If carbon emissions are curbed and local stressors are addressed, coral reefs have the potential to persist and adapt over time. That’s according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB). These findings suggest that coral conservation in a changing world is possible—but urgent action is essential.

This work was conducted by the Toonen-Bowen “ToBo” Lab, with partners at UH Mānoa and The Ohio State University.

HIMB researchers created 40 experimental systems known as “mesocosms,” which mimic the environment of a coral reef in the wild. The mesocosms included eight Hawaiian coral species, reef sand, rubble and marine creatures, representing one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. For two years, the team exposed the mesocosms to different scenarios of higher temperature, higher acidity or a combination of both ocean stressors to see how the reef communities would react to future climate scenarios.

“We included the eight most common coral species in Hawaiʻi, which constitute about 95% of the coral cover on Hawaiian reefs, and many of the most common coral types across the Pacific and Indian Oceans,” said Christopher Jury, HIMB post-doctoral researcher and lead author of the study. “By understanding how these species respond to climate change, we should have a better understanding of how Hawaiian reefs and other Indo-Pacific reefs will change over time, and how to better allocate resources as well as plan for the future.”

The team controlled levels of temperature and acidity in the mesocosms. They measured the calcification (where individual coral organisms build their own skeletons by secreting a salt known as calcium carbonate) responses of the coral reef communities and the biodiversity of these systems.

“These experimental reef communities persisted as new reef communities rather than collapsing,” said Jury. “This was a very surprising result, since almost all projections of reef futures suggest that the corals should have almost entirely died, the reef communities should have experienced net carbonate dissolution, and reef biodiversity should have collapsed. None of those things happened in this study.”

“Rather than focusing on just one or two species in isolation, we included the entire complement of reef species from microbes, to algae, invertebrates, and fish, under realistic conditions they would experience in nature,” said Rob Toonen, HIMB professor and Ruth Gates Endowed chair, and co-senior author of the study. “These more realistic mesocosm experiments help us to understand how coral reefs will change over time.”

Read more on UH News and HIMB’s website.

Maria Steadmon, a 2019 marine science graduate from the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo who earned her doctoral degree from the SOEST Department of Oceanography this summer, has charted an inspiring path from student-athlete to microbiologist in Hawaiʻi’s public health sector.

Recently appointed to the Hawaiʻi Department of Health’s State Laboratories Division, Steadmon now monitors respiratory viruses in wastewater across the state—a critical role informed by her deep commitment to environmental health and resilience.

Growing up in Huntington Beach, California, Steadmon developed her skills as a standout softball player and a love for the ocean.

“One of my favorite things to do was to go down to the beach with my friends, go swim, watch people surfing,” said Steadmon. “Through that I realized I wanted to do something that kept me close to the ocean.”

Navigating scholar, athlete roles

When she found UH Hilo’s marine science program, it was a perfect match. A softball scholarship sealed the deal, allowing her to pursue both passions. Balancing her roles as a scholar and an athlete at UH Hilo did present some challenges.

“We’re the only school in the nation that has to fly to every away game,” Steadmon said. “It takes a lot of time and energy, but it was worth every bit.”

Related UH News story: 2 softball players earn UH Hilo athletic honors, March 28, 2019

She credits her coaches and faculty alike for supporting her journey. Steadmon said Tracy Wiegner, a marine science professor at UH Hilo guided her through a senior research project on water quality in East Hawaiʻi.

Steadmon graduated from UH Hilo with a BS in marine science with high honors.

Foundational research

Steadmon’s years of research at UH Hilo, addressing the rising concern of microbial pollution in Hilo Bay, culminated in a published study on Staphylococcus aureus and fecal bacteria in Hawaiian waters, co-authored with Professor Wiegner. Reflecting on her journey, she credits UH Hilo as pivotal in her career: “UH Hilo was definitely the foundation for me, to build as a scientist and as a person.”

Serendipitous encounter

While living in Hilo, she was doing volunteer work at Kīholo fishpond in Kona and met a faculty member from UH Mānoa who had just received a grant to do waterborne pathogen research.

“I was asked to join Dr. Kiana Frank’s lab as a PhD student. My focus was biological oceanography,” said Steadmon. “We had never met before, and it was just crazy chance that we started talking and then she asked me to be her graduate student.”

While at UH Mānoa, she also worked as a research assistant for the Pacific Biosciences Research Center.

Source: UH Hilo News.

Local artists shine a spotlight on the profound impact of marine debris on Hawaiʻi’s coastlines and ecosystems at The ARTS at Marks Garage in Honolulu’s historic Chinatown district November 1–23. The third annual sci-art exhibition “Refuse REFUSE” is organized by the University of Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program (Hawaiʻi Sea Grant).

In partnership with the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project and Hawaiʻi Pacific University’s Center for Marine Debris Research, “Refuse REFUSE” features a dynamic collection of art by 15 local artists, 7 selected students from Kaʻu High and Pahala Elementary School who participated in the Youth Art Competition, and two classrooms from Kīpapa Elementary and Voyager Public Charter School. Opening night will provide an opportunity to meet the artists, enjoy refreshments and listen to live music by Sarah Woo.

“Hawaiʻi Sea Grant is delighted to host our third annual exhibit, working with artists to bring the community together and confront the critical issue of marine debris,” said Beth Lenz, Hawaiʻi Sea Grant’s assistant director for diversity and community engagement who organized and curated the exhibit. “Through art, we acknowledge that environmental challenges are personal and relatable, inspiring viewers to reconnect with the ocean and envision a healthy sustainable future for Hawaiʻi.”

The exhibit will feature a selection of art by Jocelyn Ng whose collaborative works deepen the connection among art, culture, science and community impact. Ng’s series of 10 mixed-media portraits encapsulates the powerful intersection between cultural identity and environmental stewardship.

“This project feels like a return to the source, a way to reclaim our relationship with the ocean by transforming what’s been discarded into something sacred, something that speaks of our collective story,” Ng said. “Each portrait holds the mana of those whose lives are intertwined with the roses, carrying their knowledge, their struggles, and their love for the sea. It’s an invitation to turn back with open hearts, to honor and protect the ocean as we would our own kin, and to envision a future where we move in balance with its ebb.”

Science, stories seminar series

Every Monday at The ARTS at Marks Garage during the sci-art exhibit the public will have the opportunity to learn from early career scientists and local artists as they share their unique perspectives on scientific research, art and understanding. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and presentations will run 6–7 p.m.

For more information visit the Hawaiʻi Sea Grant website.

Jennifer Griswold, an associate professor and chairperson of Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), has been elected to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Board of Trustees for a three-year term, effective February 2025. The board is composed of 18 trustees, and Griswold is one of five newly-elected trustees.

The UCAR is a nonprofit consortium of 131 North American colleges and universities that offer research and education programs in Earth system science, ranging from meteorology to hydrology, oceanography, atmospheric chemistry, climate science and beyond. UCAR manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a federally-funded research and development center of the National Science Foundation, as well as a collection of services known as UCAR Community Programs.

“Being a Trustee means that I will have the opportunity to work with UCAR and NSF NCAR to advance atmospheric and earth system science for more than 130 universities in the US and Canada and to help expand UH Mānoa and SOEST’s research and education opportunities,” said Griswold. “I’m excited to be a part of the process for determining new directions, activities, and potential funding opportunities for the member universities.”

Griswold’s connection with NSF NCAR stems from her recently-funded project through the NSF Mid-Career Award program. She will be working with NCAR project scientist Christina McCluskey on learning how to run a global climate model, called CESM, that provides state-of-the-art computer simulations of Earth’s past, present, and future climate states. Griswold will investigate how aerosols emitted into the Southern Ocean atmosphere by the Australian Black Summer fires in December 2019-January 2020 impact cloud processes.

“Serving on UCAR and NSF NCAR boards and committees ensures a connection between universities and the organization,” Griswold said. “NSF NCAR and UCAR’s many resources, including computing and observing facilities, have long been important to SOEST and UH Mānoa and our research endeavors. My direct connection to UCAR will strengthen our ability to collaborate with current and future partners.”

Beyond colorful coral reefs and diverse nearshore ecosystems, Pacific Ocean waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands have comparatively little marine life and low biological productivity. New research published by University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa oceanographers showed that eddies on the leeward side of the Hawaiian Islands can supply nutrients, not only locally, but also to the opposite side of the island chain and stimulate blooms of phytoplankton, microscopic plant life that lives in the surface ocean.

The study, published in JGR Oceans, was selected by the American Geophysical Union’s editorial board as a featured article.

“While these eddies are known to impact biological productivity locally, our study reveals that nutrients upwelled by these eddies can also be transported around the islands, counter to the background flow,” said Kate Feloy, lead author of the study, Uehiro graduate fellow, and doctoral candidate in the Department of Oceanography at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). “These results demonstrate how eddies can have far‐reaching, remote impacts on productivity around the Hawaiian Islands.”

Unreported blooms, a trailhead

Nutrient availability is vital for phytoplankton, which form the base of the marine food chain. With waters around Hawai’i typically very low in nutrients, growth is limited. Feloy and co-authors, Brian Powell and Tobias Friedrich, observed in satellite data previously unreported blooms of phytoplankton off the northern coasts of some Hawaiian Islands. 

The researchers used a computer model of the region to simulate the ocean around the Main Hawaiian Islands and conducted a series of experiments to determine the source of the nutrients driving these anomalous events. Initially, they expected to uncover a mechanism that caused local upwelling, on the north side of the island chain. The model accurately reproduced the bloom events; however, the results indicated that the blooms were driven by nutrients supplied from upwelling eddies around 100 miles away.

“Our study reveals that nutrients from the eddies can be transported in waters below the sunlit layer around the islands where local upwelling can lead to phytoplankton blooms,” said Feloy. “This work identifies a new mechanism that can deliver nutrients around Hawai’i.”

These blooms are significant events for biological productivity in the region—productivity that can be transferred through the food chain, potentially impacting fisheries near Hawai‘i. This same mechanism may also impact productivity around islands in other nutrient-poor regions.

Read also on Big Island Now, UH News, and Eurekalert.

Located in one of the most geographically isolated locations on Earth, the University of Hawai‘i (UH) has established itself as a world-renowned leader in space-related programs. This month, UH Mānoa approved two new undergraduate minors, one in Earth and Planetary Exploration and Technology and the other in Human Space Flight Technology—bolstering opportunities for the next generation of space explorers.  

The two minors will be administered by the Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. The objective of these programs is to provide professional education in the expanding field of human space flight and broaden access to space system science and technology education for UH Mānoa students, with special emphasis on including historically underrepresented groups. 

“Space exploration is an interdisciplinary field that is growing at UH Mānoa, in the State, nationally and internationally” said Peter Englert, professor in HIGP and program chair for the new academic opportunities. “The successful establishment of the Earth and Planetary Exploration and Technology Certificate program in 2020 provided a model for the establishment of the new minors. These offerings will increase the number of UH students with qualifications to enter the space workforce with their chosen majors.”

Englert anticipates that students of  physical sciences, astronomy, computer science, and engineering will be interested in pursuing the Earth and Planetary Exploration and Technology minor. The Human Space Flight Technology minor, which has a strong component of life sciences, space life support technology, human factors, space ethics, and comparative space policy, is likely to generate more interest among students interested in the new space economy from social sciences to business. Undergraduate students can enroll for the minors beginning in spring 2025. 

“With the missions to return to the Moon and current revolution in technology, this innovative educational program will allow for UH students to get involved with internships, fellowships, and leadership opportunities in our future as a spacefaring civilization,” said co-instructor, Ari Eisenstat with the Hawaiʻi Research Center for Future Studies. 

For more information on the minors and how to enroll, students can contact Englert or visit the EPET program website.

Read also on UH News.

Saturn’s largest moon Titan is the only place other than Earth known to have an atmosphere and liquids in the form of rivers, lakes and seas on its surface. Because of its extremely cold temperature, the liquids on Titan are made of hydrocarbons like methane and ethane, and the surface is made of solid water ice. A new study, led by planetary scientists at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, revealed that methane gas may also be trapped within the ice, forming a distinct crust up to six miles thick, which warms the underlying ice shell and may also explain Titan’s methane-rich atmosphere.

The research team, led by research associate Lauren Schurmeier, that also includes Gwendolyn Brouwer, doctoral candidate, and Sarah Fagents, associate director and researcher, in the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), observed in NASA data that Titan’s impact craters are hundreds of meters shallower than expected and only 90 craters have been identified on this moon. 

“This was very surprising because, based on other moons, we expect to see many more impact craters on the surface and craters that are much deeper than what we observe on Titan,” said Schurmeier. “We realized something unique to Titan must be making them become shallower and disappear relatively quickly.”

To investigate what might be beneath this mystery, the researchers tested in a computer model how the topography of Titan might relax or rebound after an impact if the ice shell was covered with a layer of insulating methane clathrate ice, a kind of solid water ice with methane gas trapped within the crystal structure. Since the initial shape of Titan’s craters is unknown, the researchers modeled and compared two plausible initial depths, based on fresh-looking craters of similar size on a similar-size icy moon, Ganymede.

“Using this modeling approach, we were able to constrain the methane clathrate crust thickness to five to ten kilometers [about three to six miles] because simulations using that thickness produced crater depths that best matched the observed craters,” said Schurmeier. “The methane clathrate crust warms Titan’s interior and causes surprisingly rapid topographic relaxation, which results in crater shallowing at a rate that is close to that of fast-moving warm glaciers on Earth.”

Methane-rich atmosphere 

Estimating the thickness of the methane ice shell is important because it may explain the origin of Titan’s methane-rich atmosphere and helps researchers understand Titan’s carbon cycle, liquid methane-based “hydrological cycle,” and changing climate. 

“Titan is a natural laboratory to study how the greenhouse gas methane warms and cycles through the atmosphere,” said Schurmeier. “Earth’s methane clathrate hydrates, found in the permafrost of Siberia and below the arctic seafloor, are currently destabilizing and releasing methane. So, lessons from Titan can provide important insights into processes happening on Earth.”

Structure of Titan

The topography seen on Titan makes sense in light of these new findings. And constraining the thickness of the methane clathrate ice crust indicates that Titan’s interior is likely warm–not cold, rigid, and inactive as previously thought.

“Methane clathrate is stronger and more insulating than regular water ice,” said Schurmeier. “A clathrate crust insulates Titan’s interior, makes the water ice shell very warm and ductile, and implies that Titan’s ice shell is or was slowly convecting.”

“If life exists in Titan’s ocean under the thick ice shell, any signs of life (biomarkers) would need to be transported up Titan’s ice shell to where we could more easily access or view them with future missions,” Schurmeier added. “This is more likely to occur if Titan’s ice shell is warm and convecting.”With the NASA Dragonfly mission to Titan scheduled to launch in July 2028 and arrive in 2034, researchers will have an opportunity to make up-close observations of this moon and further investigate the icy surface, including a crater named Selk. 

Read also on Popular Mechanics, Yahoo! News, Big Island Now, Eurekalert, Space Daily, Phys.org, Science Daily, SciTechDaily, Astronomy, and Earth.com.