South Atlantic map plots Falklands claims

Argentina and UK claims to maritime jurisdiction in the South Atlantic and Southern Oceans

From ScienceDaily

Researchers at Durham University have drawn up new maps to show the competing claims of Argentina and the UK for resources in the South Atlantic and Southern Oceans.

The publication of the maps follows the discovery of oil south of the Falkland Islands by a British company, Rockhopper Exploration, and a series of historical arguments about sovereignty and the rights to resources in the South Atlantic.

Argentina and Britain went to war over sovereignty of the Falklands (also known as Islas Malvinas in Spanish) in 1982, and despite the former's surrender, the South American state has maintained its territorial claims to the islands.

In December 2009, Argentina passed a law declaring its sovereignty of the islands and other British overseas territories in the region.

The Durham map was compiled using data from a variety of sources, including the submissions of the two states to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Specialist mapping software (Caris LOTS) was used to construct the jurisdictional limits depicted on the map.

The decision by Durham University to comprehensively map the claims in the area highlights the complicated issues that remain following the British defeat of the Argentineans almost 30 years ago. The information is the first ever comparative map of resource claims in the region.

The Durham map shows:

1. where Argentina claims rights over marine resources
2. where UK claims rights over marine resources
3. competing claims

Director of Research at Durham University's International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU), Martin Pratt said: "The map is designed to show the extent of the competing claims between the UK and Argentina and highlights the complications that exist in determining the claims for resources in the South Atlantic and Southern Oceans.

An early Spanish map of the Falkland Islands (1769)

"The islands generate rights over the resources of more than 2.5 million square kilometres of sea and seabed in the South Atlantic Ocean alone, and both countries have recently defined the areas over which they claim sovereign rights. IBRU's maps highlight the nature of those claims and identify the areas in which the claims overlap.

With the search for oil in this area continuing to intensify, the potential for conflict over the sovereignty of the waters between Argentina and the UK remains high.
Some oil companies estimate a potential 3.5 billion barrels of oil and nine trillion cubic feet of natural gas exist under the South Atlantic waiting to be extracted. A study by the British Geological Society suggested that up to 60 billion barrels of oil could lie beneath the seas to the north of the Falklands -- a similar-sized deposit to that in the North Sea.
Martin Pratt said: "The discovery of oil in the North Falkland Basin is likely to exacerbate tensions between the UK and Argentina concerning sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

"Although sovereignty over the islands remains the key issue, determining maritime jurisdiction around the islands -- and off disputed territory in Antarctica -- will be a complex and challenging task."

Following British claims on the potentially highly lucrative deep sea oil fields within the islands' 200-mile economic zone, Argentinean officials have revived the country's claims to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.

In February 2010, British warships were on standby in response to rising tensions in the area over British firms exploring for oil. Argentina demanded a halt to the drilling which it deemed was illegal and imposed a permit restriction on ships approaching the islands.
Links :

• DailyMail : flashpoint in the Falklands, Argentine anger as British oil rig moves in today and MoD beefs up our forces
• CNN : news report about the political consequences of recent oil exploration activity around the Falkland Islands

NOAA forecasts active 2010 Atlantic hurricane season

GOES satellite animation of Hurricane Katrina (August 2005)

From NOAA

An “active to extremely active” hurricane season is expected for the Atlantic Basin this year according to the seasonal outlook issued Thursday 27th by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center – a division of the National Weather Service.
As with every hurricane season, this outlook underscores the importance of having a hurricane preparedness plan in place.

Across the entire Atlantic Basin for the six-month season, which begins June 1, NOAA is projecting a 70 percent probability of the following ranges:

• 14 to 23 Named Storms (top winds of 39 mph or higher), including:
• 8 to 14 Hurricanes (top winds of 74 mph or higher), of which:
• 3 to 7 could be Major Hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of at least 111 mph)

“If this outlook holds true, this season could be one of the more active on record,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The greater likelihood of storms brings an increased risk of a landfall. In short, we urge everyone to be prepared.”

The outlook ranges exceed the seasonal average of 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

Expected factors supporting this outlook are:

• Upper atmospheric winds conducive for storms : Wind shear, which can tear apart storms, will be weaker since El Niño in the eastern Pacific has dissipated. Strong wind shear helped suppress storm development during the 2009 hurricane season. (see NOAA)
  

• Warm Atlantic Ocean water : Sea surface temperatures are expected to remain above average where storms often develop and move across the Atlantic. Record warm temperatures – up to four degrees Fahrenheit above average – are now present in this region.
  

High activity era continues. Since 1995, the tropical multi-decadal signal has brought favorable ocean and atmospheric conditions in sync, leading to more active hurricane seasons. Eight of the last 15 seasons rank in the top ten for the most named storms with 2005 in first place with 28 named storms.

“The main uncertainty in this outlook is how much above normal the season will be. Whether or not we approach the high end of the predicted ranges depends partly on whether or not La Niña develops this summer,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “At present we are in a neutral state, but conditions are becoming increasingly favorable for La Niña to develop.”

"FEMA is working across the administration and with our state and local partners to ensure we're prepared for hurricane season," said FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. "But we can only be as prepared as the public, so it's important that families and businesses in coastal communities take steps now to be ready. These include developing a communications plan, putting together a kit, and staying informed of the latest forecasts and local emergency plans. You can't control when a hurricane or other emergency may happen, but you can make sure you're ready."

The president recently designated May 23-29, 2010, as National Hurricane Preparedness Week. NOAA and FEMA encourage those living in hurricane-prone states to use this time to review their overall preparedness.
More information on individual and family preparedness can be found at www.ready.gov and www.hurricanes.gov/prepare.

NOAA scientists will continue to monitor evolving conditions in the tropics and will issue an updated hurricane outlook in early August, just prior to what is historically the peak period for hurricane activity.

This also means that they could even halt BP's efforts to stem the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.
"If we have a severe storm... my biggest concern is storm surge. Pushing oil up on land even further, up on beach areas in Mississippi, possibly Alabama," said meteorologist Aaron Studwell.
Such a surge would damage beaches and further inundate marshes that authorities are currently straining to protect from the oil leak.
He added that even if BP were to halt further leaking immediately, enough oil is in the sea already to cause an environmental disaster.

Links :

• National Hurricane Center providing detailed location and forecasting of tropical storms and hurricanes
• Tropical cyclone heat potential
  
• NOAA CSC : historial hurricane tracks
• NASA : Sea Surface Temperatures at the start of 2010 Hurricane season
  
• CNN : Hurricane plus oil equals more problems
• DailyScience : Undersea forces from hurricanes may threaten Gulf pipelines
  

Ancient nautical maps' surprising accuracy is a mystery

Portolan nautical chart of Mediterranean Sea around 1320-1350.

This is oldest original cartographic artifact in the Library of Congress.
Map showing Mediterranean Sea from the Balearic Islands to the Levantine coast;
also covers western part of Black Sea. Author is anonymous, probably Genoan

The Washington Post reports on a conference held last Friday at the Library of Congress: Re-Examining the Portolan Chart: History, Navigation and Science explored the mysterious origins of the portolan chart, which apparently appeared from nowhere, with no known antecedents, in the 13th century.

John Hessler, mathematical wizard and the senior cartographic librarian at the Library of Congress, slipped into the locked underground vaults of the library one morning earlier this week. Hessler, 49, is one of the world's leading experts in trying to decode the mysteries of the early world maps.

Slim, handsome, intense, bespectacled, Hessler approached a priceless 1559 portolan chart on the table before him, sketched in the hand of Mateo Prunes, the Majorcan mapmaker. The nautical map of the Mediterranean and Black seas is inked onto the skin of a single sheep.

It is a rare representative of one of the world's greatest and most enduring mysteries: where and how did medieval mapmakers, apparently armed with no more than a compass, an hourglass and sets of sailing directions, develop stunningly accurate maps of southern Europe, the Black Sea and North African coastlines, as if they were looking down from a satellite, when no one had been higher than a treetop?

The earliest known portolan (PORT-oh-lawn) chart, the Carta Pisana, just appears in about 1275 -- with no known predecessors. It is perhaps the first modern scientific map and contrasted sharply to the "mappamundi" of the era, the colorful maps with unrecognizable geography and fantastic creatures and legends. It bears no resemblance to the methods of the mathematician Ptolemy and does not use measurements of longitude and latitude.

And yet, despite it's stunning accuracy, the map "seems to have emerged full-blown from the seas it describes," one reference journal notes. No one today knows who made the first maps, or how they calculated distance so accurately, or even how all the information came to be compiled.

"The real mystery is that if you took all the notebooks from the sailors used in making these charts, along with the coordinates and descriptions," Hessler says, tapping the glass that covers the ancient vellum, "you still couldn't make this map."

Sponsored by the Philip Lee Phillips Society, the fundraising arm of the library's Geography and Map Division, it drew about 200 academics, donors and collectors to a day-long session that presented the ancient mystery of the portolans (from the Italian word for "ports"). It was one of those moments in which Washington, invariably portrayed as a dry city of faceless bureaucrats, revealed itself as a place filled with people who could, with a little fictional help, just as easily be the basis for a ripping good thriller.

"People think maybe the Romans made the first ones and they've been lost, or the Phoenicians, or even aliens," says Evelyn Edson, author of "The World Map: 1300-1492" and one of the conference's speakers. "It certainly seems related to the introduction of the compass, in the 11th century. But there's nothing at all to explain how they were made. . . . It's been very tempting for people over the years to try to make up the answer."

"The ancient Greeks and Romans had traditions of map-making, there's Ptolemy, and there's a line of progression," Hessler says. "But here, it just explodes out of nowhere. It appears to be a true invention of the Middle Ages."

Hessler's means of research isn't cultural or nautical -- it is entirely mathematical. He has taken 22 of the few hundred portolan maps known to be in existence and measured them against modern maps of the same area. He uses, say, 100 points of comparison on each map and then applies complicated algorithms to calculate the differences between each point on each map. (We could go into your basic Euclidean transformation method of calculating scales of error, and of course the Helmert transformation, but since these calculations take three or four months for each map, let's just move along.)

Hessler compares these two maps on a computer-modeled overlay, with the scale of error then plotted onto a "deformation grid." He is then able to see where the charts were more accurate and where they were less accurate, from which he infers where sailing and close observation took place, and which areas were more loosely charted. This, in turn, reveals more about the birthplace and methodology of the map. For example, the maps were good in the various seas of the Mediterranean, but terrible once out in the Atlantic, rounding up to the British Isles.

"That tells me different sources were used to make the same map," he says.
"So now you start to discover where those different charts came from, and how they got to the mapmaker."

The maps usage began to come to an end during trans-Atlantic exploration. For all their regional accuracy, the mapmakers did not know how to calculate for the curvature of the earth on a flat map. Across the Mediterranean, they could take you from port to port because the distances were comparably small. Over the distance of the Atlantic, if you set out for modern-day Miami, you'd wind up on Long Island.

Still, they were reliable guides to the known world for 400 years, and they have concealed the secrets of their origins and methods for another four centuries, leaving the answers to the realm of novelists and storytellers.

"Even with all the research that has been done on them the world over," Hessler says, looking up from the Prunes masterpiece, "there's not a single question about them that we can definitively answer."
Links :

• MapHist, discussion group on the history of cartography
• Rumsey historical collection on Google Maps
• From Portolan charts to virtual beacons : an historic overview of mediated communication at sea
• The history of early dead reckoning and celestial navigation
• Dead reckoning and magnetic declination : unveiling the mystery of Portolan charts

Diving under the pole

The submarine polar expedition "Deepsea Under The Pole" is an innovative human adventure, focusing on the underwater side of the icefloe, this hidden side being still quite unknown due to its difficult access.

Its objectives consist in :

• realizing an audiovisual testimony (pictures, video and sound) about the underwater side of the icefloe in order to constitute its « memory » and to reveal it before it disappears victim of global warming
  
• carrying out two scientific programs related to sea ice melting (ice and snow thickness measurement along the progression) and to human physiology under extreme conditions (particularly adaptation of divers’ decompression subjected to efforts and intense cold).

In order to reach these various objectives, 8 professional crew members have proceed on skis pulling pulkas during 45 days (from March 25th to May 11th 2010) through 1200 km of icefloe and have realized 51 dives (one as deep as 35 meters) between geographical north pole and Ellesmere Island in the extreme north of Canada (89°25'N/76°08'W, close to Ward Hunt Island), exploring the magical and surreal world underneath the Arctic ice.
“The images that we are bringing back show a good testimony of the reality of the world that surrounded us here – they are magical and surreal.” reported Ghislain Bardout, leader of the expedition.

Note : Marine GeoGarage viewer based on Google Maps uses Mercator projection for maps display.
Because the Mercator projects the poles at infinity, Google Maps cannot show the poles. Instead it cuts off coverage at 85° north and south.
This is not considered a limitation, given the purpose of the service : there are not a lot of navigations at those latitudes, except this type of scientific expeditions...

Links :

• Deep Sea Under the Pole News
• ExploraPoles : expedition follow-up
• Modis survey
• Other Artic expedition : Catlin Artic Survey
  

NOAA nautical charts displaying Deepwater Horizon oil spill projections in Google Earth

Download this Marine GeoGarage kmz file (60.4 Mb) to display the following NOAA specific raster charts (oil spill projections -updated NOAA 5/25/10 11:33 AM CDT-) in Google Earth application :

• 11360 Cape St. George to Mississippi
  
• 11340 Mississippi River to Galveston
  
• 11006 Gulf Coast - Key West to Mississippi River
  
• 411 Gulf of Mexico

See Marine GeoGarage for usual charts upon Google Maps.