Saturday, April 12, 2025

Sailing along the incredible coast of Faroe Islands


Tag along for this sail through the insanely beautiful part of Faroe Islands !
We pass the 313 meter tall Trøllkonufingur, Koltur and Hestur beaming off some spectacular scenery.
And then we round it off with the famous and nasty currents of the Faroese sounds!

Friday, April 11, 2025

Scientists propose network of autonomous vehicles to observe ocean surface



From Scripps by Alex Fox, Verena Hormann and Laurent Grare of Scripps Oceanography also co-authored the study.

Improved monitoring of the sea surface would improve weather forecasts and climate models

A new paper from an international team of more than 50 researchers, including four from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, proposes the creation of a global observing network of autonomous vehicles roving the ocean surface.
Such a network of so-called uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) could transform how scientists understand the critical boundary layer where the ocean meets the atmosphere, ushering in improvements in weather forecasting, climate research and marine ecosystem monitoring.

The proposed network of USVs would be analogous to the Argo network of roughly 4,000 drifting robotic floats that are focused on collecting data from the ocean’s interior.

“Argo provides an incredible view of the ocean interior.
Now we are trying to do that for the air-sea interface,” said Luc Lenain, co-author of the study and director of Scripps’ Air-Sea Interaction Research Laboratory.
“We feel the technology is there and these vehicles are ready to make a huge contribution to science.”

A sample of commercially available USVs, scaled to USV length, illustrating a wide-ranging ecosystem of high technology readiness level.
These USVs are renewable powered, persistent, variable in cost and complexity that individually are suited to specific tasks and collectively to a range of different environments and variable conditions.
 
The study, published March 6 in Frontiers in Marine Sciences, also compiles research showing how USVs are currently being used to collect data and the diversity of designs and technologies that enable these capable machines.

The ocean surface is the site of important exchanges of energy and chemistry between the ocean and the atmosphere.

“The weather that disrupts our lives and waters our crops often originates from interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean,” said Sarah Gille, co-author of the study and a physical oceanographer at Scripps.
“Understanding air-sea interactions is key for improving our ability to forecast extreme weather to enhance public safety and protect property.”

But despite its importance, this boundary between the air and sea is not regularly observed in detail – especially in regions that are remote or perilous.

Current observation systems struggle to capture the complex, rapidly changing dynamics at the ocean surface.
Buoys and fixed moorings are too sparse or, in the case of Argo, are not focused on the ocean surface; ships are not cost-effective for remote locations and can be unsafe for crew in stormy seas; and most satellites are not well positioned to observe small-scale, fast-moving processes.
This data gap hampers scientists’ ability to forecast severe weather, understand climate change and track carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans.

USVs, by contrast, can be powered by the sun and can utilize wave and wind energy for propulsion, allowing them to remain at sea for long periods of time and return themselves to port if they are in need of repairs.
USVs can simultaneously measure dozens of variables while traversing thousands of kilometers (hundreds of miles) of open ocean or operate in hurricanes and near sea ice where traditional methods struggle, all while transmitting high-resolution data in near real-time.


Saildrone and NOAA captured video from inside Hurricane Milton on Oct.
9, 2024.
The Saildrone reported maximum significant wave height of 8.6 meters (28.1 feet), and wind gusts as strong as 66 knots (76 mph) while 40 nautical miles from the center of the storm.


Lenain’s lab operates a fleet of USVs called Wave Gliders – named for their use of wave energy for propulsion – with sensors to record troves of data on the wind, waves and weather at the sea surface.
For Lenain and other researchers interested in studying interactions between air and sea, the smaller physical profile of the Wave Gliders offers practical advantages for collecting these data compared to ships.

A quick overview of how the Wave Glider works.
 
“The form factor of a large research vessel creates wind and wave interference, which reduces the accuracy of our measurements,” said Lenain.
“The smaller size of our Wave Gliders reduces that interference, and improves the quality of our data.”

Beginning in 2022, the research team behind this paper conducted a review of 200 datasets collected via USVs and 96 scientific studies from the past decade to evaluate the capabilities and potential of these autonomous platforms.
The authors created maps using data from USV manufacturers and researchers to show where these sea-faring robots have been used to observe the sea surface and where they have yet to venture.

The analysis revealed that USVs have successfully measured 33 different variables spanning physical, biogeochemical, biological and ecological processes at the ocean-atmosphere boundary.

“This paper shows the potential value of a global scale network of uncrewed surface vehicles to observe and characterize the complex interactions that occur between the ocean and the atmosphere,” said Lenain.
“The technology is ripe for this and there is a strong scientific need for these observations, especially in the high latitudes and remote parts of the ocean.”

Dr Ruth Patterson is leading a joint scientific and industry proposal to establish a global USV network within the Global Ocean Observing System.
 
The authors argue that creating a global USV observation network would significantly enhance humanity’s ability to forecast severe weather events, improve climate models, monitor carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans and support interdisciplinary marine research.

The team is now working to secure an endorsement from the UN Ocean Decade program and the Global Ocean Observing System.
Lenain indicated that an endorsement from the Global Ocean Observing System would be an important stamp of approval for the proposed USV observing network as the researchers behind the proposal begin to seek funding.

“Observing systems like this are funded through contributions of multiple countries,” said Gille.
“This paper provides a baseline for conversations in each country about where they can make sensible and meaningful contributions.”

Other next steps include developing international standards for data collection and sharing, building partnerships between scientists, data managers and USV manufacturers, as well as developing a legal framework for operating autonomous vessels in international waters.

Links :


Thursday, April 10, 2025

Titanic scan reveals ground-breaking details of ship's final hours

Atlantic Productions/Magellan
 
From BBC by Rebecca Morelle & Alison Francis
 
A detailed analysis of a full-sized digital scan of the Titanic has revealed new insight into the doomed liner's final hours.
The exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 - 1,500 people lost their lives in the disaster.
 

The digital scan shows the bow sitting upright on the sea floor
Atlantic Productions/Magellan
 
The scan provides a new view of a boiler room, confirming eye-witness accounts that engineers worked right to the end to keep the ship's lights on.
And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship's demise.

 
Atlantic Productions/Magellan
The stern of the ship, which broke off from the bow, is heavily damaged


"Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell," said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst.
The scan has been studied for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.
The wreck, which lies 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic, was mapped using underwater robots.
More than 700,000 images, taken from every angle, were used to create the "digital twin", which was revealed exclusively to the world by BBC News in 2023.

Because the wreck is so large and lies in the gloom of the deep, exploring it with submersibles only shows tantalising snapshots.
 
This rendering of the Titanic is based on 715,000 photos and millions of laser scans of the famous wreck, which were stitched together to create a perfect digital replica of what remains of the ship.
 
The scan, however, provides the first full view of the Titanic.
The immense bow lies upright on the seafloor, almost as if the ship were continuing its voyage.
But sitting 600m away, the stern is a heap of mangled metal. The damage was caused as it slammed into the sea floor after the ship broke in half.

 
Atlantic Productions/Magellan
The glass in a porthole may have been broken as it scraped past the iceberg


The new mapping technology is providing a different way to study the ship.
"It's like a crime scene: you need to see what the evidence is, in the context of where it is," said Parks Stephenson.
"And having a comprehensive view of the entirety of the wreck site is key to understanding what happened here."

The scan shows new close-up details, including a porthole that was most likely smashed by the iceberg. It tallies with the eye-witness reports of survivors that ice came into some people's cabins during the collision.

 
Atlantic Productions/Magellan
A boiler room is at the back of the bow where the ship has split in two

Experts have been studying one of the Titanic's huge boiler rooms - it's easy to see on the scan because it sits at the rear of the bow section at the point where the ship broke in two.
Passengers said that the lights were still on as the ship plunged beneath the waves.
The digital replica shows that some of the boilers are concave, which suggests they were still operating as they were plunged into the water.
Lying on the deck of the stern, a valve has also been discovered in an open position, indicating that steam was still flowing into the electricity generating system.

This would have been thanks to a team of engineers led by Joseph Bell who stayed behind to shovel coal into the furnaces to keep the lights on.
All died in the disaster but their heroic actions saved many lives, said Parks Stephenson.
"They kept the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the lifeboats safely with some light instead of in absolute darkness," he told the BBC.
"They held the chaos at bay as long as possible, and all of that was kind of symbolised by this open steam valve just sitting there on the stern."

 
Atlantic Productions/Magellan
A circular valve - in the centre of this image - is in an open position


A new simulation has also provided further insights into the sinking.
It takes a detailed structural model of the ship, created from Titanic's blueprints, and also information about its speed, direction and position, to predict the damage that was caused as it hit the iceberg.
"We used advanced numerical algorithms, computational modelling and supercomputing capabilities to reconstruct the Titanic sinking," said Prof Jeom-Kee Paik, from University College London, who led the research.
The simulation shows that as the ship made only a glancing blow against the iceberg it was left with a series of punctures running in a line along a narrow section of the hull.

 
Jeom Kee-Paik/ University College London
A simulation calculated the iceberg caused a thin line of small gashes on the hull


Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, designed to stay afloat even if four of its watertight compartments flooded.
But the simulation calculates the iceberg's damage was spread across six compartments.
"The difference between Titanic sinking and not sinking are down to the fine margins of holes about the size of a piece of paper," said Simon Benson, an associate lecturer in naval architecture at the University of Newcastle.
"But the problem is that those small holes are across a long length of the ship, so the flood water comes in slowly but surely into all of those holes, and then eventually the compartments are flooded over the top and the Titanic sinks."
Unfortunately the damage cannot be seen on the scan as the lower section of the bow is hidden beneath the sediment.

 
Atlantic Productions/Magellan

It will take many years to fully scrutinise the 3D scan
The human tragedy of the Titanic is still very much visible.
Personal possessions from the ship's passengers are scattered across the sea floor.
The scan is providing new clues about that cold night in 1912, but it will take experts years to fully scrutinise every detail of the 3D replica.
"She's only giving her stories to us a little bit at a time," said Parks Stephenson.
"Every time, she leaves us wanting for more."
 
Links :

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Global warming is speeding up. Another reason to think about geoengineering

photograph: nasa

From The Economist

Reducing sulphur emissions saves lives.
But it could also be hastening planetary warming


Seen from afar—as it first was, by human eyes, on Christmas Eve 1968—Earth is a wonder.
When the astronauts of Apollo 8 saw their bright, cloud-girdled home rise over the barren lunar horizon they recognised at once that it was dynamic, beautiful and exceptional: something to be cared for.

But the view from space does not only inspire: it also informs.
Satellites reveal how Earth is changing, and thus what sort of care it needs.
And the latest such diagnostic information is that, although Earth remains as beautiful as ever, it has been getting a little less bright.

Satellite data show that, since the turn of the century, Earth’s albedo—the amount of incoming sunlight it reflects—has been dropping.
Because light not reflected is absorbed, that adds heat to the system and exacerbates global warming.
It is part of the reason why the rate at which the planet is warming, until the 2010s around 0.18°C a decade, now appears to be well over 0.2°C a decade.
In the decade to 2023 (admittedly a particularly hot year) it was 0.26°C.
For ecosystems under stress the rate of warming can matter a lot; for humans faster warming brings forward extremes that might not have been seen for decades.

One reason for this dimming is air pollution—or, rather, its absence.
Fossil fuels contain traces of sulphur along with the carbon and hydrogen that give them their name; the sulphur dioxide that is created when hydrocarbons burn forms tiny airborne particles that make the air smoggy.
This is deadly.
Every year global deaths from air pollution number in the millions.

Preventing sulphur emissions from getting into lungs improves people’s health, productivity and spirits.
This is why the Chinese Communist Party has been keen on such reductions.
And China’s efforts have been impressive; over the past two decades scrubbing sulphur from smoke stacks has reduced its gargantuan emissions by about 90%.
Likewise, restrictions on the sulphur content of fuel used by shipping has seen emissions on the high seas plummet since 2020.

Reducing sulphur emissions also lowers albedo.
Sulphate particles scatter light.
As a result, some of it bounces back into space.
Sulphate particles can also serve as seeds for the water droplets that make up clouds.
Fewer such seeds can make clouds less bright; sometimes clouds do not form at all.

Quite how much of Earth’s accelerated warming can be put down to the reduction in sulphur emissions is uncertain.
The workings of clouds are complex and sulphur is not the only factor at play.
But atmospheric scientists have long expected more warming when this offset is removed.
As one of the greatest of them, Paul Crutzen, wrote in 2006: “Air-pollution regulations, in combination with continued growing emissions of CO2, may bring the world closer than is realised to the danger [of catastrophic global warming].”

In his seminal paper Crutzen also noted that there was an alternative.
Particles high in the stratosphere stay aloft far longer than those close to the surface, and so provide much more cooling per tonne.
A thin layer of sulphates deliberately added to the stratosphere could provide the same amount of cooling as all the thick, polluting smogs clogging the lower atmosphere while doing much less damage to human health.
Crutzen did not advocate this.
But he did say it should be researched more vigorously, and that there might be deteriorations which warrant action.
One such, he suggested, would be seeing the rate of warming rise above 0.2°C a decade.

Since then, the amount of research into solar geoengineering with stratospheric aerosols has increased substantially.
But it remains pitifully small, in part because the experts whom governments listen to on climate and research policy are leery of it.
A report to the European Commission at the end of 2024 added to calls for a moratorium on practical steps towards it, and argued for various restrictions on research.
And it is indeed a daunting prospect, not least because it requires a high level of trust in science, a resource declining even faster than the world is warming.

Crutzen wanted swift cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions to render debates about geoengineering moot; he also feared that this was just “a pious wish”.
The world’s capacity to do without fossil fuels has increased a lot since then.
But emissions have yet to decline, and warming is speeding up.
As well as cutting emissions, governments should urgently heed Crutzen’s call for research and discuss how such powers might be used.
The message of Apollo 8 still applies; the bright, beautiful world needs to be cared for.

Links : 

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Hitting the books: How colonialism unified the Western world's clocks

On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping by Ken Mondschein
(Copyright © 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press)


From Engaget by Andrew Tarantola 

Who needs the sun and the stars when we've got universal Newtonian time?

As ephemeral as space and as fundamental as gravity, time is an aspect of this universe that cannot be felt, only experienced through its cumulative passage.

In his latest book, On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping, author Ken Mondschein, traces society’s continued attempts at ever more accurate timekeeping — first via the observation of the stars, followed by sun dials, mechanical clocks, and onto modern atomic devices — and how the Western world would not exist in the technological state it does today without the ongoing efforts to bisect our notion of time into continually smaller, more regular intervals.
In the excerpt below, Mondschein recalls the tragedy that befell Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and his 21-ship armada at the cliffs of Scilly.
But out of this loss of life came a new technology, the chronometer, which would prove vital in preventing similar future tragedies as well as helped European colonists spread both themselves and their notions of timekeeping across the world’s oceans.

Ladd Observatory collection
 
History loves winners, but sometimes it’s the losers who are more interesting.
Take, for instance, the tragedy that befell Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell one autumn evening in 1707 off the rocky Isles of Scilly, which lie 28 miles (45 kilometers) off Cornwall in the southwestern corner of Great Britain.
Shovell, commander in chief of the British fleet, was returning from attacking the French navy with a flotilla of 21 ships.
Though their mission had gone well, the British were beset with storms on the return voyage and went badly off course.
The standard route would have taken them past the Island of Ushant (French: Île d’Ouessant), the traditional marker for the southern end of the English Channel; through the Channel; and then up the Thames and to London.
On the night of October 22 (by the Julian calendar), Shovell and his men thought themselves safely west of Ushant.
However, owing to the foul weather — and the impossibility of determining their exact position with navigational techniques of the day — he was actually on a collision course with Scilly.
Four ships — Shovell’s flagship Association, the Eagle, the Romney, and the Firebrand — ran aground on the rocks and quickly sank.
In all, about 1,500 sailors and marines were lost, with only one crew member from the Romney and 12 from the Firebrand surviving.
The commander was among the dead: the bodies of Shovell and his two stepsons washed up on a beach some 7 miles (11 kilometers) away a day later.
 
An 18th-century engraving of the disaster, with HMS Association in the centre

This tragedy affected Great Britain in several ways.
First, Shovell was given a state burial in Westminster Abbey and treated as a national hero.
Second, as they are wont to, stories and legends grew up around the disaster.
One held that Shovell washed up alive, but a beach combing Scilly native murdered him for his emerald ring.

This might have some basis in reality, since Shovell was indeed missing his ring, but he was also highly unlikely to have survived very long in the frigid water.
Another, less likely legend is that a common sailor from Scilly warned Shovell that they were off course and would run aground, but the low-ranking mariner was ignored (or, worse, punished).
This is plainly impossible, since all hands on the Association were lost and no one could have related the tale.
But the fact that the story was considered credible shows that navigation at sea was reckoned more an art than a science — which brings us to the third, and more lasting result of the Scilly disaster: in 1714, Parliament offered a prize of £20,000 for anyone inventing a foolproof means of determining longitude at sea.
Specifically, it offered £10,000 for a method accurate to within one degree, £15,000 for 2/3 of a degree, and the full £20,000 for a method accurate to 1/2 degree.
This was an enormous sum for the time — equivalent to tens of millions of dollars in today’s money, though direct comparisons are impossible.

This princely reward was still deemed a bargain by those who offered it.
Seafaring was the lifeblood of nations in the early modern world, but it was fraught with danger.
Ships carried gold from the New World to Spain; enslaved human beings from Africa to the New World; tea and spices from Asia to England and the Netherlands; and explorers, missionaries, merchants, colonists, soldiers, and administrators to secure their mother countries’ hold on their new territories.
However, for lack of a means to precisely determine a ship’s position, sea voyages could be extended by weeks or months, dooming sailors to slow death by scurvy, starvation, or thirst as their captains searched fruitlessly for land.
This ignorance was militarily disadvantageous, as well: needing to keep to known shipping channels, Spanish galleons could easily be intercepted by British privateers.
Finally, as the case of the unfortunate Cloudesley Shovell shows, there was the ever-present danger of running aground at night or in foul weather.

The dashed blue line shows the approximate route of Shovell's fleet from Cape Spartel to the Isles of Scilly in October 1707.
The filled circle shows the estimated position on 21 October, based on observations of latitudeand soundings.
The open circle shows the dead reckoningposition of Orford when it hove to on 22 October, with the rest of the fleet, before they set off on the fatal last stage of the voyage.
The red horizontal line shows the latitude recommended by Edmond Halley as a safe northern limit for entering the channel

All of this was for sailors’ inability to determine their exact position, which requires knowing the longitude.
The means by which this technical challenge came to be solved by John Harrison, a self-educated man from an obscure background, is well known: Dava Sobel explains his invention of the chronometer thoroughly and entertainingly in her book Longitude.
(The term “chronometer,” meaning a really accurate clock suitable for navigation, was coined by the German academic Matthias Wasmuth in 1684.) I, however, think the story is more interesting if it’s told from the opposite direction — not as the heroic tale of a lone, revolutionary genius who overturned centuries of thought but as a story about hard-working experts laboring collaboratively over long years.
This is, after all, the more usual means by which scientific knowledge creeps forward.
In this case, the experts put their faith in a means of determining longitude that did not rely on tried-and-true astronomical observations — and, ultimately, they succeeded in their task.
While the myth of the lone genius is a much more appealing narrative, it is also a misleading one.
Though the chronometer represents the triumph of simplicity over complexity — and thus exemplifies our themes of precision, accuracy, and ease of use — in the end, the more informative story may not be Harrison’s but that of his great opponent, Nevil Maskelyne, who championed the more complicated astronomical “lunar-distance” system.

Section of Admiralty Chart No 34 showing the location of the HMS Association wreck on the Gilstone Rock

Despite the fact that the chronometer eventually replaced the lunar distance system, Maskelyne was influential to the history of timekeeping in a way that was arguably more important: he was instrumental in establishing Greenwich mean time as the standard against which all other times were to be compared.
The local time at sea or in part of a far-flung colonial empire wasn’t the most important time to know; rather, what was the most important was the time in an arbitrary location back in England as indicated by the face of a clock.
What’s more, this time wasn’t taken from looking at the sun or stars at whatever location you happened to be in, but rather it was an imaginary, “corrected” standard time — Newton’s absolute time made flesh.
By comparing the local time against this imaginary time, you found your position on the globe.
In short, universal Newtonian time was something European colonizers projected over the whole world.
The chronometer was a necessary device for keeping this time, but arguably, it was the mental concept that was more important.
This chapter will first look at the history of the longitude problem, followed by the controversy about how to solve it, before turning to how the Industrial Revolution incorporated this “practical Newtonianism” to regulate society and the far-reaching effects of this development the world over.
Much like ships at sea, the world of work and production for the entire human race increasingly came to be regulated by objective, independent, mechanical indicators of time that were divorced from any human perception or natural sign.
This idea of time became — albeit unevenly, with fits and starts — the time the world ran on.

Links:

Monday, April 7, 2025

Bathymetry of the Antarctic continental shelf and ice shelf cavities from circumpolar gravity anomalies and other data

Gravity data and constraints for the inversion. (A) AntGG2021 free-air gravity anomalies color coded from −150 mGal (1 Gal = 1 m/) to +150 mGal with location of MBES/SBES from6. (B) Geographic names and ocean temperature at 310-m depth from the Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) model61color-coded from cold (C, blue) to warm (C, red). White areas are less than 310 m depth. Ice shelves are light blue. Bed beneath grounded ice is black if below sea level, grey otherwise. Zoom in on (C) English and (D) George V Coasts with bathymetry from MEOP41 in pink and IBCSOv2 or seismic in black. (E) Standard deviation map of free-air gravity anomalies from AntGG2021. The map is color coded from 1.5 mGal (blue) to +15.5 mGal (yellow). Standard deviations of 15 mGal indicates regions that are not covered by terrestrial gravity measurements.

Around the edges of the Antarctic ice sheet, glaciers flow into the ocean to form long floating ice shelves, which regulate the flow of ice that the ice sheet discharges into the ocean.

The increased mass loss of the Antarctic ice sheet has been attributed to the significant weakening of these floating shelves.
This weakening originates from the advection of warm, salty circumpolar waters onto the continental shelf.
These waters are then channeled beneath the shelves, where they erode the ice from below.

Although this process is well identified, the pathways of these warm waters from the abyssal plain to the grounding line remain unknown for most glaciers around the ice sheet.
This constitutes a major obstacle for models predicting the future evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet: if we do not have accurate maps of the seabed, then the models cannot correctly simulate the circulation of warm waters under the shelves, nor predict their melting appropriately.

The lack of precise measurements of the seabed topography is not accidental.
Indeed, field campaigns in this region are particularly complex and costly due to the isolation of Antarctica, extreme weather conditions, as well as the presence of icebergs and dense sea ice, which significantly limit the mobility of missions.

Moreover, the specificity of the ice shelves adds an additional difficulty: only autonomous submarines (or seismic measurements) are capable of conducting surveys there.
Thus, it is only at the cost of expensive missions that it is possible to cover tiny portions of the Antarctic seabed, although some vehicles sometimes never resurface.

However, there is an indirect method to measure the bathymetry of the seabed: the use of airborne gravimetry.
Since the gravimetric signal is proportional to the masses located beneath the gravimeter, it is possible to invert this signal and, under certain assumptions, map the bathymetry.


Bathymetry of Antarctica color coded from −1250 m (blue) to 0 m (yellow) with shaded relief for 10 regions: (A) Jebart and Fimbul (R19), (B) Borgrevink and Baudouin (R18), (C) Shirase (R17), (D) Brunt–Stancomb Wills (R20), (E) George VI (R3), (F) Abbot and Venable (R4), (G) Cook, Ninnis, Mertz (R11), (H) Moscow, Totten (R12), (I) Shackleton (R13) and (J) West (R14), with ice shelf boundary in white and inversion domains in purple.
Profiles shown in Fig. 3 are red. (K) Overview of the 10 sub-regions.
 
This approach, used by an international team including scientists from CNRS-INSU, although less accurate than direct measurements by ship, has the advantage of being conducted from an aircraft, thus allowing coverage of much larger areas.

The researchers used a unique archive of gravimetric measurements, assembled by collaborators from TU Dresden.
These data combine a wide variety of field campaigns conducted in Antarctica since the 1980s, both by aircraft, ship, but also on foot and from space.
The scientists thus collected an impressive amount of data from sonar measurements (ships), as well as CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) measurements and even probes placed on seals (see MEOP).

The results of this study reveal a new image of the Antarctic seabed.
For most of the still unknown regions, this mapping reveals seabeds with deep canyons under the shelves, but also on the continental shelf, which is the key to channeling warm waters from the abyssal plain to the glaciers.

Comparison of AntGG2021 bathymetry with other data sources along specific profiles shown in Fig. 2 for 12 regions, and Pine Island Ice Shelf in Fig. S7e. Ice is light blue, ocean is blue, bedrock is light brown, IBCSOv2 is dotted red, new bathymetry is black, and observations are thick black. CTD observations are color coded from C to C, with geographic locations in Fig. S8.
 
A comparison of this new map with ocean temperature measurements thus allows the identification of the most vulnerable sectors of the ice sheet, i.e., those directly exposed to warm waters, and those protected by shallow seabeds.

The results of this study will enable better simulation of the circulation of warm waters around Antarctica and, consequently, better modeling of the evolution of this polar ice sheet and its impact on sea level.
They have also highlighted a critical lack of data, particularly in East Antarctica, an extremely vulnerable region with significant potential for sea level rise.

Links :

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Whale cam: A day in the life of an Antarctic minke whale

Cameras attached to a rare species of Antarctic whale are giving scientists an unprecedented view of how the whales survive in their sea ice habitat. 
In a recent study, scientists attached tags to 30 Antarctic minke whales, a small and little-known species of baleen whale, to better understand the animals’ sea ice environment. 
The tags, clinging to the animals’ backs with suction cups, recorded video and motion data for 24 to 48 hours.
Some of that footage is shown here.
Each time the whales surfaced, the researchers could calculate from the video how much sea ice was present, providing clues as to how the amount and type of sea ice influenced the whales’ behavior.
Previous research had relied on satellite images to study the whales’ habitat, but scientists needed to get closer to truly understand how these creatures were moving through their sea ice environment.
While the research is still ongoing, preliminary data from the whale cams are already revealing surprising results, according to the researchers.
From the six tags analyzed so far, the researchers saw whales were spending 52 percent of their time in open water compared to just 15 percent in water with high concentrations of sea ice.
As the tagged minke whales swam and dived under the ice, the scientists also learned new things about the cryptic species and its behavior.
The piggybacking cameras allowed scientists a whale’s-eye view of a day in the life of an Antarctic minke—its feeding habits, social life, and where it spent the most time.
As Antarctic sea ice continues to shrink under climate change, understanding its importance for the whales will be crucial for protecting them, according to the researchers. 

Links :

Saturday, April 5, 2025

British Isles & misc. (UKHO) layer update in the GeoGarage platform

20 new nautical raster charts editions
 

Fatal 2024 Sydney to Hobart | Gale force winds, 30 retired yachts (full race documentary)

 
My Mum and I have set off double-handed on one of the world’s toughest and most prestigious yacht races, the 2024 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.
This year's 628 nautical mile ocean race was met with tragedy as the fleet sailed into gale-force winds. Two sailors' lives were lost, three boats were dismasted, and another sailor washed overboard.
This race proves to be the most disastrous outcome since the tragic 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. This documentary follows life from the rails and aboard Fika as we sail from Sydney to Hobart.

Friday, April 4, 2025

Trump tariffs hit Antarctic Islands inhabited by zero humans and many penguins

Heard And McDonald Islands Serve As A Crucial Habitat For Penguins, Seabirds, And Elephant Seals. (Photo/Freepik)

From Wired by Caroline Haskins & Leah Feiger

The Heard and McDonald Islands are among the dozens of targets of President Donald Trump's latest round of tariffs.
But they have no exports, because no one lives there.
 

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced the US was imposing reciprocal tariffs on a small collection of Antarctic islands that are not inhabited by humans, as part of a global trade war aimed at asserting US dominance.
The Heard and McDonald Islands, known for their populations of penguins and seabirds, can only be reached by sea.

 
Trump announced the countries now subject to tariffs in a Wednesday press conference, using a poster as a prop.
Additional countries—including the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are, incidentally, not countries—were listed on sheets of paper distributed to reporters.

One of the sheets claims that the Heard and McDonald Islands currently charge a “Tariff to the U.S.A.” of 10 percent, clarifying in tiny letters that this includes "currency manipulation and trade barriers." In return, the sheet says that the US will charge "discounted reciprocal tariffs" on the islands at a rate of 10 percent.


Localization with the GeoGarage platform (UKHO nautical raster chart)
 
The islands are small.
Their reported 37,000 hectares of land makes them a little larger than Philadelphia.
According to UNESCO, which designated the islands as a World Heritage Site in 1997, they are covered in rocks and glaciers.
Heard Island is the site of an active volcano, and McDonald Island is surrounded by several smaller rocky islands.
The islands are home to large populations of penguins and elephant seals.

The Australian Antarctic Division manages the islands, preserving the environment and conducting research on the large wildlife population, as well as climate change’s impact on Heard and McDonald’s permanent glaciers.
On Wednesday, Australia and a number of its island territories, including Christmas and Cocos Keeling Islands, were also hit with tariffs of 10 percent. Norfolk Island, which Australia also claims, got a tariff of 29 percent.
 
Uninhabited Heard and McDonald islands near Antarctica, along with other remote external Australian territories the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island and Norfolk Island.
(Photo: Matt Curnock/Australian Antarctic Division)

The White House did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
When reached for comment, the Australian Antarctic Division referred WIRED to the country’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which did not respond prior to publication.
"One could argue this is in breach of the international Antarctic spirit," Elizabeth Buchanan, a polar geopolitics expert and senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, tells WIRED.

 
Under the Antarctic Treaty, which promotes international scientific cooperation and stipulates that the continent should be used for peaceful purposes, land in Antarctica cannot be owned by any country.
However, Australia has claimed since 1953 that the islands are Australian territories.
Australia also laid claim to the water surrounding the islands via a 2002 act that established a marine reserve.
Last year, the country passed a law extending the boundaries of that reserve, approximately quadrupling its size.

Heard & McDonald islands with the GeoGarage platform (AHS nautical raster chart)
 
The Australian Defense Force monitors the waters surrounding the Heard and McDonald Islands as a part of Operation Resolute, which covers the area 200 nautical miles from Australia’s mainland and “approximately 10 percent of the world's surface.” 
 
source :The Guardian graphic
 
In addition to Heard and McDonald Islands, it also applies to the water surrounding the Christmas, Cocos Keeling, Macquarie, and Norfolk and Lord Howe islands.
The Australian Defense Force claims that the goal of Operation Resolute is to address "security threats" like piracy and pollution.

The Australian Antarctic Division claims that the area occasionally receives ships involved in scientific research, commercial fishing, and tourism.

Links :


Thursday, April 3, 2025

Bottom trawling in European waters costs society up to €11bn a year, new study finds


A recent study led by University of Victoria researcher Graham Epstein suggests that seabed sediments could play a crucial role in carbon storage and should be considered in the creation of marine protected areas and Indigenous marine protected areas.
The three-part study - which included building a predictive map of carbon stocks across Canada’s continental margin - reinforces that the seabed is vital for both carbon storage and marine ecosystem health. Yet, it’s frequently overlooked in current marine protection planning.
The research identified and ranked 274 priority areas for further investigation and protection, based on factors like carbon estimates, vulnerability and ecological importance.
With growing momentum around seabed carbon protection, this study underscores the urgent need for detailed mapping to inform marine planning and ensure collaborative, sustainable management of our ocean environment.


From EuroNews

Ocean experts found that the economic costs mostly come from carbon emissions caused by churning up the seabed.

Bottom trawling in European waters costs society up to €10.8 billion each year, according to a first-of-its-kind study released today.

It found that this cost is largely due to carbon dioxide emissions from disturbed sediments on the seafloor.

“We discovered recently that bottom trawling, by churning up the sediments on the seafloor, releases CO2 on the scale of global aviation and that half of those underwater emissions will end up in the atmosphere,” explains Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and one of the authors of this report.

Bottom trawling is a destructive fishing practice which involves dragging a net - some so large it could fit a Boeing 747 plane - across the seafloor to catch fish.
It disturbs sediment, destroys marine habitats and far more than just the target species gets caught in these nets.
“The fishing lobby argues for the benefits that bottom trawling provides for society, jobs, economic revenue and food,” Sala adds, “but they never mention the costs.”

So, he says, for the first time they decided to calculate the costs and benefits of this fishing practice to both the industry and society at large.
The result?
The costs of bottom trawling far exceed the benefits.
 

What is the cost of bottom trawling in Europe’s waters?


The study is the first to measure the full economic cost of bottom trawling in European waters - including the EU, UK, Norway and Iceland.

It shows that this damaging fishing practice imposes somewhere between €330 million and €10.8 billion in annual costs to society.

The range of estimates in the study is so large because there is no globally agreed value on the cost of a tonne of carbon. 
But even at the lower end of the estimate, Sala says “society still loses”.

While bottom trawling does support jobs across the continent, bringing in both a source of food and revenue, the study’s authors say climate costs, environmental impacts and issues for small-scale fishermen outweigh these benefits.

Forbidding this fishing practice in marine protected areas (MPAs), they add, would benefit marine life, the climate and even the fishing industry.
Many fishermen are already on board with the fight for tougher restrictions.

Small-scale, sustainable fishers are seeing their livelihoods ripped away along with the reefs and seagrass meadows that are bulldozed by the weighted nets.
Hugo Tagholm
Executive director of Oceana UK


“Small-scale, sustainable fishers are seeing their livelihoods ripped away along with the reefs and seagrass meadows that are bulldozed by the weighted nets,” says Hugo Tagholm, executive director of Oceana UK.
“And all this to line the pockets of a few. The truth is that thriving marine wildlife supports flourishing coastal communities.”

Bally Philp is the national coordinator for the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation which represents small-scale, inshore fishing vessels, line fishing vessels and hand-diving vessels.
“These are some of the most low-impact and highly selective fishing methods,” he explains. 
“They actually already employ the majority of fishermen.”

Philp says that types of gear are often mutually exclusive.
Allowing bottom trawling in areas means other forms of fishing, like hand diving for scallops or putting pots on the seabed, can’t take place.
If you were to restrict trawling in the area three miles from the Scottish coast alone, he adds, the country could double its number of fishermen and the amount of revenue generated by fisheries.
“We could do it without catching an extra fish.”
‘Citizens pay the cost of government subsidies’

The study’s authors also point out that European taxpayers are funding the destruction of their own oceans.

European governments spend an estimated €1.3 billion on subsidies for bottom trawling every year, they say, a figure that is nearly equivalent to the value of the jobs the industry creates. Italy, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain and Sweden offer the highest amounts.

In some countries, researchers even found that bottom trawling wouldn’t be profitable for the companies doing it without these subsidies.
“Our analysis found that society always loses to industry when it comes to bottom trawling. Industry makes a profit only because it externalises its cost,” Sala says. 


Citizens pay the cost of government subsidies which come from taxpayers’ hard-earned money.
Enric Sala
National Geographic Explorer in Residence and one of the authors of this report


In France, says director of NGO BLOOM Claire Nouvian, the government has been subsidising trawling for decades. 
“The transition away from trawling could have happened and should have happened,” she argues, “and it would have cost nothing because we could have organised it, but we didn't.”

Research from BLOOM and French researchers from L’Institut Agro and the French Natural History Museum has found that around 800 French bottom trawling vessels destroy roughly 670,000 square kilometres of seabed each year - an area bigger than France itself.

Despite what Nouvian calls the country’s “love affair” with this destructive fishing practice, President Emmanuel Macron is convening the SOS Ocean summit at the end of March in Paris.
It will together global thought leaders, policymakers, scientists, and ocean advocates to create a roadmap to the UN Oceans conference being held in Nice in June this year.

Ahead of these events, Macron announced €700 million for the fishing industry to modernise its fleets, strengthen food sovereignty and more.

“The trawling lobby was blasting with joy, they were so happy,” Nouvian claims. 
“They were jumping around because they could not believe that money was coming from the offshore wind tax going straight into their pockets.”

Redirecting subsidies away from trawling could provide a pathway for financing a fair transition for the fishing industry, according to the report. 

A fifth of EU bottom trawling happens in marine protected areas

The study comes as a coalition of civil society organisations calls for governments in Europe to ban bottom trawling in MPAs.
These areas are meant to be safe havens for marine life but around 13 per cent of Europe’s bottom trawling happens within their borders - a figure that rises to 20 per cent in the EU. 

“The solution is obvious. Let's start by eliminating bottom trawling in marine protected areas and not relocating that effort elsewhere,” Sala says.
“That will work for marine life, the climate and society at large. It would also allow marine protected areas to fulfil their goal to protect marine life, and eventually help replenish nearby fishing grounds.”

EU member states are already supposed to be working to phase out bottom trawling in MPAs by 2030. So far, Greece and Sweden are the only countries to have announced bans or strong restrictions.

The bloc’s nature laws and international biodiversity commitments bind member states to rigorously protect these supposed safe havens for marine life.
They were also given a deadline last year for submitting roadmaps to outline how they plan to phase out destructive fishing in these areas.

“A proper interpretation of the Habitats Directive would mean that bottom trawling should already not be tolerated in EU Marine Protected Areas,” says John Condon, wildlife lawyer at ClientEarth.
“We heard from Commissioner Kadis (Costas Kadis, European Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans) this month that he is committed to the full enforcement of our nature laws - which we hope means we can expect bottom trawling to be conclusively phased out of EU MPAs designed to protect seabed ecosystems.”

But a recent analysis from marine NGOs Oceana, Seas At Risk and ClientEarth found that no EU country has comprehensive plans to phase out destructive fishing practices in MPAs by the end of the decade.

More than half failed to submit a roadmap.
Of those that did, Estonia refused to disclose what was in this roadmap and none had comprehensive plans to phase out destructive fishing practices.

As a result, the coalition of marine NGOs is taking governments to court in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden for infringing EU nature laws by failing to protect their MPAs against the impacts of bottom trawling.

Links :

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Meteo France : last developments



From Meteorological Technology Int. by Elizabeth Baker

On March 5, 2025, Météo-France launched the fifth in a series of meteorological buoys on the western front of the Mediterranean, northwest of Corsica.
This deployment forms part of the organization’s plans to strengthen its sea observation system, which began in June 2023 with the deployment of the first of the five anchored meteorological buoys, and is intended to improve the local ability to anticipate extreme weather before it arrives on land.

The meteorological buoys were financed mainly by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Biodiversity, Forestry, Sea and Fisheries, via the Directorate-General for Risk Prevention (DGPR).
The services of the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture (DGAMPA) has entrusted the support of the launch and withdrawal operations to the Interregional Directorate of the Mediterranean Sea (DIRM MED) and the Lighthouse and Beacon Equipment Agency.
Météo-France will ensure the assembly, preparation, operation and maintenance of these buoys. 

What parameters do the meteorological buoys measure?

The anchored buoy is a meteorological measuring instrument with a floating structure, installed in the open sea.
It is equipped with two independent weather stations, powered by solar panels.
Its frame is formed by a yellow float, a steel keel and a mast on which sensors are fixed.
The buoy is up to 7m high (half of which is submerged) and weighs more than three tons, and its anchor line can reach 6km deep in the sea.
 
 New anchored buoy model.
Credit: Météo-France

The anchored buoy makes it possible to measure and transmit in real time meteorological parameters such as wind, air temperature, atmospheric pressure and air humidity, but also oceanographic parameters (such as the height or frequency of waves and temperature and salinity of the sea).
These measurements are recorded by sensors.
The data is transmitted live and fed into various numerical models which are used by Météo-France forecasters.

Can you tell me a bit more about the technological design of the deployed buoys?

These five buoys are innovative models.
They feature a closed structure at the top of the buoy to protect the electronic core of the station and facilitate its maintenance, either on a boat or directly at sea on the buoy.
Working conditions are therefore secure.
They also present a logistical gain as the anchored buoy is now transportable inside a standard container.
Additionally, it features eco-responsible materials as a core part of its design, including empty float, food plastic, ultra-resistant and recyclable elements.

Why has the sea observation system been strengthened?

To make its forecasts, Météo-France relies on observations.
The latter are rare off the coast.
Weather satellites partially make up for this, radars do too, but they limit their maritime observation to direct proximity to the coasts (this is the case for precipitation, for example) and not to the surface of the sea.
Similarly, some boats carry out some meteorological measurements, but unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them and they need to avoid areas where activity is dangerous.

The deployment of five buoys in the Mediterranean therefore aims to improve coverage in surface observations at sea in this region, and to improve weather monitoring and immediate forecasting (such as the arrival of a thunderstorm).
During dangerous meteorological events, such as a thunderstorm or a Mediterranean episode, the data transmitted by the buoys will be essential when the weather scenarios diverge on the intensity and location of the phenomenon.
The data transmitted in real time will make it possible to confirm or rule out a scenario and to re-track the episode on the basis of proven observations.
 
Location of Météo-France’s anchored buoys in the Mediterranean.
Credit: Météo-France
 
How have the buoys affected operations so far?

The first buoy deployed in June 2023, for example, provided important information during violent thunderstorms that circulated on August 27 and 28, 2023, in the Mediterranean.
The scenario chosen by the forecasters predicted that the storm would pass south of Corsica, with violent gusts expected on the island.
The data transmitted by the buoy during the advance of the storm confirmed the trajectory and its intensity.
An orange thunderstorm warning had been issued for Corsica.

The data from the buoys also made it possible to better understand the strong episodes that affected Corsica in the autumn of 2024 and were a valuable help for estimating the risk in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur area.
This was the case, for example, between October 15 and 18, 2024, during a stormy deterioration that gave very large accumulations of rain over a large part of the territory, leading to sometimes devastating floods, especially in the southeast quarter where six departments had been placed on red alert for rain-flood and/or floods on Thursday, October 17.

Similarly, the reinforcement of the buoys proved useful during the Mediterranean episode from October 24 to 27, 2024.
This episode was distinguished by its duration and the gradual accumulation of precipitation over several days.
The coastal departments were the most affected, especially the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes.

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