With sadness, the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences has received news of the passing of Life Trustee, Dr. Fred T. Mackenzie.

Charles Island is one of a group of small, uninhabited islands that form a broken chain across the southern side of Castle Harbour. At least, for now it is one island — pretty soon it is likely to be two.

Oceans are constantly changing. These changes don’t only affect marine life but also have wide-reaching consequences for land dwellers. To document them, monitoring stations in the North Atlantic Ocean have been active for decades. Now, researchers have reported on the latest changes, showing that compared to 40 years ago, the ocean near the island of Bermuda is warmer, saltier, more acidic, and has lost oxygen. Long-term monitoring can provide information about existential challenges societies will face in the near future, the researchers said.

Arizona State University launched four new ocean-focused degree programs within the College of Global Futures — a Bachelor of Science in ocean futures, a Bachelor of Science in ocean futures with a concentration in coastal and marine sciences, an online Master of Science in coastal and marine science and management, and a PhD in ocean futures.

MIAMI– University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Professor Dennis Hansell has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

BIOS marine superintendent and ship captain Quentin Lewis is calling the months ahead for the Institute’s research vessel the Atlantic Explorer “very healthy in terms of operating days.” At the start of 2021, BIOS has 195 days at sea funded for science programs, he said.

For more than a quarter century, the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) has been making physical, biological, and chemical oceanographic measurements in the open ocean off Bermuda. Once or twice each month, researchers and technicians board the research vessel Atlantic Explorer and head 50 miles (82 kilometers) southeast of Bermuda to an area in the Sargasso Sea, where they collect valuable data on water column properties (including temperature, dissolved oxygen, and salinity) as well as bacterial production, zooplankton distribution, and abundance. Their data also shed light on the transport and cycling of organic carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen.

Oceans are critical to stabilizing the world’s climate, absorbing a quarter of all carbon dioxide emissions and capturing 90 percent of the excess heat they generate. By some estimates, the ocean also accounts for up to half the annual emissions of another greenhouse gas – nitrous oxide (N2O), the third most important climate emission after carbon dioxide and methane. With the climate changing amid record high atmospheric levels of all three gases, the importance of the marine nitrogen cycle is ripe for study.

The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), a unit of Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and School of Ocean Futures at Arizona State University, has announced funding support for deep-sea research and education training for Bermudians. The funding is led by a charitable grant from the Global Atlantic Re foundation, which is sponsored by Global Atlantic Financial Group (Global Atlantic), a leading insurance company meeting the retirement and life insurance needs of individuals and institutions.

The transformative power of education lies not only in the knowledge gained within the classroom walls but also in the experiences that broaden young minds beyond their familiar surroundings. Such is the case for a group of 23 students from Polaris, a K-12 grade school in Anchorage, Alaska (U.S.). In May, these ambitious learners embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Bermuda, where they had the unique opportunity to visit the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. Over the course of 10 days, these curious young minds and their educators were immersed in a variety of interactive activities that took learning beyond the confines of their Alaskan classroom.