From SurfLine
As any surfer knows, surfing is about a whole lot more than catching waves.
True, the stoke from catching that perfect barrel is second to none, but think about how much better it is when the view from that perfect barrel, or from your board between sets, is of a beautiful natural landscape.
Or how much better your session is on the days you surf with a school of dolphins or a solitary seal.
We surfers are lucky - on a daily basis, we get the unique opportunity to commune with the ocean and its creatures--to remember why conservation of our natural resources is so important.
In California, though we may often surf with seals and views from the lineup include natural landscapes, far more frequently, that view is obstructed by houses, and you might surf with trash like used syringes, plastic bottles, or dirty diapers. 3,000 miles south of here, off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, the view from the lineup is of lush coastal mangroves and expansive seasonally dry tropical forests, and sea turtles are common surfing companions.
The 300 km of Pacific coastline receives consistent swell and prevailing off shore wind, with many of the best waves breaking in front of pristine beaches.
Yes, Nicaragua is a surfing paradise, but it shares California's struggle to maintain trash-free beaches and clear waters.
Ventura-based conservation organization, Paso Pacífico, is working tirelessly to preserve this Central American country's natural biodiversity and beautiful coast.
The organization annually coordinates Nicaragua's participation in the International Coastal Clean-up, an event sponsored annually by the Ocean Conservancy which again and again reveals the need for action.
Last year's Clean-up removed 332, 924 pounds of trash from Nicaragua's coastline, including 521 tires, 2,595 diapers, and 95,561 plastic bags--nearly twice the numbers of the same items found in Mexico.
Paso Pacífico sees Nicaragua's need first-hand, and has begun programs in the Paso del Istmo as a starting-point for conservation.
Paso del Istmo is biological corridor designed for the narrow Rivas Isthmus located on Nicaragua's southwestern coast, sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Nicaragua, Central America's largest freshwater lake.
For millennia, this narrow passageway has served as a land bridge for wildlife migrating between North and South America.
But under the pressure of growing population, agriculture, and land development, the Paso del Istmo and its ecosystems face a serious threat.
Paso Pacifico has targeted this area, from the forested mountain ridges to the ocean's rocky reefs, as one of the most important for the continued health of the nation's ecosystems.
Though adventurous ex-pats have been surfing in Nicaragua for years, surfing has become increasingly popular with young Nicaraguans.
Particularly in coastal fishing communities, surfing is both an outlet and a source for positive energy.
For years now, particularly in the US but abroad as well, organizations like the Surfrider Foundation have proven that tapping into a surfer's passion can help achieve real action in ocean conservation.
With a recent grant from SIMA, Paso Pacífico will harness Nicaragua's growing passion for surfing to expand environmental protection and education programs to the Nicaraguan surfing community and beloved ocean playgrounds.
Paso Pacífico will hire and coordinate with a local surfer to educate peers about marine conservation issues and to communicate emerging threats of coastal development.
Local surfers will also lead their communities in Nicaragua's International Coastal Clean-up, thereby involving even more of the coastal population in conservation efforts.
Last year, Paso Pacífico mobilized over 6,000 volunteers in Nicaragua, but this year Paso Pacífico hopes that increased awareness will draw far greater numbers.
If you plan to be in Nicaragua or Ventura, CA on September 25th and are interested in joining Paso Pacífico's cleanup efforts, or if you are interested in participating in your own local beach cleanup, you can find out more information here.
Paso Pacífico's other ocean conservation initiatives extend beyond the beaches to marine wildlife.
For example, a community ranger program protects endangered sea turtles, an ecotourism guide training program provides jobs in sustainable tourism, and hands-on educational projects with local schools motivate local children.
Paso Pacífico pictures a Nicaragua where surfers and sea turtles continue riding waves together, where diapers and tires in the lineup are not a common reality, and where an empowered Nicaraguan population becomes part of the solution.
With the help of the surfing community, Paso Pacifico is working to realize that vision along Nicaragua's important and fragile Pacific coast.
From FinancialTimes
International scientists have injected fresh evidence into the debate over global warming, saying that climate change is “undeniable” and shows clear signs of “human fingerprints” in the first major piece of research since the “Climategate” controversy.
The research, headed by the US National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration, is based on new data not available for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of 2007, the target of attacks by sceptics in recent years.
The NOAA study drew on up to 11 different indicators of climate, and found that each one pointed to a world that was warming owing to the influence of greenhouse gases, said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at the UK’s Met Office, one of the agencies participating.
Seven indicators were rising, he said.
These were: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, marine air temperature, sea level, ocean heat, humidity, and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the earth’s surface.
Four indicators were declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers, spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere, and stratospheric temperatures.
Mr Stott said: “The whole of the climate system is acting in a way consistent with the effects of greenhouse gases.” “The fingerprints are clear,” he said. “The glaringly obvious explanation for this is warming from greenhouse gases.”
Some scientists hailed the study as a refutation of the claims made by climate sceptics during the “Climategate” saga. Those scandals involved accusations – some since proven correct – of flaws in the IPCC’s landmark 2007 report, and the release of hundreds of emails from climate scientists that appeared to show them distorting certain data.
“This confirms that while all of this [Climategate] was going on, the earth was continuing to warm. It shows that Climategate was a distraction, because it took the focus off what the science actually says,” said Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics.
But the report nonetheless remained the target of scorn for sceptics.
Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the US, said the new report would not change people’s minds. “It’s clear that the scientific case for global warming alarmism is weak. The scientific case for [many of the claims] is unsound and we are finding out all the time how unsound it is.”
Pat Michaels, a prominent climate sceptic, ex-professor of environmental sciences and fellow of the Cato Institute in the US, said the NOAA study and other evidence suggested that the computerised climate models had overestimated the sensitivity of the earth’s temperature to carbon dioxide. This would mean that the earth could warm a little under the influence of greenhouse gases, but not by as much as the IPCC and others have predicted.
“I think it is the lack of frankness about this that emerged with Climategate, and that seems to continue [that make people doubt the findings],” he said.
Steve Goddard, a blogger, said the conclusion that the first half of 2010 showed a record high temperature was “based on incorrect, fabricated data” because the researchers involved did not have access to much information on Arctic temperatures.
But Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, said the study found that the average temperature in the world had increased by 0.56° C (1° F) over the past 50 years. The rise “may seem small, but it has already altered our planet ... Glaciers and sea ice are melting, heavy rainfall is intensifying, and heat waves are more common.”
The report also suggests that more than 90 percent of the warming over the past 50 years may have gone into the oceans.
Links :
- HuffingtonPost : International Scientists Confirm Climate Change Is 'Undeniable'
- Guardian : Climate change
- Telegraph : The Met Office's climate change report, between denial and alarm lies reality
From SmartPlanet
Oceanographer John Delaney is building an underwater network of high-definition cameras and sensors to turn the world’s oceans into a massive interactive lab.
Delaney and a University of Washington research team are implanting robotic sensor arrays along the Juan de Fuca Ridge and other ocean sites — on the ocean floor and throughout the water column — that link to the Internet using submarine electro-optical cables.
The mission: to build a cabled network of deep-ocean sensors that will study, over time and space, the way the ocean’s complex processes interact.
In essence, Delaney and his team are networking the ocean — for the benefit of ocean science.
In a TED talk, Delaney explains how the system will document and measure previously-inaccessible phenomena such as erupting volcanoes, migration patterns, submarine slumps, undersea earthquakes and storms.
The hope? That all of that data will lead to richer computer models of ocean behavior.
Or as Delaney puts it: “The system is the whole planet.”
Links :
3447 Nanaimo harbour and Departure Bay CHS chart update
82 updated charts for Canada :
- 1312 LAC SAINT-PIERRE
- 1313 BATISCAN AUTO LAC SAINT-PIERRE
- 1317 SAULT-AU-COCHON TO QUEBEC
- 1350A SOREL - TRACY TO RUISSEAU LAHAISE
- 1350B RUISSEAU LAHAISE TO SAINT-ANTOINE-SUR-RICHELIEU
- 1350C SAINT-ANTOINE-SUR-RICHELIEU TO ILE AUX CERFS
- 1350D ILE AUX CERFS TO OTTERBURN PARK
- 1509A RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES ILE BIZARD TO PONT-VIAU
- 1509B RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES PONT-VIAU TO ILE BOURDON
- 2042 WELLAND CANAL ST.CATHERINES TO PORT COLBORNE
- 2318 HERON BAY
- 3053A SHUSWAP LAKE CHASE TO ANGLEMONT
- 3053B SHUSWAP LAKE SALMON ARM TO SEYMOUR ARM
- 3441 HARO STRAIT BOUNDARY PASS AND SATELLITE CHANNEL
- 3447 NANAIMO HARBOUR AND DEPARTURE BAY
- 3463 STRAIT OF GEORGIA SOUTHERN PORTION
- 3477 BEDWELL HARBOUR TO GEORGESON PASSAGE
- 3478 PLANS SALTSPRING ISLAND
- 3479 APPROACHES TO SIDNEY
- 3492 ROBERTS BANK
- 3526 HOWE SOUND
- 3527 BAYNES SOUND
- 3602 APPROACHES TO JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT
- 3603 UCLUELET INLET TO NOOTKA SOUND
- 3902 HECATE STRAIT
- 4002 GOLFE DU SAINT-LAURENT GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE
- 4012 YARMOUTH TO HALIFAX
- 4013 HALIFAX TO SYDNEY
- 4015 SYDNEY TO SAINT-PIERRE
- 4022 CABOT STRAIT AND APPROACHES
- 4023 NORTHUMBERLAND STRAIT
- 4047 ST PIERRE BANK TO WHALE BANK
- 4115 PASSAMAQUODDY BAY AND ST CROIX RIVER
- 4116 APPROACHES TO SAINT JOHN
- 4202 HALIFAX HARBOUR POINT PLEASANT TO BEDFORD BASIN
- 4233 CAPE CANSO TO COUNTRY ISLAND
- 4235 BARREN ISLAND TO TAYLORS HEAD
- 4237 APPROACHES TO APPROCHES DE HALIFAX HARBOUR
- 4275 ST. PETERS BAY
- 4307 CANSO HARBOUR TO STRAIT OF CANSO
- 4320 EGG ISLAND TO WEST IRONBOUND ISLAND
- 4321 CAPE CANSO TO LISCOMB ISLAND
- 4328 LUNENBURG BAY
- 4335 STRAIT OF CANSO AND APPROACHES
- 4363 CAPE SMOKEY TO ST PAUL ISLAND
- 4384 PEARL ISLAND TO CAPE LA HAVE
- 4385 CHEBUCTO HEAD TO BETTY ISLAND
- 4399 PARRSBORO HARBOUR AND APPROACHES
- 4405 PICTOU ISLAND TO TRYON SHOALS
- 4447 POMQUET AND TRACADIE HARBOURS
- 4450 SAINT PAUL ISLAND
- 4462 ST. GEORGE'S BAY
- 4491 MALPEQUE BAY
- 4497 AMET SOUND
- 4498 PUGWASH HARBOUR AND APPROACHES
- 4521 BAIE VERTE
- 4593 SUNDAY COVE ISLAND TO THIMBLE TICKLES
- 4615 HARBOURS IN PLACENTIA BAY PETIT FORTE TO BROAD COVE
- 4616 BURIN INLET AND APPROACHES
- 4625 BURIN PENINSULA TO SAINT-PIERRE
- 4641 PORT AUX BASQUES AND APPROACHES
- 4724 TICORALAK ISLAND TO CARRINGTON ISLAND
- 4820 CAPE FREELS TO EXPLOITS ISLANDS
- 4821 WHITE BAY AND NOTRE DAME BAY
- 4826 BURGEO TO FRANCOIS
- 4831 FORTUNE BAY NORTHERN PORTION
- 4839 HEAD OFFOND DE PLACENTIA BAY
- 4849 PLANS CONCEPTION BAY
- 4850 CAPE ST FRANCIS TO BACCALIEU ISLAND / HEART'S CONTENT
- 4851 TRINITY BAY - SOUTHERN PORTION
- 4854 CATALINA HARBOUR TO INNER GOOSEBERRY ISLANDS
- 4855 BONAVISTA BAY SOUTHERN PORTION
- 4862 CARMANVILLE TO BACALHAO ISLAND AND FOGO
- 4863 BACALHAO ISLAND TO BLACK ISLAND
- 4864 BACK ISLAND TO LITTLE DENIER ISLAND
- 4913 CARAQUET HARBOUR BAIE DE SHIPPEGAN AND MISCOU HARBOUR
- 4920 CHALEUR BAY SOUTH SHORE
- 4956 CAP-AUX-MEULES
- 5138 SANDWICH BAY
- 6023 LAKE OF BAYS
- 7122 CULBERTSON ISLAND TO KOOJESSE INLET
- 8048 CAPE HARRISON TO ST MICHAEL BAY
So 757 CHS charts (1614 including sub-charts) are viewable in the Marine GeoGarage.
Note : don't forget to visit 'Notices to Mariners' published monthly and available from the Canadian Coast Guard both online or through a free hardcopy subscription service.
This essential publication provides the latest information on changes to the aids to navigation system, as well as updates from CHS regarding CHS charts and publications.
New map NZ5219, Approaches to Marsden Point - 1:50000
The 10 following charts have been updated :and some charts have been added :- NZ5219 Approaches to Marsden Point
So the NZ layer is composed of 321 charts (including sub-charts) right now.
Note : don't forget to visit the New Zealand Notices to Mariners (NTMs)
