The water temperature in the Tasman Sea is well above normal - a whopping 6 degC more than average for the start of December.
The anomaly exists only between Australia and New Zealand Photo credit: EarthWindMap
The increase has been driven by a La Nina climate system, and scientists say a continued warming of our ocean could permanently damage our fisheries and lead to tropical cyclones.
Seven and thirty day NZ sea temperature anomalies November 2017.
NIWA meteorologist Ben Noll says the "very impressive marine heatwave" has led to the largest deviation from normal temperatures in the world.
"The sea surface temperatures in the Australia-New Zealand region are presently the most anomalous on the globe," he says.
"Typical La Nina signature but intensity turned up many notches."
A very impressive marine heatwave is unfolding near the east coast of Australia, across the Tasman Sea, and in New Zealand coastal waters ... average anomaly is +1.98°C and max anomaly is a gaudy +6.16°C off NZ's West Coast. courtesy of Ben Noll
Global water temperature maps show the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia stands out, both with the largest increase and largest area affected.
The warmth is more than just skin-deep.
Temperature anomalies of 1degC to 3degC are being found in the top 200 metres.
The sea surface temperatures in the Australia-New Zealand region are presently the most anomalous on the globe ... typical La Nina signature but intensity turned up many notches. courtesy of Ben Noll
NIWA climate scientist Nava Fedaeff says this is due to the lack of storms, which churn up the ocean and reduce temperatures.
However she warns that calm conditions now could increase the strength of tropical storms and cyclones when they do hit.
"Warm seas can act like fuel," she says.
"If we do get a tropical storm this could add more moisture to the system."
The warmth is more than just skin-deep ...
anomalies of 1 to 3 degrees found in the top 200 m (650 ft) of the sea. courtesy of Ben Noll
NIWA marine biogeochemist Professor Cliff Law says this ocean warming is likely to continue, and could lead to more invasive species and possibly new diseases in our fisheries.
"The average warming around New Zealand is 2.5degC by the end of this century, which will affect how the ocean mixes and the nutrients available for plankton growth, with knock-on effects on the foodweb and fisheries," he says.
"All regions will see a reduction in food supply, because of a decrease in particulate material sinking from the surface - and that is what links climate change to our fisheries."
The world’s oceans are under the greatest threat in history, according to Sir David Attenborough.
The seas are a vital part of the global ecosystem, leaving the future of all life on Earth dependent on humanity’s actions, he says.
Attenborough will issue the warning in the final episode of the Blue Planet 2 series, which details the damage being wreaked in seas around the globe by climate change, plastic pollution, overfishing and even noise.
Previous BBC nature series presented by Attenborough have sometimes been criticised for treading too lightly around humanity’s damage to the planet.
But the final episode of the latest series is entirely dedicated to the issue.
“For years we thought the oceans were so vast and the inhabitants so infinitely numerous that nothing we could do could have an effect upon them.
But now we know that was wrong,” says Attenborough.
“It is now clear our actions are having a significant impact on the world’s oceans.
[They] are under threat now as never before in human history.
Many people believe the oceans have reached a crisis point.”
Attenborough says: “Surely we have a responsibility to care for our blue planet.
The future of humanity, and indeed all life on Earth, now depends on us.”
This world-exclusive introduction to the show is narrated by series presenter Sir David Attenborough and set to an exclusive track developed by Hans Zimmer and Radiohead.
The prequel features an array of some of the most awe-inspiring shots and highlights from the new series, as well as several exclusive scenes that will not feature in any of the seven episodes which are set for UK broadcast on BBC One later this year.
BBC executives were reportedly concerned about the series appearing to become politicised and ordered a fact-check, which it passed.
The series producer, Mark Brownlow, said it was impossible to overlook the harm being caused in the oceans: “We just couldn’t ignore it – it wouldn’t be a truthful portrayal of the world’s oceans.
We are not out there to campaign.
We are just showing it as it is and it is quite shocking.”
Brownlow said much of the footage shot of albatross chicks being killed by the plastic they mistake for food were too upsetting to broadcast.
The programme also filmed on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016, witnessing the worst bleaching event in its history.
A bleached section of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Photograph: BBC NHU
Climate change is causing ocean temperatures to rise, bleaching the corals vital as nurseries for ocean life, and waters are warming rapidly in Antarctica too.
Jon Copley, from the University of Southampton and one of many scientists appearing in the final episode, says.
“What shocks me about what all the data shows is how fast things are changing here [in Antarctica].
We’re headed into uncharted territory”
Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning also dissolves in seawater, making it more acidic.
Prof Chris Langdon, at the University of Miami, says it is “beyond question” that the problem is manmade.
“The shells and the reefs really, truly are dissolving. The reefs could be gone by the end of the century.”
The noise from shipping, tourism, and fossil fuel exploration is also revealed as harming sea life.
Steve Simpson, at the University of Exeter, who works on coral reefs in southeast Asia, says: “There is a whole language underwater that we are only just getting a handle on.
They use sound to attract a mate, to scare away a predator.
You hear pops and grunts and gurgles and snaps.”
He shows the noise of motorboats distracting saddleback clownfishes from warning against a predator attack.
Lucy Quinn from the British Antarctic Survey with an albatross on South Georgia
credit : John Dickens
The Blue Planet 2 team found plastic everywhere they filmed, even in the most remote locations such as South Georgia island, an important breeding site for wandering albatrosses.
There, Lucy Quinn from the British Antarctic Survey says many chicks are killed by plastic fed to them by their parents, including one young bird whose stomach was punctured by a plastic toothpick.
Overfishing, which remains prevalent around the world, is also addressed.
“Every night thousands of miles of fishing lines laden with hooks are set – there is enough, it is said, to wrap twice around the world,” says Attenborough.
But the programme also highlights some success stories, such as the revival of sperm whales off Sri Lanka and herring stocks off Norway after bans or restrictions were put in place.
Strict management of the herring fishery in Norway has saved it from collapse.
Herring now draw in humpback whales and orca.
Photograph: Audun Rikardsen
Attenborough also visits Trinidad, where the conservationist Len Peters has transformed the prospects of the giant leatherback turtles who come to the island to lay their eggs and whose numbers have fallen catastrophically in recent decades.
“I grew up in a house where turtle meat was normal,” says Peters.
But his work to end turtle hunting and encourage tourism has seen numbers rise from 30-40 to more than 500.
Quinn says the oceans are of vital importance for the whole world: “The oceans provide us with oxygen, they regulate temperature, they provide us with food and energy supplies.
It is unthinkable to have a world without a healthy ocean.”
Daniel Pauly, who leads the Sea Around Us programme at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and was not involved in Blue Planet 2, endorsed its stark conclusion.
He said vast, subsidised fishing fleets were scraping the bottom of the barrel and that ocean acidification could be terminal for many species.
Pauly also warned of the dangers of plastic attracting toxic chemicals and then being eaten: “They become poison pills.” Pauly said the question facing humanity now was simple: “Are we going to fight for the oceans or not?” Links :
A recent forecast of future trade suggests that by mid-21st century
container ships could carry double the capacity of the largest present
day ships.
By then, a new potentially competitive sailing route could
develop.
An artist render Samsung Heavy Industries’ 21,100 TEU container ship.
Introduction
A decade ago, the bulk of the world’s sea-going container trade was
carried aboard Panamax-size container ships of 5,000 TEU capacity.
The
combination of increased international trade and developments in
transportation logistics required the development of larger container
ships to sail between Europe and Asia, also between Asia and West Coast
America.
Major shipping routes in the colonial era
There was also a perceived need to upgrade the Panama Canal to
transit much larger container ships and also increase the transit
capacity of the Suez Canal by building a section of parallel navigation
channel, with future plans to extend that parallel section.
At present, the Suez Canal allows passage to vessel of under 1,006
square meters submerged cross section, restricting passage to container
ships of under 16.75 meters draft by 60 meters beam.
Within the next
decade, container ships built to 18 meters draft by 65 meters beam by
420 meters length and carrying over 28,000 TEUs could appear on the
trans-Pacific service between west coast American ports and Asian ports,
also between Asian ports and selected Brazilian ports such as Fortaleza
(Pecem) sailing via the southern tip of Africa.
Changing weather patterns could provide a route for such ships between Asia and Europe.
Photograph by Mukul Joshi
Earth’s Weather History
Geologists and climatologists have discovered much about the earth’s
weather history, dating back over several thousand years.
The Arctic
region has undergone multiple repeat cycles occurring every 10,000-years
of warm periods where the region was free from ice.
While climate
change may contribute to a warming Arctic, the region has been free from
ice during several previous periods.
There is also a long-term cyclical
history of El Nino and La Nina weather patterns and the earth has
undergone several cycles of warming and cooling.Changing weather
patterns are part of the earth’s long-term climatic history.
Northern Sea Route season length
Canada’s Northwest Passage
While the sailing draft along Russian side of the Arctic sailing
route is suitable for Seaway-max size of ships, most of the Canadian
passage through McClure Strait and Barrow Strait between the Beaufort
Sea and Baffin Bay exceeds a depth of 200 meters.
Within the next
decade, container ships of 28,000 TEUs could appear, as changing weather
patterns and a warming Arctic could allow the Canadian passage to
transit container ships for perhaps a period of three months per year.
Perhaps within a quarter of a century, Canada’s northwest sailing season
could extend from early May to late October.
Container ships that sail via the Canadian Arctic would likely sail from
Asian ports such as Shanghai, Busan, Qingdao, Fuzhou and Hong Kong to
east coast American ports such as Newark, Sydney NS and Melford Terminal
NS as well as to European ports such as Rotterdam – Antwerp.
The future competitiveness of the Canadian passage will depend on the
pace at which average temperature increases at the Arctic.
Future
enlarging the Suez Canal to transit larger container ships would depend
on traffic sailing west from Asian ports such as Singapore, Vizhinjam
(India) and Colombo to Europe and North America.
Caada C3 participants watch as the Polar price exits the Bellot Strait
photo : Jackie Dives / The Goble and Mail
Potential Competition
Beyond the next decade, container ships of more than double the
capacity of neo-Panamax container ships could enter service and
potentially sail via the Arctic for a few months per year.
Such a
development could divert traffic sailing between Asia and east Coast
North America, away from the Panama Canal and to ship-to-ship container
transshipment terminals currently being developed in Eastern Canada,
from where a multitude of smaller vessels would sail to mainly American
east coast ports and ports located along the St Lawrence Seaway.
Shippers could seek to maximize container movement during the northern
navigation season.
While the northern passage is open to shipping, super ships from
western Asia ports will still sail via the Suez Canal to European and
east coast North American ports.
The future seasonal closure of the
northern passage would result in a seasonal increase in mega-ship
traffic sailing via the Suez Canal and involve ships sailing from
eastern Asia ports to European ports, Port of Newark and east coast
North American transshipment terminals.
The combination of the
development of larger future container ships and trans-Arctic navigation
via Northern Canada represents future competition for the Panama Canal.
Liverpool2 is a new deep water container terminal at the Port of Liverpool, costing up to £300m. Photo: courtesy of Peel Ports Group. Mega ships
Future Port Modifications
While reconstruction was underway for the Panama Canal to transit
larger ships, corresponding reconstruction began at many ports
internationally to berth and provide service to larger ships.
At the
present time, a small number of international ports and planned ports
that are under construction offer sufficient depth to clear the draft of
the next generation of mega-size container ships.Most ports that serve
the present generation of mega-size ships will require further dredging
with possible modification to port entrances to deflect prevailing
ocean currents so as to minimize build-up of silt following port
deepening.
There may be scope to modify a few deep-sea ports that presently
serve only bulk cargo carriers to function as stop-over ports-of-call
for future mega-ships.
Such ports would include Richard’s Bay and
Saldanha Bay in South Africa, both located on the Asia – Brazil
mega-ship route.
By mid-century if projected trends in international
trade continue, container ships of up to 35,000 TEUs could enter service
and approach 19 meters draft, 39 meters height, 69 meters beam and 450
meters length.
Some ports would require that bridges be raised in the
future for such ships to arrive at quayside.
18,000 TEU ships less efficient for ports, expert says
Conclusions
Long-term market projections suggest that by mid-century,
international trade could require container ships of up to 50,000 TEUs
capacity.
Concept ships of up to 35,000 TEUs could fit into the envelope
(draft, beam and length) of the largest oil tankers.
This will be the world’s first autonomus battery-powered containtership
Unmanned vessels can be built entirely differently from current ships...
source : NTU & Sintef, Yara Birkeland
Super-size ships
would likely appear on the Asia – Brazil service and the trans-Pacific
service between east Asia and west coast America.
Depending on the pace of Arctic warming and a future northern
navigation season, future mega-size container ships could sail via the
Canadian Arctic route on voyages between east Asia and Europe, also
between east Asia and east coast North America.
Future mega-ships
sailing to the North American east coast and Europe from Asian ports
such as Vizhinjam, Colombo and Singapore would provide future business
for the future twin channels of the Suez Canal, perhaps with a wetted
cross section increased from 1,006 square meters to 1,200 square meters
and perhaps even greater.
Future mega-size container ships could likely
sail exclusively between transshipment terminals.
Major Global Ocean Currents at the surface (red) and bottom of the ocean (blue) Our ocean currents are part of the most powerful machine on Earth. Did you know?: Sea water is 832 times as dense as air, providing a 5 knot ocean current with more kinetic energy than a 350 km/h wind.
The Sea Level Thematic Center (SL TAC), part of the Copernicus Marine Service is in charge of providing satellite sea surface height and wave observation data.
“We then went with the current of the sea's greatest river, which has its own banks, fish, and temperature. I mean the Gulf Stream. It is indeed a river that runs independently through the middle of the Atlantic, its waters never mixing with the ocean's waters. It's a salty river, saltier than the sea surrounding it. Its average depth is 3,000 feet, its average width sixty miles. In certain localities its current moves at a speed of four kilometers per hour. The unchanging volume of its waters is greater than that of all the world's rivers combined.” (Jules Verne, 20,000 leagues under the sea)
Our vision of ocean currents is slightly more complex now than in 1869 when Jules Verne published his novel, but some of the above statement still remain true (it was mostly coming from the oceanographer Matthew Maury, who wrote « The Physical Oceanography of the Sea », published 1855).
The complexity lies in the turbulence: the ocean currents are not “straight” rivers crossing the seas as might be interpreted from the citation above, but turbulent flows shedding eddies all along their paths.
Their observation now is done not only at sea, but also from above: satellites enable to measure the reliefs of the sea surface.
These in turn can be used to compute the currents which are turning around the “hills” and “valleys” of this surface.
The steeper the slope of the relief, the faster the currents, so that we can map ocean currents any day of the last 25 years over the whole world from observations.
Over those 25 years, no less than 12 satellites has been used, with currently 6 of them measuring, enabling to make the most detailed daily maps of ocean surface ever.
Copernicus Marine Service is providing such measurements for use in science, forecasts and practical applications.
This made me and Sigurd the first ones ever to have crossed the North Sea solo to join the Up Helly Aa- festival on these beautiful islands...
Some say crazy, I say crazy not to give it a try.
This is how we develop and grow.
Staying safe all the time wont get you anywhere.
The video was hard to make.
Its all about having the effort to pick up the camera when you really dont want to, and most important, trying to make a story out of it..
Seasick, cold and wet every minute.
I loved it.
Its all about making a plan and follow it.
Theres only plan A.
You dont think about plan B before you are forced to!
Stay on your course and hold it steady!
Youve might heard the words often attributed to Mr. Winston Churchill:
"If your going through hell, keep walking" ;)
There is an old anecdote about a ship going up-river in a port when another ship is sighted on the radar.
There is already a marine pilot onboard who informs that there is no mention of outbound traffic and the other ship on the radar is probably at anchor.
Just to confirm, he calls the ship on VHF, identifying her by geographical position and asks, “Vessel in position XYZ are you at anchor?”; to which, the other ship replies, “ This is the ship in position XYZ, yes, I am a tanker”.
The ensuing confusion results in an accident.
Once the humour wears off, the readers who use VHF for communication every day at sea will realise that this situation is actually quite possible.
Use of VHF for collision avoidance is always debatable and whether to use it or not will depend on a case-to-case basis.
It is extremely common in certain parts of the world and in pilotage waters where changes of miscommunication are minimum.
1. Don’t Solely Rely On Radar: At open sea from his cabin, the Captain saw a small fishing boat in close proximity to the bow of own ship.
He rushed up to bridge, engaged hand steering and avoided a collision.
In this case, the officer of the watch had not sighted the fishing craft as he was navigating solely by radar and this target was not picked up due to its size.
At that time OOW was altering course for another ship that was seen on radar.
In this case, had the officer of the watch kept proper lookout by actually looking out of the bridge window the situation could have been avoided.
There is saying that nothing beats the “Mark 1 Eyeball method of navigation” and despite technological advancements this still holds true, a trained human eye can pick up a lot of information and brain can process it faster than a complex algorithm spits it out on radar display screen.
Because of sunrise you can spot a boat in water,
but if water is choppy or it’s sunset time it will not be easy to sight.
2. Radar target must always be verified visually: In restricted visibility and an area known for dense traffic, the lookout on duty informed OOW about a target sighted right ahead on the radar.
The officer of the watch did not take any action as he assumed that the target was either a fishing craft that would move away as the ship got closer to it or it was a false echo.
This resulted in a collision with another ship that was stopped and drifting.
In the above case altering course even for a “false echo” would have been the best action to ensure vessel safety.
Safe navigation using radar can be done only when the navigator is confident in his understanding of the equipment and knows its limitation.
During the times when radars were not used 24X7 there was a term called “Fairweather practice”, it is still relevant today.
This meant that best use was made of opportunity to use radar whenever it was available and a mental image was built up which would help in comprehending radar picture during restricted visibility.
Now with increased AIS dependence, there is even less use made of automatic radar plotting aid (ARPA) function of radar.
Radar target must always be verified visually.
Over a period of time just by looking at echo and its movement navigator will be able to ascertain the type of target being painted.
3. Don’t Solely Depend On Safety Management System: While approaching port and after plotting position on the chart, the navigating officer informed the Captain that the vessel was North of intended track and he should come South to counteract that.
On the basis of the feedback, the captain started adjusting the course, but the radar picture of landmarks and navigator’s assessment did not match.
So the Captain checked for himself and realized that OOW had plotted latitude incorrectly, the vessel has just crossed The Equator and was in the Southern hemisphere.
Similar to this incident is when during the crossing of Greenwich or meridian or 180 ° longitude position is marked East instead of West or vice versa.
With an increased use of ECDIS possibility of such errors is minimized.
But what remains missing from navigators’ understanding is the principle of monitoring a ship’s position.
They depend on company Safety Management System for guidance and then regardless of their own situation, plot positions at prescribed intervals from SMS.
This doesn’t help because SMS can provide guidance but you as a navigator must make an educated decision.
A simple rule of thumb to remember here is that “between two successive position plots a vessel should not be in danger”.
Whenever a navigator plots position on a chart, it should be followed with a dead reckoning position (DR position), which will give a rough estimate of vessel location at the time of next plotting.
On basis of DR, the frequency of plotting can be increased or decreased.
It will be easier to comprehend for modern navigator if this is compared to look ahead function of ECDIS.
4. Read The Buoys Carefully: An experienced chief officer was taking the ship to pick up the pilot in a buoyed channel.
He was little nervous as he was being assessed for his ship handling skills by the Captain.
After entering the channel, the ship started setting and starboard hand lateral buoy was sighted right ahead.
Seeing the buoy right ahead, the Chief officer immediately ordered hard to starboard, Captain overrode his order, realigned the ship again and handed over con back to him.
Somewhat similar to East West North South cases mentioned above, this can happen during a lapse of concentration resulting in confusion regarding the colour of buoys and which side to pass them.
A common reason for this to happen is due to the different colour of buoys in IALA regions – region A and region B or inside some ports, the direction of the voyage will change (clockwise around landmasses), or in case of preferred channel buoys.
Such confusion can be kept to the minimum by remembering, “can to port – cone to stbd” when inbound, this will reverse when outbound.
5. Always Monitor The Rudder Angle: In a busy traffic separation scheme, the Captain had the con of the vessel and OOW was communicating with VTS.
when the lookout reported that a stationary fishing boat on the starboard side had now started moving and was crossing the bow.
Captain verified the movement of the target on the radar and ordered to helmsman “starboard 20”.
At this time, the bridge telephone rang and was answered by Captain.
After completing the telephone conversation, when he looked up, he noticed that fishing boat was still not clear of the ship’s bow and he ordered: “hard at starboard”.
At this time bridge team realized that though the helmsman was repeating the order, he was actually applying helm in the opposite direction.
It is always essential to monitor the rudder angle indicator (RAI) to break such chain of error.
Newly declassified documents show that even the most secretive submarines leave a trail.
In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union claimed a feat many military experts thought impossible.
K-147, a Victor-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, secretly followed the trail of a U.S. boomer (most likely the USS Simon Bolivar) in an underwater game of chase that continued for six days.
U.S. observers at the time thought the Soviets lacked the tech for effective sonar, at least in comparison to the capabilities of the U.S. and its NATO allies.
Now, a newly declassified CIA report shows how hunter submarines like the K-147 went on secret missions to track American subs without using sonar at all.
The CIA's Directorate of Science & Technology produced the report onSoviet Antisubmarine Warfare Capability in 1972, but it was declassified only this summer.
Even forty-five years on, lines, paragraphs, and even whole pages are redacted.
A lengthy portion about Soviet technology under development gives details never previously revealed about devices with no Western equivalents.
While NATO were concentrating almost all their efforts on sonar, the Russians created something else entirely.
Why Sonar Is King
Seawater blocks radio waves.
So radar, while effective on the surface, is useless underwater.
Sound waves, on the other hand, travel better through water than they do through air, and as early as WWI they were put to work finding submarines.
Sonar comes in two basic types.
There's active sonar, which sends out 'pings' that are reflected by the target, making it an underwater version of radar.
Passive sonar, on the other hand, is based on sensitive listening devices that can pick up sound from a sub's engines or propeller—and unlike active sonar, it does not give away your position.
Depending on conditions, sonar can find a submarine from many miles away and in any direction.
The U.S. and its allies developed sophisticated sonar systems, which soon became so effective that other methods of detection were left behind or forgotten.
For decades, non-acoustic methods were considered inferior for being limited in range and reliability compared to sonar.
"It is unlikely any of these methods will enable detection of submarines at long ranges," concludes a 1974 intelligence report.
In the USSR, it was a different story.
The Soviets were hampered by primitive electronics and struggled to make sonar work at all.
So instead they developed other weirdly clever means of submarine detection.
Enter SOKS
On such method highlighted in the report is the Soviet's mysterious SOKS, which stands for "System Obnarujenia Kilvaternovo Sleda" or "wake object detection system."
This device, fitted to Russian attack submarines, tracks the wake a submarine leaves behind.
SOKS is actually visible in photos of Russian subs as a series of spikes and cups mounted on external fins.
The Soviet claim of following subs without sonar sounded like typical Russian bluster, but without knowing how (or whether) SOKS worked, a realistic assessment was impossible.
The Pentagon has classified this entire area of research and scientists simply didn't talk about it. Rumors out of Russia about SOKS have been inconsistent and often contradictory, with some saying SOKS measured changes in water density, or detected radiation, or even used a laser sensor.
What the West knew for sure was that SOKS gear first appeared on K-14, a November-class sub, in 1969.
Since then, subsequent versions with codenames like Colossus, Toucan, and Bullfinch have appeared on every new generation of Soviet and Russian attack submarines, including the current Akula and forthcoming Yasen class.
According to these newly declassified documents, the old rumors were accurate in one way – the Soviets did not develop just one device, but several.
One instrument picked up "activation radionuclides," a faint trail left by the radiation from the sub's onboard nuclear power plant.
Another tool was a "gamma ray spectrometer" that detects trace amounts of radioactive elements in seawater.
"The Soviets had reportedly had success detecting their own nuclear submarines [several words redacted] with such a system," the document says.
The report also describes how submarines leave behind a cocktail of chemicals in their wake. Sacrificial anodes that prevent corrosion leave a trail of zinc in the water.
Minute particles of nickel flake off the pipes circulating seawater to cool the reactor.
The system that makes oxygen for the crew leaves behind hydrogen that's still detectable when dissolved in seawater.
Together these chemical traces may measure only a few tenths of a part per billion, but sophisticated equipment can find them.
And as you'd expect, a nuclear reactor also leaves behind tons of heat.
According to the report, a large nuclear submarine requires "several thousand gallons of coolant a minute".
This water, used to take heat from the reactor, may be 10 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding seawater, creating a change in the water's refractive index—a change that's detectable with an optical interference system.
And the Soviets did exactly that.
"A localization system based on this technique, capable of detecting wakes up to several hours after the passage of a submarine, could theoretically be built now," says the report, though it was not known for sure if the Russians had done so.
US Navy to patent device for submarines that detects anything underwater while keeping itself super stealthy
The US Navy has applied to patent a device that uses quantum photonics to identify any object hidden in the water, while keeping its own submarines hidden.
While many of these techniques had been suggested before, there was no indication of which ones were theoretical and which ones were actually used.
"This report lends a lot of credibility to submarine detection systems that many still believe are little more than myths," defense analyst Jacob Gunnarson told Popular Mechanics.
Previously, a 1994 U.S. study found it doubtful whether submarine wakes could be detected, stating that "whether or not hydrodynamic phenomena are exploitable is open to question."
The sensors would not simply say "here is a sub," but would generate a stream of numerical data.
Picking out the signature of a submarine from the background noise in the data takes some computing power, and the report notes that, in the 70s, the Soviets were far behind in this area.
These days the Russians can acquire commercial machines thousands of times more powerful than any they had then, and that may have given SOKS a major boost.
The report shows that even in 1972 intelligence agencies were aware of how U.S. subs might be tracked.
Countermeasures surely would have been put in place since then, such as reducing the chemical and radioactive trails, which is probably why it took 45 years for this document to be brought to light.
The US Navy’s Pacific fleet used to mock Chinese submarines for being too noisy and too easy to detect, but that has largely been remedied in recent years and China is now on the cusp of taking the lead in a cutting-edge propulsion technology.
Still, new versions of these technologies are far more capable than their water-snooping forebears.
Recent scientific papers suggest the Chinese are now investigating new submarine tech, and even the U.S. Navy and DARPA have started to take an interest in wake tracking, suggesting that the tech isn't quite as inferior as previously thought.
Whether Russians can still stealthily follow submarines, or if the U.S. found a way to foil them, is impossible to know.
We'll probably have to wait another 45 years for the [heavily redacted] answer.
Five hundred kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, the American Eagle, a purse seiner, meets a refrigerated cargo ship.
The two ships drift slowly together in the tropical water for eight hours.
Encounters like this are common practice, allowing ships on long fishing voyages to refuel and transfer their catch—likely what the two ships were doing.
But the practice, called transshipment, can also disguise nefarious acts, such as smuggling illegally caught fish or even human trafficking.
In the Indian Ocean, off the remote Saya de Malha bank, the refrigerated cargo vessel (reefer) Leelawadee was seen with two unidentified likely fishing vessels tied alongside.
Ship to ship transfers can be made quickly and covertly on the high seas, leaving law enforcement officials unaware of the passage of illegal cargo in this watery Wild West.
And it’s no small problem: a 2014 study found that up to a third of wild-caught seafood sold in the United States was harvested illegally.
To combat this shadowy business, Global Fishing Watch, is monitoring the world’s fishing fleets by satellites, hoping to cast light on the dark places beyond national borders.
Global Fishing Watch uses Google Cloud technology to publish fishing efforts around the globe using machine learning. Everyone can help to observe fishing vessel operators which might practice illegal activity from The Global Fishing Watch map. With Indonesian Government, Global Fishing Watch overlaps Indonesian Fishing Activity Layer with Global Fishing Activity Layer, which enrich our views and analysis on fishing activities inside and outside Indonesian water.
Global Fishing Watch monitors the positions of boats by tracking the broadcasts from their onboard automated identification system (AIS) transponders.
All passenger ships and vessels larger than 300 gross tonnage are required by the International Maritime Organization to transmit their position.
The system’s main purpose is to reduce the likelihood of collisions between ships, but Global Fishing Watch analysts found they can follow a vessel, decipher its fishing activity, and see where it meets other ships.
The Hai Feng 648 is with an unidentified fishing vessel off the coast of Argentina.
There is a large mostly Chinese squid fleet just beyond the EEZ boundary.
The Hai Feng 648 was previously with the squid fleet at the edge of the Peruvian EEZ and in 2014 took illegally processed catch from the Lafayette into port in Peru.
With data from AIS and other satellite tracking systems, the team has created a global map of transshipping activity.
They’ve found that ships cluster outside the boundaries of exclusive economic zones—areas where marine resources are regulated—raising suspicions that the transshipments are associated with illegal fishing.
From 2012 to 2016 researchers identified 5,000 likely cases of transshipment—meetings between fishing vessels and reefers.
They also found an additional 86,000 cases where two reefers met at sea, which may also indicate smuggling.
Despite the extensive vessel tracking, the team can’t say for sure what ships like the American Eagle are up to.
“We may be talking about the issue of transshipment, but what we’re detecting really are what we call vessel rendezvous,” says Nathan Miller, a data scientist with Global Fishing Watch.
“These are two vessels that get close to each other and potentially meet. We don’t even know if they actually meet—all we can detect is they get very, very close together for an extended period of time.”
The best they can do, says Bjorn Bergman, a data analyst with the project, is provide the data for authorities to dig into further.
Recently, Global Fishing Watch data was passed to Ecuadorian authorities looking into the transportation of an illegal shark catch near the Galapagos Islands.
“The high seas present a big challenge because that’s where most of the slavery and much of the illegal fishing is, so [Global Fishing Watch] is fantastic to have,” says Daniel Pauly, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia.
“This gives additional weapons to hard-pressed authorities in various countries.”
All of Global Fishing Watch’s data is publicly available on their website, where it’s posted just days after the signals are received.
Automated notifications available through the website can help port authorities, marine conservationists, and other interested parties monitor specific regions for suspicious behavior.
The data is also valuable to companies that want to tell consumers where their seafood comes from.
“Everything that we’re doing … is really about transparency,” says Miller.
“That’s going to be the way in which positive change happens.”
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, have developed an innovative unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can stay on station beneath the water, then launch into the air to perform a variety of missions.
Marine scientists and sanctuary managers are grappling with how to contain a growing nuisance – which could harm whales, seals and other marine mammals – while ensuring scientists can continue using drones for valuable research.
The airborne invaders began showing up in 2013.
In one of the earliest instances, two guys with two drones flying in tandem made multiple passes over a herd of pregnant harbor seals below Hopkins Marine Station at the southern end of Monterey Bay off the coast of California.
Scared, the seals stampeded into the water.
Scolded by passersby on the trail above the beach, the drone operators said they could do whatever they wanted.
But they can’t, not legally anyway.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits disturbing marine mammals, even common ones like harbor seals.
And Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which spans the offshore waters and shoreline from north of San Francisco to nearly 300 miles (480km) south, has had regulations banning low-flying aircraft of any kind since 1992.
Following Snotbot's team of researchers on their Sea of Cortez expedition, a groundbreaking initiative to adapt cutting edge aerial technology for the purpose of whale research and conservation.
As the casual and professional use of drones increases, the marine sanctuary is just one of the places where concerns are being raised about whether the unmanned devices are hurting ocean wildlife – and whether new regulations or better education and enforcement of existing laws are needed.
Regulations against disturbing wildlife “apply whether you’re in a kayak, flying a drone, in a helicopter – it doesn’t really matter,” said Scott Kathey, the sanctuary’s federal regulatory coordinator.
Enforcement officers haven’t issued fines yet, he said, but have given several written warnings.
Those warnings are because drones – or any noisy or strange disturbance – could stress animals to the point that they might not be able to feed or rest and could scare them into stampeding away in a panic, abandoning or injuring their young.
A 2015 study from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed that pinnipeds – seals, sea lions and walruses – are more sensitive to drone activity at low altitudes than cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins and porpoises.
However, even whales notice them, according to marine biologist Alicia Amerson, who has heard accounts of whales flipping over and looking up at hovering drones.
The NOAA study’s lead author, Courtney Smith, said new science has been published since the report came out, but “many data gaps remain” on how marine mammals respond to these noise disturbances.
Discovery Channel using drones to film “Shark Week” off the coast of northern Florida.
(Charles Ommanney for the Washington Post)
While efforts to understand more specifics are continuing, so are those to educate drone users – both about negative effects and about the rules that are in place.
Amerson, who is based in California, started a new initiative, AliMoSphere, earlier this year to develop best practice guidelines for using drones to study marine wildlife.
The group also conducts training sessions for anyone interested, at $20 per attendee.
She says sessions will be held throughout the winter on the West Coast as gray whales migrate south.
“Drones allow us to see things from different perspectives and everyone wants to show their friends and family a great wildlife shot,” said Brian Taggart, the director of Oceans Unmanned, which promotes the safe operation of drones and other autonomous technologies to protect the marine environment.
Taggart says resource managers have reached out to the group with increasing reports of disturbances, which led it, too, to create an education campaign, ECO-Drone.
They’re also working on developing a certification course.
Humpback Whales Feeding in Pristine Alaskan Waters
Researchers and commercial operators generally know the rules, Kathey said, but the new wave of drone hobbyists often don’t, and it’s on them to learn them.
“When you enter the state of Nevada, there isn’t a sign saying these are the rules of the road in Nevada.
If you’re entering the state, it’s your responsibility,” he said.
In the sanctuary, drones and any motorized aircraft are banned in four areas, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also has its own more general restrictions.
The sanctuary’s education strategy involves making sure all the rules are easily accessible and advertised, because placing signs every 20ft (6m) along the beach isn’t exactly practical, he said.
In many places, however, it may be unclear who is in charge or where to go to find more information, and so reaching hobbyists earlier might be better.
Kathey said the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to the north of the Monterey Bay sanctuary has been working with manufacturers on putting messaging on packaging and that there have been discussions about developing geofencing – basically digital borders – that would automatically notify drone users of local regulations within a specific area.
Drones and similar new technologies, meanwhile, have opened the door to myriad new research opportunities.
For scientists, who often will get permits to study protected wildlife, the problem is an old one: how to get close, now with a flying whirring device, without disrupting animals and how to observe without influencing animal behavior.
For example, Amerson flew drones about 130ft (40m) above humpback and right whales off Australia the past two summers to learn about their body conditions and prey availability.
The mothers don’t eat in the reproductive area off Australia, so by taking photos with drones she and her colleagues could try to track, essentially, how fast the mom is shrinking compared to how quickly their baby is fattening up.
Scientists, too, are learning best practices.
“One of the big challenges with this emerging technology is that each class and type of drone presents a different visual and acoustic profile, and each species of concern reacts differently to those factors,” Taggart said.
Collecting data on the disturbances, he said, needs to be a part of using drones in research.
In 2016, Institute of Marine Research (IMR) used a drone to count seals in southern Norway.
For example, Oceans Unmanned is using both fixed-wing and quad drones to count a gray seal population in New England this winter.
“It’s best to start high and work lower,” Taggart said, watching for any signs the animals feel harassed or disturbed.
“Every flight helps our understanding of any negative effects.”
NOAA says it is working closely with the marine mammal research community to create formal guidance and best practices for drone operators, which it expects to issue in 2018.
It is aiming to reconcile the FAA’s rule requiring drones to stay below 400ft (120m) with its own rules requiring any aircraft, including drones, to not fly lower than 1,500ft (460m) in sensitive areas.
Drone regulations could help prevent wildlife harassment, Taggart said, but so too could improving technologies, including the cameras themselves.
With better cameras, drone operators may not need to get so close to wildlife in the first place.
Fishing, mining and new hotels will be prohibited in the ‘biologically spectacular’ Revillagigedo archipelago
Mexico’s government has created the largest ocean reserve in North America around a Pacific archipelago regarded as its crown jewel.
The measures will help ensure the conservation of marine creatures including whales, giant rays and turtles.
The protection zone spans 57,000 sq miles (150,000 sq km) around the Revillagigedo islands, which lie 242 miles (390 km) south-west of the Baja California peninsula.
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, announced the decision in a decree that also bans mining and the construction of new hotels on the islands.
He said on Saturday that the decree reaffirmed the country’s “commitment to the preservation of the heritage of Mexico and the world”.
The four volcanic islands that make up the Revillagigedo archipelago, called the Galapagos of North America, are part of a submerged volcanic mountain range.
The surrounding waters, east of Hawaii, are home to hundreds of species of animals and plants, including rays, humpback whales, sea turtles, lizards and migratory birds.
The Revillagigedo islands are home to almost 400 fish species, including bluefin trevally and leather bass. courtesy of gob.mx
The local ecosystem is central to the lives of some 400 species of fish, sharks and ray that depend on the nutrients drawn up by the ocean.
The area is a breeding ground for commercially fished species such as tuna and sierra.
However, the various fish populations had suffered, unable to reproduce fast enough for the rate at which they were fished.
Revillagigedo islands with the GeoGarage platform (NGA chart)
The creation of a marine reserve is expected to help them to recover, as all fishing activities will now be prohibited.
This will be policed by the Mexican navy.
The news has been praised by WWF, the conservation organisation.
Mario Gómez, executive director of Beta Diversidad, a Mexican environment charity that has supported the reserve’s creation, also welcomed the move.
“We are proud of the protection we will provide to marine life in this area, and for the preservation of this important centre of connectivity of species migrating throughout the Pacific,” Gómez said.
Matt Rand, director of the Pew Bertarelli ocean legacy project, told HuffPost that the reserve was “biologically spectacular” and commended the Mexican government.
“It wasn’t an easy decision because they had significant opposition from the commercial fishing industry, which I think is unfortunate,” Rand said.
“I would love to see a commercial industry embrace this notion that certain areas should be protected.”
The United Nations convention on biological diversity aims to protect 10% of the world’s oceans by 2020.
However, some experts argue that protecting 30% of the world’s oceans from exploitation and harm would be a more appropriate goal in the drive for a more sustainable planet.
Just 6% of the global ocean has been set aside as marine protected areas or been earmarked for future protection.
Mexico joins Chile, New Zealand and Tahiti in taking recent steps to preserve the ecological systems in their territorial waters.
Conversely, President Trump is considering shrinking two marine national monuments in the Pacific: Rose Atoll and the Pacific Remote Islands.
These would be opened to commercial fishing, along with the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, off the coast of New England, the Washington Post has reported.
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