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Swimming sentinels : climate clues from stranded marine mammals

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. / 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. / by Claudia M. Geib. / S.M. in Science Writing

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/106748
Date January 2016
CreatorsGeib, Claudia M. (Claudia Marjorie)
ContributorsThomas Levenson., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing, MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies
PublisherMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Source SetsM.I.T. Theses and Dissertation
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format18 pages, application/pdf
RightsMIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

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