Satellite produces map of global salinity

NASA's new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity of the ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission's anticipated discoveries.

Salinity changes are linked to the cycling of freshwater around the planet and influence ocean circulation.

From BBC

Nasa has released the first global map of ocean surface salinity acquired by the Aquarius/SAC-D satellite, which was launched in June this year.

Knowing the saltiness of seawater will improve scientists' understanding of some key climatic processes.
Variations in salinity help drive ocean circulation and their measurement can also reveal how freshwater is moving around the planet.

The mission is a joint venture with the space agency of Argentina (Conae).

The new map incorporates just the first two-and-a-half weeks of data since Aquarius became operational on 25 August.
Red and yellow colours denote areas of higher salinity; blues and purples represent areas of lower salinity.
Areas coloured black represent gaps in the data.
The map picks up well-established, large-scale features such as the differences in salinity between the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.
Also apparent are the areas of lower salinity associated with rain belts near the equator, and the higher values associated with evaporation in the subtropics.
You can also see smaller features such as the freshwater outflow from the Amazon River, which tends to dilute the immediate surface waters of the Atlantic.

Ocean salinity is measured in parts per thousand (grams of salt per kilogram of sea water). The observed range is a small one - generally between about 32 and 37 parts per thousand out over the open seas.
The goal of the Aquarius mission is to retrieve salinity with a resolution of 0.2 parts per thousand.
That is a concentration change equivalent to about one millilitre of salt in six litres of water.

Scientists have been able to measure ocean salinity for decades by lowering instruments from ships or by deploying robotic floats, but the technology to gather data from orbit is a recent innovation.

Aquarius carries three high-precision radio receivers that will record the natural microwave emissions coming up off the water's surface.
These emissions vary with the electrical conductivity of the water - a property directly related to how much dissolved salt it is carrying.

The Nasa-Conae spacecraft is not the first ocean salinity mission in orbit.
Europe already has a satellite in operation called Smos.
This was launched in 2009, and produced the first-ever global maps of salinity built from space data.
The intention is to inter-calibrate and combine the Aquarius and Smos measurements.

Together, these spacecraft are now acquiring volumes of salinity data that dwarf all the information ever gathered in this field of study.

Links :

• Marine GeoGarage : Aquarius to Illuminate links between salt, climate

BBC Oceans

Atlantic Ocean


Mediterranean Ocean


Arctic Ocean


Indian Ocean

Ricardo Diniz, "Kick Ass or Get Lost"

In this talk at TEDxEdges 2011, Ricardo Diniz gives us a provocative talk on "Kicking Ass or just Getting Lost!".

Originally from a fishing village in Portugal, Ricardo has travelled the world fast and furious as an offshore sailor and young entrepreneur.
At the grand age of 22 he was living it large as a captain in the Caribbean making his first decent money, which he promptly invested in his sailing projects and first company.
By the age of 24 Ricardo had approached over 4000 companies around the world.
His day to day was about hitting up big companies for big bucks to fund big dreams.
Most of them said NO!
This tough, often soul destroying trek, proved to be essential in defining his passion for excellence and team work.
For years Ricardo has passionately promoted Portugal globally through creative sailing and educational projects, now making him one of the most sought after speakers in schools, universities and companies.
Co-Founder and President of the Portugal Ocean Race, Ricardo is on a mission to create “… the world’s leading around the world yacht race as the ultimate way to communicate Portugal’s incredible maritime and business potential to the world”.

Brussels nominated him European Ambassador for the Oceans.
Shortly after he was a finalist in Portugal's Most Motivating Person Award.
CNN, BBC, National Geographic and pretty much every single major media entity in Portugal have generously covered Ricardo's projects since 1996.
Co-Founder and President of the Portugal Ocean Race, Ricardo will share his thrilling experience with us.

Climate change threatens California beaches

Homeowners along Broad Beach in Malibu have been building huge sandbag walls reinforced with truckloads of boulders to stem damage caused by rising seas and stormy tides.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

From AFP

Global warming could cost California beach communities hundreds of million dollars due to lost tourism and other income earned on the famously surfer-friendly coastline, a new study said.
Storm damage and erosion will narrow beaches over the next century, cutting facilities for tourists and wildlife, said the report which looked at five coastal communities including Venice beach and Malibu.

From the Beach Boys to "Baywatch," California is famous for its oceanfront lifestyle and year-round sunshine, but the Golden State needs to prepare for the encroaching Pacific, said the study commissioned by the California Department of Boating and Waterways.

"California? shorelines are ecologically, economically and socially important," it said.
Coastal erosion, "which is projected to accelerate in the coming century," threatens ecosystems, reduces shoreline storm buffering capacities, and limits recreational opportunity, it said.
"You need a certain amount of space for people to recreate, and, as beaches erode, you lose beach size and you lose tourism," said study author Phillip King, economics professor at San Francisco State University.

Specifically the report looked at the impact of rising sea levels on five locations from San Diego in the south, to Los Angeles' Venice Beach and two seafront areas in Malibu, up to San Francisco's Ocean Beach.
It modeled three sea level rise scenarios: of one meter (three feet), 1.4 meters (3.3 feet), and two meters (6.5 feet) by the year 2100.
Venice Beach, famous for its medical marijuana shops, skateboard park and open-air bodybuilding, could lose up to $440 million in tourist and other revenue if the Pacific rises 55 inches (1.4 meters) by 2100, said the study.

An hour up the coast, a dropoff in visitors to Malibu's Zuma and Broad beaches could cost up to $500 million in lost tourist income and tax revenue, according to the report.
"The economic risks in this report, presented conservatively, demonstrate the scale and importance of sea-level rise impacts in a local planning context," said the report.
"Sea level rise is here... and we need to start planning for it," added King.

Beauty at the bottom of the food chain

Secret Lives of Plankton Revealed in Microscopic Glory The diversity of these ocean drifters, crucial to all life on Earth, is revealed in a new book

From WSJ

Look at the very bottom of the food chain and you will find them.
Plankton are organisms with a name derived from the Greek adjective planktos, meaning “errant”, “wanderer” or “drifter”.
Plankton include microscopic plant-like cells (phytoplankton) and the tiny animals that eat them (zooplankton), and they typically flow with ocean currents.
Though diminutive, their impact on ocean health is monumental– they remove carbon dioxide from the sea and provide our atmosphere with oxygen.

The plankton food web extends from photosynthesizing phytoplankton to whales, seabirds, crabs, worms and starfish of the seabed and thus supports the entire marine food chain.
Despite this important role in the ecosystem, plankton remain mysterious to scientists who have not charted the full extent of their adaptations and biodiversity.
As the plankton habitat alters with sea surface temperatures warming due to global climate change, the plankton are changing their locations with ramifications for the marine food chain.

A glossy new photography book, Ocean Drifters, by Richard R. Kirby, from Firefly Books explores this rarely seen world.
Dr. Kirby and his team collected samples from the Northeast Atlantic and examined them once back in the laboratory.
The plankton are collected in a fine net that can be towed vertically through the water column, or towed obliquely just below the surface.
A bottle at the end of the net collects the plankton.
In the lab the samples were photographed, alive, using a Zeiss microscope.
To create these dramatic photographs, Dr. Kirby utilized dark field microscopy, an illumination technique that highlights the specimen and allows the surrounding area to go dark.

All photographs courtesy Dr Richard Kirby, Royal Society Research Fellow at Plymouth University/Firefly Books.

Single-celled Acantharea and their zooxanthellae.

The zooxanthellae live inside the Acantharea and provides the Acantharea with carbon food source from their photosynthesis, and in return the microalgae gain nutrients from their host.
Although Acantharea can be very abundant in the plankton, little is known about their ecology because they are fragile and difficult to sample.

The eye of this young rockling fish will help it find its food and avoid predators during its short life in the plankton, before it swims to the sea bed where it will live its adult life beneath a rock.

The by-the-wind sailor, Velella velella seen in a side view, bird’s eye view, and fish’s-eye view.

The V. velella is a predatory jellyfish that uses it’s stiff vertical vane of chitin as a diminutive sail to catch the wind.
Air filled tubes form an oval float below the vane that provide bouyancy.
In some V. velella the vane, which makes the animal sail at 45 degrees to the wind, is angled to the right, and in others it is angled to the left.
The prevailing winds sort these two forms so that a particular variant dominates on opposite sides of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The larva of Luidia sarsi (starfish)

When the yellow-orange juvenile starfish detaches from the larval body and sinks to the sea bed, the rest of the larval body may then continue to swim in the plankton for more than a month before it dies.

A dragonet larva, Callionymus lyra.

Plankton is a critical food source for young fish like this one.

Larvae of a sea anemone

Links :

• YouTube : Weird creatures feed on plankton - Blue Planet - BBC
• NOAA : COPEPOD, the global plankton database