Statoil to build the world’s first floating wind farm: Hywind Scotland

Overview of the Hywind pilot park project

The Hywind Scotland pilot park will be the world's first wind farm

with five wind turbines generating six megawatts each

From Gizmag

Statoil has made the final investment decision to build the world’s first floating wind farm: The Hywind pilot park offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

The Hywind will be located 15 miles (25 km) from shore

at a water depth of 310 to 395 feet (95-120 meters)

(GeoGarage UKHO chart)

In a deal between the Scottish government and Norwegian oil company Statoil, five wind turbines with a capacity of six megawatts each will be set on floating structures some 15 miles (25 km) off the northeast coast of Scotland near Peterhead.
The Hywind pilot park, as it's named, is claimed to be the first floating wind farm in the world, and will generate enough power for 20,000 homes with operations expected to start in late 2017.

 The Hywind turbines will share infrastructure such as power cables and transmission facilities
(Credit: Statoil ASA)

The 30-MW Hywind park will take advantage of average local North Sea wind speeds of around 19 knots and cover an area of around 1.5 sq mi (4 sq km) at a water depth of 310 to 395 ft (95-120 m).

Floating wind turbines can be placed away from the coast in deeper water as they don't need to be anchored to sea floor-mounted towers, which are typically limited to a water depth of up to 260 ft (80 m).
The optimal water depth for fixed turbines is 65 to 165 ft (20-50 m), however two-thirds of North Sea waters are between 160 and 720 ft (49 and 220 m) in depth.

A Hywind floating wind turbine has been tested off the Norwegian island of Karmøy for six years

There are several advantages to locating away from shore, including reduced visual pollution – meaning they won't spoil anyone's view, which is a common complaint by some coastal residents.
They can also reap the benefits of stronger and more consistent winds typically found farther out at sea since they aren't impeded by land features.

Floating wind farms are also less likely to interfere with fishing or shipping activity, and by stringing the turbines together in a farm, they can share a common infrastructure, such as power cables and transmission facilities.

Size of the floating wind turbine

The Hywind floating wind turbine technology has been in development for six years, with a 2.3-megawatt prototype installed in 720 ft (220 m) of water 6.5 miles (10 km) from the Norwegian island of Karmøy in 2009.
It was the first large-capacity floating wind turbine to be put in use.
The turbine generates 7.3 GWh, and has ably survived 36 ft (11 m) waves.

Like the turbine off Karmøy, the Hywind Scotland pilot park turbines will be moored by catenary cables to a single floating cylindrical spar buoy.
The ballasted catenary adds 60 tons (54 tonnes) of weight hanging from the midpoint of each anchor cable for added tension.

Statoil believes its Hywind floating wind turbine technology will enable greater exploitation of offshore wind resources by allowing expansion into new deep-water areas around the world.

Links :

• Crown Estate : Offshore wind electricity map

SMOS satellite meets ocean monster

A time-series mosaic of surface wind speed measurements
under Hurricanes Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena is shown in this animation.
Data from three satellite microwave radiometer missions: ESA’s L-band SMOS, NASA’s L-band SMAP and Japan’s C-band AMSR-2 are combined to reveal the track of each hurricane and maximum wind speed measured by each sensor at the ocean surface.

From ESA

ESA’s SMOS and two other satellites are together providing insight into how surface winds evolve under tropical storm clouds in the Pacific Ocean.
This new information could to help predict extreme weather at sea.

This year, a particularly strong El Niño is resulting in much higher surface ocean temperatures than normal.
The surplus heat that is being drawn into the atmosphere is helping to breed tropical cyclones – Pacific Ocean monsters.
With eight major hurricanes already, this year’s hurricane season is the fifth most active in the Eastern Tropical Pacific since 1971.
At the end of August, three category-4 hurricanes developed in parallel near Hawaii.

True-colour composite from the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite of hurricanes Kilo (left), Ignacio (centre) and Jimena (right) on 29 August 2015.

All three were category-4 hurricanes and spanned the central and eastern Pacific basins.

The bright bands in the images are sunglint where solar radiation from the Sun has reflected from Earth back to the satellite sensor.

The Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite, expected to be launched in late 2015, will provide images such as these at 300 m resolution and in 21 bands from its Ocean and Land Colour Imager along with thermal infrared images from its Sea and Land Temperature Radiometer.

A collage from NASA’s Terra satellite captured the Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena hurricanes beautifully.
However, a special set of eyes is needed to see through the clouds that are so characteristic of these mighty storms so that the speed of the wind at the ocean surface can be measured.
This information is essential to forecast marine weather and waves, and to predict the path that the storm may take so that mariners receive adequate warning of danger.
The microwave detector on SMOS yields information on soil moisture and ocean salinity.
Going beyond its original scientific objectives, ESA pioneered the application of SMOS measurements to study wind speeds over the ocean.

 Hurricanes change temperature of sea surface

Sea-surface temperature anomalies reveal cold-water wakes trailing behind the Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena hurricanes, highlighting the power these winds have in stirring the upper ocean and bringing cooler deep waters to the ocean surface.

Air–sea interaction on this scale has implications for modelling teams at hurricane forecasting centres and for ocean forecasting systems such as the Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service.
Ifremer–N. Reul/ESA SMOS+STORM project and REMSS 

Taking this even further, measurements from two other satellites, NASA’s SMAP and Japan’s GCOM-W, which carry differing low-frequency microwave instruments, are being used with readings from SMOS to glean new information about surface winds under hurricanes.
Combining data from multiple satellites in this way provides a unique view of how the surface wind speed evolves under tropical storms in unprecedented detail.
This will greatly improve the information on the initial conditions of tropical cyclones fed into weather forecasting, and hence their prediction.

Scientists from Ifremer in France and the Met Office in the UK are assessing these new data and how they could be integrated into hurricane forecasting.
Measurements of sea-surface temperatures reveal cold-water wakes trailing the three recent hurricanes, highlighting the power these winds have in stirring the upper ocean and bringing cooler deep waters to the surface.

 Changes in chlorophyll concentration

Ifremer–N. Reul/ESA SMOS+STORM project and REMSS 

Interactions between the sea and atmosphere on this scale have implications for hurricane forecasting centres and for ocean forecasting systems such as Europe’s Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service.
Nicolas Reul from Ifremer said, “In addition to improving marine forecasting, the combination of data from sensors on different satellites will definitively enhance our understanding of ocean–atmosphere interactions in intense storms.
“Yet the future of this type of satellite measurement remains uncertain, as follow-on missions are not guaranteed.”

Craig Donlon, ESA’s ocean scientist, added, “Highlighting the societal benefits of new measurement approaches and Earth observation technologies is part of our core business.
“The exciting results emerging from this project demonstrate the importance of passive microwave sensors for extreme weather prediction and for understanding air–sea interactions, and the need to study future mission concepts that combine different microwave channels on a single satellite.”

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Satellite images to monitor ocean acidification in remote areas from space

Shackleton’s icebound survival story, up close

The Endurance in full sail, in the ice. The photo was taken when the crew felt they had a good chance of freeing the trapped Endurance from the sea ice of the Weddell Sea, so they put the sails up. ​This and other attempts failed, and​,​ realizing the ship wasn’t moving, photographer Frank Hurley went onto the ice to take this photograph. ​Jan. 25, 1915.

From WSJ by J.S. Marcus

In the photography world’s equivalent of an IMAX event, devotees are about to get a hyperdetailed view of one of exploration’s great survival stories.

 Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew took bitter defeat and turned it into heroic survival.

Early this century, members of the imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition watched as their ship, the Endurance was crushed by the frozen sea.

They were left with no radio and no hope of rescue.

For more than a year, they drifted on packed ice, surviving on seal, penguin, and eventually dog meat, while battling freezing temperatures and mind-numbing boredom.

When Shackleton, along with all 28 members of the expedition, emerged at Stromness whaling station in May, 1916, almost two years after their departure, the world was shocked.

Beginning in 1914, the British explorer Ernest Shackleton took the sailing vessel Endurance to the Antarctic as part of an ambitious expedition meant to traverse the continent.
The ship became icebound, finally sinking on Nov. 21, 1915, and stranding the ship’s 28 men.

'​The Long, Long Night' ​| The Endurance is lit by photographer Frank Hurley’s flares, Aug​. 1, 1915​. At right, the original glass plate negative​; on left, the digitized image. ​The clarity of the new prints, made by digitally scanning the original negatives, means the photographs will have greater resolution than ever before​, says Alasdair Macleod, head of collections at the Royal Geographical Society,

While most of the crew, including the expedition’s official photographer, Frank Hurley, waited on uninhabited Elephant Island off the Antarctic coast, Shackleton and a few of his men made an 800-mile sea voyage in a lifeboat, eventually reaching the South Atlantic’s South Georgia Island.
They climbed glacier-topped mountains to reach a whaling station, where Shackleton arranged a rescue of the rest of his crew.

The Endurance’s entire crew survived, and Hurley’s photos are a haunting visual account of the ordeal.

'​The Night Watchman ​R​eturns​'

Beginning Saturday, London’s Royal Geographical Society, the main repository of Frank Hurley’s glass-plate and Kodak negatives of the journey, will honor the centenary of the Endurance’s sinking with the debut of digital versions of the photos, along with several objects that survived the voyage.

 '​Mt. Page and the Allardyce Range from Mt. Duse, South Georgia​'​ | '​​​I gave him a hand to lug a whole plate camera & 40 lbs of gear & accoutrements & by gum we had some lovely places to go up, like a fly crawling up a wall ... he did get some beauties​​ though from the top​,’ ​explorer ​Lionel Greenstreet ​wrote ​in a letter, Nov. 17, 1914

“The Enduring Eye: The Antarctic Legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley” ends Feb. 28 and will later tour to other U.K. sites, the U.S. and Canada.
The itinerary hasn’t been announced.

'​On the ​D​​rifting ​F​low “​​Ocean​”​ Camp' ​(Oct. 30, 1915) | Shackleton stands by his tent shoulder​-​to​-​shoulder with his second in command Wild. Scientists and officers stand in midground and the crew at the back.

The London version of the show includes 97 Hurley photographs along with objects such as a Union Jack presented to Shackleton by King George V and meant to be flown at the South Pole.
The flag made its way back with the rescued crew.

Expedition members take a hot drink.

Hurley’s images themselves may be familiar, says Alasdair Macleod, head of collections at the Royal Geographical Society, but the clarity of the new prints made by digitally scanning the original negatives means the photographs will have “greater resolution than ever before.”
The file sizes of previous digital versions were about 4 megabytes each, while the newly scanned versions are about 1.5 gigabytes.

 Photographer Frank Hurley with his Vest Pocket Kodak outside the hut.

The exhibit has developed the new digital scans into oversize prints, some more than 8 feet long. “Hurley always intended his images to be several feet across,” says Mr. Macleod.

An exhibition is shedding new light on the Antarctic expedition by British explorer Ernest Shackleton a hundred years ago.His ship was trapped in ice for months before he led his men to safety.

In addition to revealing previously unseen details of the images—like the names of the books the crew was reading—the new digital versions will be able to show “how the ice looked” at the time, he adds.
That could help climate scientists track changes to the continent’s ice cover.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Ernest Shackleton voyage to be retraced by modern-day Antarctic explorers / Shackleton Death or Glory - Rough Seas / Shackleton: death or glory

View from a blue moon

"View From A Blue Moon" Trailer from John John Florence

See the sport of surfing as it’s never been captured before in John Florence and Blake Vincent Kueny’s second signature release, in association with award-winning film studio, Brain Farm.
The first surf film shot entirely in 4K, View From a Blue Moon follows the world’s most dynamic surfer John Florence and his closest friends from his home on the North Shore of Oahu to his favorite surfing destinations around the globe.
From the dreamy blue perfection of the South Pacific to the darkest uncharted waters of Africa (and everywhere in between), Florence faces a broad spectrum of emotions as he continues to seal his legacy as one of the most gifted surfers ever.
And while the young Hawaiian is pulled in increasingly different directions, there is no form of pressure that will keep him from his ultimate goal — to redefine what is possible in the ocean. 

Litto3D : a French coastal DTM

Litto 3D : a 3D seamless representation of French coastal areas

The French national program Litto3D was launched in April 2003 as a need for a better management of coastal areas.

It remains the first data set coming from the collaboration of the French National Mapping Agency (IGN) and the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the French Navy (SHOM).

Litto3D is an seamless altimetric digital elevation model of French coastal foreshore.

Litto3D builds upon both bathymetric and topographic lidar surveys completed by water depths measurements using multi-beam sounder

From this results an accurate knowledge of the French wholecoastal areas (homeland andultra-peripherals: Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, Guyane, Mayotte and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon).

The aim of Litto3D® is to produce a seamless bathymetric and topographic database

 covering the littoral zone, right now available for Brittany.

Chaussee de Sein

 Les Glénans - Fort Cigogne

Finistere 2014 available in Open Data on SHOM website

Links : 

• SHOM : Litto3D