What defines the greatness of Men?Is it just the results you get? Or the commitment to pursuit your dreams? Why some people are afraid of the ocean while others can't live without dropping 40 feet waves? This
short documentary follows the story of João de Macedo, an underdog big
wave surfer who tries to run the world tour without a major sponsor. Filmed over the last 6 months in some of the most iconic big wave surf spots around the world.
Wave information is crucial for people working at sea, to be able to navigate and operate safely.
A new product based on satellite altimeter data detailing ‘Significant Wave Height' now enables this.
High waves are not only dangerous but can threaten delicate procedures at sea, so wave information is paramount for operating safely and efficiently.
For instance, in oil and gas offshore platform operations, historic data and forecasts of wave heights are vital for the safety of personnel, equipment and the environment.
Marine renewable energy operations and site studies require similar information on waves and ship routing can also be improved by such forecasts.
In physical oceanography, the Significant Wave Height (SWH) is defined traditionally as the mean wave height (trough to crest) of the highest third of the waves.
This mathematical definition of ocean wave height is intended to express the height that would be estimated by a trained observer, capturing the most significant waves over the water surface.
Satellite wave measurements come from two main sources: altimetry and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).
The SWH can be obtained through altimetry and directional and spectral information with SAR.
The Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) released the first real-time global wave product based on satellite data, broadening its offer—previously based on numerical wave forecast models.
Released in the summer of 2017, this new product from satellite altimeter data contains the Significant Wave Height from Jason-3 and from the Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite altimeter data, provided within three hours after data acquisition.
CMEMS buoy-based in-situ wave coverage In-situ wave data, typically provided by buoys, are very helpful to validate satellite wave products but in many areas of open water such buoys are not available, because of the difficulty and costliness of installation and maintenance. Copyright: processed by INSITU TAC /CMEMS
It provides quality-filtered and inter-calibrated along-track high-resolution SWH (one measurement every 07 km, or every second).
These measurements contribute to global ocean coverage along the satellite ground tracks with 07 km resolution.
Such satellite wave products represent actual measurements of the waves, covering the entire Earth, regularly and homogeneously over several years.
They often offer a better portrayal of extreme events, which numerical models tend to under estimate.
In-situ wave data, typically provided by buoys, are similarly very helpful but in many open-water areas such moored buoys are not available, mainly due to the technical difficulty and cost of installing and maintaining them in deep ocean, far from the coast (see figure).
Wave data assimilation Sentinel-3A wave data assimilation in the CMEMS global wave forecast model has a strong impact in the north-west of the Pacific Ocean related to the typhoon season and in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Harvey. Analysis increment (in metres) of Significant Wave Height (SWH) after 1-day of assimilation of Sentinel-3A wave data in the CMEMS Global Wave Model MFWAM (starting date on 29 August, 2017 at 06:00 UTC to 30 August, 2017 at 0:00 UTC). Copyright: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2017)/ processed by Météo France/CMEMS
Sentinel-3A's wave data are also assimilated into numerical real-time wave models to provide wave forecasts with better accuracy.
For example, assimilation into the CMEMS global wave forecast model has a strong impact in the north-west of the Pacific Ocean related to the typhoon season and in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Harvey (see figure).
Dr Romain Husson, responsible for wave products at CLS for CMEMS, says, "In the first quarter of 2018, CMEMS will also deliver wave products derived from Sentinel-1A and -1B's SAR instrument.
With respect to altimetry, SAR has the unique ability to measure the wave period and direction on top of the SWH and is particularly well suited for long waves, sometimes also referred to as swell."
This visualisation shows ocean colour in the north Atlantic and along the Iberian coast, caused by Chlorophyll activity from January - July 2017.
Audio commentary is provided by EUMETSAT's remote sensing scientist, Ewa Kwiatkowska.
This data is freely available from the EU’s Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS), operated by Mercator Ocean.
About the Sentinels
The Sentinels are a fleet of dedicated EU-owned satellites, designed to deliver the wealth of data and imagery that are central to Europe's Copernicus environmental programme.
In partnership with EU Member States, the European Commission leads and coordinates this programme, to improve the management of the environment, safeguarding lives every day.
ESA is in charge of the space component, responsible for developing the family of Copernicus Sentinel satellites and ensuring the flow of data for the Copernicus services, while the operations of the Sentinels have been entrusted to ESA and EUMETSAT.
Underwater exploration using an undulating remote-controlled soft robotic fish capable of
swimming in three dimensions enables studies of aquatic life in natural habitats.
Like a miniaturized Moby Dick, the pure-white fish wiggles slowly over the reef, ducking under corals and ascending, then descending again, up and down and all around.
Its insides, though, are not flesh, but electronics.
And its flexible tail flicking back and forth is not made of muscle and scales, but elastomer.
SoFi was developed with the goal of being as nondisruptive to ocean life as possible, swimming alongside real fish for several minutes at a time. Photo courtesy of MIT CSAIL
The Soft Robotic Fish, aka SoFi, is a hypnotic machine, the likes of which the sea has never seen before.
In a paper published today in Science Robotics, MIT researchers detail the evolution of the world’s strangest fish, and describe how it could be a potentially powerful tool for scientists to study ocean life.
SoFi's lightweight setup includes a single camera, a motor, and the same lithium polymer battery that can be found in consumer smartphones.
Scientists designed SoFi to solve several problems that bedevil oceanic robotics.Problem one: communication.
Underwater vehicles are typically tethered to a boat because radio waves don’t do well in water.
What SoFi’s inventors have opted for instead is sound.
“Radio frequency communication underwater just works for a few centimeters,” says MIT CSAIL roboticist Robert Katzschmann, lead author of the paper.
“Acoustic signals in water can travel for much longer and with much less energy consumption.” Using sound, divers can pilot the robot fish from almost 70 feet away.
Using its undulating tail and a unique ability to control its own buoyancy, SoFi can swim in a straight line, turn, or dive up or down.
Problem two: classical robot electric motors, known as actuators, can be clunky, and the movement they produce can be stuttery.
But SoFi belongs to a burgeoning class of “soft robots,” which are, well, generally soft, and use air or oil to locomote.
But SoFi’s tail contains two hollow chambers that a pump injects with water.
“All you do is cycle the water back and forth,” says Katzschmann, “and that causes the undulation and the wiggling of the soft tail.” That beautifully natural movement makes for a robot that can swim with the fishes without spooking them.
Contrast that with robots that use jet propulsion, which gives a reef collective panic attacks.
The team used a water-proof Super Nintendo controller to change SoFi’s speed and have it make specific moves and turns.
Problem three: swimming is energetically expensive.
In particular, fish need to hang tight at certain depths, but constantly correcting by swimming up or down is inefficient.
So fish have evolved a gas-filled organ called a swim bladder, which allows them to achieve neutral buoyancy.
(Sharks, by the way, have massive livers that give them some buoyancy.)
SoFi uses its own swim bladder of sorts, a cylinder that compresses and decompresses air with a piston.
On top of that, the machine doesn’t have all the empty, airy chambers a typical robot might.
"The compartments that usually would be air-tight, air-filled electronics compartments, we filled with oil," says Katzschmann.
That helps give the robot structural integrity and allows it to reach depths of 60 feet by better controlling its internal pressure.
What the researchers have landed on is a truly fishy robot, both in form and function.
And that could be a big deal for fish biologists of the near future.
In their initial studies, the researchers found that fish would sometimes swim alongside their robot, all curious-like.
“Other times they were not at all distracted by anything, while us as divers, if we would get close to those fish they would just swim away instantaneously," says Katzschmann.
For the time being, SoFi is remote-controlled.
But the idea is that future versions would use machine vision to lock onto individual fish and follow them around, all without raising suspicion.
That could help scientists study schooling dynamics, or monitor the health of fish populations in increasingly unhealthy oceans.
“It could help us with the problems of fish avoidance and fish attraction that are associated with other forms of monitoring with robots and divers,” says Northeastern’s Hanumant Singh, who develops autonomous underwater vehicles but was not involved in the research.
Bonus: Unlike Moby Dick, SoFi will never turn on its enemies or make us read 600-page novels about itself. Links :
Russian submarines have dramatically stepped up activity around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic, part of a more aggressive naval posture that has driven NATO to revive a Cold War-era command, according to senior military officials.
The apparent Russian focus on the cables, which provide Internet and other communications connections to North America and Europe, could give the Kremlin the power to sever or tap into vital data lines, the officials said.
Russian submarine activity has increased to levels unseen since the Cold War, they said, sparking hunts in recent months for the elusive watercraft.
“We are now seeing Russian underwater activity in the vicinity of undersea cables that I don’t believe we have ever seen,” said U.S.
Navy Rear Adm. Andrew Lennon, the commander of NATO’s submarine forces.
“Russia is clearly taking an interest in NATO and NATO nations’ undersea infrastructure.”
NATO has responded with plans to reestablish a command post, shuttered after the Cold War, to help secure the North Atlantic.
NATO allies are also rushing to boost anti-submarine warfare capabilities and to develop advanced submarine-detecting planes.
Dmitry Donskoy. The Might of the Nuclear «Shark»
The largest submarine in the world
Britain’s top military commander also warned that Russia could imperil the cables that form the backbone of the modern global economy.
The privately owned lines, laid along the some of the same corridors as the first transatlantic telegraph wire in 1858, carry nearly all of the communications on the Internet, facilitating trillions of dollars of daily trade.
If severed, they could snarl the Web.
If tapped, they could give Russia a valuable picture of the tide of the world’s Internet traffic.
“It’s a pattern of activity, and it’s a vulnerability,” said British Air Chief Marshal Stuart Peach, in an interview.
“Can you imagine a scenario where those cables are cut or disrupted, which would immediately and potentially catastrophically affect both our economy and other ways of living if they were disrupted?” Peach said in a speech in London this month.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the cables.
The Russian sea activity comes as the Kremlin has also pressed against NATO in the air and on land.
Russian jets routinely clip NATO airspace in the Baltics, and troops drilled near NATO territory in September.
Russia has moved to modernize its once-decrepit Soviet-era fleet of submarines, bringing online or overhauling 13 craft since 2014.
That pace, coming after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula set off a new era of confrontation with the West, has spurred NATO efforts to counter them.
Russia has about 60 full-size submarines, while the United States has 66.
Among Russia’s capabilities, Lennon said, are deep-sea research vessels, including an old converted ballistic submarine that carries smaller submarines.
“They can do oceanographic research, underwater intelligence gathering,” he said.
“And what we have observed is an increased activity of that in the vicinity of undersea cables.
We know that these auxiliary submarines are designed to work on the ocean floor, and they’re transported by the mother ship, and we believe they may be equipped to manipulate objects on the ocean floor.”
That capability could give Russia the ability to sever the cables or tap into them.
The insulated fiber-optic cables are fragile, and ships have damaged them accidentally by dragging their anchors along the seabed.
That damage happens near the shore, where it is relatively easy to fix, not in the deeper Atlantic, where the cost of mischief could be far greater.
Lennon declined to say whether NATO believes Russia has actually touched the cables.
Russian military leaders have acknowledged that the Kremlin is active undersea at levels not seen since the end of the Cold War, when Russia was forced to curtail its submarine program in the face of economic turmoil and disorganization.
“Last year we reached the same level as before the post-Soviet period, in terms of running hours,” said Adm. Vladimir Korolev, the commander of the Russian Navy, earlier this year.
“This is more than 3,000 days at sea for the Russian submarine fleet.
This is an excellent sign.”
The activity has forced a revival of Western sub-hunting skills that lay largely dormant since the end of the Cold War.
Lennon said NATO allies have long practiced submarine-hunting.
But until the last few years, there were few practical needs for close tracking, military officials said.
In recent months, the U.S. Navy has flown sorties in the areas where Russia is known to operate its submarines, according to aircraft trackers that use publicly available transponder data.
On Thursday, for example, one of the planes shot off from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, headed eastward into the Mediterranean.
It flew the same mission a day earlier.
The trackers have captured at least 10 missions carried out by U.S. submarine-tracking planes this month, excluding trips when the planes simply appeared to be in transit from one base to another.
November was even busier, with at least 17 missions captured by the trackers.
NATO does not comment on specific submarine-tracking flights and declined to release data, citing the classified nature of the missions.
But NATO officials say that their submarine-tracking activities have significantly increased in the region.
It’s a little-known twist in the cyber-warfare between nations that carries potentially devastating consequences.
At a time when more than 95% of everything that moves on the global Internet passes through just 200 undersea fiber-optic cables, potential adversaries such as the US, Russia, China, and Iran are focusing on these deep-sea information pipes as rich sources of intelligence as well as targets in war.
The weapons earmarked for the struggle include submarines, underwater drones, robots and specialized ships and divers.
The new battlefield is also a gray legal zone: Current Law of the Sea conventions cover some aspects of undersea cables but not hostile acts.
There’s evidence that missions are already underway and that most big powers, including the US, are keen on engaging in such activities.
Cables can also be attacked by terrorists and other non-state actors.
The damage from such hard-to-detect acts could be enormous, since a foe’s economy, in addition to military and diplomatic communications, could be blinded.
As more nations exploit the Internet for political or military gain, it’s also clear that the tactical concept of undersea cables as critical assets to be attacked or defended is an idea whose time has come
Submarines are particularly potent war-fighting craft because they can generally only be heard, not seen, underwater.
They can serve as a retaliatory strike force in case of nuclear war, threaten military resupply efforts and expand the range of conventional firepower available for use in lower-level conflicts.
The vessels are a good fit for the Kremlin’s strategy of making do with less than its rivals, analysts say: Russia’s foes need vast resources to track a single undersea craft, making the submarines’ cost-to-mischief ratio attractive.
Even as Russia remains a vastly weaker military force than NATO, the Kremlin has been able to pack an outsize punch in its confrontation with the West through the seizure of Crimea, support for the Syrian regime and, according to U.S. intelligence, its attempts to influence the U.S. election.
“You go off and you try to add expense for anything that we’re doing, or you put things at risk that are of value to us, and submarines give them the capability to do it,” a senior NATO official said of the Russian approach, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments.
Russian military planners can say, “I can build fewer of them, I can have better quality, and I can put at risk and challenge and make it difficult for NATO,” the official said.
Still, some analysts say the threat to cables may be overblown.
“Arguably, the Russians wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they couldn’t threaten underwater cables.
Certainly, NATO allies would not be doing theirs if they were unable to counter that,” said Adam Thomson, a former British ambassador to NATO.
Russian military planners have publicized their repeated use of submarine-launched Kalibr cruise missiles during their incursion into Syria, which began in fall 2015.
(In Syria, the missiles have not always hit their targets, according to U.S. intelligence officials, undermining somewhat the Russian claims of potency.)
NATO’s hunts — which have stretched across the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic — have mobilized submarine-tracking frigates, sonar-equipped P8 Poseidon planes and helicopters, and attack submarines that have combed the seas.
“The Russians are operating all over the Atlantic,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“They are also operating closer to our shores.”
Russia’s enhanced submarine powers give urgency to NATO’s new efforts to ensure that it can get forces to the battlefront if there is a conflict, Stoltenberg said.
In addition to the new Atlantic-focused command, the alliance also plans to create another command dedicated to enabling military forces to travel quickly across Europe.
NATO defense ministers approved the creation of the commands at a November meeting.
Further details are expected in February.
The plans are still being negotiated, but they currently include the North Atlantic command being embedded inside the U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, which would transform into a broader NATO joint force command if there was a conflict, a NATO diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that have not been finalized.
“Credible deterrence is linked to credible reinforcement capabilities,” Stoltenberg said.
“We’re a transatlantic alliance. You need to be able to cross the Atlantic.”
Real-time oceanic data is elusive By 2025, more than half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas.
But scientists struggle to collect and analyze even the most fundamental data about the real-time conditions of our oceans, lakes and rivers.
There are specialized sensors that can be deployed to detect specific chemicals and conditions in water, but they miss unanticipated ones, like invasive species or the introduction of new chemicals from run off. Plankton, however, are natural, biological sensors of aquatic health.
Even slight changes in water quality affect their behavior.
They also form the foundation of the oceanic food chain, which serves as the primary source of protein for more than a billion people.
Yet very little is known about how plankton behave in their natural habitat, because studying them typically requires collecting samples and shipping them to a laboratory.
Small autonomous AI microscopes, networked in the cloud and deployed around the world, will continually monitor in real time the health of one of Earth's most important and threatened resources: water.
IBM’s mission is to help their clients change the way the world works.
There’s no better example of that than IBM Research’s annual “5 in 5” technology predictions.
Each year, we showcase some of the biggest breakthroughs coming out of IBM Research’s global labs – five technologies that they believe will fundamentally reshape business and society in the next five years.
This innovation is informed by research taking place at IBM Labs, leading edge work taking place with our clients, and trends we see in the tech/business landscape.
Later today, they’ll introduce the scientists behind this year’s 5 in 5 at a Science Slam held at the site of IBM’s biggest client event of the year: Think 2018 in Las Vegas.
Watch it live or catch the replay here.
Science Slams give their researchers the opportunity to convey the importance of their work to a general audience in a very short span of time — approximately 5 minutes.
they have found this to be an extremely useful exercise that makes our innovation more accessible by distilling it down to its core essentials.
Here’s a summary of the two of the five predictions IBM scientists will present this year.
Illustration of the AI-powered robot microscope The microscope has no lens and relies on an imager chip, like the one in
any cell phone, to capture the shadow of the plankton as it swims over
the chip, generating a digital sample of its health, without the need
for focusing.
Our oceans are dirty.
AI-powered robot microscopes may save them.
In five years, small, autonomous AI microscopes, networked in the cloud and deployed around the world, will continually monitor in real time the health of one of Earth’s most important and threatened resources: water.
IBM scientists are working on an approach that uses plankton, which are natural, biological sensors of aquatic health.
AI microscopes can be placed in bodies of water to track plankton movement in 3D, in their natural environment, and use this information to predict their behavior and health.
This could help in situations like oil spills and runoff from land-based pollution sources, and to predict threats such as red tides.
AI bias will explode.
But only the unbiased AI will survive.
Within five years, we will have new solutions to counter a substantial increase in the number of biased AI systems and algorithms.
As we work to develop AI systems we can trust, it’s critical to develop and train these systems with data that is fair, interpretable and free of racial, gender, or ideological biases.
With this goal in mind, IBM researchers developed a method to reduce the bias that may be present in a training dataset, such that any AI algorithm that later learns from that dataset will perpetuate as little inequity as possible.
IBM scientists also devised a way to test AI systems even when the training data is not available.
"Hold your breath," says inventor Tom Zimmerman.
"This is the world without plankton."
These tiny organisms produce two-thirds of our planet's oxygen -- without them, life as we know it wouldn't exist.
In this talk and tech demo, Zimmerman and cell engineer Simone Bianco hook up a 3D microscope to a drop of water and take you scuba diving with plankton.
Learn more about these mesmerizing creatures and get inspired to protect them against ongoing threats from climate change.
Our oceans are dirty.
AI-powered robot microscopes may save them.
By 2025, more than half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas.
But scientists struggle to collect and analyze even the most fundamental data about the real-time conditions of our oceans, lakes and rivers.
There are specialized sensors that can be deployed to detect specific chemicals and conditions in water, but they miss unanticipated ones, like invasive species or the introduction of new chemicals from run off.
Plankton, however, are natural, biological sensors of aquatic health.
Even slight changes in water quality affect their behavior.
They also form the foundation of the oceanic food chain, which serves as the primary source of protein for more than a billion people.
Yet very little is known about how plankton behave in their natural habitat, because studying them typically requires collecting samples and shipping them to a laboratory.
IBM researchers are building small, autonomous microscopes that can be placed in bodies of water to monitor plankton in situ, identifying different species and tracking their movement in three dimensions.
The findings can be used to better understand their behavior, such as how they respond to changes to their environment caused by everything from temperature to oil spills to run off.
They could even be used to predict threats to our water supply, like red tides.
The microscope has no lens and relies on an imager chip, like the one in any cell phone, to capture the shadow of the plankton as it swims over the chip, generating a digital sample of its health, without the need for focusing.
In the future, the microscope could be outfitted with high performance, low power AI technology to analyze and interpret the data locally, reporting any abnormalities in real-time so they can be acted upon immediately.
Because what’s good for plankton is good for all of us.
AI bias will explode. But only the unbiased AI will survive.
Within five years, the number of biased AI systems and algorithms will increase, much like the increase of computer viruses in the early aughts.
But we will deal with them accordingly –coming up with new solutions to control bias in AI and champion AI systems free of it.
AI systems are only as good as the data we put into them.
Bad data can contain implicit racial, gender, or ideological biases.
Many AI systems will continue to be trained using bad data, making this an ongoing problem.
But IBM believes that bias can be tamed and that the AI systems
that will tackle bias will be the most successful.
The number of biased AI systems and algorithms will dramatically increase, but we will come up with new solutions to control bias and champion AI systems free of it.
We may even improve ourselves in the process.
As humans and AI increasingly work together to make decisions., researchers are looking at ways to ensure human bias does not affect the data or algorithms used to inform those decisions
The MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab’s efforts on shared prosperity are drawing on recent advances in AI and computational cognitive modeling, such as contractual approaches to ethics, to describe principles that people use in decision-making and determine how human minds apply them.
The goal is to build machines that apply certain human values and principles in decision-making.
A crucial principle, for both humans and machines, is to avoid bias and therefore prevent discrimination.
Bias in AI system mainly occurs in the data or in the algorithmic model.
As we work to develop AI systems we can trust, it’s critical to develop and train these systems with data that is unbiased and to develop algorithms that can be easily explained.
To this aim, IBM researchers developed a methodology to reduce the bias that may be present in a training dataset, such that any AI algorithm that later learns from that dataset will perpetuate as little inequity as possible.
IBM scientists also devised a methodology to test AI systems even when the training data is not available.
This research proposes that an independent bias rating system can determine the fairness of an AI system.
For example, the AI service could be unbiased and able to compensate for data bias (the ideal scenario), or it could be just following the bias properties of its training (which could be solved by data de-biasing techniques), or it could even introduce bias whether the data is fair or not (the worst scenario).
The AI end-user will be able to determine the trustworthiness of each system, based on its level of bias.
Identifying and mitigating bias in AI systems is essential to building trust between humans and machines that learn.
As AI systems find, understand, and point out human inconsistencies in decision making, they could also reveal ways in which we are partial, parochial, and cognitively biased, leading us to adopt more impartial or egalitarian views.
In the process of recognizing our bias and teaching machines about our common values, we may improve more than AI.
We might just improve ourselves.
The exact origin of the expression “to draw a line in the sand” is unknown.
Some say it stems from the invasion of Egypt in 168 BC by Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria whereas others argue that it is associated with the Battle of the Alamo.
One of the most popular origin stories is that it is derived from John 8:6 in which Jesus draws a line on the ground while addressing those eager to stone a woman accused of adultery.
That the expression moved from the more tangible “ground” in the Bible to the more ephemeral “sand” in current use, is perhaps fitting.
While humans have a tendency to fix firm boundaries and expect no one to cross them, the historical record is testament to just how fickle and fleeting such lines in the sand can be.
This 17th century map provides a colorful and eye-catching view of the Arctic regions!
Inherently dynamic and temporally limited, the capricious nature of lines is noticeable in any discussion of the Arctic.
As the circumpolar north has increasingly come to the fore of international relations, such discussions have taken many tones.
Will conflict break out over unsettled boundaries?
Will a revisionist power seek to change existing delimitations?
While definitive answers to these questions are not found in the past, examining how we got to the present can provide insight into long-term trends.
A different view of the world! This circular map has the North Pole in the centre, and shows the geology of everything above the Arctic Circle.
New Polar Frontiers
European powers, obsessed with the idea that there might be a shorter passage to Asia through the North American landmass, had long held an interest in the Arctic.
In the areas where solid land existed, the normal (European derived) rules of acquisition of title applied.
To be sovereign over a slice of the new world, the European powers had to demonstrate both the corpus and animus occupandi—the ability and intention to exert power over a given piece of land.
To prove that a state had the ability to control a given territory, they had to demonstrate the “colonial effectivités” (sovereign activities) required.
This normally manifested as proof of administrative control such as deed registration, tax collection, and the licensing of professions.
In 1822, for example, the Russian Minister to Washington, Pierre de Poletica, defended Moscow’s claims to Alaska based on the “three bases required by the general Law of Nations and immemorial usages among nations; – that is, upon the title of first discovery; upon the title of first occupation; and, in the last place, upon that which results from a peaceful and uncontested possession of more than half a century.”
A century later the Dominion of Canada, eager to shore up its claims to the Arctic Archipelago, relied on a similar mixture of discovery, occupation, and uncontested claims.
What’s up with Canada’s Arctic maps?
Arctic Yearbook editor Heather Exner-Pirot walks us through the weird world of Canada’s eccentric northern cartography.
(Circumpolar North Map/Government of Canada)
Sector Theory
How the Arctic Ocean and the extended icepack would be divvied up was a trickier question as effective occupation was not an option.
Instead, a new approach reminiscent of the Papal Bulls that divided the new world emerged: the sector theory.
This theory was first proposed in public in a speech to the Canadian Senate by Pascal Poirier, a Senator, in 1907.
The sector theory was simple: draw straight lines from the land boundaries of the respective Arctic countries, across the ocean and the ice, to the North Pole—this would be the new division of the Arctic.
It should be noted that Poirier believed that Canada’s claims to the Arctic relied on other forms of title first and foremost; the sector theory was only a fourth element.
Despite receiving a cold reception in the Canadian Parliament, the sector theory drew much attention in the interwar period.
This was, in part, due to a decree released by the Soviet Presidium in 1926 that based its claim to Arctic lands on the basis of the sector theory.
Proponents of the theory, both Soviet and otherwise, rested their claims on rather fragile grounds.
They argued that a sectoral approach would ease tensions between Arctic states and that it was simple, practical, and inevitable.
Opponents fiercely opposed this approach, saying that it reversed the traditional order of acquisition of title: how can a state lay claim to something it knows nothing about? Many saw the sectoral approach, based as it is on the idea of contiguity, as a perversion of the now discarded hinterland doctrine.
UNCLOS
While the Arctic was militarized during WWII and remained so during the Cold War, an awkward legal status quo persisted with the Soviet Union maintaining their sectoral approach and the United States choosing a more conservative, at times disinterested, approach to the issue.
In the 1990s things took a turn towards cooperation with the two superpowers negotiating maritime boundaries in the Bering Strait, Bering Sea, and the Chukchi Sea.
As with the hinterland doctrine during the scramble for Africa, the sector theory passed out of usage.
In its place, states reverted to the traditional means of demonstrating title for territory and turned to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to resolve the maritime aspects of the Arctic frontier.
An illustration showing the territorial sea, the contiguous zone,
the exclusive economic zone and the international waters.
Made by Arctic Portal
Of the Arctic countries, all but one has ratified UNCLOS.
The sole objector, the United States, nevertheless considers the key provisions of the “constitution of the seas” as customary international law.
States are allowed to claim a twelve-nautical-mile territorial sea, a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and the possibility of exercising sovereign rights over an extended continental shelf beyond 200-nautical miles if it can be considered a “natural prolongation” of the coastal state’s landmass.
Extensive data is required to support such claims, which are then processed by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf—a commission of scientific experts.
In case of overlap or conflict, treaties have become the primary means of finalising boundaries and, in the minority of cases, boundary disputes come before third-party dispute settlement mechanisms.
The donut hole
Going forward
Although but a brief overview of the evolution of how states have drawn lines in the Arctic—and one that omits the suppression of Indigenous ways of understanding the Arctic—several patterns can be tentatively teased forth.
Of particular note, where different visions of the region have co-existed, there has been no resort to the use of force even where the capacity to do so existed.
The Soviets, for example, eventually peacefully relinquished their approach derived from the sector theory.
Instead, successful boundaries have been those fixed by rendering the Arctic knowable through administration, maps, and data.
When on land, these boundaries were decided by proving effective occupation of a territory.
Maritime boundaries, for their part, are being delineated through data provided to UNCLOS—at least for the time being.
Could it be that, going forward, states will eschew revisionism and stay the cooperative course? History, of course, cannot answer this; but it does provide interesting food for thought.
In 1971 Jacques Cousteau, a French oceanographer, called for a shift in how humans see the oceans.
“We must plant the sea and herd its animals…using the sea as farmers instead of hunters,” he said.
“That is what civilisation is all about.”
Cousteau's call fell largely on deaf ears at the time.
The environmental movement was only just beginning and humans were still dealing with the sea as they always had: as hunters, who took from it what they wanted and dumped into it what they did not want.
In the past decade, however, two important developments have changed that.
First, with growing environmental awareness it has become clear that the hunter-gatherer relationship cannot continue.
And second, technology is making it possible to interact with the sea in a different way.
Underwater drones are now able to get to previously unexplorable places, such as underneath glaciers in Antarctica, to assess the impact of global warming.
New forms of unmanned, robotic boats have been developed to sail the seas gathering data on ocean temperature, pollutants, carbon-dioxide and oxygen concentrations.
It will be possible to transfer all of this data instantly back to shore from anywhere on the ocean using newly built internet infrastructure, and there are already markets for such data among weather forecasters, fisheries managers, and oil and gas companies.
New open-ocean fish farms with automatic feeders (pictured) enable more fish to be farmed in deeper waters—a way to ease the crisis of overfishing.
There are even military implications, with improved undersea surveillance making it harder for submarines to hide, thus denting their second-strike capabilities.
Transas chief executive Frank Coles’ summarises current digital and IT challenges and urges regulators to remove barriers to technology change
At the root of the change is the ability to produce smaller, cheaper electronic components that use less power.
The smartphone boom has kickstarted progress in drones, robotics and small satellites that are already being as transformative in the sea as in the skies and in space.
All of this reduces the number of people involved and does away with the expense of keeping people alive on or under the sea.
So it vastly expands the volume of the ocean that can be monitored and measured, whether for fishery management or weather forecasting.
Lithium-ion batteries allow underwater drones to travel for up to 60 hours on one charge, giving them a range of about 400km.
Harvesters with pressure-resistant electronic innards will soon be used to gather ore from seabeds that were previously inaccessible.
This in turn could reduce the amount of destructive mining that takes place on land.
There are dangers, however.
Humans have not shown much restraint in the past with new technologies that enable faster or easier extraction of resources.
So it will be crucial to regulate people’s ability to use the new technology, as well as regulating to reduce the risks already being taken.
The International Seabed Authority, for instance, is overseeing the new system to authorize mining the deep ocean floor, and is expected to approve by 2019 the first attempt to do so off the west coast of Mexico.
If such systems can be put in place, the potential for transforming human interaction with the oceans is very real, to the benefit of human beings and the oceans themselves.
Data may encapsulate the events of a single second or many years; it may span a small patch of Earth or entire systems of suns and planets. Visualizing data within its natural environment maximizes the potential for learning and discovery. Scientific visualization can clarify data’s relationships in time and space. In this visualization, the issue of the declining sea ice near the North Pole is set in its natural configuration. The visualization begins by showing the dynamic beauty of the Arctic sea ice as it responds to winds and ocean currents. Research into the behavior of the Arctic sea ice for the last 30 years has led to a deeper understanding of how this ice survives from year to year. In the animation that follows, age of the sea ice is visible, showing the younger ice in darker shades of blue and the oldest ice in brighter white. An analysis of the age of the Arctic sea ice indicates that it traditionally became older while circulating in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska and was then primarily lost in the warmer regions along the eastern coast of Greenland. In recent years, however, warmer water in the Beaufort Sea, possibly from the Bering Strait, often melts away the sea ice in the summer before it can get older. This visual representation of the ice age clearly shows how the quantity of older and thicker ice has changed between 1984 and 2016.
Ant Steward circumnavigated the world in 1992 on the tiny open boat called "Zulu Dawn"
but named "NCS Challenger" for the voyage.
In 1992 Anthony (Ant) Steward left Cape Town, SA amid warm farewells from hundreds of people. His goal: to be the first person to circumnavigate in an open boat.
The craft he selected was a Dudley Dix designed TLC 19 open cockpit day sailor.
Ant beefed it up with DIY structural upgrades, foam flotation, and rig and rudder modifications.
He had nowhere to build his boat and talked a friend into letting him do it inside his apartment.
Getting it into and out of the apartment must have been an interesting exercise.
Resin smells and woodwork noises in the early hours eventually led to an enforced removal to Royal Cape Yacht Club, where she spent the last couple of months before launching.
Many expected to never see him again and talked of his foolishness.
He said that if we thought that he was mad we should get to know his mother, then we would know where he got it from.
He had decided that he was sane and the rest of us were crazy for staying behind.
It would have been a crowded boat if we had not. Tony Stewart lost his charts five days into the journey. He figured that Columbus and others never had charts so he used a world map and a compass to complete the trip.
For part of the voyage, Ant had a small video camera aboard.
40 years ago, the oil tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks, 5 km (3.1 mi) from the coast of Brittany, France, on 16 March 1978, and ultimately split in three and sank, all together resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date.
FOUR decades after a devastating oil spill off the Brittany coast threatened to pollute Jersey’s beaches, a special fund established in its wake is looking for more projects to support.
The Jersey Ecology Trust was set up in 1991 with £344,592, Jersey’s share of $155 million damages imposed by an American court on the Amoco Corporation, owners of the Amoco Cadiz oil tanker.
Position of the 'Amoco Cadiz' shipwreck with the GeoGarage (SHOM)
48°35.56538' N / 4°43.05597 W
The vessel ran aground off the coast of Brittany on 16 March 1978 in extreme storm conditions.
Over the following two weeks, the 223,000 tonnes of oil and 4,000 tonnes of ship’s fuel spewed into the sea in what was the largest oil spill of its kind in history at that time, posing a serious threat to the Channel Islands.
Thankfully, favourable tidal and wind conditions and rough seas – and the efforts of the Royal Navy, UK and local fishermen to disperse the 40-mile long slick – kept it at bay.
Deputy Scott Wickenden, chairman of the Ecology Fund, said: ‘The Amoco Cadiz spill had a devastating impact on wildlife and marine habitats across the Channel.
However, through the insight and hard work of Islanders who helped establish the Ecology Fund, some good has come out of it.
‘The projects it has helped fund over the years have addressed some of the ongoing environmental issues Jersey faces, such as declining habitat, and impact of development and commercial exploitation, and inspired and educated a new generation.’
photo Portsall : Ouest France
More than £150,000 has been paid out since 1991 to almost 150 local projects.
These have included a nature garden at Mont à l’Abbé School, Birds on the Edge project to revive declining farmland bird numbers, a study of the local red squirrel population and woodland management training for Jersey Trees for Life.
Mont à l’Abbé School head teacher Liz Searle said: ‘We are grateful to the Ecology Fund for giving us a donation of £1,300 last year to enable us to carry out maintenance in the forest school area, so the children could continue to use this wonderful learning space.’
The threat to the islands from the Amoco Cadiz disaster was over by the end of March 1978.
The islands escaped relatively unscathed but dead birds and tar continued to be washed up on Jersey’s and Guernsey’s beaches for many months.
However, it took many years for the Brittany coast to recover.
By the end of April 1978, the slick had contaminated almost 200 miles of coastline, clogging holiday beaches with a thick black layer of crude oil, contaminating shellfish stocks and killing at least 20,000 sea birds and millions of molluscs, sea urchins and clams.
The clean-up operation involved 6,000 French soldiers and thousands of volunteers.
Some beaches had to be cleaned six times and traces of the pollution can be seen to this day. Links :
Melting ice shelves are changing the ocean's chemistry at the South Pole and the result could be a change in global currents and increased glacial melt, according to scientists who are creating maps to feed into climate change models.
At the North and South Poles, cold dense water sinks, powering the so-called global ocean conveyor belt, a complex system reliant on heat transfer and density that drives ocean currents throughout the world.
When ice shelves melt, they dump freshwater into the sea which lightens
the salty water.
Credit: Flickr/NASA ICE, licensed under CC BY 2.0
This system regulates regional climates but is threatened when large amounts of freshwater – such as glacial ice – fall into the sea.
Ice shelf melt means that more glacial ice will be dumped into the ocean, and this risks switching off the conveyor belt, because diluted, less dense saltwater is less likely to sink.In the Antarctic, at depths between 500 and 2000 metres, a surprisingly warm salty water mass can be found, called Circumpolar Deep Water.
At certain points under Antarctica, this warm water comes into contact with the underside of the ice shelves and melts the ice.
If more warm salty water is reaching the bottom of the ice shelves than in previous years, this could fuel an increase in ice-shelf melt.
Dr. Laura Herraiz Borreguero of the University of Southampton, UK, and coordinator of the OCEANIS project, is tracking the movements of this warm salty current, to see if there are any fluctuations or changes compared to previous years.
By analyzing and comparing data collected by other researchers, she has discovered that in the last 20 years, the warm salty water current has become more commonly found.
The effects are even more pronounced in the inhospitable East Antarctica region, a part of the continent that is generally less well-researched than West Antarctica, as it's much more difficult to access.
This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007.
The goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.
This visualization was produced using model output from the joint MIT/JPL project: Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II or ECCO2 (http://ecco2.org).
ECCO2 uses the MIT general circulation model (MITgcm) to synthesize satellite and in-situ data of the global ocean and sea-ice at resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow current systems, which transport heat and carbon in the oceans.
ECCO2 provides ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization.
The dark patterns under the ocean represent the undersea bathymetry.
Topographic land exaggeration is 20x and bathymetric exaggeration is 40x.
Because ice shelves act as speed bumps for glacial ice flow and slow down the rate at which Antarctic glaciers reach the sea, an increase in ice-shelf melt would mean that glaciers could dump vast amounts of freshwater ice into the ocean unchecked.
'If we lose (the ice shelves), the speed of the glaciers could be four to five times faster,' said Dr. Herraiz Borreguero.
Her next challenge is to determine precisely what impact the change in circumpolar deep water will have.
'What I'm looking at now is how this alters the properties of the water around Antarctica, also in relation to the Southern Ocean circulation,' she said.
'Improving our knowledge of ice shelf-ocean interactions is a critical step toward reducing uncertainty in projections of future sea level rise.'
Ocean circulation is also being studied by Dr. Melanie Grenier of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France, who coordinates the GCP-GEOTARCTIC project.
The project is part of a multinational collaborative effort called GEOTRACES that aims to better understand global ocean circulation and marine cycles by examining the distribution of dissolved and particulate chemical elements suspended in the water column.
Particle concentrations, distributions and exchanges can tell scientists a lot about what's going on in the water column.
Certain water masses have distinct properties, for example being nutrient-rich, or nutrient-poor, warm, cold, salty or fresh.
Particles of ash from ancient volcanic eruptions are helping tie
together climate records from different sources.
Credit: National
Science Foundation/Josh Landis
Thorium-230
Dr. Grenier uses a chemical tracer called thorium-230 to monitor the volume of particles and has found that the composition of water at the North Pole is changing.
'The Amerasian Arctic exhibits lower concentrations of this geochemical tracer than in the past, consistent with the increasing trend of sea ice retreat and a subsequent increase of particle concentrations.'
One of the reasons for this is a decrease in ice cover.
Less ice means that more light can enter the ocean and that more life can develop, leading to an increase of marine particles.
Less ice also means more interaction with the atmosphere, notably with the wind, which can increase the mixing in the ocean, and so particles lying in the sediment are re-suspended into the water column.
While this is not necessarily damaging by itself, it is indicative of changes in ocean circulation and could affect the global ocean conveyor belt.
However, it's not known how sensitive that system might be to change, so scientists will have to continue to monitor the situation.
Both OCEANIS and GCP-GEOTARCTIC intend to create maps based on their research – for OCEANIS, detailing the points where warm water reaches Antarctic ice shelves, and for GCP-GEOTARCTIC, a map of global thorium-230 distribution, with input from other GEOTRACES scientists.
These will be used to develop better-informed models to predict how the planet should react to changes in climate.
The models are also being enhanced by researchers who are aligning climate records from marine sediments and ice by using fine particles of volcanic ash as a common thread.
Vertical cylinders of marine sediment and ice, known as cores, are used by geologists to determine what past climates were like.
As ice freezes or sediment settles, they trap air, particles and fossils that provide clues to the climate at that time.
But, it can be difficult to match a particular piece of a marine sediment core to the corresponding time period of an ice core.
Dr. Peter Abbott of Cardiff University, UK, and the University of Bern, Switzerland, runs a project called SHARP to develop a method of doing just that.
'The technique that I'm using is called tephrochronology,' he said.
'We trace particles from past volcanic eruptions between the ice and the marine cores.
If you can find the same eruption, then it can act as a tie-line between those records as the particles were deposited at the same time in both environments.'
Dr. Abbott uses laboratory methods and optical microscopy to scan the cores and identify ash layers hidden within the ice and marine cores.
Each individual volcanic event leaves a unique chemical fingerprint on the material it expels, which means researchers can use the ash to correctly match up the ice cores and the sediment cores, giving scientists more accurate information about past climates, and consequently improving the predictive models.
'If we can explain how the climate has changed in the past, it gives us a better understanding of how it might be forced in the future,' said Dr. Abbott. Links :
Environmentalists are chasing industrial fishers that may be threatening fisheries in developing waters and marine protected areas.
Ocean conservationists from watchdog group Oceana are hunting for illegal fishing activity, and one new method they are exploring for catching offenders is satellite data.
The data comes from a monitoring network called the Automatic Identification System, or AIS.
AIS was established so large ships could broadcast their locations and avoid collisions.
In a new report from Oceana, researchers detail examples of how they used AIS collected by conservation group Global Fishing Watch to track four fishing vessels that were "going dark," or trying to avoid detection.
They say the case studies are examples of how AIS data can be used to track illegal fishing activities in the future.
"Illegal fishing is a global problem that's threatening the sustainability of our world's fisheries," says Lacey Malarky, an analyst for Oceana and co-author on the report.
"It's a big deal for countries that rely on seafood for their livelihoods. [Illegal fishing] really impacts local communities that need oceans to survive."
Illegal fishing also threatens a number of marine protected areas that are set up to restrict fishing activities in order to keep marine animal populations healthy, but which may be difficult for many countries to patrol.
Tracking dark ships
In the specific cases Malarky and her co-author Beth Lowell analyzed, ships were transmitting AIS signals for some of the time, and algorithms were then used to identify when the signal ceased for longer than 24 or 48 hours.
"It really is happening everywhere in every ocean and in a lot of countries' national waters," says Malarky.
"These four case studies are just the tip of the iceberg."
A Panamanian ship called the Tiuna was the first fishing boat they identified going dark.
In October 2014, the vessel was transmitting AIS data on the western boundary of the Galápagos Marine Reserve.
The region is one of the most biodiverse on the planet and hosts a number of lucrative fish.
The ship was dark for 15 days before it began transmitting signals again on the reserve's eastern border.
A Panamanian commercial fishing vessel seemed to disappear on the west side of the Galápagos Marine Reserve, reappearing after 15 days on the east side of the reserve.
Courtesy of Oceana
Over 2015 and 2016, an Australian commercial fishing vessel called the Corinthian Bay appeared to enter a no-take marine reserve on 10 separate occasions.
According to the data, the vessel turned off its AIS system before entering the reserve and turned on its system after exiting.
An Australian commercial fishing vessel appeared to disable its AIS near the Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve on 10 separate occasions over one year.
In 2014 and 2015, a Spanish fishing vessel called the Releixo went dark when leaving the port of Dakar in Senegal and entering Gambian waters.
The ship went dark at least 21 times during this period, each time for an average of 16 days.
A Spanish commercial fishing vessel appeared to repeatedly go dark when approaching The Gambia’s national waters over a one-and-a-half-year period.
The final case study highlighted in the report looked at a Spanish vessel called Egaluze that, over a period of seven months from 2012 to 2013, appeared to turn off its AIS system while operating in national waters of five different African countries.
The vessel also turned off its navigation monitoring system while on the high seas.
Another Spanish commercial fishing vessel appeared to turn off its AIS signal consistently over a seven-month period while operating in the national waters of at least five African countries and on the high seas.
"The regions we're highlighting are illegal fishing hotspots," says Malarky.
"Going dark is not necessarily illegal. It may indicate that they're doing something suspicious, but we can't prove they're doing anything illegal because we can't see what they're doing."
Evading detection by pirates, for example, is one reason a fishing vessel may need to disable its AIS detection system.
"It is a difficult task to discern between intentional disabling of the AIS, equipment malfunction, or issues with satellite coverage," says Juan Mayorga, a marine data scientist whose report last month also used Global Fishing Watch data to estimate that industrial fishing covers a third of the planet.
"Despite these limitations, we can—for the first time—use this data to investigate patterns of suspicious behavior and close-in on potentially illegal behavior. A vessel going dark now triggers a signal that tells us when and where to look," Mayorga adds.
Increasing transparency
The report made several recommendations to increase transparency around ships turning off AIS systems.
One is around vessel size.
The International Maritime Organization requires all passenger ships, tankers, and ships above a certain weight to transmit AIS, but the EU mandates the rule only for vessels longer than 15 meters. Individual governments can mandate how to what extent that requirement is enforced and conservationists say this is a major loophole.
"There really is no global standard," adds Malarky.
To track commercial fishing activity around the world, SkyTruth, a small nonprofit based in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, has recently launched Global Fishing Watch in partnership with Google and Oceana.
This prototype tool analyzes a satellite-collected feed of tracking data from ships' automatic identification systems—which vessels use to communicate their location to one another—to map movement over time and automatically determine which ships are engaged in fishing activity.
Each vessel is pinpointed on a map outlining fishing laws around the globe.
This map is publicly available on the Web, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to act as a watchdog and see when and where commercial fishing activity is occurring.
Her report also recommends vessels be required to state why they stop transmitting AIS, paired with stronger enforcement by local governments to punish—and thus deter—law-breaking activities.
In addition to protecting developing nations' fisheries, the report states enforcing AIS best practices plays an important role in helping reach the UN goal of protecting 10 percent of the ocean by 2020 (a goal we likely won't reach).
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