Oceanography

What happens at the deepest points of the ocean? This week on Oceanography, we’re sharing a special feed drop episode from Deep Sea Pod, hosted by Thomas Linley and Alan Jamieson — two scientists many of you may already recognize from previous Oceanography episodes like What Is the Deep Sea Even Like? and Ocean Trenches Explained.

In this episode, Professor Alan Jamieson takes listeners on a deep dive into the hadal zone: the d...

Where does climate change stand in 2026? This week on Oceanography, we’re bringing you a special crossover from Green Frequency: a new Earth Radio show from Pine Forest Media exploring environmental science, policy, and the systems shaping our planet. In this episode, climate scientist Dr. Claudio Piani joins a conversation on where we actually stand today: global emissions trends, the future of the Paris Agreement, and why every f...

Elephant seals are helping map the Southern Ocean. This week on Oceanography, we’re sharing a special crossover episode from South Pole, another Pine Forest Media series focused on Antarctic science and research. In this episode, Dr. Clive McMahon explains how southern elephant seals are being equipped with ocean sensors to collect real-time data in one of the most remote and extreme environments on Earth. These deep-diving animals...

Solar geoengineering is a justice question. As sunlight reflection methods move from theory toward real-world research, who gets to decide what happens next? This episode explores the justice and governance questions surrounding solar geoengineering, also called solar radiation modification or SRM. Hassaan Sipra of the Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering explains why the risks of climate intervention cannot be se...

Shipping pollution changed clouds. What can scientists learn? What happens when cleaner shipping fuel suddenly changes the atmosphere above the ocean? In this episode of Oceanography, meteorologist Dr. Michael Diamond explains how shipping pollution, cloud formation, and climate are connected, and how a major fuel regulation and disrupted global shipping routes created a rare natural experiment for scientists. The conversation expl...

Could reflecting sunlight help cool the Earth? Stratospheric aerosol injection, or SAI, is a proposed climate intervention that aims to reduce global temperatures by reflecting a small portion of incoming sunlight. Inspired by volcanic eruptions, this approach is being studied through climate and ecosystem models to better understand its potential effects. This episode explores how SAI could influence sea surface temperature, net p...

Can brighter clouds cool Earth? Marine cloud brightening (MCB) is a proposed solar radiation modification strategy that could reflect sunlight, cool ocean regions, and potentially reduce dangerous heat. But can it actually work at scale, and what risks might come with it? In this episode, climate scientist Dr. Jessica Wan explains how MCB works, why researchers are studying sea salt aerosols and marine stratocumulus clouds, and wha...

We may need to remove carbon from the atmosphere—can the ocean help? Biomass-based marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) explores whether natural ocean processes can help store carbon for the long term. Oceanographer and biogeochemist Dr. Morgan Raven explains how organic carbon moves through marine systems, why low-oxygen environments like deep-sea brines and fjords may enable long-term carbon sequestration, and what scientists sti...

What is biocultural coastal conservation — and why does it matter for the future of our oceans? In this episode, conservation scientist Juan Carlos Cruz of the Amazon Conservation Team explains how Indigenous knowledge and Western marine science are being woven together through the Ancestral Tides initiative.

Across Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Colombia, and Suriname, coastal Indigenous and local communities are protecting sea tu...

Ocean trenches are Earth’s deepest habitats—and they’re full of life. This episode is a guided dive into the hadal zone (6,000–11,000 meters), where tectonic plates create steep trenches that plunge toward the mantle. Learn what trenches are geologically, what conditions are like at full ocean depth (cold, pressure, darkness), and why the deep sea isn’t a single ecosystem—each trench is its own world. You’ll also get myth-busting o...

What is the deep sea — really? Deep-sea researcher Dr. Thom Linley (Curator of Fishes at Te Papa Tongarewa, National Museum of New Zealand) breaks down the deep ocean as a connected world with distinct zones, ecosystems, and rules — not one mysterious “blob.” From the bathyal and abyssal to the hadal trenches, this conversation maps what’s down there, how life survives crushing pressure and perpetual darkness, and why the deep sea ...

Ocean oxygen shapes marine life in ways most of us never think about. This episode explores how oxygen enters the ocean (air–sea exchange and photosynthesis), how it circulates through surface waters and the deep sea, and why scientists track changes in oxygen over time. Learn what oxygen minimum zones are, how they form, and what they can mean for midwater ecosystems in the mesopelagic (“twilight”) zone.

Featuring research that...

Making marine biodiversity visible for everyone Marine biodiversity is vast, complex—and mostly out of sight. In this “ocean story hour” episode, a Paris-based science communicator, Anabelle Chaumun, shares how to translate marine research into stories people can actually feel and remember. We explore why misinformation spreads faster than evidence, why ocean issues can feel distant, and how storytelling (and images) can make the i...

What have we learned about microplastics over the last 20 years? This episode surveys two decades of ocean microplastics science: where microplastics come from (fibers, tires, fragmentation, microbeads), where they’re found (shorelines, water column, sea ice, deep sea), and what research shows about impacts across food webs and ecosystems. It also unpacks major gaps—nanoplastics, fragmentation rates, and the thousands of chemicals ...

Marine heat waves can make summer heat even worse. New climate research shows that unusually warm ocean conditions don’t just damage marine ecosystems — they can also intensify extreme heat on land. In this episode, Mr. Hirotaka Sato, a Japan Meteorological Agency climate scientist explains how marine heat waves form, why the ocean stores most of Earth’s excess heat, and how a 2023 marine heat wave near northern Japan amplified rec...

How oil research protects ocean health. Understanding oil spills, offshore drilling, and marine pollution starts before any accident happens. In this episode, marine microbial oceanographer Dr. Alice Ortmann explains how scientists collect baseline ocean data to measure ecosystem health in oil and gas regions offshore Newfoundland. The conversation covers what counts as an oil spill, how oil and methane move through the water colum...

A legendary research ship’s final sail. For nearly 50 years, the R/V Endeavor served as a floating laboratory for ocean science—supporting 700+ expeditions, training generations of students, and enabling research from CTD/rosette water sampling to seafloor mapping, deep-sea coring, and long-term climate and ecosystem monitoring. In this episode, the ship’s operations manager Brendan Thornton and longtime captain Chris Arminetti tak...

COP30’s biggest fault lines, explained.

In this final installment of our COP30 arc, we zoom out from Belém to map the conference’s defining tensions: ambitious speeches versus stalled outcomes, science-led urgency versus market-led “solutions,” and the growing leadership of the Global South. We unpack why carbon markets remain so contested, what “net zero” really allows, and how China’s energy transition is reshaping the politics o...

The ocean took center stage at COP30. This episode of Oceanography explores how ocean science, policy, and lived experience shaped the climate conversations at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. From marine carbon dioxide removal and blue carbon ecosystem restoration to funding gaps and governance challenges, the episode traces how the ocean is increasingly framed as both a climate solution and a site of urgent risk. It also examines what COP...