Swimming sentinels : climate clues from stranded marine mammals
Name
969446822-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
1.28 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
f1966bb1d38944a56767e1192017a32d
Author(s)
Geib, Claudia M. (Claudia Marjorie)
Advisor(s)
Thomas Levenson.
Date Issued
2016
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
From skinny sea lions on beaches in California, to hundreds of enormous dead whales in the fjords of Chile, scientists have been recently puzzled by a spate of dead and dying marine mammals. These events are so complicated- influenced by disease, biotoxins, ecosystem changes, and human interaction-that their cause can appear impossible to untangle. Yet a growing body of evidence strongly suggests that climate change has a hand in them all. This thesis examines marine mammal stranding events of the past and present to show how climate change will, and already has, impacted marine mammals, and how these events could serve as proxies for broader ecosystem changes in the years to come. By paying attention to whales and dolphins, seals and sea otters, we may be able to learn something about our planet, and how its changes will impact its most abundant mammal: us.
Description
Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2016.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Subjects
Graduate Program in Science Writing.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing
MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
Terms of Use
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