Ivan Aivazovsky, seascape painting

The gale on sea is over (1839)

Rough sea (1844)

 The Ninth Wave (1850)

 

Fishing boats in a harbor (1854)

 The Tempest (1857)

Tempest above Evpatoriya (1861)

Sea View (1867)

 

High Seas (1870)

 Rescue at sea (1872)

 

A night. Blue wave (1876)

 

View of seaside town (1877)

 Surf (1883)

The Wrath Of The Seas (1886)

 

Ship in stormy seas (1887)


Wave (1889)

 

Bracing the waves (1890)
 

Passage of the Jews through the Red Sea (1891)

 

From the calm to hurricane (1892)

 Storm at sea (1893)

 

 1893

 Travel of Poseidon by sea (1894)

 Sea (1895)

 

Sea (1898)

 

Waves (1898)
 

 Hurricane on a sea (1899)

 Ship in storm

see Wikiart Ivan Aivazovsky

https://twitter.com/aivazovski_art

Throughout his lifetime, Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky contributed over 6,000 paintings to the art world, ranging from his early landscapes of the Crimean countryside to the seascapes and coastal scenes for which he is most famous.

Aivazovsky was especially effective at developing the play of light in his paintings, sometimes applying layers of color to create a transparent quality, a technique for which they are highly admired.
Although he produced many portraits and landscapes, over half of all of Aivazovsky’s paintings are realistic depictions of coastal scenes and seascapes.

He is most remembered for his beautifully melodramatic renditions of the seascapes of which he painted the most.

Many of his later works depict the painful heartbreak of soldiers at battle or lost at sea, with a soft celestial body taunting of hope from behind the clouds.

His artistic technique centers on his ability to render the realistic shimmer of the water against the light of the subject in the painting, be it the full moon, the sunrise, or battleships in flames.

Many of his paintings also illustrate his adeptness at filling the sky with light, be it the diffuse light of a full moon through fog, or the orange glow of the sun gleaming through the clouds.
In addition to being the most prolific of Russian Armenian painters, Aivazovsky founded an art school and gallery to engage and educate other artists of the day.

He also and built a historical museum in his hometown on Feodosia, Crimea, in addition to beginning the first archaeological expeditions of the same region. 

Plankton haven’t been the same since the industrial revolution

Planktonic foraminifera assemblage from Caribbean sediments that provide an accurate picture of the species community before human influence.

Each shell is less than one millimeter in size.
A clever study finds that communities of foraminifera, a hard-shelled kind of plankton, have transformed dramatically since the Industrial Revolution. 

(Michal Kucera)

From The Smithsonian by Maddie Burakoff

As scientists scramble to figure out how warming ocean temperatures will affect marine ecosystems across the globe—from bleaching coral reefs to altered migration routes—one of the sea’s most ubiquitous organisms is helping researchers measure the changes that have already occurred.
Centuries of fossil records and live-capture data show that some marine plankton populations reflect a clear change in response to human industrialization and the warming oceans that have come with it.

Researchers found distinct differences between communities of planktonic foraminifera—tiny single-celled creatures that float in ocean waters—from before and after the start of the industrial era about 170 years ago, according to a study published this week in Nature.
The ratio of plankton species in these communities shifted in proportion to changes in sea temperature, indicating that ocean warming has deeply altered these populations and their wider marine ecosystems.

Microscopic view on marine plankton.

Credit: A. Stuhr, GEOMAR.

While the idea that climate change affects marine life isn’t new, the plankton study incorporates an unusually complete data set that spans the globe and cuts deep into past centuries to reaffirm humanity’s impact on the oceans.

Planktonic foraminifera provide a comprehensive fossil record because their hard calcite shells are preserved well in sediment layers at the bottom of the ocean, says lead author Lukas Jonkers, a paleontological oceanographer at the University of Bremen in Germany.
The organisms also populate waters all across the world.
Though rare in the surface ocean, planktonic foraminifera are abundant at greater depths, and in some places they carpet entire swaths of the sea floor, Jonkers says.

 Recovery of a sediment trap on board the research vessel Meteor in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean. Such sediment traps provide information on modern planktonic foraminifera species communities, which were found to be systematically different from pre-industrial communities from sediments.

(Christiane Schmidt)

“We can really compare very well the distribution of the species in the modern [era] with the past,” Jonkers says.
“There's not so many zooplankton groups where the fossil records are so well preserved.
In fact, I don't think there's any.”

To understand the state of these communities before the industrial era kicked off, Jonkers and his team analyzed more than 3,700 previously collected samples from sediment layers on the bottom of the ocean.
Based on how fast sediment accumulates and mixes on the seafloor, scientists estimated that the top layer of sediment cores—basically “cylinders of mud” pulled up from the bottom of the ocean—would contain fossils that are couple of centuries old, Jonkers says, predating the industrial revolution.

The team then compared these pre-industrial samples with more recent data collected using sediment traps, which are funnels moored to the seafloor that grab anything falling down from the ocean’s upper layers (including the plankton that drift through the water).
Using information collected from 1978 to 2013, researchers discovered that planktonic foraminifera communities changed markedly during the time period between the deposit of the seafloor fossils and the organisms caught in sediment traps.

The shift, measured by comparing the relative abundances of dozens of plankton species within the samples, doesn’t appear to be random.
The amount of change in the plankton communities correlated with the degree of documented temperature change in the surrounding waters.
The direction of shifting communities also largely lined up with patterns of ocean temperature change, as authors found when they matched up seafloor fossils with their closest analogues in modern communities.

With the data showing a match in both the degree and the direction of change, Jonkers says he’s confident that temperature is the driving force for the shifts in planktonic foraminifera populations.
“I was expecting to see a difference and an effect of global change,” Jonkers says.
“But I hadn't expected that the signal would be so clear.”

 The distribution of modern-day (white dots) and ancient (grey dots) zooplankton data used in the study. Sea surface temperature change from 1870 to 2015 is also shown.

Source: Jonkers et al. (2019)

Illustration of phytoplankton species distribution across the global ocean.

Credit: Jorge Martinez-Rey and Meike Vogt, 2019/ Damiano Righetti, 2019

The new study replicates on a global scale what other researchers have found in specific areas, says David Field, a marine scientist at Hawaii Pacific University who has researched planktonic foraminifera but was not involved in this study.
While scientists have yet to fully unravel why exactly plankton communities are changing, the evidence from this study and others clearly points to ocean warming as the likely cause, either as a direct influence or as an indirect driver of other aspects of the underwater environment, Field says.

Comparing sediment-trap samples to seafloor fossils might not be a perfect analogy—differences in preservation could be a possible influence on the data—but Field says the authors’ evidence provides compelling support for the huge influence of ocean warming on marine species.
“This indicates that warming began to have an effect on marine ecosystems a long time ago, even before we were keeping good records on it,” Field says.
“We can expect much more impact of ocean warming on ecosystems in the future.
Oceans are going to continue to change in ways we haven’t seen before.”

Planktonic foraminifera may not be as majestic as whales or sea stars, but the breadth of their fossil record provides a useful baseline to confirm a wider trend of ocean life changing in response to human activity.
Shifts in plankton communities are a concerning indicator of the “bigger picture” for marine ecosystems as ocean temperatures continue to rise at increasing rates, Jonkers says.“The question is, what will happen with climate change progressing?” Jonkers says.
“Even at one degree [of temperature change], we already see large changes in planktonic foraminifera, and probably also in other marine biota.
That means that all these species have to adapt, and at the moment, we don't know if they can, or if they can do so fast enough.

Links :

• Nature : Global change drives modern plankton communities away from the pre-industrial state
• Wired :  Scientists go back in time to find more troubling news about Earth's oceans
• Phys : Mapping the global distribution of phytoplankton / Plankton as a climate driver instead of the sun?
• CarbonBrief : Climate change is driving plankton towards the poles, study says 
• Cosmos : Climate change profoundly alters plankton populations 

Sunken Nazi U-boat discovered: why archaeologists like me should leave it on the seabed

Sea War Museum Jutland in Thyborøn has made a new sensational discovery during its continued registration of shipwrecks in the North Sea and Skagerrak.

In April 2018, the museum found the wreck of the German submarine U-3523, which was sunk with depth charges in Skagerrak by a British B24-Liberator aircraft on May 6, 1945.

Just the day before, the German forces in Denmark, Northwest Germany and Holland had surrendered, so the submarine was not engaged in battle, but was probably on its way to Norway.

The U-3523 was of the new and highly advanced type XXI that could have revolutionized the submarine war if enough boats had been completed in due time.

118 boats were in the process of being build, but only two came into active service, and none was ever engaged in battle.

U-3523 appeared on the survey screen during the museum's scan of the seabed some ten miles north of Skagen, and the discovery was very surprising.

Very unusually, the entire submarine bow is buried in the seabed while the stern is approximately 20 meters above the sea bottom.

The wreck lies at 123 metres of water depth, making it very difficult to access.

From The Conversation by Dr Innes McCartney

The collapsing Nazi government ordered all U-boats in German ports to make their way to their bases in Norway on May 2, 1945.
Two days later, the recently commissioned U-3523 joined the mission as one of the most advanced boats in the fleet.
But to reach their destination, the submarines had to pass through the bottleneck of the Skagerrak – the strait between Norway and Denmark – and the UK’s Royal Air Force was waiting for them.
Several U-boats were sunk and U-3523 was destroyed in an air attack by a Liberator bomber.

 geolocalisation with the GeoGarage platform (DGA nautical chart)

The submarine, called U-3523, was recently discovered by the Sea War Museum Jutland over 10 Nm north of Skagen (Denmark's northernmost town) and 9 Nm West of the position reported by originally, at a depth of 123m.

U-3523 lay undiscovered on the seabed for over 70 years until it was recently located by surveyors from the Sea War Museum in Denmark.
Studying the vessel will be of immense interest to professional and amateur historians alike, not least as a way of finally putting to rest the conspiracy theory that the boat was ferrying prominent Nazis to Argentina.
But sadly, recovering U-3523 is not a realistic proposition.
The main challenges with such wrecks lie in accurately identifying them, assessing their status as naval graves and protecting them for the future.

U-boat wrecks like these from the end of World War II are the hardest to match to historical records.
The otherwise meticulous record keeping of the Kriegsmarine (Nazi navy) became progressively sparser, breaking down completely in the last few weeks of the war.
But Allied records have helped determine that this newly discovered wreck is indeed U-3523.
The sea where this U-boat was located was heavily targeted by the RAF because it knew newly-built boats would flee to Norway this way.

Identification

The detailed sonar scans of the wreck site show that it is without doubt a Type XXI U-boat, of which U-3523 was the only one lost in the Skagerrak and unaccounted for.
These were new types of submarines that contained a number of innovations which had the potential to make them dangerous opponents.
This was primarily due to enlarged batteries, coupled to a snorkel, which meant they could stay permanently underwater.
Part of the RAF’s mission was to prevent any of these new vessels getting to sea to sink Allied ships, and it successfully prevented any Type XXI U-boats from doing so.

The Type XXI U-3008.

Wikipedia

With the U-boat’s identity correctly established, we now know that it is the grave site of its crew of 58 German servicemen.
As such, the wreck should either be left in peace or, more implausibly, recovered and the men buried on land.
Germany lost over 800 submarines at sea during the two world wars and many have been found in recent years.
It is hopelessly impractical to recover them all, so leaving them where they are is the only real option.

Under international law all naval wrecks are termed “sovereign immune”, which means they will always be the property of the German state despite lying in Danish waters.
But Denmark has a duty to protect the wreck, especially if Germany asks it to do so.

Protection

Hundreds of wartime wreck sites such as U-3523 are under threat around the world from metal thieves and grave robbers.
The British cruiser HMS Exeter, which was sunk in the Java Sea on May 1, 1942, has been entirely removed from the seabed for scrap.
And wrecks from the 1916 Battle of Jutland that also lie partly in Danish waters have seen industrial levels of metal theft.
These examples serve as a warning that organised criminals will target shipwrecks of any age for the metals they contain.

Detailed sonar scans have been taken.

Sea War Museum

Germany and the UK are among a number of countries currently pioneering the use of satellite monitoring to detect suspicious activity on shipwrecks thought to be under threat.
This kind of monitoring could be a cost-effective way to save underwater cultural heritage from criminal activity and its use is likely to become widespread in the next few years.
Recovery

The recovery cost is only a small fraction of the funds needed to preserve and display an iron object that has been immersed in the sea for many years.
So bringing a wreck back to the surface should not be undertaken lightly.
In nearly all cases of salvaged U-boats, the results have been financially ruinous.
Lifting barges that can raise shipwrecks using large cranes cost tens of thousands of pounds a day to charter.
Once recovered, the costs of conservation and presentation mount astronomically as the boat will rapidly start to rust.

The U-boat U-534 was also sunk by the RAF in 1945, close to where U-3523 now lies.
Its crew all evacuated that boat, meaning that she was not a grave when recovered from the sea in 1993 by Danish businessman Karsten Ree, allegedly in the somewhat incredible belief that it carried Nazi treasure.
At a reported cost of £3m, the operation is thought to have been unprofitable.
The boat contained nothing special, just the usual mundane objects carried on a U-boat at war.

U-534 was salvaged in 1993 and since February 2009 has been on display in Birkenhead, England as part of the U-boat Story.

The U-boat is one of only four German World War II submarines in preserved condition remaining in the world.

A Royal Air Force bomber sank her on 5 May 1945 in the Kattegat 20 kilometres northeast of the Danish island of Anholt.

U-534 after the rescue.

Les Pickstock/Flickr, CC BY

Similar problems were experienced by the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in the UK when it raised the Holland 1 submarine in 1982.
In that case, the costs of long-term preservationproved much greater than anticipated after the initial rust-prevention treatment failed to stop the boat corroding.
It had to be placed in a sealed tank full of alkali sodium carbonate solution for four years until the corrosive chloride ions had been removed, and was then transferred to a purpose-built exhibition building to protect it further.

The expensive process of raising more sunken submarines will add little to our knowledge of life at sea during World War II.
But each time a U-boat is found, it places one more jigsaw piece in its correct place, giving us a clearer picture of the history of the U-boat wars.
This is the true purpose of archaeology.

Links :

• Smithsonian : Wreck of Nazi Germany’s Most Advanced U-Boat Discovered
• Iflscience : We've Finally Found The Submarine That Some Believe Carried Fleeing Nazis To South America
• PopularMechanics : Long-Lost Nazi U-Boat Finally Found
• Gizmodo : WWII Sub Rumored to Have Taken Top Nazis to South America Found Off Danish Coast 
• The Telegraph : U-Boat rumoured to have helped Nazis escape to Argentina is discovered
• GeoGarage blog : U-Boat rumoured to have helped Nazis escape to Argentina is discovered 

A quarter of glacier ice in West Antarctica is now unstable

Map of satellite data shows how glacier ice thinning has spread deep into Antarctica

From ESA by

By combining 25 years of ESA satellite data, scientists have discovered that warming ocean waters have caused the ice to thin so rapidly that 24% of the glacier ice in West Antarctica is now affected.

A paper published in Geophysical Research Letters describes how the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) used over 800 million measurements of Antarctic ice sheet height recorded by radar altimeter instruments on ESA’s ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat and CryoSat satellite missions between 1992 and 2017.

The study also used simulations of snowfall over the same period produced by the RACMO regional climate model.
Together, these measurements allow changes in ice-sheet height to be separated into those caused by meteorological events, which affect snow, and those caused by longer-term changes in climate, which affect ice.

Europe's dedicated polar-monitoring Cryosat satellite

has produced its sharpest view yet of the shape of Antarctica.

(ESA:Cryotop/Edinburg Univ)

Velocity of recent ice flow around Antarctica. Thwaites Glacier is one of the smaller purple regions on the left side of this image.

New model finds processes that could help slow loss at some glaciers.

see Slowdown in Antarctic mass loss from solid Earth and sea-level feedbacks

The ice sheet has thinned by up to 122 metres in places, with the most rapid changes occurring in West Antarctica where ocean melting has triggered glacier imbalance.
CPOM Director, Andy Shepherd, explained, “Parts of Antarctica have thinned by extraordinary amounts. So we set out to show how much was down to changes in climate and how much was instead due to weather.”

3D view of Thwaites Glacier’s grounding line migration over 500 years, for old models (green) where the bedrock is rigid, and our new model (red) where the bedrock is elastic.

Note that the ice shelf (floating part of the glacier) has been masked to show the underlying bedrock.

Credit: Eric Larour @JPL/NASA/CalTech

To do this, the team compared measurements of surface-height change with the simulated changes in snowfall.
Where the signal was greater they attributed its origin to glacier imbalance.

They found that fluctuations in snowfall tend to drive small changes in height over large areas for a few years at a time, whereas the most pronounced changes in ice thickness coincide with signals of glacier imbalance that have persisted for decades.

Prof. Shepherd added, “Knowing how much snow has fallen has really helped us to isolate the glacier imbalance within the satellite record.
We can see clearly now that a wave of thinning has spread rapidly across some of Antarctica’s most vulnerable glaciers, and their losses are driving up sea levels around the planet.

 Twaites glacier with the GeoGarage platform (NGA nautical chart)

“After 25 years, the pattern of glacier thinning has spread across 24% of West Antarctica, and its largest ice streams – the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers – are now losing ice five times faster than they were in the 1990s.
“Altogether, ice losses from East and West Antarctica have added 4.6 mm of water to global sea level since 1992.”

ESA’s Marcus Engdahl, noted, “This is a fantastic demonstration of how satellite missions can help us to understand how our planet is changing.
The polar regions are hostile environments and are extremely difficult to access from the ground.
Because of this, the view from space is an essential tool for tracking the effects of climate change.”

Scientific results such as this are key to understanding how our planet works and how natural processes are being affected by climate change – and ice is a hot topic at ESA’s Living Planet Symposium, which is currently in full swing in Milan.
This study demonstrates that the changing climate is causing real changes in the far reaches of the Antarctic.

Links :

• PNAS : Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment
• BBC : Antarctic revealed in sharper 3D view / Antarctic instability 'is spreading' /  Climate change: Global sea level rise could be bigger than expected
• The Guardian : ‘Extraordinary thinning’ of ice sheets revealed deep inside Antarctica
• Phys : 24% of west Antarctic ice is now unstable : study / 2-metre sea level rise 'plausible' by 2100: study / Antarctica's effect on sea level rise in coming centuries 
• Gizmodo : Sea Level Rise Could Displace Nearly 200 Million This Century If We Don't Change Course
• PRI : This submarine’s historic tour under Thwaites Glacier will help scientists predict sea level rise 
• Inverse : Melting Continental Glaciers Remain a World-Flooding Enigma

Netherlands (NLHO) layer update in the GeoGarage platform

37 nautical raster charts updated

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China's scientists are the new kids on the Arctic block

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo berated China for using its growing Arctic research program as a Trojan horse for its military and commercial goals.

From Wired by Eric Niiler

For nearly a century, the Arctic has been a scientific playground for American, Canadian, and European researchers studying everything from magnetic fields to krill populations, as well as documenting rising temperatures and a changing climate.
But with China increasingly expressing an interest in all things Arctic, a geopolitical storm is brewing.
Traditional boundaries between science, commerce, and the military are melting as fast as the region’s sea ice.

On Monday, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo scolded China for using civilian polar research to further its military and commercial goals, including opening up a new “Polar Silk Road” for trade and shipping.
“China’s words and actions raise doubts about its intentions,” Pompeo said in Rovaniemi, Finland, where the eight members of the Arctic Council are meeting this week.
“Beijing claims to be a near-Arctic state.
Yet the shortest distance between China and the Arctic is 900 miles.”

Pompeo said the US welcomes Chinese investment in the Arctic but that the US needs to “examine these activities closely,” citing a Pentagon report issued last week that found that scientific research could support a strengthened Chinese military presence in the Arctic Ocean, which could include deploying submarines.

China sees nuclear-powered icebreakers as key to fulfilling its Arctic ambitions.
China's research icebreaker Xuelong, or Snow Dragon

Until about a decade ago, China wasn’t known as a polar nation.
In 2013 it became an “observer state” to the eight-member Arctic Council.
And these days it seems that China is trouncing the US when it comes to its presence north of the Arctic Circle.
China opened a research station in Iceland in 2018 to study space weather.
It has another one in Norway’s Svalbard Island, and it signed an agreement last month with Russia for a joint research center to forecast the ice conditions of the Northern Sea Route and provide recommendations for Arctic economic development, according to Russian officials.

Last fall, China launched its second polar icebreaker, dubbed the Xuelong (Snow Dragon) 2, the world’s first to crunch 5-foot-thick ice both forwards and backwards.
It has also commissioned a nuclear-powered icebreaker to be built in the next few years, along with several ice-capable patrol boats.

Meanwhile, the US's lone heavy icebreaker is more than 40 years old and is often in need of repairs.
Congressional funding for a new $746 million icebreaker was diverted to President Trump’s southern border fence last year, while a newly announced icebreaker won’t be ready until 2024.

So what is China doing in the Arctic? Experts and observers of the region say that China has a lot of reasons for wanting to be there.
Its leaders are worried about the effects of climate change, for one.
The Arctic is heating up faster than the rest of the world because of rising greenhouse gas emissions, scientists have warned.
Over the past five years, the region has been warmer than at any time since 1900, when record-keeping began, according to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
China wants to learn more about connections between a warming Arctic and how that might lead to droughts in China’s mainland, for example, or sea level rise that could swamp its populated coastal cities.

Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, says Chinese leaders want their scientists to take part in Arctic research because they believe that “climate change impacts the whole world, so China needs to be there.”
That goes against historical precedent, in which the only countries with a permanent presence in the Arctic have been the ones to control territory within the Arctic Circle and generally set up research bases there.
US officials are skeptical that China is only pursuing science because of its history of staking out claims on both commercial fisheries and mineral extraction in far-flung places.
“It is an argument that raises a lot of eyebrows, but that is the Chinese argument."

At the same time it is engaging in legitimate scientific research, Yun says, China is also pursuing a strategy of scientific diplomacy to benefit its commercial resource development goals.
The melting Arctic has also opened a new sea route between China’s factories and European customers.
The first Chinese-built tanker sailed through the ice from Guangzhou, China, to Russia’s Murmansk seaport in January.

A comparison of select major icebreakers of Russia, the United States, and China.

(Malte Humpert)

Because China doesn’t have a claim to the Arctic, unlike the other eight nations of the Arctic Council (the US, Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden), that means it must pursue partnerships with countries that do.
That’s how China got its space weather lab—by cooperating with Icelandic officials.

In Greenland, scientists from the Chinese Geological Survey have spent the past few years visiting mineral sites.
In 2017, Chinese officials announced plans for a joint China-Greenland polar research base, as well as a satellite ground station for climate change research.
These scientific partnerships are happening at the same time as China is backing five big mining or development projects in Greenland.

Yun says Chinese scientists don’t see the conflict between scientific research and national goals of resource development.
“When China says that we are studying how climate change affects wildlife in the Arctic, they are also collecting data for temperature change for the flow of the ice, the change of the shipping routes,” Yun says.
She spoke from Shanghai, where she is attending a forum on China in the Arctic this week.
“Is that information going to be used for future commercial activity? I think it certainly will.”

Others say that Western cooperation with China’s scientific projects in the Arctic will benefit both sides.
That’s because scientists usually share information and build trust with each other despite their national or political differences.
“There’s no one-way street in this,” says Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen, a professor of social science at the Arctic University of Norway, in Tromsø.
“We also learn something about China and its actions in the Arctic.
You can be suspicious about scientific collaboration because the Chinese side builds knowledge, but we build knowledge too.”

China and Russia are cooperating in the gas drilling.

Leaders of Nordic nations that border the Arctic tend to have a less confrontational stance than Secretary Pompeo.
In addition to finding fault with China, Pompeo also criticized Russia for malfeasance in the Arctic (and even picked on friendly Canada) at the meeting this week.

One thing Pompeo left out of his speech, however, was any mention of climate change.
He did, however, declare that "America is the world’s leader in caring for the environment," at the same time as US negotiators pressured the Arctic Council to remove any language on global warming from the group’s final resolution.
The group refused, so it won't issue any resolution at all.

Links :

• HighNorthNews : China in Arctic, Releases New Details on Icebreaker
• Maritime Executive : The Arctic Shipping Route No One’s Talking About / The Arctic is America's Next Maritime Frontier
• The Guardian : US warns Beijing's Arctic activity risks creating 'new South China Sea'
• AsiaNews : Research and development: China and Russia on the Arctic Silk Road
• Bloomberg : China Military Expanding Reach Into Arctic Region, Pentagon Says 
• StraitTimes : China's polar ambitions cause anxiety
• BBC : How Greenland could become China's Arctic base  
• The Arctic Institute : Russian Strategic Intentions in the Arctic

Norway (NHS) layer update in the GeoGarage platform

84 nautical raster charts updated & 1 new inset added

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Fyodor Konyukhov completes South Pacific crossing

Russian explorer Fyodor Konyukhov rowed his way through the Pacific ocean & set several world records, including longest solo sailing in the ocean (154 days), biggest distance covered by rowing (11,525 km) while being the oldest solo rowing sailor (67yo)
So far, Fyodor Konyukhov has sailed around the world five time, crossed the Atlantic Ocean 17 times and became the first Russian to complete the Explorers Grand Slam: he climbed the highest mountains on all seven continents and visited the North Pole and the South Pole.
In 2007, Konyukhov circumnavigated the Southern Hemisphere aboard a sailing yacht dubbed the Scarlet Sails when he crossed the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

From Explorerweb by Peter Winsor 

After 154 days, 13 hours and 13 minutes, Fyodor Konyukhov arrived at the Diego Ramirez Islands off Chile to complete the first leg of his Southern Ocean row.

The prolific Russian adventurer left New Zealand in November.

Fyodor Konyukhov began his solo circumnavigation around the world on a rowing boat on December 6, 2018, setting off from the port of Dunedin in New Zealand.

The expedition is divided up into three parts: Dunedin (New Zealand) - Cape Hown (Chile), Cape Horn - Cape Leeuwin (Australia) and Cape Leeuwin - Dunedin.

In total, Konyukhov will have to row 16,000 nautical miles (27,000 km).

Konyukhov’s support team intercepted him on the windward side of the islands in dangerous conditions (40-45 knot winds and 6-7 metre waves).

With the conditions predicted to worsen, his team decided to tow the rowboat into the Drake Passage.

The longitude of the Diego Ramirez Islands is considered the end of an east-west crossing of the South Pacific Ocean, according to the Ocean Rowing Society.

Russian adventurer Fedor Konyukhov, who is currently on his round-the-world voyage aboard a solo rowboat, became the first person in history to cross the southern part of the Pacific Ocean, from New Zealand to Chile, aboard a rowboat, the Ocean Rowing Society International said.

"On May 09, 2019 at approx. 18:00UTC Fedor crossed the finish line of Diego Ramirez Longitude (68.68W) within vicinity of land and with this has officially completed his row across the South Pacific Ocean from west to east," the statement says adding that it took the Russian traveler 154 days 13 hours and 37 minutes to do it.

Konyukhov planned to complete the journey in 120 days but endured several cyclones during his five months in the notorious Roaring Forties.

Fedor Konyukhov in his rowboat AKROS, off the coast of Chile.
The rowing boat dubbed Akros, which the voyageur is sailing to circumnavigate the Southern Hemisphere, was designed specifically for the expedition by British engineer Philip Morrison.

The nine-meter long boat has water-proof compartments for food storage and three independent systems of producing energy: solar modules, wind generators and a chemical power supply station that uses methanol to produce energy.
The boat is also equipped with two types of satellite phones, a satellite tracker and a few duplicate systems of connection and navigation.

Photo: Oscar Konyukhov

He lost more than 100km during one gale.

The second leg of Konyukhov’s 27,000km journey across the Southern Ocean will take him from Cape Horn to Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia later this year.

The final leg, which begins in late 2020, runs from Cape Leeuwin back to Dunedin, New Zealand, where he began.

 The Akros design.

Photo: konyukhov.ru

In 2002, the adventurer set a world record by crossing the Atlantic Ocean solo on a rowboat in 46 days and four hours.

The record remained intact for around 11 years.
In 2013-2014, he finished a solo-rowing non-stop voyage across the Pacific Ocean, reaching the Australian coast after a 159-day adventure.
In 2016, Konyukhov also dared to break a world record and performed a non-stop solo hot air balloon flight around the globe in just 11 days and four hours. He covered over 21,800 miles. 

Links :

• ODT : Rower makes Cape Horn stormy conditions
• Fedor Konyukhov wrote a new page in the history of ocean rowing 
• ExplorerWeb : Fyodor Konyukhov: The World’s Busiest Adventurer Begins His Latest Expedition / Cyclone Pounds Konyukhov on Southern Ocean