The Global Ocean Ship-Based Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO-SHIP) receives the Ocean Observing Team Award
Grant and Award Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 23-Jan-2026 05:12 ET (23-Jan-2026 10:12 GMT/UTC)
A new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford has shown that the shape and orientation of coastlines significantly influenced extinction patterns for animals living in the shallow oceans during the last 540 million years. In particular, animals living on convoluted or east-west orientated coastlines (such as those found in the Mediterranean and Gulf of Mexico today) were more likely to go extinct than those living on north-south orientated coastlines.
The findings, published today in Science, provide new insight towards understanding patterns of biodiversity distribution throughout Earth history to the present day, and highlight which modern species may be more at risk of extinction due to climate change.
For the first time, a study from researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego integrates climate-related damages to the ocean into the social cost of carbon— a measure of economic harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
An international study, featuring CMCC scientists, reveals that the true economic damage of climate change has been vastly underestimated – because the ocean has been left out of the equation. By integrating the latest ocean science into climate-economic models, researchers found that accounting for climate impacts on marine ecosystems and ocean-dependent infrastructure nearly doubles the social cost of carbon. The hidden ocean cost is estimated at $48 per tonne of CO₂, a figure that should be added to current policy calculations.