Decision due on massive Antarctic marine sanctuaries

The proposal, backed by the European Union, covers seven coastal zones in East Antarctica.

• CCAMLR has established just one Marine Protected Area in the Antarctic so far.
• They have designated 11 priority areas in the Southern Ocean from which most MPAs will be created.
• Governments have set a goal of extending protected areas to ten percent of the world's oceans

From BBC

Negotiators meeting in Germany are set to decide on the establishment of the world's biggest marine reserves in Antarctica.

Scientists are hoping the plans for protected areas in the Ross Sea and in Eastern Antarctica will be supported.
But a previous attempt failed to get the necessary backing of all 25 members involved.
And there are worries that countries including Russia could again scupper the proposal.

 The plan is aimed to strike a balance between conservation and sustainable fishing.

Picture: John B. Weller

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is made up of countries with an interest in the Southern Ocean, and includes Australia, the US, the UK, China and Russia among its members.
Any decisions taken require consensus among all parties.

 >>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

This meeting in Bremerhaven has been called to deal specifically with proposals for the establishment of reserves that would ban fishing and protect species including seals and penguins.
If successful the plans would more than double the area of the world's oceans that are protected.

Protecting penguins

The idea of creating marine protected areas has been around for several years - but when it came to a decision late last October, several countries including Russia, the Ukraine and China had reservations and the meeting ran out of time.

 Map of the New Zealand-United States proposal

The US and New Zealand are again backing a proposal to create a marine protected zone in the Ross Sea with a total area of 2.3m sq km, making it the biggest in the world.

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According to Andrea Kavanagh, director of the Pew Charitable Trusts' Southern Ocean campaign, this would have a major benefits for a range of species.
"While it is called the Ross Sea, a portion of it is frozen solid 365 a year and provides a critical habitat for hundreds of species of birds, mammals, fish and invertebrates including 38% of the world's Adelie penguins and 26% of the world's Emperor penguins," she said.
Another proposal from Australia, France and the European Union would create protected areas in East Antarctica covering around 1.63m sq km

Australia and France have developed a plan to protect 1.9 million square kilometres of East Antarctica as new marine parks.

Picture: John B. Weller

Australia's minister for environment, Mark Butler MP, said the East Antarctic proposal would be a significant undertaking but would be about more than just protecting species.
"The MPA also includes scientific reference areas where we can measure long term changes and natural variability - essential pieces of information to ensure the conservation of key features and the sustainability of fishing in the region," he said.

Fishing is a big sticking point with species like krill and patagonian toothfish proving highly lucrative for boats from a range of countries, including South Korea, Norway and Japan.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) was established by international convention in 1982 with the objective of conserving Antarctic marine life.

This was in response to increasing commercial interest in Antarctic krill resources, a keystone component of the Antarctic ecosystem. CCAMLR is an international commission with 25 Members, and a further 10 countries have acceded to the Convention.

Based on the best available scientific information, the Commission agrees a set of conservation measures that determine the use of marine living resources in the Antarctic.

In for the krill

The tiny shrimp like Antarctic krill are a key element of the ecosystem, as they are part of the diet of whales, penguins, seals and sea birds.
However demand for krill has risen sharply in recent years thanks to growing interest in Omega-3 dietary supplements.

In the months since the last meeting in Tasmania, diplomats have been working hard to stress the scientific case for ending fishing in these regions of Antarctica.
"There were a number of issues raised by countries including China, Russia and the Ukraine, they related to issues such as access to fishing and there were questions about the science," Bob Zuur, from campaigners WWF.
"The proponents have heard those concerns and have prepared detailed responses - we expect that those issues have now been addressed."
Environmentalists are worried that there may be attempts at a compromise, with a proposal from Norway for what's termed a "sunset clause".

 The "Giant Tabular Iceberg" floats in Antarctica's Ross Sea in December 2011.

Supported by Russia and Japan it would mean the protected areas in the East Antarctic would be reviewed in 2064 and the Ross Sea in 2043.
Campaigners say that this is an unusual idea, given that protected areas on land or in the seas are usually designated in perpetuity.

If the meeting doesn't come to a decision or it is likely that unanimity can't be achieved, it is possible that the meeting will refer the issue forward to CCAMLR's annual gathering towards the end of this year.

Links :

• TheGuardian : Antarctic marine reserves plan 'threatened by Russian fishing interests'

Norway mulls broadband Internet coverage in Arctic as maritime activity grows

In this July 21, 2011 file photo, an iceberg floats in the sea near Qeqertarsuaq, Disko Island, Greenland.

Norway is looking into providing high-speed Internet in one of the few places on Earth where it’s not available: the Arctic.

Demand for high-speed Internet in the Arctic is expected to grow as shipping, fishing and oil companies move north amid warming temperatures and melting ice.

Brennan Linsley, File/Associated Press

From WashingtonPost

Norway may provide high-speed Internet in one of the few places on Earth where it’s not available: the Arctic.
The Norwegian Space Center has teamed up with Telenor Satellite Broadcasting to assess the feasibility of a new satellite system covering northern areas outside the reach of current geostationary communications satellites.
Space center director Bo Andersen on Thursday told The Associated Press the system could be in place in the early 2020s if it gets the necessary funding from private and public sources.
The estimated cost is 2 billion-4 billion kroner ($330 million-$650 million).

Demand for high-speed Internet in the Arctic is expected to grow as shipping, fishing and oil companies move north amid warming temperatures and melting ice.
Last year, summer sea ice cover in the Arctic fell to the lowest extent on record.

 Arctic sea ice dwindled to its lowest levels on record in 2012

Geostationary satellites, which are in orbit over the equator, provide coverage up to 75 degrees north, Andersen said.
But above that latitude, the signals become too weak, and the only option is another satellite network that can only handle voice and limited data service.
“We see very clearly that there is an increasing need for broadband in the high Arctic,” Andersen said.

Ola Anders Skauby, a spokesman for Norwegian energy company Statoil, said “new satellite solutions would be beneficial” as the offshore industry moves north in search of oil and gas.
“Our plans for the Arctic depend on a number of issues: safe operations, logistics, weather conditions and more,” he said.
“Broadband coverage is part of this picture and for operations in some regions further north than where current operations are taking place development of new solutions for high-capacity broadband ... will be needed.”

Canada’s space agency has been studying a similar system.
Spokeswoman Melanie Beauchesne said the agency has completed feasibility studies but is still talking with potential public and private partners in Canada and abroad “to determine their level of interest and potential collaboration scenario to bring about the future realization of this mission.”

Dream from 'The Glide'

Dream from 'The Glide'. Images by Jon Frank. Music by Richard Tognetti. from Jon Frank

Seas of fog around San Francisco

From KomoNews

With its perch right on the chilly Pacific Ocean, San Francisco has quite the foggy reputation and several foggy days have been immortalized in postcards and print.
But I'll bet you've never seen the fog quite like this.
Photographer Simon Christen just released his video "Adrift," culminating a two year project that he says "is a love letter to the fog of the San Francisco Bay Area."
His project aimed to "capture the magical interaction between the soft mist, the ridges of the California coast and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
 In the meantime, he got quite a lesson on Bay Area meteorology.
"The weather conditions have to be just right for the fog to glide over the hills and under the bridge," Christen wrote on his Vimeo page "I developed a system for trying to guess when to make the drive out to shoot, which involved checking the weather forecast, satellite images and webcams multiple times a day."
If the weather looked promising, he'd make the 45-minute drive to the Marin Headlands.
While many trips ended up fruitless because the fog bank was too high, too low, or already gone, "once in a while the conditions would be perfect and I was able to capture something really special."
Mission accomplished.

photo Guilain Grenier

Why is San Francisco so foggy?

The loud drone of fog horns is a near daily occurrence around San Francisco, thanks to their proximity to the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean, which varies between 52 degrees in the late winter to around 60 in the late summer.
That's due to a process called "upwelling", which occurs when winds along the surface blow ocean water away from the coastline.
That process pulls up deeper water to the surface to replace the "missing" water that's being blown away.
That deep water is much colder since it doesn't get the surface warming from the sunshine, and thus the surface temperature of the ocean where upwelling is occurring is much cooler.
In our case, It's helped by the easterly trade winds out in the central Pacific Ocean that help pull the water away from the West Coast -- sort of like when you roll over and pull the blanket off your spouse.
Here is a recent chart of sea surface temperatures off the California coast -- notice how chilly it is along the coast.

When you get warmer air moving in off the Pacific and it hits those cooler waters along the shorelines, the air near the surface will cool and condense into a thick fog.
Then as the ground in the inland Bay Area heats up each day, the hot air rises, creating lower pressure near the surface.
The fog just offshore is then drawn inland to replace that rising air -- a "marine push".
A similar effect occurs here in the Seattle area, only the fog has a lot farther to travel, so it takes a moderate to strong push to bring the marine clouds into Seattle, while even a very light push will bring fog in through the San Francisco Bay, allowing for those dramatic shots Christen found.

P.S. if you like that top video, you might like Christen's earlier project on Bay Area fog:

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen

SSL maps for the GeoGarage B2B API

Marine GeoGarage now supports SSL for its B2B API web service - at no extra charge.

SLL is a necessity for every secure website, and it's vital to have all remote resources sent via the HTTPS protocol in order to protect users' privacy and to avoid mixed-content warnings.

Our Content Delivery Network (CDN) domain is now using a certified SSL.

We've made it incredibly easy to start using SSL.

So our customers can access the full REST API securely for fetching raster tiles.

Our API will automatically detect when the user of our GeoGarage nautical chart layers which are embedded in a third-party webmapping (for example for Vessel Tracking applications) is using a secure webpage and will use purely SSL resources when necessary.

These requests have no additional cost; HTTP and HTTPS traffic is billed at the same rate.