Underwater art exhibit

An underwater art exhibit has debuted on a former Air Force missile tracking ship sunk in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary seven miles south of Key West to become an artificial reef.

Austrian art photographer Andreas Franke is exhibiting a dozen digitally composited images on the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg that was scuttled in May 2009.
The 4- by 5-foot photographs stretch along some 200 linear feet on the starboard side of the Vandenberg's weather deck, 93 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

Franke photographed the wreck last year.
He digitally added other elements to the images to create the artwork.

One picture depicts a girl wielding a butterfly net to capture fish shown in an original underwater image of the wreck. In another, kick boxers compete adjacent to one of Vandenberg's iconic tracking dishes.

The 20-square-foot images are encased in plexiglass and mounted in stainless steel frames sealed with silicone.

Links :

• 100 feet below sealevel : the exhibition
  

Pelicans and flying rays

More about this EarthFlight BBC programme
Pelicans in the Sea of Cortez are our guide to the incredible flying Devil Rays.

Links :

• YouTube : Earthflight BBC - High-speed brown pelicans diving for sardine & anchovies
  

Arctic Ocean freshwater bulge detected

ESA satellites show that a large dome of fresh water has been building up in the Arctic Ocean over the last 15 years.
A change in wind direction could cause the water to spill into the north Atlantic, cooling Europe.

From BBC

UK scientists have detected a huge dome of fresh water that is developing in the western Arctic Ocean.

The bulge is some 8,000 cubic km in size and has risen by about 15cm since 2002.
The team thinks it may be the result of strong winds whipping up a great clockwise current in the northern polar region called the Beaufort Gyre.
This would force the water together, raising sea surface height, the group tells the journal Nature Geoscience.
"In the western Arctic, the Beaufort Gyre is driven by a permanent anti-cyclonic wind circulation. It drives the water, forcing it to pile up in the centre of gyre, and this domes the sea surface," explained lead author Dr Katharine Giles from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at University College London.

This is a mosaic of Envisat radar images acquired between 9 and 11 September 2011 over the Arctic Ocean.
The sea ice extent highlighted in blue corresponds to the areas where more than 80% of the sea surface is covered by ice (from an analysis performed by the US National Ice Center).

"In our data, we see the trend being biggest in the centre of the gyre and less around the edges," she told BBC News.
Dr Giles and colleagues made their discovery using radar satellites belonging to the European Space Agency (Esa).
These spacecraft can measure sea-surface height even when there is widespread ice cover because they are adept at picking out the cracks, or leads, that frequently appear in the frozen floes.
The data (1995-2010) indicates a significant swelling of water in the Beaufort Gyre, particularly since the early part of the 2000s.
The rising trend has been running at 2cm per year.

Model prediction

A lot of research from buoys and other in-situ sampling had already indicated that water in this region of the Arctic had been freshening.
This fresh water is coming in large part from the rivers running off the Eurasian (Russian) side of the Arctic basin.
Winds and currents have transported this fresh water around the ocean until it has been pulled into the gyre.
The volume currently held in the circulation probably represents about 10% of all the fresh water in the Arctic.

Of interest to future observations is what might happen if the anticyclonic winds, which have been whipping up the bulge, change behaviour.
"What we seen occurring is precisely what the climate models had predicted," said Dr Giles.
"When you have clockwise rotation - the fresh water is stored. If the wind goes the other way - and that has happened in the past - then the fresh water can be pushed to the margins of the Arctic Ocean.
"If the spin-up starts to spin down, the fresh water could be released. It could go to the rest of the Arctic Ocean or even leave the Arctic Ocean."
If the fresh water were to enter the North Atlantic in large volumes, the concern would be that it might disturb the currents that have such a great influence on European weather patterns.
These currents draw warm waters up from the tropics, maintaining milder temperatures in winter than would ordinarily be expected at northern European latitudes.

The USS Annapolis rests on the Arctic Ocean after breaking through three feet of ice.

The creation of the Beaufort Gyre bulge is not a continuous development throughout the 15-year data-set, and only becomes a dominant feature in the latter half of the study period.

This may indicate a change in the relationship between the wind and the ocean in the Arctic brought about by the recent rapid decline in sea-ice cover, the CPOM team argues in its Nature Geoscience paper.
It is possible that the wind is now imparting momentum to the water in ways that were not possible when the sea-ice was thicker and more extensive.
"The ice is now much freer to move around," said Dr Giles.

Arctic Ocean mean sea-surface with respect to the geoid for the past 15 years of satellite radar altimetry data.
The Beaufort Gyre is the yellow/orange dome in the Western Arctic.
Credits: CPOM/UCL/ESA/Planetary Visions

"So, as the wind acts on the ice, it's able to pull the water around with it.

Depending on how ridged the surface of ice is or how smooth the bottom of the ice is - this will all affect the drag on the water.
If you have more leads, this also might provide more vertical ice surfaces for the wind to blow against."
One consequence of less sea-ice in the region is the possibility that winds could now initiate greater mixing of the different layers in the Arctic Ocean.
Scientists are aware that there is a lot of warm water at depth.
At present, this deep water's energy is unable to influence the sea-ice because of a buffer of colder, less dense water lying between it and the floes above.
But if this warm water were made to well up because of wind-driven changes at the surface, it could further accelerate the loss of seasonal ice cover.
The CPOM team is now investigating the likelihood of this happening with Cryosat-2, Esa's first radar satellite dedicated to the study of the polar regions.
"We now have the means to measure not only the ice thickness but also to monitor how the ocean under the ice is changing," says Dr Seymour Laxon, director of CPOM and co-author of the study, "and with CryoSat-2, we can now do so over the entire Arctic Ocean."

Links :

• University of Colorado : CU-Boulder-led team to assess decline of Arctic sea ice in Alaska's Beaufort Sea

Costa Concordia: marine paradise threatened by cruise ship

Paul Hanna/Reuters

From HuffingtonPost

Stone fortresses and watchtowers that centuries ago stood guard against marauding pirates loom above pristine waters threatened by a modern peril: fuel trapped within the capsized Costa Concordia luxury liner.

A half-million gallons (2,400 tons) of heavy fuel oil is in danger of leaking out and polluting some of the Mediterranean's most unspoiled sea, where dolphins chase playfully after sailboats and fishermen's catches are so prized that wholesalers come from across Italy to scoop up cod, lobster, scampi, swordfish and other delicacies.

"Even the Caribbean has nothing on us," said Francesco Arpino, a scuba instructor in the chic port of Porto Ercole, noting how the sleek granite sea bottom helps keep visibility crystal clear even 135 feet (40 meters) down.

Divers in these transparent waters marvel at an underwater world of sea horses and red coral, while on the surface sperm whales cut through the sea.
But worry is clouding this paradise, which includes a stretch of Tuscan coastline that has been the holiday haunt of soccer and screen stars, politicians and European royals.
Rough seas hindering divers' search for bodies in the Concordia's submerged section have also delayed the start of a pumping operation expected to last weeks to remove the fuel from the ship.


Floating barriers aimed at containing any spillage now surround the vessel.

According to the Dutch salvage firm Smit, which has been contracted to remove the fuel, there are about a half million gallons (2,400 tons) of heavy fuel oil on board, as well as some 200 tons of diesel oil and smaller amounts of lubricants and other environmentally hazardous materials.

The ship lies dangerously close to a drop-off point on the sea bottom.
Should strong waves nudge the vessel from its precarious perch, it could plunge some 90 feet (30 meters), further complicating the pumping operation and possibly rupturing fuel tanks. Italy's environment minister has warned that if the tanks break, the thick black fuel would block sunlight vital for marine life in the seabed.


A week after the Concordia struck a reef off the island of Giglio, flipping on its side, its crippled 114,000-ton hull rests on seabed rich with an underwater prairie of sea grass vital to the ecosystem.
Environmentalists warn the sheer weight of the wreckage has likely already damaged a variety of marine life, including endangered sea sponges, and crustaceans and mollusks, even before a drop of fuel leaks.

©Carlo Borlenghi

"The longer it stays there, the longer it impedes light from reaching the vegetation," said Francesco Cinelli, an ecology professor at the University of Pisa in Tuscany.
The seabed is a flourishing home to Poseidon sea grass native to the Mediterranean, Cinelli told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
"Sea grass ... is to the sea what forests are to terra firma," Cinelli said.
They produce oxygen and serve as a refuge for organisms to reproduce or hide from predators.

©Carlo Borlenghi

The Tuscan archipelago's seven islands are at the heart of Europe's largest marine park, extending over some 150,000 acres (60,000 hectares) of sea.
They include the islands of Elba, where Napoleon lived in exile, and Montecristo, a setting for Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo," where rare Mediterranean monk seals have been spotted near the coast.
Montecristo has a two-year waiting list of people hoping to be among the 1,000 people annually escorted ashore by forest rangers to admire the uninhabited island.
Navigation, bathing and fishing are strictly prohibited up to a half mile (one kilometer) from Montecristo's rocky, cove-dotted coast.
A monastery established on the island in the 7th century was abandoned 900 years later after repeated pirate raids.

Come spring, Porto Ercole's slips will be full, with yachts dropping anchor just outside the port. A steep hill provides a panoramic view of a sprawling seaside villa, once a holiday retreat of Dutch royals, and of the crescent-shaped island of Giannutri, with its ancient Roman ruins.
Alberto Teodori, who said he has been hired as a skipper for the yachts of Rome's VIPs for 30 years, noted that the area thrives on tourism in the spring and summer and survives on fishing in the offseason.
If the Concordia's fuel should pollute the sea, "Giglio will be dead for 10, 15 years," Teodori fretted, as workers nearby shellacked the hull of an aging fishing boat.

Clean up: An oil recovery platform is seen next to the ship yesterday evening, allowing ease of access for rescuers to the liner and assuring no fuel can escape

The international ocean-advocacy group, Oceana, describes the national marine park as an "ecological diamond," favored by divers for its great variety of species.
"If the pollution gets into the water, we are ruined," said Raffaella Manno, who with her husband runs a portside counter selling fresh fish in Porto Santo Stefano, a nearby town where ferries and hydrofoils depart for Giglio.
She said fish from the archipelago's waters are prized throughout Italy for their quality and variety.
"The water is clean and the reefs are rich" for fish to feed, she said, as trucks carrying oil-removal equipment waited to board ferries to Giglio.
"The priciest markets in Italy come here to buy, from Milan, Turin, even Naples."


Concordia's captain, initially jailed and then placed under house arrest in his hometown near Naples, is suspected of having deliberately deviated from the ship's route, to hug Giglio's reef-studded coastline in order to perform a kind of "salute" to amuse passengers and islanders.
The maneuver is apparently a common practice by cruise ships, environmentalists lament.
"These salutes are an established practice by the big cruise ships," said Francesco Emilio Borrelli, a Green party official from Naples.
He said that the Greens have received reports of numerous such sightings by ships sailing by the Naples area islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida.

Even before the Concordia tragedy, environmentalists had railed against what they brand "sea monsters," – massive cruise liners releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases – sailing perilously close to the coast to thrill the passengers aboard.
"These virtual cities put at risk the richness of biodiversity, which we must never forget is at the foundation of our very survival on Earth," said Marevivo, an Italian environmental group.
Links :

• TheGuardian : What impact will the Costa Concordia disaster have on the environment?
• NewScientist : Will the Costa Concordia become an oil-spill disaster?
• TheTelegraph : Graphic: Costa Concordia fuel salvage
• HuffingtonPost : Costa Concordia fuel removal discussed

Solar storm's effects to lash Earth until today

From BBC

Our planet is being bombarded by high-energy particles unleashed by the strongest solar storm since 2005, scientists say.

The charged particles are mostly a concern for satellites - which they can disrupt - and astronauts.
But they can also cause communication problems for aircraft travelling near the poles.

The geomagnetic storm has been caused by a potent flare that erupted from the Sun at 0400 GMT on Monday.
The effects are likely to be felt on Earth throughout Wednesday.

A more benign effect of the outpouring of particles is the ability to see aurorae, or "Northern lights", farther south than is usually possible.

A spokesman for US space agency Nasa said that flight surgeons and solar scientists have modelled the flare's predicted effects.
They decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station do not have to take any action to protect themselves from the incoming stream of particles.

The suns flares with activity (NASA)

Solar flares are caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy stored in the Sun's atmosphere.
In an event called a coronal mass ejection (CME), bursts of charged particles are released into space.
Nasa's Goddard Space Weather Center predicted that the coronal mass ejection was moving at almost 2,200 km/s when it was due to reach Earth's magnetosphere - the magnetic envelope that surrounds our planet - on Tuesday at 1400 GMT (plus or minus 7 hours).

This can interfere with technology on Earth, such as electrical power grids, communications systems and satellites - including satellite navigation (or sat-nav) signals.
In 1972, a geomagnetic storm provoked by a solar flare knocked out long-distance telephone communication across the US state of Illinois.
And in 1989, another storm plunged six million people into darkness across the Canadian province of Quebec.

But a spokesman for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (Noaa) Space Weather Prediction Center said the effects of this solar eruption seem likely to be moderate.

The Aurora Borealis from Per Byhring

Links :

• TheGuardian : Solar storm to hit Earth - video
• GeoGarage blog : Recent solar flare may disrupt your GPS / Aurora Borealis