Saturday, April 12, 2025
Sailing along the incredible coast of Faroe Islands
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.”

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.
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.
“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.”
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 :
- Frontiers : Uncrewed surface vehicles in the Global Ocean Observing System: a new frontier for observing and monitoring at the air-sea interface
- National Tribune : Keeping us current: Push for global network of autonomous surface craft
- GeoGarage blog : Liquid Robotics unveils Wave Glider SV3 ocean robot ... / Liquid Robotics to launch wave gliders to collect ... / Diving drones are mining the ocean depths for data – and they could soon predict the weather
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Titanic scan reveals ground-breaking details of ship's final hours
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.

And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship's demise.

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.
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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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."
- BBC : Rarely seen Titanic artefacts kept in secret warehouse / Scans of Titanic reveal wreck as never seen before
- LiveScience : Titanic virtual reconstruction sheds light on fateful night the ship tore apart
- National Geographic : Visiting the Titanic is suddenly a lot easier than you think
- Gizmodo : 3D Scan of Titanic Wreck Uncovers Heroic Sacrifices During Ship’s Final Moments
- Vice : 3D Scan of the Titanic Reveals More Details of the Ship’s Final Hours
- CNN : 3D scan of Titanic sheds new light on doomed liner’s final moments
- DailyMail : Titanic's Scottish scapegoat is CLEARED after 113 years: 3D scans confirm First Officer William Murdoch did NOT abandon his post as the ship sank
- ZME : Titanic 3D Scans Reveal Heartbreaking Clues About the Final Minutes Before It Sank
- GeoGarage blog :
Titanic: First ever full-sized scans reveal wreck as never ... /
The Titanic disaster and its aftermath /
Titanic: a remembrance /
Maritime infographic: The fall of the mighty Titanic /
Charles Joughin: how whiskey saved the head baker of ... /
A 26-year-old Titanic mystery solved. The discovery leads ... /
Scientist's theory of climate's Titanic moment the 'tip of a ... /
Explorers can take Titanic's Marconi telegraph, cutting into ... /
How to escape a sinking ship (like, say, the Titanic) /
Titanic sinks in real time /
Titanic sank due to enormous uncontrollable fire, not ... /
The most famous shipwrecks in history /
Challenge to Titanic sinking theory /
New images of Titanic wreck revealed /
Titanic items to be sold 100 years after sinking /
Titanic threat: why do ships still hit icebergs? /
Underwater photographer of the year 2021 /
New expedition to Titanic site will create 3D map of wreck
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Global warming is speeding up. Another reason to think about geoengineering

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.
- Sciencenews : Solar geoengineering moves into the spotlight as climate concerns grow
- Wired : A Mysterious Startup Is Developing a New Form of Solar Geoengineering
- Climate home news : Arctic geoengineering experiment shuts down over environmental risks
- 'Chemtrails,' cloud seeding would be banned under bill passed by Florida Senate
- C&EN : How solar geoengineering may change our skies
- GeoGarage blog : 'We're changing the clouds.' An unintended test of ... / Cloud spraying and hurricane slaying: how ocean ... / A massive and illegal geoengineering project has been detected ... / These startups hope to spray iron particles above ... / Could man-made clouds halt global warming by reflecting ... / Inside the secretive Silicon Valley startup trying to save ...
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Hitting the books: How colonialism unified the Western world's clocks
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- GeoGarage blog :
8 tools we used to navigate the world around us before ... /
Lines of Longitude explained, with maps /
Why does the prime meridian pass through Greenwich? /
The shape of the World, according to old maps /
Navigating 18th-century science: Board of Longitude archive ... /
Charles Hapgood and the maps of the ancient sea kings /
Longitude - The story of a lone genius who solved the greatest ... /
Navigating 18th-century science: Board of Longitude archive ... /
Why does the prime meridian pass through Greenwich? /
22nd October 1884: International Meridian Conference in ... /
Opinion: How the Prime Meridian changed the world /
8 tools we used to navigate the world around us before ...
Monday, April 7, 2025
Bathymetry of the Antarctic continental shelf and ice shelf cavities from circumpolar gravity anomalies and other data
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.

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.
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 :
- Nature : Bathymetry of the Antarctic continental shelf and ice shelf cavities from circumpolar gravity anomalies and other data
- Maritime Executive : Spanish Expedition Finds Evidence for Methane Leaks in Antarctica
- Marine Isight : Scientists Detect Massive Methane Leaks In Antarctica, Raising Climate Concerns
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Whale cam: A day in the life of an Antarctic minke whale
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Fatal 2024 Sydney to Hobart | Gale force winds, 30 retired yachts (full race documentary)
Friday, April 4, 2025
Trump tariffs hit Antarctic Islands inhabited by zero humans and many penguins
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- The Guardian : ‘Nowhere on Earth is safe’: Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited islands near Antarctica
- DailyMail : Critics mock Trump tariffs on 'penguins' living on uninhabited Antarctic Islands
- Reuters : Tiny Australian outposts, including some with no people, targeted by Trump tariffs
- CNN : An uninhabited island, a military base and a ‘desolate’ former whaling station. Trump’s tariffs include unlikely targets
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Bottom trawling in European waters costs society up to €11bn a year, new study finds
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Philp says that types of gear are often mutually exclusive.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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 :
- Ha-Shilt-sa : Study suggests seabed sediments should be considered for protection
- Euronews: NGOs and fishermen call for urgent action to end bottom trawling in marine protected areas / Greece becomes the first country in Europe to ban bottom trawling in marine protected areas / Why is France protesting a UK ban on bottom trawling in protected areas?
- National Geographic : Study: Bottom Trawling in European Waters Costs Society up to €11 Billion Annually
- Greenpeace : What is bottom trawling and why is it bad for the environment?
- CleintEarth : What is bottom trawling? How it works and environmental impact
- Mongabay : Lawsuit is latest push to curb bottom trawling in protected European waters
- For The Ocean : why we need an urgent bottom trawling ban across all protected waters in the uk and eu
- Nature : Long-term carbon storage in shelf sea sediments reduced by intensive bottom trawling
- BLOOM publishes red list of destructive ships / Ouest France: fishermen see red with Bloom's list
- GeoGarage blog :
Carbon released by bottom trawling 'too big to ignore', says ... /
Illegal bottom trawling in the Mediterranean: A threat to marine life and livelihoods in Tunisia /
Europe's fishing industry to battle with conservationists ... /
Bottom trawling releases as much carbon as air travel ... /
Getting to the bottom of trawling's carbon emissions /
Fishing industry still 'bulldozing' seabed in 90% of UK ... /
Fishing technique flattens the seafloor /
How a vampire squid inspired a Goldman prize-winning marine ... /
High seas fishing isn't just destructive—it's unprofitable
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.
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.
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.
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.
Links :
- Météo-France recently launched a call for tenders to renew its two supercomputers, Belenos and Taranis.
The objective is to improve the reliability of forecasts, better anticipate high-stakes phenomena, more precisely simulate the future climate and support actions to adapt to climate change. - Meteo Tech Int : NPL and MSL detect earthquakes in Pacific Ocean using pioneering detection technique / How are NOAA’s latest buoys tackling ocean acidification?
- SailWorld : The IMOCA sailors - key contributors to global oceanographic science