US NOAA update in the Marine GeoGarage

As our public viewer is not yet available
(currently under construction, upgrading to a new viewer
as Google Maps API v2 is officially no more supported),
this info is primarily intended to our universal mobile application users
(Marine US iPhone-iPad on the Apple Store &
Weather 4D Android -App-in- on the PlayStore)
and also to our B2B customers which use our nautical charts layers
in their own webmapping applications through our GeoGarage API. 

 NOAA raster chart coverage

41 charts have been updated in the Marine GeoGarage

(NOAA update January 2015, released January 20th 2015)

• 11402 ed23 Intracoastal Waterway Apalachicola Bay to Lake Wimico
• 11489 ed40 Intracoastal Waterway St. Simons Sound to Tolmato River
• 11490 ed21 Approaches to St. Johns River;St. Johns River Entrance
• 11491 ed39 St. Johns River-Atlantic Ocean to Jacksonville
• 11536 ed20 Approaches to Cape Fear River
• 12286 ed32 Potomac River Piney Point to Lower Cedar Point
• 13278 ed29 Portsmouth to Cape Ann; Hampton Harbor
• 13303 ed14 Approaches to Penobscot Bay
• 13323 ed9 Bar Harbor Mount Desert Island
• 14810 ed6 Olcott Harbor to Toronto (Metric);Olcott and Wilson Harbors
• 14965 ed23 Redridge to Saxon Harbor;Ontonagon harbor;Black River Harbor;Saxon Harbor
• 16041 ed9 Demarcation Bay and approaches
• 16042 ed8 Griffin Pt. and approaches
• 16043 ed8 Barter Island and approaches;Bernard Harbor
• 16044 ed8 Camden Bay and Approaches
• 16045 ed8 Bullen Pt. to Brownlow Pt.
• 16046 ed8 McClure and Stockton Islands and vicinity
• 16061 ed9 Prudhoe Bay and vicinity
• 16062 ed8 Jones Islands and approaches
• 16063 ed8 Harrison Bay-eastern part
• 16064 ed7 Harrison Bay-western part
• 16065 ed7 Cape Halkett and vicinity
• 16066 ed8 Pitt Pt. and vicinity
• 16067 ed8 Approaches to Smith Bay
• 16081 ed8 Scott Pt. to Tangent Pt.
• 16082 ed8 Pt. Barrow and vicinity
• 16083 ed7 Skull Cliff and vicinity
• 16084 ed8 Peard Bay and approaches
• 16085 ed7 Wainwright Inlet to Atainik
• 16086 ed8 Nakotlek Pt. to Wainwright
• 16087 ed8 Icy Cape to Nokotlek Pt.
• 16088 ed6 Utukok Pass to Blossom Shoals
• 16101 ed7 Pt. Lay and approaches
• 16102 ed6 Kuchiak River to Kukpowruk Pass
• 16103 ed6 Cape Beaufort
• 16104 ed6 Cape Sabine
• 16121 ed6 East of Cape Lisburne
• 16122 ed6 Cape Dyer to Cape Lisburge
• 16123 ed7 Point Hope to Cape Dyer
• 16124 ed7 Cape Thompson to Point Hope
• 16594 ed14 Marmot Bay and Kupreanof Strait;Whale Passage;Ouzinkie Harbor

Today 1026 NOAA raster charts (2168 including sub-charts) are included in the Marine GeoGarage viewer (see PDFs files)


How do you know if you need a new nautical chart?
See the changes in new chart editions.
NOAA chart dates of recent Print on Demand editions

Note : NOAA updates their nautical charts with corrections published in:

• U.S. Coast Guard Local Notices to Mariners (LNMs),
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Notices to Mariners (NMs), and
• Canadian Coast Guard Notices to Mariners (CNMs)

While information provided by this Web site is intended to provide updated nautical charts, it must not be used as a substitute for the United States Coast Guard, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or Canadian Coast Guard Notice to Mariner publications

Please visit the NOAA's chart update service for more info or the online chart catalog

The secrets of the shelf seas – one of Earth’s most important ecosystems

 Children of the Tide - Microscopic life in the ocean
This science/art video presents the rarely-filmed embryo and larval development of common marine invertebrates during the first few weeks of their lives as "Children of the Tide".

Mostly filmed under a microscope using a "dark field" lighting technique.

This 8 minute version is cut down from the original 24 minute version that was distributed to marine science centers and schools.

Filmed at Friday Harbor Laboratories (Washington, USA) and Vancouver Island, Canada. 

From The Guardian by Rebecca Bell 

The sea off our coasts teems with microscopic life that breaks down the carbon dioxide we pump into the air.

Now a series of expeditions aims to find out more

Our coastal seas play a much bigger role in our lives than simply providing a nice backdrop to a fish and chip supper on the beach and the occasional paddle when the weather allows.
The sea close to the coastline is known as the shelf sea and it extends out until the seabed reaches a depth of 200 metres.
In the UK our widest shelf sea reaches 300km from the mainland.
These shallow shelf seas make up only 5% of the world’s oceans but 15-20% of all life in the ocean lives here.
They remain mysterious.
“We are not entirely sure how the shelf seas can sustain quite so much biological growth,” says Professor Jonathan Sharples from the University of Liverpool.
“They must receive nutrients from the deep ocean to fuel this growth, but we don’t know how this happens.”
Whatever the reason, these shallow seas sustain 90% of the world’s fisheries and are one of the most important ecosystems on Earth.

As well as helping to supply our national dish, these shelf seas play an important but not completely understood role in controlling the levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.
In the same way as trees and vegetation on land, shelf seas can suck out CO₂ from the atmosphere like a pump.
There are two parts to the shelf sea CO₂-zapping machine.
“First, CO₂ dissolves in the surface of the ocean if the concentration of CO₂ in the sea is less than in the atmosphere,” says Dr Joanne Hopkins from the National Oceanography Centre.
“You could think of this as the reverse of bubbles escaping when you open a fizzy drinks bottle – because the concentration of CO₂ in the air is less than in the bottle.”
The other important part of the system is the micro-organisms themselves, which the shelf seas are teeming with.

Plankton from Parafilms

 New videography techniques have opened up the oceans' microscopic ecosystem, revealing it to be both mesmerizingly beautiful and astoundingly complex.

Marine biologist Tierney Thys teamed with Christian Sardet (CNRS/Tara Oceans), Noé Sardet and Sharif Mirshak to use footage from the Plankton Chronicles project to create a film designed to ignite wonder and curiosity about this hidden world that underpins our own food chain.

If you were to take a swim in the sea and accidentally gulp some water you would swallow thousands of micro-organisms called plankton, which amazingly, given their minute size, are a crucial food source for whales.
There are two types of plankton: phytoplankton (tiny marine plants) and zooplankton (tiny marine animals).
One thousand of the smallest phytoplankton would measure 1mm, while typical zooplankton are 1-5mm in length.
Plankton make sea water look murky and this biological material is rather romantically known as “marine snow”.
As phytoplankton grow they take up CO₂ and convert it to organic carbon and oxygen, in the same way as a leaf does by photosynthesis.
“Half of the oxygen we breathe comes from forests, the other half from these tiny marine plants,” says Sharples.
“The zooplankton then eat the organic carbon that the phytoplankton are made of."

“The oceans remove about one-third of the total carbon we put into the atmosphere each year by burning fossil fuels, and shelf seas play a disproportionately high role because of their high biological activity,” says Dr Louise Darroch from the British Oceanographic Data Centre. “We want to understand how plankton extract CO₂ from the atmosphere and how their ability to remove CO₂ may be sensitive to changes in our climate.”

 Phytoplankton

In order to tackle this important question, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs have funded a project called Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry which will take measurements throughout shelf seas in a number of expeditions over the next year.
Sharples, Hopkins and Darroch returned from one of these surveys just before Christmas.
“Our research expedition took us to the Celtic Sea aboard the UK’s newest research vessel, the RRS Discovery,” says Sharples.
“The expedition was 25 days long with no sight of land. The ship carries 50 people, roughly half of them scientists and half crew. At 100 metres long, the ship is capable of working in most weathers, though seasickness can be a bit of a problem for the first few days as we all get used to the motion.”

The research involved measuring the concentration of nutrients and organic material in the water, collection of sediment from the seafloor and monitoring changes in the temperature and saltiness of the water.
A range of instruments was used – including autonomous gliders that measure temperature and water turbulence, and are controlled remotely by someone sitting comfortably onshore – as well as “snowcatchers”.

“Snowcatchers are huge plastic tubes, as tall as a room and one metre in diameter, that are lowered beneath the sea surface to a particular depth where they are closed, capturing the water around them along with all the marine snow floating in it,” says Hopkins.
Once up on deck, scientists can investigate how plankton – and importantly, zooplankton faeces – can settle.

Plankton of the French Riviera from Parafilms

“Particles in the ocean sink, taking with them lots of carbon that was removed from the atmosphere. It’s what happens to these particles and the carbon they carry that forms the basis of a large component of our work,” says Darroch.
If organic material sinks quickly, the carbon reaches the seabed before dissolving, and under the right conditions it can be locked up long-term in the deep marine realm.
If undisturbed it will remain there, and this is how fossil fuels form – if the right conditions prevail over millions of years.

Studies like this will provide a better understanding of how much CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere in shelf seas today.
Once we know this we can more effectively model how future changes in climate will affect this ecosystem, and the waters that we rely on so heavily for energy, food and recreation.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : The secret life of plankton / Small miniatures : the secret life of marine microfaunia / Velella, "by-the-wind sailors"
• NOAA Flickr : Foundation of the food ocean 

Image of the week : French marinas

Marina Baie des Anges with the Marine GeoGarage

Port Camargue with the Marine GeoGarage 

Port Grimaud with the Marine GeoGarage

Sea bites - Battle against the sea

The line between bravery and fear for a bite out of the sea.
The wind roars.
The sea crashes against the cliff.
Two meters of rock, that is the strip of water and oxygen where the goose barnacle grows.
Two meters where the sea shows no mercy, and beats with millenary strength.
A line of waves and foam where Serxo and his comrades fight for a bite out of the sea.
A line between bravery and fear.
Between recklessness and common sense.
Two meters without margin of error.
That is where the barnacles live. Where Serxo lives.
'Sea bites' is the battle against the sea from some warriors that don't consider themselves heroes.

The oceans are warming so fast, they keep breaking scientists' charts

 2014 continues long-term global warming

 The year 2014 now ranks as the warmest on record since 1880,

according to an analysis by NASA scientists.

This video shows a time series of five-year global temperature averages, mapped from 1880 to 2014, as estimated by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
While scientists expect temperatures to fluctuate from year to year, the average temperature of the planet as a whole has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since 1880.

This trend is largely driven by increasing human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The GISS analysis incorporates temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based ocean temperature readings and data from Antarctic research stations.

These measurements are plugged into an algorithm that then estimates average global temperature.

From The Guardian by John Abraham

NOAA once again has to rescale its ocean heat chart to capture 2014 ocean warming

Wow, was this a bad year for those who deny the reality and the significance of human-induced climate change.
Of course, there were the recent flurry of reports that 2014 surface temperatures had hit their hottest values ever recorded.
The 2014 record was first called on this blog in December and the final results were reported as well, here.
All of this happened in a year that the denialists told us would not be very hot.

Analysis by NOAA shows that in 2014, the combined land and ocean surface temperature was 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average, making the year the warmest since records began in 1880.

The ocean alone was record warm, while the land alone was fourth warmest.

Five months set new records for warmth: May, June, August, September, and December. October tied for record warmest.

The 20 warmest years in the historical record have all occurred in the past 20 years.

Except for 1998, the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2002.
This animation shows Earth’s surface temperature from 1880-2014 compared to the 20th-Century Average.

The maps and graph are based on the MLOST data from the NOAA National Climatic Data Center.

But those denialists are having a tough time now as they look around the planet for ANY evidence that climate change is not happening.
The problem is, they’ve been striking out.
And just recently, perhaps the most important bit of information came out about 2014 – how much the Earth actually warmed.
What we find is that the warming is so great, NOAA literally has to remake its graphs.

Let me explain this a bit.
We tend to focus on the global temperature average which is the average of air temperatures near the ground (or at the sea surface).
This past year, global air temperatures were record-breaking.
But that isn’t the same as global warming.
Global warming is properly viewed as the amount of heat contained within the Earth’s energy system. So, air temperatures may go up and down on any given year as energy moves to or from the air (primarily from the ocean).
What we really want to know is, did the Earth’s energy go up or down?

The trick to answering this question is to measure the change in energy of the oceans.
A thorough review of ocean heat measurement methods is found here; we paid the requisite fee to make the paper open access.
Anyone can download and read it.

So what do the new data show?
Well, it turns out that the energy stored within the ocean (which is 90% or more of the total “global warming” heat), increased significantly.
A plot from NOAA is shown above.
You can see that the last data point (the red curve), is, literally off the chart.

 Ocean heat content data to a depth of 2,000 meters, from NOAA.

The folks at NOAA do a great job updating this graph every three months or so.
We can now say that the 2014 Earth had more heat (thermal energy) than any year ever recorded by humans.
We can also say that the folks at NOAA will likely have to rescale their graph to capture the new numbers
The NOAA site is updated by Dr. Tim Boyer and can be found here.

If people want to read a review of ocean heating that is written for a general audience, I suggest our recent peer-reviewed paper which can be found here.

So when we look back on 2014 and the records that fell, it gives us some pause about the so-called pause (hat-tip to Dr. Greg Laden for that phrase).
Some people tried to tell us global warming had “paused”, that it ended in 1998, or that the past 15 years or so had not seen a change in the energy of the Earth.
This ocean warming data is the clearest nail in that coffin.
There never was a pause to global warming, there never was a halt, and the folks that tried to tell you there was were, well, I’ll let you decide.
For me, the facts speak for themselves.

Links :

• NASA : NASA, NOAA find 2014 warmest year in modern record