Google unveils the most detailed view of Earth's changing oceans, seas, rivers and lakes

Over the past 32 years, 90,000 sq km of water have vanished. The drying up of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (pictured) accounts for the biggest loss
EC JRC/Google

From Wired by Victoria Woollaston

Google has partnered with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre to produce the greatest views of water on the surface of Earth ever.

The images show changing water levels, and reveal some of the stories behind the changes from the past three decades to see how they "have shaped the world over time, in unprecedented detail."

Timelapse is a global, zoomable video that lets you see how the Earth has changed over the past 32 years. Explore the world through time at https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse.
Image credit: Landsat / Copernicus

The project took more than three years and involved thousands of computers downloading 1.8 petabytes of data from the USGS/NASA Landsat satellite program.
Each pixel in 3 million satellite images, going back to 1984, was analysed by an algorithm developed by the Joint Research Centre running on the Google Earth Engine platform.

Poyang Lake, Jiangxi China
EC JRC/Google 

More than 10 million hours of computing time was needed for this, roughly equivalent to a modern 2-core computer running day and night for 600 years.
From this, the researchers were able to establish that, over the past 32 years, 90,000 square kilometres of water - the equivalent of half of the lakes in Europe - have vanished, while 200,000 square kilometres of new, mostly man-made water bodies appeared.

The continuing drying up of the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan accounts for the biggest loss in the world.
Iran and Afghanistan lost over a half, Iraq over a third of its water area.

The research findings and the maps, published in the journal Nature, can be explored on the Global Surface Water Explorer site.
The data is also available in Google Earth Engine to help designers, engineers and other organisations research, use, and download.

The maps, statistics and stories, for example, can help global water security, agricultural planning, preparing for disasters, public health, climate research and so on.

The water research used the same engine recently involved in creating Google's fascinating Timelapse interactive map.

 

Timelapse was first released in 2013 and a recent update added four more years of satellite imagery, petabytes of new data and sharper photos than in any previous version.
Users can now explore Antartica’s shifting glaciers, Bangkok’s sprawling urban growth and the rapidly drying Aral Sea.

Links :

• The Guardian : Google's satellite timelapses show the inconvenient truth about our planet /  Google timelapse
• YouTube : videos
• Time : Google timelapse 2016 
• DailyMail : Watch Earth change eyes Google unveils stunning 3 decade timelapse planet

The climate-changing desert dust fertilising our oceans

Dust from western Africa in the centre of the picture, pushing across the Atlantic Ocean on easterly winds in June 2014.

NASA

From Leeds University

The way in which man-made acids in the atmosphere interact with the dust that nourishes our oceans has been quantified by scientists for the first time.

In an international study led by the University of Leeds, researchers have pinpointed how much phosphate “fertiliser” is released from dust depending on atmospheric acid levels.

 This portrait of global aerosols was produced by a Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 simulation at a 10-kilometer resolution.

Dust (red) is lifted from the surface, sea salt (blue) swirls inside cyclones, smoke (green) rises from fires, and sulfate particles (white) stream from volcanoes and fossil fuel emissions.

High-resolution global atmospheric modeling run on the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, provides a unique tool to study the role of weather in Earth's climate system.
Credit: William Putman, NASA/Goddard

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all life, and when it falls into the ocean, it acts as a fertiliser that stimulates the growth of phytoplankton and marine life.
The new study allows scientists to quantify exactly how much phosphate “fertiliser” is released from dust depending on atmospheric acid levels.

 Massive sandstorm blowing off the NW African desert (February 2000)

NASA

Dr Anthony Stockdale, from the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, is lead author of the study.
He said: “The ability to quantify these processes will now allow models to predict how pollution on a global scale modulates the amount of fertiliser released in airborne dust before it falls into the oceans.
“Many regions of the globe are limited by the amount of phosphorous available, so pollution can have a very important impact on marine ecosystems.”

Fellow author Michael Krom, an Emeritus Professor from Leeds who is now at the University of Haifa, added: “If more carbon dioxide is taken up by marine plants due to fertilisation from acidified dust, it is possible that air pollution may have been inadvertently reducing the amount of greenhouse gases, while at the same time increasing the amount of plants and even fish in areas such as the Mediterranean Sea.”

Co-author Professor Athanasios Nenes, of Georgia Institute of Technology, said the implications went beyond the carbon cycle and climate.
“The Mediterranean is one of many locations of the globe where pollution and dust mix frequently,” he said.
“This study points to one more way this interaction can affect marine life and the 135 million inhabitants of its coastline.”

Professor Krom added: “The next step is to develop models which include this new pathway for increased plant growth in the ocean, in order to fully determine the effect on marine ecosystems and Earth’s climate, considering a full suite of chemical, physical and biochemical processes.”

 Satellite tracks Saharan dust to Amazon in 3-D

For the first time, a NASA satellite has quantified in three dimensions how much dust makes the trans-Atlantic journey from the Sahara Desert to the Amazon rainforest. Among this dust is phosphorus, an essential nutrient that acts like a fertilizer, which the Amazon depends on in order to flourish.
The new dust transport estimates were derived from data collected by a lidar instrument on NASA's Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation, or CALIPSO, satellite from 2007 though 2013.
An average of 27.7 million tons of dust per year – enough to fill 104,980 semi trucks – fall to the surface over the Amazon basin.

The phosphorus portion, an estimated 22,000 tons per year, is about the same amount as that lost from rain and flooding.

The finding is part of a bigger research effort to understand the role of dust and aerosols in the environment and on local and global climate.

NASA 

Apatite: the desert dust nourishing our seas 

Phosphorus is one of the essential elements for life and is a critical component of building blocks such as DNA.
Dusts, from deserts such as the Sahara, are an important source of phosphorus to Earth’s oceans.
The mineral-containing dust is generated in copious amounts during storms and is found throughout the atmosphere.
Most of the phosphorus in this dust is in an insoluble form that the microscopic plants of the oceans – phytoplankton and diatoms – cannot get at.
Known as apatite, the phosphorus in the dust is similar to the substance found in our teeth and bones.
Acids can be released naturally into the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions and from living organisms.

 Canary islands covered by dust (MODIS satellite image)

But the burning of fossil fuels is currently the most significant source of atmospheric acids.
In the same way that acid produced by the bacteria in our mouths can cause tooth decay, so can acids in the atmosphere dissolve apatite and turn it into a form of phosphorus that can be used by marine organisms, the study authors said.
As well as researchers from Leeds, Georgia and Haifa, experts from three institutions in Greece, one in Israel, one in Germany and two others in the UK worked on the findings, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA. 

Links :

• PNAS : “Understanding the nature of atmospheric acid processing of mineral dusts in supplying bioavailable phosphorus to the oceans”
• NASA : Dust Over the Arabian Sea

Smyril

Smyril Line is a Faroese shipping company, linking the Faroe Islands with Denmark and Iceland; previously,
it also served Norway and the United Kingdom.

Smyril is the Faroese word for the merlin.

Invisible ocean: plankton & plastic

Invisible Ocean: Plankton & Plastic - Full Movie [HD] from BonSci Films

This movie, directed by Emily V. Driscoll, is an award-winning short documentary that follows NYC sci-artist Mara G. Haseltine as she creates a sculpture to reveal a microscopic threat beneath the surface of the ocean.

During a Tara Oceans expedition to study the health of the oceans, Haseltine finds an unsettling presence in samples of plankton she collected.

The discovery inspires her to create a sculpture that shows that the microscopic ocean world affects all life on Earth.

The film features Mara G. Haseltine, Christian Sardet (The Plankton Chronicles, TARA Oceans) and Mark Anthony Browne (Ecologist NCEAS).

Watch Mara G. Haseltine's art film featuring her sculpture and opera singer Joseph Bartning: La Boheme- A Portrait of Our Oceans in Peri 

The 2016 Ocean Health Index shows no major declines—and few real improvements

The Raja Ampat Islands, an Indonesian archipelago, known for coral reefs rich with marine life.
Credit: Conservation International / Photo by Sterling Zumbrunn

From Phys by Julie Cohen

The results are in, and while the world's oceans show no significant decline over the past year, their condition should not be mistaken as a clean bill of health.

So say the scientists behind the 2016 Ocean Health Index (OHI), an annual study that evaluates key aspects—biological, physical, economic and social—of ocean health worldwide.
The OHI defines a healthy ocean as one that sustainably delivers a range of benefits to people now and in the future based on 10 diverse public goals.
This year's score is 71, unchanged from those for 2013-2015, which were recalculated using the current year's improved methods.
"We've given the oceans their annual checkup and the results are mixed," said UC Santa Barbara ecologist Ben Halpern, OHI chief scientist.
"It's as if you went to the doctor and heard that, although you don't have a terminal disease, you really need to change your diet, exercise a lot more and get those precancerous skin lesions removed.
You're glad you're not going to die but you need to change your lifestyle."

 Coastal protection

A score of 100 means optimal productivity from the ocean in a sustainable way.

Established in 2012, the OHI is a partnership between UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and the nonprofit environmental organization Conservation International.
The index serves as a comprehensive tool for understanding, tracking and communicating in a holistic way the status of the ocean's health.
It also provides a basis for identifying and promoting the most effective actions for improved ocean management on subnational, national, regional and global scales.
"What is really exciting about having several years of assessment is that we can start to see where and by how much scores are changing year to year and begin to understand the causes and consequences of those changes," said Halpern, director of NCEAS and a professor in UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.

 High seas

Scores for each goal—or subgoal—range from 0 to 100, and the fourth consecutive global score of 71 indicates that while the ocean has remained stable, its condition is far from the desired 100 that would indicate full sustainability.
Two exclusive economic zones (EEZs) demonstrate higher scores and therefore better efforts at sustainability.
For example, Germany, with a population of 81 million, ranked fourth among the 220 EEZs assessed with a score of 85.
The much-less-populated Seychelle Islands (with about 97,000 people) ranked eighth with a score of 84.
These areas exemplify effective social and environmental governance systems for improving ocean health.

Tourism & recreation

Successive years of global OHI assessments also identify potential trends.
The Livelihoods & Economies goal, for example, showed the most rapid score increase between 2012 and 2013, possibly reflecting recovery from the recession that began in 2008.
Lasting Special Places (a subgoal of Sense of Place) scores improved by an average of 0.5 points per year, likely due to the designation of marine protected areas.
Consistently low scores for Tourism & Recreation (47) highlight countries that are not sustainably maximizing benefits derived from a healthy tourism sector.
Scores for Food Provision (54) and Natural Products (48) indicate that many regions are either harvesting unsustainably or not maximizing their sustainable potential to produce more food from the sea.

 High Seas: Food Provision: Wild Caught Fisheries

The overarching issue of poor quality data (or no data at all) limits the ability to estimate the status of fish stocks in many regions as well as the overall status of fisheries.
Biodiversity (91) and Coastal Protection (87) goals remain the highest scoring.
Reference points for both include maintaining coastal habitats at or about their 1980 levels, so decline of these scores from 100 has occurred in less than four decades.
Continuing threats to habitat could lower scores further.

 Clean waters

The OHI team works directly with more than 25 countries across priority marine regions, including the Pacific, East Africa and Southeast Asia.
Nations in these areas lead independent assessments known as the OHI+, which have already driven marine conservation actions at national levels by shaping China's 13th five-year plan, Ecuador's National Plan for Good Living and Mexico's National Policy on Seas and Coasts.
By providing an annual comprehensive database baseline for global ocean health, the OHI offers all coastal countries a starting place for assessing the status of their marine resources and environments and utilizing an ecosystem-based approach toward management.
"We believe the Ocean Health Index gives reason for hope by providing a detailed diagnosis of the state of ocean health and also a framework that allows countries to identify and prioritize the most necessary resilience actions to improve ocean health," said Johanna Polsenberg, senior director of governance and policy for Conservation International's Center for Oceans.
"This is where our work is most valuable. It may take some time for such actions to be reflected in the scores—but the steps being taken are essential to ensure a healthy ocean into the future."

Links :

• Phys : Researchers create first regional Ocean Health Index