Swimming robot reaches Australia after record-breaking trip

A self-controlled swimming robot has completed a journey from San Francisco to Australia.

A second robot is scheduled to make it to Australia early next year, and though one robot has to return to Hawaii for repair, another is currently en route to Japan.

Current locations of the PacX Wave Gliders (larger map / Google Earth kmz file)

From BBC

The record-breaking 9,000 nautical mile (16,668km) trip took the PacX Wave Glider just over a year to achieve.

The route across the Pacific for Papa Mau and Benjamin Wave Glider robots

Liquid Robotics, the US company behind the project, collected data about the Pacific Ocean's temperature, salinity and ecosystem (wave heights and frequency, weather, fluorescence and dissolved oxygen) from the drone.
Papa Mau also observed phytoplankton blooms around the equator in the Pacific, measuring increased concentrations of chlorophyll-A, confirming an increase in such events since the late 1960s caused by climate change.

Liquid Robotics chief scientist Luke Beatman told iTnews that approximately five million data points have been gathered by Papa Mau.
Different sets of data are collected from the Wave Gliders, Beatman said.
"We have the the environmental data that measures what's going around the Wave Glider, and the scientific data," Beatman said.
The second US-Australia Wave Glider, Benjamin, is continuing to transmit data.
The Wave Gliders communicate with the Internet using the Iridium satellite network, which allows for 2400 bits per second data speeds.
This allows the Wave Gliders to provide real-time data to researchers, a feature that Beatman said is unique and really surprised him when he started work at Liquid Robotics.
The company said its success demonstrated that such technology could "survive the high seas".

However, Beatman said the Wave Gliders also utilise Iridium's RUDICS (Router-Based Unrestricted Digital Internetworking Connectivity Solutions) that allows customers to send and receive data traffic over the Iridium network using an optimised circuit switched data channel.
Nevertheless, Beatman admits that using the Iridium service which has standard charges of US$1.20 ($1.15) per 1000 bytes is the big budget item in the Liquid Robotics PacX project.
Data gleaned by the Wave Riders is presented through a web interface, in comma separated values format for analysis by researchers.

The PacX voyage so far.

A short documentary on the occasion of Papa Mau's arrival in Australia

The robot is called Papa Mau in honour of the late Micronesian navigator Pius "Mau" Piailug, who had a reputation for finding ways to navigate the seas without using traditional equipment.

"During Papa Mau's journey, [it] weathered gale-force storms, fended off sharks, spent more than 365 days at sea, skirted around the Great Barrier Reef, and finally battled and surfed the east Australian current to reach his final destination in Hervey Bay, near Bundaberg, Queensland," the company said in a statement.

 Hervey Bay, Queensland, AUS

>>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

Some of the data it gathered about the abundance of phytoplankton - plant-like organisms that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and provide food for other sea life - could already be monitored by satellite.
However, the company suggested that its equipment offered more detail, providing a useful tool for climate model scientists.

Ongoing travels

Liquid Robotics still has a further three robots at sea.
A second is due to land in Australia early next year.
Another pair had been heading to Japan, but one of them has suffered damage and has been diverted to Hawaii for repair.

Each robot is composed of two halves: the upper part, shaped like a stunted surfboard, is attached by a cable to a lower part that sports a series of fins and a keel.

They do not use fuel but instead convert energy from the ocean's waves, turning it into forward thrust.
Solar panels installed on the upper surface of the gliders power numerous sensors that take readings every 10 minutes.

Mixing electronics and water might sound like a risky idea - but Dr Jeremy Wyatt, from the school of computer science at the University of Birmingham, said there was good reason there was so much interest in marine robotics.
"The ocean is a very big place and therefore a safe place to test autonomous robots - these Wave Gliders move slowly and have a low risk of bumping into other objects," he said.
"There are also autonomous sailing competitions in which craft plot their journey completely independently - unlike the Wave Gliders which autonomously follow a prescribed route - and there are a variety of types: robots which bob on the ocean surface, gliders and even fully autonomous submarines which plan their own routes and dive to collect data.

Eventually, Liquid Robotics hopes to have hundreds of next generation Wave Gliders with improved solar panels for more power traversing the oceans, and believes the solution is scalable.
Several uses are envisaged for teams of Wave Riders, including early detection of cataclysmic events such as tsunamis through pressure and wave height sensors.
"We are reaching a tipping point in that the technology is becoming so cheap that it's now a much cheaper to use a robot to gather data than to pay for a manned ship to be at sea for months at a time."

Links :

• CNET : Science robot ends Guinness record-breaking ocean journey
• NOAA : Integrated Wave Glider-Echosounder
• GeoGarage blog : Liquid Robotics to launch wave gliders to collect oceanographic data /  Liquid Robotics to usher era of smart oceans with autonomous robots

What Arctic warming means for one seabird

George Divoky: the bird-watcher who saw the future

For nearly 35 years George Divoky has been returning to Cooper Island, a small, low strip of desolate land close to Barrow, AK.

Initially he went there simply to study Black Guillemots, but as - over the decades - he tracked the dates of their arrival and the new chicks hatching, he realized he was documenting how climate change was affecting both an organism and an ecosystem.

As summer ice retreated, food for the chicks was harder and harder to find - and polar bears began to roam the beach.
(other video BBC)

From BBC

A small colony of black guillemots living on a gravel spit off Point Barrow is providing a unique insight into the changing Arctic environment.

>>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

The Cooper Island birds feed their young on cod that hug the underside and edges of the polar pack ice.
But their access to this prey source is being limited by the big retreat in seasonal ice cover now under way.

How the guillemots respond will turn a lens on the wider changes taking place in Arctic ecosystems, biologists say.
"Things could go either way for these birds," explains George Divoky, who has studied the guillemots since 1975.
"It's just not known at this stage whether they will be able to cope with the big change by adapting to new food sources, or if they will have lower and lower breeding success until the colony eventually disappears," he told BBC News.

Dr Divoky was speaking here at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
The bird biologist spends three months of the year on Cooper Island, which is about 40km east of the Alaskan town of Barrow.
He has tracked the roller coaster ride of the spit's black guillemots (Cepphus grylle mandti) across four decades.

It was the warming climate that first allowed the birds to make the island their home.
They nest in the cavities found in abandoned old boxes and piles of driftwood, but need 80 days clear from snow to give their chicks time to hatch and fledge.
And it was only in late 1960s and early 1970s that such summer conditions persisted to enable the guillemots to breed routinely and successfully on Cooper.
The following couple of decades then saw the colony flourish.
The Arctic pack ice was rarely more than about 25km off shore, providing the parent birds easy access to the nutritious Arctic cod (Boreogadus saida) they prefer to feed their young.

In the past two decades, however, the summer marine ice-cover has retreated far from land.
This September, the lowest ice extent ever recorded in the satellite-observing era, saw the edge of the ice pack sit hundreds of km from the island.

That has severely restricted the guillemots' ability to retrieve the cod, which feed on the plankton that in turn depend for their existence on the algae that coat the underside of the ice.
The guillemots have responded by shifting to lower quality fish, such as fourhorn sculpin (Triglopsis quadricornis).
But their breeding success has suffered as a consequence.
"The sculpin is a bottom-fish. It doesn't have a very high fat content. It also has a very bony, spiny head and guillemot chicks don't even like to eat it," explained Dr Divoky.
"When the ice leaves, or the water temperature picks up to the point where the cod leave, the guillemots are going back to the same feeding spot but don't find anything. Then there's a day or two or three lag before they realise they have to switch to the sculpin. And it's in that lag that chicks die because the parents don't provide their young with the food they need."

What is more, the warmer conditions on Cooper mean sub-arctic species have begun to invade the spit and compete with the guillemots.
Horned puffins (Fratercula corniculata), for example, will try to seize guillemot nests, kicking out any eggs and nestlings that are already present.
Polar bears, too, now seek refuge on the island when the ice is at its most distant in August/September, and will eat guillemot young.

In 2011, Mr Divoky replaced all of the guillemot nest sites with plastic cases to make it difficult for the puffins and bears to disturb the colony
 But the food issue is something the biologist can do nothing about.
All he can do is document its impact.
"Guillemots are generalists and we now see the likes of capelin, sandlance, and pollock - a whole number of forage fish that are abundant in the sub-arctic - moving north into the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea.
"Guillemots, because they will be going out for the six-week period when the parents are raising young and feeding on whatever prey is there - they may be the first indicator of what's happening with these forage fish getting to the area.
"It's going to be very interesting to see what happens next. I've got all the guillemots banded - and have had since 1975 - and there could well be some sort of selection for birds that realise that the ice is not the future and turn to exploit sub-arctic prey. They would be the successful birds and one could get a sub-arctic guillemot on Cooper."

Study: our oceans are so acidic they're dissolving snails

More than a hundred thousand marine species build their bodies using calcium carbonate, including snails, oysters, sea stars, coral, and plenty of planktonic animals.

This incredible diversity of life evolved over millions of years, as animals figured out ways to pull calcium and carbonate ions from the water to build shells and skeletons so robust that they remain intact long after the animals perish.

But all of this is changing.

Our addiction to fossil fuels and the billions of tons of carbon dioxide we're pumping into the atmosphere each year may be undoing millions of years of evolution in a geological blink of time.

From TheAtlantic

Problem :
In 2008, a U.S. scientist predicted the corrosive effects that ocean acidification could have on tiny shellfish called pteropods, also known as marine snails, also known as sea butterflies, and sometimes referred to as "the potato chips of the oceans."
She warned they would not only be the "canaries in the coal mine" of climate change, but that the impact of losing a snail the size of a lentil would undoubtedly creep its way up the food chain.

The pteropod (marine snail) Limacina helicina antarctica (Nina Bednarsek/British Antarctic Survey)

The full study in Nature GeoScience journal, 

"Extensive dissolution of live pteropods in the Southern Ocean,"

Methodology :
Turns out, this hypothetical disaster was already happening.
Also in 2008, during what should have been a relaxing trip in the Antarctic seas (or at least, that's what the phrase "science cruise" evokes for me), researchers from British Antarctic Survey, the University of East Anglia, the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collected pteropods from the top 200m of the ocean's surface, where they tend to live, and examined them for shell damage.

 
Pteropods - Swimming Mollusks from Parafilms

Planktonic snails known as sea butterflies build fragile shells.
Will they survive an acidifying ocean? Plankton Chronicles Project by CNRS

Results :
The sea snail's shells were found to be "severely dissolved."
Part of the acidity in the water sample was due to upswelling, a natural occurrence in which cold water from the depths of the ocean is pushed up to the surface by heavy winds.
Upwelled water itself can be corrosive, and it's expected to occur more frequently as climate change intensifies.
But the ocean's pH is also decreasing at least in part because of atmospheric carbon dioxide attributed to the burning of fossil fuels.

Conclusion :
The impact of ocean acidification is, as predicted, significant, and is affecting marine ecosystems and food systems.

Implications :
"The tiny snails do not necessarily die as a result of their shells dissolving," said co-author (and science cruise leader) Geraint Tarling, "however it may increase their vulnerability to predation and infection."
This can go on to affect bigger fish, and from there, penguins and polar bears.
The snails are also the only food source of the "Sea Angel," another pretty name for something that's really just a slug, but is no less important for it.
And these little guys are only the first to start dissolving -- if ocean acidification continues at its current rate, the consequences can extend even further. First it's the sea butterflies, then it's everything else.

Links :

• NYTimes : Marine Life on a Warming Planet
• TheGuardian : Ocean Acidification is Killing Shellfish, Commercial Fishing Industry May Be Next
• BBC : Antarctic marine wildlife is under threat, study finds
• New Scientist : Animals are already dissolving in Southern Ocean
• GeoGarage blog : Oceans failing the acid test, U.N. says / An acid test for policy 

Vendee Globe : welcome to the Land of the Albatross

South part of South Africa with Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas

>>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

The first five have passed the Gate of Aiguilles.

The lead pack have now entered mythical seas.

There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope (Cape peninsula) is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
In fact, the southernmost point is Cape Agulhas, about 150 kilometres (90 mi) to the east-southeast.

A marker at Cape Agulhas indicates the official dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

You are now at the southern-most tip of the continent of Africa

A place where tales can only be told by a few; tales of the albatross, the tinted grey light, the jet black mountainous savage seas, majestic icebergs and minefields of growlers, large semi-submerged chunks of solid, boat breaking ice.

The Agulhas Current flows along the southeastern coast of Africa from the Indian Ocean into the southern Atlantic Ocean.
It's well known for its treacherous winds, monster waves and shark-infested waters.
It also turns out to be an important site to study global climate. 

The Cape of Good Hope

"Cape of Storms" was the original name of the "Cape of Good Hope"

Greenland and Antarctica 'have lost four trillion tonnes of ice' in 20 years

The study found that while eastern Antarctic was gaining some ice,

other areas were losing twice as much.

Photograph: Mike Powell/Corbis

From TheGuardian

• Landmark study by global team of scientists published
• Finds melting polar ice has led to 11mm rise in sea level
• Greenland losing ice five times faster than early 1990s

More than 4 trillon tonnes of ice from Greenland and Antarctica has melted in the past 20 years and flowed into the oceans, pushing up sea levels, according to a study that provides the best measure to date of the effect climate change is having on the earth's biggest ice sheets.

 Each summer, streams channel much of the melt that is produced by the warmer temperatures along lower levels of the Greenland ice sheet

Photograph: Courtesy Ian Joughin/AAAS

The research involved dozens of scientists and 10 satellite missions and presents a disturbing picture of the impact of recent warming at the poles.
The scientists claim the study, published in the journal Science, ends a long-running debate over whether the vast ice sheet covering the Antarctic continent is losing or gaining mass.
East Antarctica is gaining some ice, the satellite data shows, but west Antarctica and the Antarctic peninsula is losing twice as much, meaning overall the sheet is melting.

 Over the course of several years, turbulent water overflow from a large melt lake carved this 60-foot deep canyon

For several summers this deeply incised melt channel transported overflow from a large melt lake to a moulin (a conduit that drains the water through many hundreds of feet to the ice sheet's bed

Photograph: Courtesy Ian Joughin/AAAS 

"The estimates are the most reliable to date, and end 20 years of uncertainty of ice mass changes in Antarctica and Greenland," said study leader, Andrew Shepherd, of Leeds University. "
There have been 30 different estimates of the sea level rise contribution of Greenland and Antarctica, ranging from an annual 2mm rise to a 0.4mm fall.
"We can state definitively that both Greenland and Antarctica are losing mass, and as [the] temperature goes up we are going to lose more ice."

 Photograph: Mike Powell/Corbis

The study shows the melting of the two giant ice sheets has caused the seas to rise by more than 11mm in 20 years.
It also found Greenland is losing ice mass at five times the rate of the early 1990s.

The uncertainties over ice cap melting have made it difficult for scientists to predict sea level rise.
But Prof Richard Alley, of Penn State University, US, who was not involved in the study, said: "This project is a spectacular achievement. The data will support essential testing of predictive models, and will lead to a better understanding of how sea level change may depend on the human decisions that influence global temperatures."
Rising sea level is one of the greatest long-term threats posed by climate change, threatening low-lying cities and increasing the damage wrought by hurricanes and typhoons.

 A large melt lake, around 0.75 miles in diameter, that is just one of the many supraglacial lakes (liquid water on the top of a glacier) that form on the ice sheet's surface during the period of strong summer melt

Photograph: Courtesy Ian Joughin/AAAS  

The study combined satellite measurements of the ice caps' heights from laser and radar instruments with measurements of the small changes in gravity caused by ice loss.
The data was analysed ensuring the same regions and time periods were compared, as well as using the consistent estimates of the rebound that land experiences when heavy ice sheets start to melt.
The 11mm sea level rise caused by melting in Greenland and Antarctica makes up about a fifth of the total rise in the oceans since 1992, but the increasing rate of melting means the ice caps' contribution today is about two-fifths.
The other contributions to rising seas are the expansion of water as it warms and a smaller contribution from the melting of ice caps and glaciers outside the poles.
A study in February found that, over the past decade at least, the Himalayas had on average lost no ice.

 A close-up of crevasses produced by rapidly stretching ice in Antarctica's Pine Island glacier
photo : Ian Joughin/Science/AAAS

Another recent study showed the changes to winds caused by global warming meant that sea ice – whose melting does not add to sea level rise – was very slightly increasing around Antarctica, at the same time as rapidly vanishing in the Arctic.

 An iceberg that likely calved from Jakobshavn Isbrae, the fastest glacier in western Greenland.

photo : Ian Joughin/Science/AAAS
 

Ian Joughin, another member of the team, of University of Washington, Seattle, said: "Climate change is likely to accelerate ice loss greatly."

photo : Ian Joughin/Science/AAAS

He added significant challenges remained in predicting ice melting, due to the complexity of the interactions between the warming air and oceans and the great ice sheets and glaciers.
"In Greenland, we are seeing really dramatic losses in ice, but it is still uncertain if it will slow, stay the same or accelerate further."

Links :

• BBC : Sea-level rise from polar ice melt finally quantified