Les Voiles de Saint Barth by drone view

Les Voiles de St Barth 2016 by drone from St Barth Fly Cam

MH370: Missing jet 'could be further north'

This animation shows how the floating debris from the MH370 aircraft could have spread, from the day of the crash up until May 2016.
The location of the debris at the various times is calculated using a computer model based on oceanographic data and the location of the five confirmed debris found to date (indicated by red dots, used to weight the outcomes of multiple simulations)

From BBC by Jonathan Amos

The crashed remains from the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could be as much as 500km further north than the current search area, say scientists in Italy.

Their assessment is based on the location of confirmed debris items and computer modelling that incorporates ocean and weather data.
They say this has allowed them to determine where the plane most likely hit the water and where future aircraft fragments might wash up.
The MH370 search will soon be halted.
Authorities have agreed that "in the absence of new credible evidence" the effort to find the plane on the ocean floor west of Australia will be suspended once a zone covering 120,000 square km has been fully surveyed.
That could happen in the next few weeks.
A team led by Eric Jansen, from the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Italy, is the latest to try its hand at using modelling to identify the impact site.
The approach relies on two years of high-resolution data that describe the currents and wind conditions across the Indian and Southern oceans.
Multiple simulations were used to predict where objects might drift given different starting points.
These forecasts were then analysed and the greatest weight given to those tracks that best matched the locations of known MH370 debris items.
These are the parts of the Boeing 777, such as an engine cowling and wing flap, that have since washed up on the beaches of Africa and Indian-ocean islands.

 A number of items from the plane have washed up on beaches
To improve their simulation, the researchers used the locations of the five confirmed debris found to date: two in Mozambique and one each in Réunion, South Africa and Rodrigues Island (Mauritius).

(Reuters)

The conclusion is that main wreckage of the plane is likely to be in the wide search area between 28 degrees South and 35 degrees South that was designated by crash investigators.
However, only the southern end of this zone - a priority segment between 32 degrees South and 35 degrees South - is currently being surveyed by underwater cameras and detectors.
This still leaves a swathe of ocean floor to the north where Dr Jansen and colleagues say MH370 could possibly be resting today undiscovered.

 The results suggest the plane could be on the ocean floor to the north of the underwater search area 
To find out how MH370 debris drifted since the crash, the researchers ran a computer model that used oceanographic data from the EU Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service, including data of global surface currents and winds over the past two years.

(Jensen et Al)

One of the advantages of the type of model produced by the team is that its solutions can be updated as more debris is found.
"We use the location where debris is found to create a ranking of the different simulations. So, the simulations that cause debris in all of the locations where this material was found - we rank those higher; and the ones that are not as good at predicting the locations of the debris - we rank them lower. And then we combine the result. This has the benefit that if new debris is found we only have to repeat the ranking, which is very fast, while the simulations of drift over two years take several hours."

An animation of the debris pathways originating from Location 11.

The tracks of particles over a ten day time window are shown.

 Animation courtesy of the University of Western Australia.

This means also that should more debris come to light, the model will refine its solution for where in the ocean the missing jet is most likely to be found.
And given that the underwater search is about to be suspended, Dr Jansen says perhaps greater effort should now be directed towards finding more washed-up debris.
It is an endeavour that would be low-cost, he argues, but would very much aid the type of research he does, while at the same time possibly yielding additional information on the state of the aircraft in its final moments.
Such inferences can be gleaned by examining materials for tell-tale damage.
Dr Jansen and colleagues have published their research in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared in March 2014 with 239 passengers and crew.

Links :

• The Independant : MH370: Search team looking for missing Malaysia Airlines flight reveals new theory on plane's location 
• EGU : New study reveals where MH370 debris more likely to be found
• Wired : Finding MH370: How algorithms are helping to hone in on the missing plane
• CNN : MH370: Captain's home simulator had Indian Ocean course plotted
• GeoGarage blog : Shift in MH370 search points to revision of assumptions 

Researchers just discovered the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole in the South China Sea

A view of the newly named Sansha Yongle Blue Hole in Xisha Islands in Sansha City, South China’s Hainan Province, July 24, 2016.

The almost vertical blue hole, located at 16°31'30" N / 111°46'05" E, measures 130 meters in diameter at the top entrance and 36 meters at the bottom, and is not connected with the ocean.

It’s said to be the deepest blue hole in the world.

Photo: China News Service
 

From The Washington Post by Katie Mettler

As local fishermen tell it, the deep blue “Dragon Hole” in the Paracel Islands, called the “eye” of the South China Sea, is where the Monkey King in “Journey to the West” acquired his famous golden cudgel.
The mythical tale was published in the 16th century and is among the four great classical novels of Chinese literature.

Plunging 300.89 meters in the sea, it's named "Sansha Yongle Dragon Hole",
surpassing the current record of 202 meters, state-run Xinhua news agency reported

Last week, the Dragon Hole earned a new claim to fame.
After nearly a year of exploration, Chinese researchers have determined that the underwater sinkhole is likely the world’s deepest, reaching about 987 feet below the surface and surpassing the previous record holder, Dean’s Blue Hole near the Bahamas, by more than 300 feet, Xinhua News Agency reported.

inside the Nine-dash line...

The hole was found near the Paracel islans called as Xisha Islands by China.
The islands are claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan.

China has continued to assert its claim over all but most of the South China Sea even after this month's verdict by the international tribunal appointed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration which has struck down its claims of nine-dash line based on historic rights.

Blue holes are named as such for their rich, dark blue coloring, a stark contrast to the otherwise aqua waters that surround them.
Best described as underwater caves, these striking and beautiful formations open up with underwater entrances and extend below sea level, mirroring the appearance of a sinkhole.

Sansha Yongle Blue Hole in Xisha Islands

in the Paracels islands

(NGA chart view in the GeoGarage platform)

 The new deepest blue hole in the world measures 130 meters in diameter at the top entrance

and 36 meters at the bottom, and is not connected with the ocean

(Google Maps view)

Researchers with the Sansha Ship Course Research Institute for Coral Protection began exploring Dragon Hole, known as Longdong, in August 2015 and completed the project last month, Xinhua reported.
It measures about 426 feet wide and is almost deep enough to hold the entire Eiffel Tower.

The research team used a Video Ray Pro 4 underwater robot to explore the sinkhole, reported CCTV News, where they discovered more than 20 species of fish and marine life near the surface of the vertical cave.
Researchers told the television station that after about 330 feet, the water is oxygen free and likely unable to support life.
On July 24, CCTV reported that the Sansha city government had officially named the sinkhole the Sansha Yongle Blue Hole.
The city said it has drafted plans to continue to protect and study the blue hole.
“We will strive to protect the natural legacy left by the Earth,” Xu Zhifei, vice mayor of Sansha City, told Xinhua.

 Researchers investigate the newly named Sansha Yongle Blue Hole

Across the globe, blue holes have been the source of magnificent discovery.
Last year, the Guardian reported that a study conducted by scientists from Rice University and Louisiana State University found that sediment samples from the ancient Great Blue Hole in Belize confirmed the theory that “drought and climate conditions pushed the Mayans from a regional power to a smattering of rival survivors and finally a virtually lost civilization.”
Divers flock to the Great Blue Hole, surrounded by shallow, lagoon waters and a coral island. According to Atlas Obscura, this underwater cave was made famous by one particular diver, explorer Jacques Cousteau, who in 1971 declared the site one of the top 10 best places for diving in the world.
Cousteau sailed on his ship, Calypso, to investigate the hole’s depths and discovered huge stalactites and stalagmites below the surface, Atlas Obscura reported.
Cousteau also confirmed that the sinkhole had formed when a limestone cave formation collapsed after the glacial period.

Dean’s Blue Hole, located near Long Island in the Bahamas, was previously considered the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole.
Also a top location for divers, Dean’s Blue Hole has a diameter of about 82 to 115 feet on the surface, reports Atlas Obscura, but widens to about 330 feet as it deepens.
According to the publication, water there is very clear with visibility as far as 115 feet down.

Maximum depths in other blue holes scattered throughout the Bahamas and other parts of the world hover around 360 feet, but Dean’s Blue Hole extends far beyond at 663 feet deep.
The newly discovered Dragon Hole is even more exceptional, reaching depths of almost 1,000 feet.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Just where exactly did China get the South China Sea nine-dash line from?

Clouds shifting toward Poles with climate change

One Year on Earth – Seen From 1 Million Miles 

On July 20, 2015, NASA released to the world the first image of the sunlit side of Earth captured by the space agency's EPIC camera on NOAA's DSCOVR satellite.

The camera has now recorded a full year of life on Earth from its orbit at Lagrange point 1, approximately 1 million miles from Earth, where it is balanced between the gravity of our home planet and the sun. 

 From Seeker by Patrick J Kiger

Behavior matches climate models, but that's not necessarily good news.

Over the last three decades, global cloud patterns have changed, and mid-latitude storm tracks--the paths that cyclones travel in the Northern and Southern hemispheres--have been drifting toward our planet's poles, according to a new study published in Nature.

The changes, documented by researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, Riverside and Colorado State University match those predicted by climate model simulations, and they've probably had added to global warming that is causing climate change.

Joel Norris, a climate researcher at Scripps, called the study "the first credible demonstration that cloud changes we expect from climate models and theory are currently happening."

EPIC : North Pole

 EPIC : South Pole

Those findings are good news for scientists who for years have struggled to model the role of clouds in climate change.
But as Veerabhadran Ramanathan of Scripps, who was not involved in the study, told Science magazine, that's not such good news for the planet and its inhabitants.
The movement of clouds toward the polls is "problematic for our future" and makes efforts to slow warming more urgent, he said.

Clouds play an important role in climate change models because they both reflect solar radiation back into space (the albedo effect) and restrict the escape of heat into space.
But calculating how those processes balance one another has been difficult, in part because clouds themselves are influenced by climate change, even as they influence it.

 Bands of clouds at different latitudes.

Credit : NASA

Another problem, according to the Science article, is that researchers have been compelled to use data from satellites that were not set up to look at clouds.
Geostationary satellites, for example, look directly down at the Earth's surface, rather than using the slanted view that would make it easier to detect clouds.
To overcome those problems, Norris and his colleagues performed corrections that accounted for those imperfections in cloud data, and then studied the results for clear-term patterns.

In addition to the drift in storm tracks, the scientists also confirmed that subtropical dry regions are expanding, and that the tops of the tallest clouds are getting taller.
All of these changes can worsen global warming.

Links :

• NPR : Climate Change May Already Be Shifting Clouds Toward The Poles
• The Guardian  :  Global warming is shifting Earth's clouds, study shows 
• Climate Central : Warming Is Shifting Around Earth’s Clouds 
• CS Monitor : How climate change is altering Earth’s cloud cover

Diving enthusiasts could be used to measure ocean temperatures

A diver compares the performance of recreational dive computers

worn by scuba divers with scientific instruments.

Photograph: NFSD/SAMS

From The Guardian by Damian Carrington

Decompression computers worn by recreational and commercial divers provides accurate data, study shows

Millions of holidaying scuba divers are able to become citizen scientists and take vital measurements of ocean temperatures, which are being driven up by climate change.

More than 90% of the heat trapped by global warming goes into oceans, where it drives hurricanes and disrupts fish stocks.

Satellites can measure surface temperature when there are no clouds, but getting data from below the surface is much harder and more expensive. 

(a) Screenshot of the ‘diveintoscience’ interface, where simple query tools and summary data are displayed on the left sidebar calculated for the area displayed on the map.

(b) Locations of temperature data stored on the “diveintoscience” portal. In map pane a, the circle represents the location of the dive, the size of the circle relates to the number of dives and the colour of the circle represents the average temperature. 

The screenshot (a) was taken from the ‘diveintoscience’ portal, with both maps (a) and (b) generated using the ggplot2 and maps functions of R (version 3.2.2), which uses publicly available coastline coordinates from the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center.

A flotilla of 3,000 diving robot buoys provides measurements, but millions of recreational and commercial divers around the world could also play a role.

A study, published in Science Reports on Friday, shows that measurements taken from the decompression computers often worn by divers can provide accurate data on ocean temperatures.

Scientists from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in Scotland took a range of decompression computers on dives alongside scientific instruments, and showed that the results tallied.

The scientists have already collected more than 7,500 dive records from around the world via the Dive Into Science website. 

go to : www.diveintoscience.org

Kieran Hyder at Cefas, who led the citizen science project, said: “To undertake a global science programme that could generate this information would be hugely expensive, but there are millions of sport and commercial dives every year.

Making use of just a small fraction of those dives will greatly increase our knowledge of what is happening worldwide.
“The potential of scuba divers to contribute to ocean monitoring is huge and I believe that this study demonstrates only the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

The new data is particularly valuable in highly changeable coastal environments, where many dives occur, as well as in areas that are rarely sampled by other methods.
According to the Dive Into Science project, which is funded by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: “This extra data could prove crucial in the efforts to understand and predict the effects of our changing climate.”

Other researchers have investigated the ability of tagging marine creatures to provide temperature and other data.

The creatures could include penguins and seals and the latter could be especially useful due to their deep dives.