noxious gases."

"On a recent, scorching afternoon in Albuquerque, off-road vehicles cruised up and down a stretch of dry riverbed where normally the Rio Grande flows. The drivers weren’t thrill-seekers, but biologists hoping to save as many endangered fish as they could before the sun turned shrinking pools of water into dust."

"If it seems like a barrage of extreme rain events has been wreaking havoc across the country over the past week, you’re not imagining things. The latest resulted from an overnight deluge in central and southeastern Illinois, with some areas registering 8 to 12 inches of rain in less than 12 hours."

"High-tide flooding (HTF) broke or tied records in three locations in U.S. coastal areas in the past year, according to data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."

"A spate of recent criminal indictments highlights how U.S. companies, taking advantage of a patchwork of federal and state laws, are supplying a market for fins that activists say is as reprehensible as the now-illegal trade in elephant ivory once was."

"As record-breaking temperatures have pummeled much of the country this summer, another heat-related menace is causing trouble: flash droughts."