Friday, June 12, 2015
Smartboard turns any surfer into an amateur ocean conservationist
Below the surface, the ocean offers researchers a wealth of information on climate change.
Benjamin Thompson is a surfer.
You would know it even if I hadn’t told you, and even if you hadn’t seen the photo of Thompson where he’s barefoot on the sidewalk, holding a surfboard.
You’d know it because he says stuff like this: “Most technology is pretty rad, like it does this cool thing to make my life easier, but at the end of the day, we’re just growing more and more disconnected from nature and our birthright as engaged humans and animals in our environment.”
So, yes, Thompson is a surfer, but what’s equally important to know is that he’s also an engineer.
And now, Thompson is using this rare combination of skills to build a new product that could radically expand our understanding of the world’s oceans.
It’s called Smart Phin, and it’s the product of a partnership between Thompson’s consulting startup, Board Formula, and a small environmental non-profit called the Lost Bird Project.
Smart Phin is a surfboard fin equipped with a special sensor that not only tracks a surfer’s location, but also measures the temperature, salinity, and acidity of the water to give researchers insight on the impact of climate change over time.
Watch University of California, San Diego mechanical engineering undergraduates give a tour of the surfboard they outfitted with a computer and sensors -- one step toward structural engineering Ph.D. student Benjamin Thompson's quest to develop the science of surfboards (2010)
Thompson has been developing the fin for about two years, and it’s still very much in the testing phase, but this fall, he got a major vote of confidence from the industry when he was selected as one of 18 teams competing for the $2 million Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE.
Now, Thompson must prove that the device can withstand the harshest—or dare we say gnarliest—waves the world’s oceans have to offer and still deliver accurate results.
If it works, Board Formula could help turn surfers around the globe into a fleet of citizen scientists, crowdsourcing information on what is, perhaps, Earth’s most opaque natural resource.
In a world that grows more “Big Data”-obsessed by the day, the amount of information we have on the world’s oceans remains curiously small.
In fact, according to the National Ocean Service, less than 5 percent of the world’s oceans have been explored.
There’s good reason for that.
“You put anything in the ocean, and it gets pounded to death, critters grow on them, the temperature changes, and ions corode the metal,” says Paul Bunje, senior director of oceans at the XPRIZE Foundation.
“Stick something in the ocean, and it wants to get destroyed very quickly.”
It’s particularly tough to collect information near the shore, where waves are crashing.
An innovation like Smart Phin could change that.
“Surfers are going in the water everyday. They’re in the most critical, hostile zone, and they’re doing it willingly, and they’re doing it for free,” Thompson says.
“We’re chopping of a whole section of the cost of research, and that could be a real paradigm shift in the way data is collected.”
Thompson didn’t set out with this mission when he first founded Board Formula back in 2010. Initially, he was simply trying to convince the surfing industry that their boards could be greatly enhanced by a little engineering.
But no one was buying it.
What Thompson needed, he realized, was proof.
So he started designing a sensor that would monitor how surfboards change shape in water.
“The intention was to collect as much information as possible on surfboards, so I’d be able to say: ‘See? You should pay me to engineer things,'” Thompson says.
A close-up of the smart chip
Instead, this novel sensor caught the attention of Andy Stern, executive director of the Lost Bird Project.
Stern is all too familiar with the challenges of tracking the changing oceans, particularly near the shore, where waves are always crashing.
“I thought: ‘We could be sticking these fins on boards all over the world,'” Stern says.
Since then, Lost Bird Project has been the sole backer of the Smart Phin, and will have distribution rights once the product is complete.
But it could take some time to get to a commercial product.
In addition to the rigorous testing being done through the XPRIZE Foundation, the sensor is also being vetted by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD.
Once it’s complete, Thompson says the plan is to sell the fins in stores, but open source the data so that other developers can build their own consumer apps on top of it.
Thompson, for one, is pretty “stoked” about the possibilities.
“Ultimately, it comes down to making surfers stakeholders, making them part of the process,” he explains.
“We’re saying: ‘Here’s the information. You’re part of collecting it, and you have the capacity to make a difference in people’s relationship to the ocean.'”
Links :
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Team led by Marine Institure mapping Atlantic sea bed
Nearly three quarters of the earth's surface is covered by ocean, but just one tenth of it is mapped
From RTE by Will Goodbod
A team of international scientists, led by the Marine Institute, has completed a transatlantic sea bed mapping exercise, which has revealed previously uncharted seabed features including mountains and ridges taller than Carrauntoohil.
The project is one of the first to be carried out by the Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance, set up two years ago, on foot of the signing of the Galway Statement on Atlantic Ocean Cooperation.
It aims to use the marine research resources of Europe, Canada and the US to better understand the North Atlantic Ocean and promote sustainable management of its resources, particularly in the face of climate change.
Ocean life provides half of the world's oxygen and there is rising concern about the impact that sea warming and acidification will have on the marine ecosystem.
The Marine Institute vessel, the MV Celtic Explorer, departed Newfoundland in Canada bound for Galway on 1 June.
During the seven-day crossing it deployed its recently fitted multi-beam sonar, which is capable of mapping the seabed to a width of six times the water's depth.
Image of a 3D animation of a 3.7km high underwater mountain, which is more than 140km long, on the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Photograph: Marine Institute
Among the features uncovered by the team of scientists on board was a 235 square kilometre area of seabed that had been scarred by icebergs.
They also found ancient glacial moraines and buried channels of sediment on the Newfoundland and Labrador shelf.
The survey also uncovered a 15km long down-slope channel, most likely formed by melt water coming from a grounded ice cap during the ice age 20,000 years ago.
The team of international researchers were surprised to discover a 140km long asymmetric ridge, which peaked at 1,108m high, taller than Ireland's highest mountain, Carrauntoohil.
They also charted in 3D a 3.7km high underwater mountain on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone.
An area of cold water coral and sponges was also imaged, as well as the OSPAR designated Marine Protected Area.
The area where the first transatlantic telecoms cable, which was laid in 1857, was also targeted.
The project will now move on to map other areas of the Atlantic, with vessels from the US and Norway due to assist over the coming years.
peaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland earlier, Peter Heffernan, CEO of the Marine Institute, said every time we breathe, one half of the oxygen we consume has been produced by microscopic plants in the ocean and if we want to help this life support system and address the risk of acidification from climate change, then we must map, observe and generate a fit for purpose ability to predict change that are occurring here.
He said this expedition is an incredibly important first start in this process.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
NASA releases detailed global climate change projections
The new NASA global data set combines historical
measurements with data from climate simulations using the best available
computer models to provide forecasts of how global temperature (shown
here) and precipitation might change up to 2100 under different
greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.
From NASA
NASA has released data showing how temperature and rainfall patterns
worldwide may change through the year 2100 because of growing
concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
The dataset, which is available to the public, shows projected changes worldwide on a regional level in response to different scenarios of increasing carbon dioxide simulated by 21 climate models.
The high-resolution data, which can be viewed on a daily timescale at the scale of individual cities and towns, will help scientists and planners conduct climate risk assessments to better understand local and global effects of hazards, such as severe drought, floods, heat waves and losses in agriculture productivity.
“NASA is in the business of taking what we’ve learned about our planet from space and creating new products that help us all safeguard our future,” said Ellen Stofan, NASA chief scientist.
“With this new global dataset, people around the world have a valuable new tool to use in planning how to cope with a warming planet.”
The new dataset is the latest product from the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), a big-data research platform within the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Center at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
In 2013, NEX released similar climate projection data for the continental United States that is being used to quantify climate risks to the nation’s agriculture, forests, rivers and cities.
"This is a fundamental dataset for climate research and assessment with a wide range of applications,” said Ramakrishna Nemani, NEX project scientist at Ames.
“NASA continues to produce valuable community-based data products on the NEX platform to promote scientific collaboration, knowledge sharing, and research and development."
This NASA dataset integrates actual measurements from around the world with data from climate simulations created by the international Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project.
These climate simulations used the best physical models of the climate system available to provide forecasts of what the global climate might look like under two different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios: a “business as usual” scenario based on current trends and an “extreme case” with a significant increase in emissions.
The NASA climate projections provide a detailed view of future temperature and precipitation patterns around the world at a 15.5 mile (25 kilometer) resolution, covering the time period from 1950 to 2100.
The 11-terabyte dataset provides daily estimates of maximum and minimum temperatures and precipitation over the entire globe.
NEX is a collaboration and analytical platform that combines state-of-the-art supercomputing, Earth system modeling, workflow management and NASA remote-sensing data.
Through NEX, users can explore and analyze large Earth science data sets, run and share modeling algorithms and workflows, collaborate on new or existing projects and exchange workflows and results within and among other science communities.
NEX data and analysis tools are available to the public through the OpenNEX project on Amazon Web Services.
OpenNEX is a partnership between NASA and Amazon, Inc., to enhance public access to climate data, and support planning to increase climate resilience in the U.S. and internationally.
OpenNEX is an extension of the NASA Earth Exchange in a public cloud-computing environment.
NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future.
NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records.
The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.
The dataset, which is available to the public, shows projected changes worldwide on a regional level in response to different scenarios of increasing carbon dioxide simulated by 21 climate models.
The high-resolution data, which can be viewed on a daily timescale at the scale of individual cities and towns, will help scientists and planners conduct climate risk assessments to better understand local and global effects of hazards, such as severe drought, floods, heat waves and losses in agriculture productivity.
“NASA is in the business of taking what we’ve learned about our planet from space and creating new products that help us all safeguard our future,” said Ellen Stofan, NASA chief scientist.
“With this new global dataset, people around the world have a valuable new tool to use in planning how to cope with a warming planet.”
NASA climate projection for daily high temperature in the year 2100
under a "business as usual" emissions scenario.
The new dataset is the latest product from the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), a big-data research platform within the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Center at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
In 2013, NEX released similar climate projection data for the continental United States that is being used to quantify climate risks to the nation’s agriculture, forests, rivers and cities.
"This is a fundamental dataset for climate research and assessment with a wide range of applications,” said Ramakrishna Nemani, NEX project scientist at Ames.
“NASA continues to produce valuable community-based data products on the NEX platform to promote scientific collaboration, knowledge sharing, and research and development."
This NASA dataset integrates actual measurements from around the world with data from climate simulations created by the international Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project.
These climate simulations used the best physical models of the climate system available to provide forecasts of what the global climate might look like under two different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios: a “business as usual” scenario based on current trends and an “extreme case” with a significant increase in emissions.
The NASA climate projections provide a detailed view of future temperature and precipitation patterns around the world at a 15.5 mile (25 kilometer) resolution, covering the time period from 1950 to 2100.
The 11-terabyte dataset provides daily estimates of maximum and minimum temperatures and precipitation over the entire globe.
The year 2014 now ranks as the warmest on record since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA scientists. (other video)
NEX is a collaboration and analytical platform that combines state-of-the-art supercomputing, Earth system modeling, workflow management and NASA remote-sensing data.
Through NEX, users can explore and analyze large Earth science data sets, run and share modeling algorithms and workflows, collaborate on new or existing projects and exchange workflows and results within and among other science communities.
NEX data and analysis tools are available to the public through the OpenNEX project on Amazon Web Services.
OpenNEX is a partnership between NASA and Amazon, Inc., to enhance public access to climate data, and support planning to increase climate resilience in the U.S. and internationally.
OpenNEX is an extension of the NASA Earth Exchange in a public cloud-computing environment.
This animation portrays the flow of atmospheric water vapor around the world.
Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, but importantly, it acts as a feedback to the climate (see NASA )
Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, but importantly, it acts as a feedback to the climate (see NASA )
NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future.
NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records.
The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.
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