Warns of the effects of shipping emission policy on the world economy

Animation comprised of a NO2 map placed on top of a shipping route map to show the routes clearly correspond to the pattern of detected NO2 (source : ESA)

From Lloyd's List

HELLENIC Chamber of Shipping president George Gratsos has urged regulators to pause to consider research that warns that reduction of sulphur content in bunkers may exacerbate global warming.

“Presently enacted regulations represent inadvertent geo-engineering increasing our planet’s temperature,” said Mr Gratsos.
“Governments should carefully study the repercussions of their regulations before they inflict irreversible damage to society with inappropriate legislation,” he said in a keynote speech to the Mare Forum Blue Shipping Summit in Athens.
“Our society has developed substantial analytical capabilities to help guide us.”

Mr Gratsos in particular cited a new study by researchers from the UK Met Office that examined aerosols and climate variability in the North Atlantic (see Nature).
Published last month, the paper “clearly indicates that the reduction in sulphur aerosols over the Atlantic Ocean have increased water temperature, increasing the severity of hurricane activity and Sahel and Amazon droughts”, according to Mr Gratsos.
The effects had “variously influenced the whole planet”, he said.

 Ship tracks off British Columbia (source : NASA)

Reducing the sulphur content of bunker fuels outside SECAs would worsen the problem, Mr Gratsos warned.
Shipping has been pointing out side effects of lower sulphur policy to regulators for some time, Mr Gratsos acknowledged, but “to no avail”.
A familiar industry argument is that higher cost of 0.1% distillate, the limit for ECAs, compared to heavy fuel oil may cause a modal shift from ships to trucks that will see CO2 emissions from transport multiply.

Mr Gratsos also said that the IMO had enacted the regulation reducing sulphur content despite research into the cooling effects of ship emissions of sulphur dioxide.
However, he told Lloyd’s List, the recent Met Office research “is a game changer, or at least it should be”.
The Met Office describes itself as “a world leader in providing weather and climate services”.
Mr Gratsos also warned of the effects of shipping emission policy on the world economy.
Market-based mechanisms, which in effect would add the price of carbon to fuel prices, could significantly increase the cost of freight, slowing or even reversing globalisation, he said.
Since the average loaded trading speed of bulk carriers in 2012 appeared to be 20% lower than five years ago, this had reduced ship emissions by 50%, Mr Gratsos said.

Links :

• DailyMail : How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars in the world
• TheGuardian : Health risks of shipping pollution have been 'underestimated'
• EPA :  Diesel pollution from the shipping industry
• BBC : Health risks of shipping pollution have been 'underestimated'

DHN Brazil update in the Marine GeoGarage

 23100 Do Rio de Janeiro a Santos

14 charts have been added and 14 have been updated 
(DHN update 18/21 May, 2012)

• 303 DO CABO MAGUARI À MOSQUEIRO
• 315 DA BOCA DA VIGIA À MOSQUEIRO
• 410 PROXIMIDADES DA BAÍA DE SÃO MARCOS
• 1002 BARRA DO RIO SÃO FRANCISCO DO NORTE
• 1101 PROXIMIDADES DO PORTO DE SALVADOR
• 1103 BAÍA DE ARATU E ADJACÊNCIAS
• 1107 BAIA DE TODOS OS SANTOS PARTE OESTE
• 1110 BAÍA DE TODOS OS SANTOS
• 1402 DO PONTAL DA REGÊNCIA À PONTA DO UBU
• 1404 PROXIMIDADES DA PONTA DO UBU
• 1531 ILHA DO BOQUEIRÃO E ADJACÊNCIA
• 1607 BAÍAS DA ILHA GRANDE E DE SEPETIBA
• 1637 BAÍA DA RIBEIRA
• 1904 CANAL SUL DE SANTA CATARINA
• 21020 DE SALINOPOLIS A FORTALEZA
• 23100 DO RIO DE JANEIRO À SANTOS
• 3335 DO RIACHO GUAICURUS À ILHA SANTA MARIA
• 3336 DA ILHA SANTA MARIA A PORTO MURTINHO
• 3338 DO CUÑATAY A ILHA FECHO DOS MORROS
• 3339 DA ILHA CAMBA A ILHA JOSE RIKA
• 3340 DO PORTO GUARANI À VOLTA DO JENIPAPO
• 3341 DA BAÍA DA SUCURI AO PASSO OLIMPO
• 3430 DO PASSO BAÍA DAS ÉGUAS À MONTANTE DO PASSO CORIXÃO
• 3431 DA ILHA DA BAIAZINHA À ILHA DO BEIÇUDO
• 3432 DO PASSO DO BEIÇUDO AO BARRANCO VERMELHO
• 3433 DO PASSO DO SOLDADO À FIGUEIRA DO TUCUM
• 3434 DA ILHA DO POTE AO PASSO CAMBARÁ
• 3435 DA ILHA DO JAURU VELHO À BAÍA GRANDE

Today 320 charts (367 including sub-charts) from DHN are displayed in the Marine GeoGarage

NOAA : New Alaska navigational chart makes increased Arctic shipping safer

chart 16161 Kotzebue harbour and approaches on the Marine GeoGarage

From NOAA

NOAA formally presented to Alaska officials a new nautical chart for Kotzebue Sound in the Alaskan Arctic, a sparsely charted region that is seeing increased vessel traffic because of the significant loss of summer sea ice.

The new chart depicts the full range of depth measurements and object detection acquired during a full ocean bottom survey last summer by the NOAA hydrographic survey ship Fairweather.
It replaces a chart showing depth measurements last taken in the 19th century spaced three to five miles apart, leaving room for possible undetected dangers in between.

 Kotzebue Harbor chart replaces measurements last taken in 19th century
The new navigational chart 16161 addresses a pressing need for this Northwest Alaska transportation hub, located in the Arctic Circle.
Most importantly, the improved navigational information will help mariners protect life and property, on board ship and in the coastal waters of Kotzebue.
(source : NOAA)

The new navigational chart addresses a pressing need for this Northwest Alaska transportation hub, located in the Arctic Circle.
Barge shipments and large transport ships must be anchored at least 14 miles out in the Kotzebue Sound due to shallow waters and inadequate charts and navigational aids.
Freight must then be transferred by smaller barges to Kotzebue.

“This new chart is just one of the many critical navigational services that NOAA provides to support safe navigation and maritime commerce while protecting important marine resources,” said Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D., deputy NOAA administrator and assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction.
“Based on stakeholder discussions and developing Arctic vessel traffic patterns, NOAA will improve the existing charts and navigational data to position the regional maritime economy to meet emerging opportunities, as we expand our commerce and energy sectors into the Arctic region.”
Sullivan presented the chart to Alaska Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell during NOAA’s Hydrographic Services Review Panel meeting in Anchorage.

NOAA Ship Fairweather worked around the clock while acquiring Kotzebue data

during the summer of 2011.

Using millions of precise depth measurements gathered by Fairweather last summer, the new chart will give mariners a much better – and safer – map. Fairweather’s hydrographic surveys of critical areas of the sound will improve safety and efficiency of freight transfer operations.
“With the reduction in Arctic ice coverage, we are starting to see growing shipping traffic in the Arctic, and this growth is driving an increase in maritime concerns,” said NOAA Corps Capt. David Neander, who was the commanding officer of the NOAA Ship Fairweather during the survey. “Starting in 2010, we began surveying in critical Arctic areas where marine transportation dynamics are changing rapidly. These areas are increasingly transited by the offshore oil and gas industry, cruise liners, military craft, tugs and barges and fishing vessels.”

The new chart, number 16161, depicts measured ocean depths at a scale of 1:50,000. An inset for Kotzebue Harbor will have even more detail, with a scale of 1:25,000.
Mariners had been using a chart with a 1:700,000 scale, mostly depicting water depths measured in the 1800s, before technology was able to acquire data with today's level of precision and accuracy, and before today’s increased shipping necessitated updating of these navigational surveys.
“With the new chart, mariners who are unfamiliar with the region will have more information and can make better decisions when they approach Kotzebue,” said Capt. Doug Baird, chief of NOAA Coast Survey’s marine chart division.
“The chart has accurate and precise depth measurements, which will make ocean-going vessel traffic more efficient through northwest Alaska. Most importantly, the improved navigational information will help mariners protect life and property, on board ship and in the coastal waters of Kotzebue.”

The charts were made available to the public on May 11, as an online Print on Demand chart through OceanGrafix.

About one third of U.S. Arctic waters are important to navigation, based on water depth, the draft of ships transiting the region, and the potential for unknown hazards or dangers to navigation.
NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey has identified 38,000 squares miles as its surveying priority and estimates it will take more than 25 years to complete updated charts for this area.

NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey is the nation’s chartmaker.
Continuing a heritage of service to the maritime transportation system, Coast Survey has been America’s trusted source of navigational charts, data, and services for two centuries.
NOAA Ship Fairweather is part of the NOAA fleet of ships and aircraft operated, managed and maintained by NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, which includes commissioned officers of the NOAA Corps and civilian wage mariners.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join NOAA on Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels.

The NOAA nautical charts layer is back

4 days after our electrical outage, the NOAA layer is available again in the Marine GeoGarage

Compact Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) : a new navigation capability for racing sailing boats

Nortek DVL installed in keel (photo courtesy of PUMA Ocean Racing Team)

Nortek announced that it has collaborated with the PUMA Ocean Racing team to develop a modified compact Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) for PUMA’s Mar Mostro Volvo Open 70 yacht competing in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012.
The project, which was completed over the course of the past year, has resulted in the successful integration of boat speed, leeway and in-situ ocean current readings.
Translation: a secret weapon in the battle to go as fast and efficiently as possible.

From Nortek

“The collaboration between Nortek and the entire PUMA team has resulted in an tool that provides unique information to the sailing crew.
They can now measure leeway, a first in sailing, and use it to measure ocean currents much more precisely than ever before,” said Atle Lohrmann, CTO of Nortek.

Nortek started developing this capability during the 2008 Star class Olympic trials with the Norwegian team skippered by Eivind Melleby, also a veteran of the Volvo Ocean Race.
Nortek went on to work with the TP52 ocean racing team Caixa Galicia with a predecessor to the existing sensor with Caixa navigator Robert Hopkins.

“This is the biggest advancement in sailing instrumentation since the invention of the GPS,” said Hopkins, who runs performance testing for PUMA and worked with Nortek on the project.
“Nortek adapted their new DVL technology to our sailing performance needs, to measure very high speeds along the boat's track and very low speeds across it. With Nortek's history of deploying instruments on buoys in hostile Arctic conditions, we knew that we could trust the Nortek DVL in a race around the world.”

Leeway is the sideways skidding angle a boat makes as it sails forward.
Leeway can be changed on a Volvo Open 70 yacht by adjusting the daggerboard immersion and canting the keel.
The adjustable daggeboards and keel act like wings underwater to counteract the force of the sails. The crew relies on Nortek DVL leeway measurements to optimize PUMA's Mar Mostro performance at all times, providing the core data upon which every other performance measurement is based.

“I can't tell you how important it is to finally know how fast the boat is going in all conditions. We really feel this is the first time boat speed has been accurately measured without using various types of cumbersome and complex tables within the boat’s instrumentation. It’s a huge factor for something as simple as a sail change or as complex as routing,” said Ken Read, skipper of the PUMA Ocean Racing team.

“Nortek and our entire team, especially the shore crew, worked diligently to make this project a reality. The technology already helped us to win the Transatlantic Race in July, and it will be a key component as we race around the world.”

The Nortek DVL uses acoustic techniques to measure water velocity along each of the four beams.
The sensor is mounted in the bottom of the lead bulb of the keel.
The acoustic beams are oriented forward, aft and abeam.
Data from each beam is streamed to the on board computer which also receives data from the inertial motion sensor and the keel cant angle sensor.
Velocity and orientation measurements are then used to output true forward boat speed and leeway. Real time currents can be directly estimated by differencing the GPS boat speed over ground and the boat speed through the water.

Two step procedure to estimate currents in real time;

(a) First estimate the through the water velocity -- resultant of forward speed, leeway, and heading; (b) followed by differencing with the through the water boat speed and GPS estimate (speed and course over the ground).

Similar systems were developed for the seismic survey fleet and Nortek recently delivered the first operational navigation system to Fugro-Geoteam in Oslo to be mounted on two Barovane seismic diverters.
The diverters keep the towed acoustic streamers separated and like the Puma-DVL, the system measures the angle of attack, the through water speed and ocean currents near the surface.
The difference was the space available for the acoustic transponder.

The proof is in the currents.

The image shows the track of Mar Mostro (yellow) as it transits westwards to Alicante. 

The red lines indicate the real time currents estimated with the DVL. 

This is overlaid on top of current estimates from a four day average of satellite altimetery data.

“We worked very hard to miniaturize the DVL unit that was installed aboard PUMA’s Mar Mostro,” stated Lohrmann.

The project is an important milestone for Nortek because it demonstrates how well the acoustic Doppler technology performs in very challenging conditions and that the system can be fully integrated into modern navigation systems.
The fact that the PUMA Ocean Racing technology team was able to integrate the DVL with other sensors on the boat is a testament to the quality and sophistication of modern yacht racing.