New satellite data reveals whopping boost in shipping : worldwide ship traffic up 300% since 1992

Global shipping routes crisscross the world’s oceans in this map of shipping lanes derived from a 2008 study of the human impact on marine ecosystems.

Maritime traffic along these lanes is also a major source of noise pollution, which is increasingly considered harmful to marine mammals.
Credit: Grolltech

From AGU

Maritime traffic on the world’s oceans has increased four-fold over the past 20 years, likely causing more water, air and noise pollution on the open seas, according to a new study quantifying global ship traffic.

The research used satellite data to estimate the number of vessels on the ocean every year between 1992 and 2012.
The number of ships traversing the oceans grew by 60 percent between 1992 and 2002.
Shipping traffic grew even faster during the second decade of the study, peaking at rate of increase of 10 percent per year in 2011.

Traffic went up in every ocean during the 20 years of the study, except off the coast of Somalia, where increasing piracy has almost completely halted commercial shipping since 2006.
In the Indian Ocean, where the world’s busiest shipping lanes are located, ship traffic grew by more than 300 percent over the 20-year period, according to the research.

Edith Maersk is the largest ship ever to enter the Thames arrived at DP World London Gateway, the UK’s new deepwater container port.

The 397-metre-long, 56-metre-wide Edith Maersk has a draught of 16 metres and carries up to 15,500 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units).

DP World London Gateway operates eight of the UK’s largest quay cranes; their air draft and overreach capabilities mean that the port is well-equipped to handle the world’s largest vessels of today and tomorrow.

Ships powered by fossil fuels dump oil, fuel and waste into the water and pump exhaust into the air. Shipping is also a major source of noise pollution, which is increasingly considered potentially harmful to marine mammals, said Jean Tournadre, a geophysicist at Ifremer, the French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea in Plouzane, and the study author.
“I found it quite worrisome that the ship traffic grew so much, even in very remote regions of the world,” Tournadre said, “especially when we know that they are the major source of pollution [on the open ocean].”

International trade and the sizes of merchant fleets have both enlarged rapidly over the past two decades, explaining the steep rise in ship traffic, the study reports.
The new analysis has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Burgeoning ship traffic has increased the amount of pollution in the atmosphere, particularly above the Sri Lanka-Sumatra-China shipping lane, where the study notes a 50 percent increase in nitrogen dioxide, a common air pollutant, over the 20-year period.

Tournadre said he hopes the new study will increase scientists’ understanding of how human activities are affecting marine ecosystems and improve models of atmospheric pollution in the open ocean.

The new dataset will provide scientists with invaluable insights into the patterns of ship traffic and the traffic’s effect on the environment, said Batuhan Osmanoglu, a radar systems engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Green Belt, Md., who was not involved in the study.
“The nice thing about this study is that they have a unique dataset, that maybe we’re looking at for the first time,” he said.
“Whenever you have a unique dataset you can quite easily learn something new.”

ExactEarth : build your exactAIS Density Map

The new study is the first to track ship traffic on a global scale, Tournadre said.
Currently, ship traffic is monitored using the Automatic Identification System (AIS).
When vessels are near the coast, they use transponders to send out their location information to other ships and base stations on land.
However, the AIS system doesn’t work very well when ships are out on the open ocean.
Vessels are often out of range of terrestrial base stations or other ships, and few satellites carry the AIS instrumentation necessary to locate vessels from space.

 Marine traffic (2014)

 zoom on Europa

The new method outlined in the study uses altimeters, or instruments that measure altitude, aboard satellites to detect the location of ships at sea, similar to the way these instruments have been used to track icebergs.
The altimeter sends a radar pulse down to Earth from the satellite and constructs an image of the surface based on the time it takes the pulse to bounce back to the instrument and the shape of the pulse when it arrives.
The method works similar to throwing a ping pong ball at the ground: if you know the velocity of the ball and the time it takes to bounce back to your hand, then you can calculate how far from the ground you are.
The shape of the returning pulse can tell you something about the features on the ground.
A smooth target like the ocean will bounce back an expected pulse shape, but if something like an iceberg, island, or ship is present, the shape of the echo will change.

In 2007, Tournadre was poring over hordes of satellite data for signs of icebergs in polar seas, when he noticed an odd shape in the data.
“We had some unconventional data in a region, and careful analysis showed us that it was a lighthouse near shipping lanes,” he said.
“As we processed the data over the whole globe, we also detected ships.”

 CSCL Globe, the new world’s largest containership :

CSCL Globe measures 400.0 m in length, 58.6 m in width and 30.5 m in depth, a 19,000 TEU giant
Since 1987, average vessel size of container ships has doubled.

Tournadre found that the altimetry data accurately reproduced known shipping lanes and could be used to estimate the number of vessels on the ocean worldwide.
The study used altimetry data from seven different satellites to map ship traffic from 1992 to 2012.

Using satellite data made it possible to calculate ship traffic for the entire globe, whereas AIS records provide relatively limited coverage in both space and time, Tournadre said.
The new method also allowed him to look back at two decades of traffic using archived data, and give independent measurements of ship traffic that were not based on the will or capability of ships to transmit their own positions.

However, Tournadre also cautions that some of the growth he has seen in ship traffic could be overestimated because ships, especially container ships, have become larger over the past two decades and possibly easier to detect with altimetry data.

Links :

• DailyMail : Watch the world's ships sail Earth's oceans in real time: Interactive map reveals crowded routes taken by planet's vessels 
• GeoGarage blog : Warns of the effects of shipping emission policy on the world economy
• ESA : ESA map reveals European shipping routes like never before

NASA computer model provides a new portrait of carbon dioxide

An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.

Plumes of carbon dioxide in the simulation swirl and shift as winds disperse the greenhouse gas away from its sources.

Image Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/K. Sharghi 

From NASA

An ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.

Plumes of carbon dioxide in the simulation swirl and shift as winds disperse the greenhouse gas away from its sources.
The simulation also illustrates differences in carbon dioxide levels in the northern and southern hemispheres and distinct swings in global carbon dioxide concentrations as the growth cycle of plants and trees changes with the seasons.

Scientists have made ground-based measurements of carbon dioxide for decades and in July NASA launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite to make global, space-based carbon observations.
But the simulation – the product of a new computer model that is among the highest-resolution ever created – is the first to show in such fine detail how carbon dioxide actually moves through the atmosphere.

“While the presence of carbon dioxide has dramatic global consequences, it’s fascinating to see how local emission sources and weather systems produce gradients of its concentration on a very regional scale,” said Bill Putman, lead scientist on the project from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“Simulations like this, combined with data from observations, will help improve our understanding of both human emissions of carbon dioxide and natural fluxes across the globe.”

The carbon dioxide visualization was produced by a computer model called GEOS-5, created by scientists at NASA Goddard’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.
In particular, the visualization is part of a simulation called a “Nature Run.”

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, or OCO-2, is designed to study the global carbon cycle from a whole new perspective.

From its vantage point in polar orbit, OCO-2 will measure atmospheric carbon dioxide, discovering where it is being emitted and absorbed and revealing the roles of humans, plants and oceans on global CO2 levels.

The Nature Run ingests real data on atmospheric conditions and the The natureemission of greenhouse gases and both natural and man-made particulates.

The model is then is left to run on its own and simulate the natural behavior of the Earth’s atmosphere.

This Nature Run simulates May 2005 to June 2007.

While Goddard scientists have been tweaking a “beta” version of the Nature Run internally for several years, they are now releasing this updated, improved version to the scientific community for the first time.
Scientists are presenting a first look at the Nature Run and the carbon dioxide visualization at the SC14 supercomputing conference this week in New Orleans.

“We’re very excited to share this revolutionary dataset with the modeling and data assimilation community,” Putman said, “and we hope the comprehensiveness of this product and its ground-breaking resolution will provide a platform for research and discovery throughout the Earth science community.”

In the spring of 2014, for the first time in modern history, atmospheric carbon dioxide – the key driver of global warming – exceeded 400 parts per million across most of the northern hemisphere.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide concentrations were about 270 parts per million.
Concentrations of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere continue to increase, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

Despite carbon dioxide’s significance, much remains unknown about the pathways it takes from emission source to the atmosphere or carbon reservoirs such as oceans and forests.
Combined with satellite observations such as those from NASA’s recently launched OCO-2, computer models will help scientists better understand the processes that drive carbon dioxide concentrations.

The Nature Run also simulates winds, clouds, water vapor and airborne particles such as dust, black carbon, sea salt and emissions from industry and volcanoes.

The resolution of the model is approximately 64 times greater than that of typical global climate models.
Most other models used for long-term, high-resolution climate simulations resolve climate variables such as temperatures, pressures, and winds on a horizontal grid consisting of boxes about 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide.
The Nature Run resolves these features on a horizontal grid consisting of boxes only 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) wide.

The Nature Run simulation was run on the NASA Center for Climate Simulation’s Discover supercomputer cluster at Goddard Space Flight Center.
The simulation produced nearly four petabytes (million billion bytes) of data and required 75 days of dedicated computation to complete.

In addition to providing a striking visual description of the movements of an invisible gas like carbon dioxide, as it is blown by the winds, this kind of high-resolution simulation will help scientists better project future climate.
Engineers can also use this model to test new satellite instrument concepts to gauge their usefulness.
The model allows engineers to build and operate a “virtual” instrument inside a computer.

Using GEOS-5 in tests known as Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSE) allows scientists to see how new satellite instruments might aid weather and climate forecasts.

“While researchers working on OSSEs have had to rely on regional models to provide such high-resolution Nature Run simulations in the past, this global simulation now provides a new source of experimentation in a comprehensive global context,” Putman said.
“This will provide critical value for the design of Earth-orbiting satellite instruments.”

Links :

• NASA : A closer look at Carbon Dioxide
• National Geographic : The Changing Carbon Map: How We Revised Our Interactive Look at Global Footprints 

Arctic satellite image of the week : Russia discovers a new island in its Arctic

Landsat 8 image taken on June 16, 2013 of new island discovered near Russia.

Image from NASA via USGS Earth Explorer.

From Cryopolitics by Mia Bennett

In September 2013, two military helicopter pilots transporting equipment from Tiksi, a port city in northeast Russia, to the New Siberian Islands spotted a previously unknown island in the Laptev Sea.
The discovery took place just a little ways south of the main shipping lanes used for the Northern Sea Route and has now been corroborated by geological surveying.
The Russian-language version of Popular Mechanics notes that the small, low-lying island has been christened “Yaya,” or “Яя” in Russian.
The rhyming name comes from the Russian word “Я,” which means “I”, for the pilot of each Mi-26 helicopter essentially shouted, “It was I who found it!” when they spotted the scrap of land.

New Siberian island with the Marine GeoGarage (NGA charts)

The pilots happened to fly over the island (73°59′25″ N, 133°05′28 E) in September, when Arctic sea ice is at its lowest extent.
September is the usually the first entire month to be open to shipping along the Northern Sea Route, too.
I was unable to find cloud-free Landsat 8 satellite images taken over the location of the new island in September, or any of the other relatively ice-free months for that matter (July, August, and October), but I was able to find a cloud-free image taken on June 16, 2013, when the water was still frozen solid.
Even despite all the thick sea ice surrounding the brown speck of land, it still manages to stick out.

Geographically speaking, the discovery reveals the extent to which the Arctic – especially the eastern Russian Arctic – still remains poorly mapped. It’s rare to hear of new islands – however small – being discovered elsewhere in the world unless they’re due to some recent volcanic activity.

 Map of new island’s location and Russia’s new territorial waters.

New Siberian Islands Buildup?

Legally speaking, wile the island is small, its discovery does have certain implications under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

All of the waters around Yaya Island already fall within Russian’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

But Section II explains that territorial seas extend 12 nautical miles outward from a country’s coastline.

Thus, with the addition of the island to Russian territory, the country will gain 452 square kilometers of territorial seas.

Once classified as territorial seas, then the water surface area, the air column above it, and the water column and seabed below it all become part of the country’s sovereign area.

UNCLOS also specifies that countries cannot levy charges on foreign ships for passing through their territorial waters, let alone EEZs.

Yet because the waters are ice covered for a majority of the year, Russia is able to enforce additional regulations to prevent pollution, including by levying charges, under Article 234.

Yaya Island’s existence will cause hardly any large-scale changes in the eastern Russian maritime Arctic.

But what could be more of a game-changer is the uptick in military-related activities occurring around Tiksi and the New Siberian Islands.

The two helicopters that spotted Yaya were, as mentioned, ferrying unspecified equipment to the New Siberian Islands in September 2013 – one year before Russia re-opened a former Soviet military base there.

So perhaps more than the discovery of the island, it’s actually the discoverers who form the real story behind the headline.

In next week’s Arctic satellite image of the week post, I’ll look more into the military buildup taking place at what was their destination: the New Siberian Islands. 

A journey to space

Astronaut - A journey to space from Guillaume Juin

What does astronaut see from up there?

From the red soil of africa, the blue water of oceans, to the green lights of the poles and yellow light of human activity, discover, through this journey to space, something astoundingly beautiful and strange at the same time.

Vladivostok Mistral vessel visible in the Marine GeoGarage AIS Vessel Tracking webmapping

AIS position visible in the Marine GeoGarage AIS Vessel Tracking webmapping
'Vladivostok' helicopter carriers in the Plancoët Bassin

With our own AIS receiver installation (at our office at Hub Creatic in Nantes), we can observe the position of the 'Vladivostok' military vessel.

 An aerial view shows the Mistral-class helicopter carrier Vladivostok constructed for Russia at the STX Les Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard site in the port of Montoir-de-Bretagne near Saint Nazaire, western France, September 22, 2014.
(Reuters/Stephane Mahe)

 Waiting to get the Russian flag

The MMSI recorded in the AIS transceiver is 227 022 600.
(probably, a temporary MMSI, by the way previously used for trials at STX shipyard for MSC Preziosa in 2013)

The first three numbers shows the Country : 227 for France

Note : in the case where the ship is officially delivered by France to Russia, the MMSI might change to 273 for Russia.

That was the case yesterday between Thursday 13, 08:50 to Friday 14 14:00 UTC :
apparently this change of MMSI (273 549 920) was a test according DCNS, ordered by Veritas Bureau for delivering a future certificate of navigation.

 Length × Breadth: 199m × 32m / Draught: 6.8m 

From Reuters

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Friday that France would not be dictated to after an unidentified Russian official was quoted as giving Paris two weeks to deliver the first of two Mistral helicopter carriers or face possible compensation claims.

France has for months resisted pressure from Washington and other allies to scrap the 1.2 billion euro ($1.58 billion) contract and in September said it would only hand over the first carrier, the Vladivostok, if there was a lasting ceasefire and a political settlement in Ukraine.

With the situation worsening on the ground in Ukraine, France has again come under fire over the deal, while Moscow has tried to drive a wedge between Paris and its allies on the issue knowing that failure to deliver the carriers could damage France's image at a time when it is finalising other military contracts.
"Today, the conditions to deliver the Mistral aren't there," Valls told reporters.
"France honours its contracts, but France is a nation that counts, wants peace in Ukraine and that makes sovereign decisions without anybody from outside dictating how it acts."

An unidentified Russian source quoted by state news agency RIA on Friday said if the Mistral was not delivered by the end of November Moscow would seek compensation.

The comments were published on the day a Russian delegation, including arms exporter Rosoboronexport, had originally been invited by the Mistral's manufacturer DCNS - 65 percent-owned by the French state - to travel to France for a ceremony to transfer the first ship.
"We are preparing for various scenarios. We will wait until the end of the month then we will announce some serious claims," the unidentified Russian source was quoted as saying.
Analysts were looking at various amounts of compensation, the source said, adding that the sum would not be kept secret.

French President Francois Hollande said at the end of October he would make a decision during November, but his defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, told parliament on Wednesday DCNS had not been given the necessary government export licence.
"No date for delivery can be fixed at this stage," he told lawmakers.
"A definitive decision will be taken when the time comes."

Europe and the United States have imposed numerous rounds of sanctions on Russia for its role in eastern Ukraine and EU foreign ministers will discuss further sanctions on Monday.

Hollande is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 leaders summit in Australia this weekend.
"What's key - and the president will discuss it with several leaders during the G20 - is to rediscover the path to peace between Ukraine and Russia," Valls said.
"We're far from that today."

Links :

• Nantes Saint Nazaire harbor : ships alongside quay / Forecast of Vessels movements