This website, the Smithsonian Ocean Portal, is an educational website aimed to inform about the oceans. They offer a variety of resources and tabs, such as tabs on ocean life and ecosystems, planet ocean, the ocean through time, conservation, and human connections. Each tab also narrows to specific ocean species or categories, such as mammals or reptiles. The website stays up to date with blog posts and a newsroom that gives reviews of articles.
http://ocean.si.edu
One article talks about how the loss of ice in the Arctic effects species that rely on the ice to survive. One example of a species is a harp seal, which uses the ice for nursing and feeding its yearlings. Global warming and the melting of sea ice puts these seals and yearlings in danger of hypothermia, starvation, and crushed by moving ice in the Arctic. We often think about how global warming will effect us and the environments we live in, but its important to think about how it will effect other species and their genetic diversity.
I think this website is a great resource to learn more about ocean life and ecosystems. The website provides multiple articles for people to read about a plethora of different topics and stay informed about what is going on in the oceans. Also, I like how you discussed a specific article to further emphasize the importance of the effects of global warming on species.
I enjoyed the different links this website provides that takes me to different parts of the ocean. I clicked on the “Deep Blue Sea” link and it has a lot of informative information. It talks about what lives there, research we have in the deep parts of the ocean, ocean drilling, and a few other smaller points. Each section gets explained well, with lots of cool links embedded in each to delve deeper into the ocean (pun intended).
Reading about the impacts of global warming on harp seals, just about broke my heart. I think reminding people of the impacts of global warming on vulnerable animal populations and even vulnerable populations of humans really puts the magnitude of the problem into perspective.
I enjoyed looking around at the various sections and articles on this website! I watched a video explaining the causes of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and it was really informative, interesting, and to the point. I think this website is a really good resource because it contains a ton of really useful information, on a wide variety of topics, from information on the ocean, to crustal movements.