Arctic ozone loss at record level

Each spring in the Southern Hemisphere marks the beginning of a precipitous annual decline in ozone levels over Antarctica.
The process starts in the dark of Antarctic winter as sub-freezing temperatures give rise to large numbers of wispy, iridescent clouds located high over the continent, 80,000 feet up in a layer of air called the stratosphere.
The clouds are key to the depletion of ozone because a cascade of ozone-depleting reactions, fueled by human-generated chlorofluorocarbons, halons and methyl bromide compounds, occur within them.
When the sun shines over Antarctica in the spring, its rays release chlorine and bromine atoms from these chemicals in forms that attack ozone.
The atoms eat away as much as 70 percent of the ozone layer, creating an "ozone hole" to form over the region.
So far, the hole appears slightly larger than it was this time last year, but it won't reach its maximum size until mid-October.
In the visualization below watch the ozone hole grow from July 1 to September 16, 2011.

From BBC

Ozone loss over the Arctic this year was so severe that for the first time it could be called an "ozone hole" like the Antarctic one, scientists report.

About 20km (13 miles) above the ground, 80% of the ozone was lost, they say.

The cause was an unusually long spell of cold weather at altitude. In cold conditions, the chlorine chemicals that destroy ozone are at their most active.

It is currently impossible to predict if such losses will occur again, the team writes in the journal Nature.
Early data on the scale of Arctic ozone destruction were released in April, but the Nature paper is the first that has fully analysed the data.

"Winter in the Arctic stratosphere is highly variable - some are warm, some are cold," said Michelle Santee from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
"But over the last few decades, the winters that are cold have been getting colder.
"So given that trend and the high variability, we'd anticipate that we'll have other cold ones, and if that happens while chlorine levels are high, we'd anticipate that we'd have severe ozone loss."

Ozone-destroying chemicals originate in substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that came into use late last century in appliances including refrigerators and fire extinguishers.

Their destructive effects were first documented in the Antarctic, which now sees severe ozone depletion in each of its winters.
Their use was progressively restricted and then eliminated by the 1987 Montreal Protocol and its successors.
The ozone layer blocks ultraviolet-B rays from the Sun, which can cause skin cancer and other medical conditions.

Longer, not colder

Winter temperatures in the Arctic stratosphere do not generally fall as low as at the southern end of the world.
No records for low temperature were set this year, but the air remained at its coldest for an unusually long period of time, and covered an unusually large area.

In addition, the polar vortex was stronger than usual.
Here, winds circulate around the edge of the Arctic region, somewhat isolating it from the main world weather systems.

"Why [all this] occurred will take years of detailed study," said Dr Santee.
"It was continuously cold from December through April, and that has never happened before in the Arctic in the instrumental record."

The size and position of the ozone hole changed over time, as the vortex moved northwards or southwards over different regions.

Left: Ozone in Earth's stratosphere at an altitude of approximately 12 miles (20 kilometers) in mid-March 2011, near the peak of the 2011 Arctic ozone loss.
Right: chlorine monoxide – the primary agent of chemical ozone destruction in the cold polar lower stratosphere – for the same day and altitude.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Some monitoring stations in northern Europe and Russia recorded enhanced levels of ultraviolet-B penetration, though it is not clear that this posed any risk to human health.

While the Arctic was setting records, the Antarctic ozone hole is relatively stable from year to year.
This year has seen ozone-depleting conditions extending a little later into the southern hemisphere spring than usual - again, as a result of unusual weather conditions.

Chlorine compounds persist for decades in the upper atmosphere, meaning that it will probably be mid-century before the ozone layer is restored to its pre-industrial health.

Links :

• NASA : NASA leads study of unprecedented Arctic ozone loss
• YouTube : Ozone hole 2011 compared to previous years
  

Vast shark sanctuary created in Pacific

This year has seen major shark conservation actions taken around the world, but more action is needed by many more countries.

From BBC

The Marshall Islands government has created the world's largest shark sanctuary, covering nearly two million sq km (750,000 sq miles) of ocean.

The Pacific republic will ban trade in shark products and commercial shark fishing throughout its waters.
Tourism, including diving, is a staple of the Marshall Islands archipelago, which is home to just 68,000 people.

Sharks and their near relatives such as rays are seriously threatened by issues such as habitat loss and fishing.
About a third of ocean-going sharks are on the internationally-recognised Red List of Threatened Species.

"In passing this [shark protection] bill, there is no greater statement we can make about the importance of sharks to our culture, environment and economy," said Senator Tony deBrum, who co-sponsored the bill through the Marshallese parliament.
"Ours may be a small island nation, but our waters are now the biggest place sharks are protected."

To put the sanctuary in context, it covers roughly the same area as Indonesia, Mexico or Saudi Arabia, and is about eight times bigger than the UK.
The move will extend the area of ocean in which sharks are protected from about 2.7 million sq km to 4.6 million sq km (1.0 to 1.8 million sq miles).


Global network

Under the bill, commercial shark fishing and any trade in shark products will be banned, and any of the fish accidentally caught must be released alive.

The sanctuary will swallow a huge chunk of the Pacific Ocean
Certain designs of fishing gear will be banned from Marshallese waters; and violators of all these measures face fines of up to £200,000.

The Marshallese government has worked on the plan with advisors from the Pew Environment Group, the US-based organisation that identified archipelago nations as providing big marine conservation "wins" because of the vast scale of their territorial waters.

"We salute the Republic of the Marshall Islands for enacting the strongest legislation to protect sharks that we have seen," said Matt Rand, Pew's director of global shark conservation.
"As leaders recognise the importance of healthy shark populations to our oceans, the momentum for protecting these animals continues to spread across the globe."

The Marshall Islands follows the lead taken by Palau two years ago, whose sanctuary was then the world's biggest.
Other nations including the Bahamas have since followed suit.
Last week, a group of eight countries including Mexico, Honduras, the Maldives and Northern Mariana Islands signed a declaration announcing they would push for more shark protection across the world.

Because they grow and reproduce relatively slowly, sharks are especially vulnerable to factors such as accidental or targeted fishing.

Shark protection measures are also likely to help marine biodiversity overall, as they restrict the rights of fishing vessels and require greater scrutiny of landings.
However, with the Marshall Islands as with Palau and some other countries, there are questions over the capacity of authorities to monitor fully such huge expanses of ocean.

Links :

• NationalGeographic : Marshall Islands declares world’s largest shark sanctuary
  

Kitesurf in the Zanzibar lagoon

Kitesurf in Zanzibar lagoon seen from the sky from Charlotte Consorti

One World One Ocean

The biggest problem of all: most people don't know the ocean is in trouble.

The One World One Ocean Campaign is using the power of film, television and new media to inspire people to protect and restore the health of the ocean.

One World One Ocean is a new organization dedicated to saving our oceans through increasing marine protection areas, changing the way people think about seafood, and reducing the use of plastics.

I just joined One World One Ocean's campaign to protect our oceans, and the life within.
Will you join me?

The facts don't lie:

• only 1% of our oceans are protected, compared to 12% of our land.
• 90% of the world's large fish are gone.
• the global catch of fish and shellfish in 2010 was 92 million tons. That's equal to 252 Empire State Buildings!

None of this is sustainable, and now we can do something about it.

Renowned oceanographer and National Geographic explorer-in-residence Sylvia Earle discusses the threats facing our oceans.

Man builds social network using Atlantic Ocean

Harold Hackett, 58, from Tignish displays some of the bottles with messages inside that are ready to be set adrift, and letters from some of the 3,100 people who have found his notes.

From TheGuardian

Harold Hackett's network of bottle-tracking associates stretches all around the Atlantic Ocean.
So when he was advised recently of an Icelandic newspaper reporting on one of his bottles being found on the shore way up there he was not surprised.

He was already aware of four other bottles washing up on Iceland's beaches.
Bottles with messages from Harold Hackett, 58, from Tignish, have made it to France, Germany, the United States, even Africa.

Since launching his message-in-a-bottle hobby in 1996, Hackett has set 4,871 bottles adrift.
The note inside asks finders to write back to him, telling when and where they found his bottle, and to include the launch date as written on his note.
So far he has received over 3,100 responses, a 63.6 per cent response rate.
"I got one (note) back with five different people finding it. They found it and let it go. It started in Cape Breton, went to Nova Scotia. It went to Newfoundland and then it went to St. Pierre-Miquelon and Florida, and then he wrote back to me," he said.
"There were five letters in my letter when I got it."

A few bottles were chain-mailed two or three times.
Hackett cast a glass Pepsi bottle with a note inside overboard while fishing tuna off North Cape in 1995.
"I just wrote on it my name and address and said, 'whoever finds this, please write back to me.'"
That winter he received a letter from the Magdalen Islands. That was all it took for him to get his hobby going and the following May 250 messages were set adrift.

"I used to write all of those out by hand, the first four or five years," he said.
"A lot of work writing."
Then he started getting his notes photocopied.
He'd later enter the launch date with permanent marker.
"I still have a lot of writing," he said, explaining that he writes back to everyone who contacts him with information on a found bottle.

"Harold the bottle man" has become somewhat of a legend.
He even has a display at Ripley's in Cavendish.
That happened after the Ripley's owner found one of Hackett's bottles at his cottage in Florida.
Some of the letters and souvenirs he received are included in the display.

Someone from eastern P.E.I. got in trouble with environment after letting 1,000 bottles go one night.
They were all on the shore the next morning.
"He didn't know that the wind has to be west when you let them out."

Local fishermen are accustomed to seeing his bottles with neon paper and reflector tape bobbing in the water.
"The minute they see it, they don't even have to look at it. They just say, 'that's Harold Hackett,' and they throw it back over."

Despite all the bottles he's heard back on, there's one bottle that still eludes him, bottle Number 1 from 1996.
I've got a feeling this year (will be the one)," he said.

Of course, there's the possibility it has been found but isn't legible.
The first few notes he dispatched were written with pen and the ink would have faded.
He has been using permanent marker ever since.

One of his most productive years was 2007 when 575 responses were received.
"Every bottle has its own story."
Usually let a lot go on his birthday, Aug. 23 as well as on his father's birthday and his late mother's birthday.
Most are released from North Cape and some have been dispatched while out on fishing trips.
He recently got two responses from Newfoundland where letters arrived 12 and 13 years after being let go on sea ice.
"Waiting for the letters, to read them, and writing back," he said, gives him satisfaction.
He includes a photo of himself in every reply.
Sometimes he puts inexpensive souvenirs in his bottles.
Some respondents send him souvenirs and photos from their communities.

Bottle hobby costs plenty 4,875 juice bottles (four are numbered and ready to go)
Scrap reflector tape 680 rolls of black tape (for securing the bottle caps)
Four to five dozen permanent markers
More than 1,000 writing pads 500 pens
Souvenirs Photographs
Postage stamps for 3,100 reply letters

Links :

• BBC : Social network in its oldest form (video)