Winds and waves on the oceans are getting (slightly) stronger every year

Global trends in extreme (90th percentile) wind speed over the period 1985-2018.

Areas in red indicate increasing values, whereas blue indicates decreases.

Credit: Professor Ian Young

 Global trends in extreme (90th percentile) wave height over the period 1985-2018.

Areas in red indicate increasing values, whereas blue indicates decreases.

Credit: Professor Ian Young, University of Melbourne

From DiscoverMag by Bill Andrews

In the world of climate science — and science in general — data is king.
The more of it you have, and the higher its quality, the better.
And while such trends as the rise in temperatures and sea levels have impeccable data behind them, not every measure of a changing climate has been so lucky.

Take the global wind and wave climate, for example, which measures trends in wind speed and wave height in oceans around the globe.
Both of these factors affect the interplay between the atmosphere and ocean of both energy and carbon (more winds equal choppier waters, which can get in the way of air-to-water energy transfers), and of course higher waves could spell more trouble during storm surges and affect flooding levels.
But it had been historically tricky to get reliable long-term data on these phenomena to study any possible trends.

Until now, that is.
A paper in Science today uses satellite data to analyze wind speed and wave height over more than 30 years, and concluded that on average both are increasing, especially in the southern hemisphere, and especially during extreme conditions like storms.
They also demonstrated a useful way to study these things in the first place, which should prove helpful to scientists moving forward.

Image: Changes in wave power in different oceans over time, Nature.

Defective Data

Why did it take till now to amass and analyze what should be a fairly straightforward dataset?
As the paper’s authors explain, it wasn’t that easy.
Ocean buoys, “the most obvious data source,” have proven problematic because changes over the years in their construction and instrumentation mean the data they’re spitting out isn’t really consistent in the long term.
So it’d be comparing apples to, if not oranges, then at least other kinds of apples — not ideal.

Thus, they turned to the satellite record, which currently runs from 1985 through 2018.
Not bad, but the same worries came up there, too: With all the different kinds of hardware and software in space, maybe their data isn’t reliable enough for such research either?

So, the authors decided to go in and find out.
As you may have surmised by now, it worked out.

 credit picture : Ameen Fahmy (unsplash.com)

Going Up

In particular, they studied the data collected by three kinds of instruments on satellites: altimeters, which measure both wave height and wind speed; radiometers, which measure wind speed; and scatterometers, which measure wind speed and direction.

After cross-checking all the numbers, cross-validating with other satellites and just generally making sure they weren’t being fooled by anything, the authors concluded that these past 30-odd years had seen a strong positive trend in global wind speed, and a weaker (but still noticeable) increase in wave heights.
They also noted the trends were much stronger in extreme cases, which they defined as the data from the set’s 90th percentile.

Not that any of the actual changes were especially high.
Wind speeds went up by about an inch per second every year — about twice the speed of a garden snail — across the Southern Ocean and south of the equator, where the trends were strongest.
The change was about half that in the North Atlantic.
(The extreme cases had the same distribution, but with faster speeds, around two inches per second per year.)
Things weren’t quite as clear cut for wave height, but there were patches with overall rises of about a tenth of an inch per year, and one surprising spot in the North Pacific with a drop of about half an inch per year.

MODIS satellite image (21/05/2010)

Closing in on Climate

It might not sound like much, fractions of an inch here or there, but the results do show clear trends for global behavior over time.
Any improvement on our understanding of the global wind and wave climate is helpful, the authors write, since “estimates of future ocean wind and wave states, and whether extreme conditions are changing, are important elements of projections of total sea level.”

The team also showed that the satellites can be trusted, since each of the different kinds of instruments, aboard 31 total orbiting satellites, ultimately showed data consistent with each other.
This means future studies can rely on this increasingly rich data set without having to worry about comparing apples to anything else.

So not only did the authors add some specific bits of that all-important data to the global climate record, they also made it easier for future researchers to do the same.

Links :

• Oursuit : Ocean waves and winds are getting higher and stronger
• ScienceMag : The ocean’s tallest waves are getting taller
• The Guardian : World's oceans are becoming stormier, researchers discover
• Phys : 33-year study shows increasing ocean winds and wave heights
• NewScientist : Extremely fast winds and high waves are now happening more often

Around-the-World expedition finds 200,000 species of viruses in the oceans

Samples being collected.

 The research, led by scientists at the Ohio State University, has wide-ranging implications, from evolution to biotechnology to climate change.

(A. Deniaud/Fondation Tara Ocean)

From Gizmodo by Ryan F. Mandelbaum

After traveling around the world, sampling the ocean from pole to pole, scientists have uncovered nearly 200,000 populations of marine viruses.

In the marine ecosystem, tiny living things called microbes make up most of the ocean’s biodiversity and over half of its biomass.
But much less is known about the viruses—packets of genetic information that replicate inside other living things—that exist in the oceans.
Scientists set out to study the marine viral community, its diversity, and its function, especially how it impacts microbes.
On Thursday, they announced the creation of an enormous, global catalog of marine viruses, marking an important step in answering many of these questions.
“It expands our knowledge of what the biological entities on our planet are,” Ann Gregory, study author and postdoctoral researcher at VIB-KU Leuven in Belgium, told Gizmodo.

 The Tara.

A rotating team of scientists boarded a sailboat called the Tara between 2009 and 2013 and collected water samples from varying depths across many geographical regions.

Those samples were then filtered and shipped to dozens of different labs that are part of an effort known as the Tara Oceans Consortium. 

(A. Deniaud Garcia/ Fondation Tara Ocean)

The data comes from 146 samples taken on several expeditions aboard the the schooner Tara, including 41 samples from a 2013 trip to the Arctic Ocean.
The researchers first needed to identify whether the genetic material in the sample was viral or not, with various bioinformatic tools comparing it to known viruses, explained study co-author Ahmed Zayed, graduate student at the Ohio State University.
Then, they compare the DNA strands to one another in order to divide them into viral populations.

Examples of virus species from the new survey.

The new revelations about biodiversity in the Arctic are important because they provide a starting point for further research in the region -- one of the hardest hit by climate change.

Now that scientists know the Arctic is home to so many species of viruses, they can investigate why exactly that is and how much of that biodiversity will be lost as climate change continues to affect the region, Sullivan said.
The research also creates a massive data set that has biotechnological implications.
"Viruses tend to steal genes and do really interesting things with them.

So someone who's savvy in biotechnology can mine this data set to find new enzymes that can help us in our everyday lives, whether that's cosmetic products or creating a new thermocycler or some sort of engineering process," Sullivan explained. 

Image credits: Jennifer Brum.

The analysis revealed 195,728 populations of viruses, 12 times more than the previous analysis on a smaller Tara dataset, according to the paper published in Cell.
A closer look revealed that these populations seem to sort into five meta-communities, which the researchers call ecological zones: Arctic; Antarctic; deeper than 2,000 meters; 150 to 1,000 meters; and temperate/tropical waters with depths of 0 to 150 meters.
Perhaps surprisingly, latitude didn’t predict viral diversity.

 Matthew Sullivan, a microbiologist at the Ohio State University and one of the study's authors, called it a road map to understanding how viruses affect ecosystems in the ocean.
"Having that road map helps us do a lot of the things we'd be interested in to better understand the ocean and, I hate to say it, but maybe to have to engineer the ocean at some point to combat climate change," Sullivan told.

Jennifer Brum and Matt B. Sullivan / Lab. Ohio State

It’s an exciting piece of work.
Microbes are perhaps the key drivers of the ocean’s biochemical processes, and microbes are infected by viruses.
“I think that people are aware that viral diversity far exceeds that of the vast microbial diversity,” Alison Buchan, professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, told Gizmodo.
“But there have not been a great number of studies that have tried to quantify the extent of that diversity.”

 The study revealed that viruses are organized into five distinct ecological zones throughout the ocean.
It also revealed new hotspots of biodiversity -- areas that are rich in species but also under threat from human activity.

Some of the most surprising hotspots they found were in the Arctic Ocean. 

The study could also help scientists better understand how viruses affect Earth's atmosphere -- and how viruses can help mitigate the effects of climate change, Sullivan said.
Marine organisms produce half the oxygen we breathe, and the ocean removes half the carbon dioxide that humans emit into the atmosphere, acting as what Sullivan calls a "climate change sponge."

That process is largely driven by viruses.
Through this research, Sullivan said, scientists could potentially engineer oceans to fight climate change -- meaning they could manipulate viruses in a way that would remove even more carbon dioxide from the air.
"There's a lot of understanding that needs to happen to do that in a societally responsible way, but I think that this kind of study provides quite a foundation to start thinking in that manner," Sullivan said.

© François Aurat / Tara Foundation

What do you do with such a large dataset?
Mainly, you research it to try to better understand the roles of all these viruses.
Like how the rabies virus can increase the aggression of an infected animal to facilitate transmission, maybe some of these viruses are important for the ocean’s chemical processes.
Many of them also lead to the death of the microbes.
And maybe this vast new store of genetic information contains something that will be useful to humans.
“Perhaps you can mine it for new genes,” Gregory said. May researchers will discover novel antibiotics using this genetic information.

What you didn't know about viruses in the ocean | Karen Weynberg
Marine viruses are the dark matter of the world's oceans.

We know more about deep space than we do of the viruses we share Planet Earth with.

Together, let's unlock the secrets of this microscopic world that undoubtedly holds great potential for discovery.

This dataset is certainly not comprehensive, Gregory and Zayed warned.
It includes only viruses that contain DNA, rather than those that contain RNA (somewhat simply, DNA is composed of a pair of complimentary strands of genetic material, while RNA is composed of a single strand).
Buchan also noted that it’s more of a snapshot in time. Six months later, they might have collected different results, she said.

This research is a great reminder that, as much as we know about life on Earth, the oceans remain full of unknowns.

Links :

• BBC : Hundreds of thousands of viruses in oceans
• ScienceAlert : Almost 200,000 Never-Before-Seen Viruses Were Just Discovered Hidden in Our Oceans
• CNN : The world's oceans have nearly 200,000 viral species -- about 12 times more than previously known
• Eureka Alert : Pole-to-pole study of ocean life identifies nearly 200,000 marine viruses
• YouTube : Microbial Mysteries - Deep Ocean Viruses / What you didn't know about viruses in the ocean | Karen Weynberg

This is the most over-fished sea in the world

The Mediterranean supports countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa—but its fish stocks are almost completely collapsed.

Meet the man who is leading attempts to revive its marine habitats. 

This is the extraordinary story of one man’s dream to save the most over-fished sea in the world. Zafer Kizilkaya has almost single handedly turned a ravaged bay in Turkey into one of the most effective and thriving marine conservation areas in the Mediterranean.

His hope is to inspire others to bring marine life back to one of the most famous but damaged parts of the ocean.

It’s a chilly December morning on Turkey’s eastern-Mediterranean coast and Zafer Kizilkaya is a man on a mission.

He’s dedicated to enforcing the no-fishing zones that he has helped create here in Gokova Bay.

Within just 20 minutes Zafer and one of his rangers have spotted something suspicious.

Since marine conservationist Zafer set up the ranger system here in partnership with the Turkish authorities they’ve seen a significant drop in illegal fishing.

It all began after Zafer first visited Gokova Bay in 2008 on a research trip from his home city of Istanbul.

The damage he witnessed to marine life compelled him to stay and devote his life to repairing this.

Zafer lobbied his government to make the bay a protected area and ten years on his research suggests marine life has increased by 800% within his no-fishing zones.

But the revival faced another threat new species of fish coming into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.

These invaders were eating the native fishes’ food and grazing parts of the seabed bare so Zafer had to adapt and come up with an innovative solution.

To make this work, he had to hook the local population into eating these unfamiliar fish and that meant persuading people to change their diets.

Zafer’s vision has delivered the bonus of raising the incomes of local fisher people by 400% and bringing a previously decimated industry back to life.

Visit the fishing co-operative here and you’ll find an array of invasive species for sale caught outside the no-fishing zones.

Zafer’s innovations have delivered for both people and planet in this small bay and he’s now working to create another marine protected area in Turkey.

It looks like a lonely mission.

Latest figures show just 0.04% of the Mediterranean is a no-fishing zone 50 times lower than the average for the whole ocean.

Augmented Reality (AR) in shipping

 MOL deploys augmented reality technology on tanker bridges :
The bridges of many of Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines’ (MOL) tankers are set to get the fighter jet treatment with augmented reality (AR) technology deployed. 

The futuristic navigation system has been developed with compatriot Furuno and is now being installed on 21 VLCCs, after a successful pilot last year on one of the group’s new car carriers and another VLCC. 

The system displays information on other vessels sailing on a vessel’s planned route and surrounding sea areas and other ocean conditions, such as shallow waters. 

It integrates information from the automatic identification system (AIS) and radar with real-time video images from the bridge camera in collaboration with Furuno Electric’s Electric Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) FMD3300 series. 

The system provides visual support to crewmembers during their watch-keeping and ship operations by using AR technology to superimposing real-time video imagery and voyage information. 

“Due to its deep draft, VLCC operations require special care when navigating on the waters such as the Straits of Singapore and Malacca, a heavily trafficked sea lane that has limited areas,” MOL noted in a release

MOL will install the system in its energy transport fleet including LNG carriers, as well as its dry bulk carriers. 

The company stated today that the technology will play a “key role” in realizing autonomous ships in the future.

Augmented Reality Ship exprimentation with Roll Royce 

Links :

• YouTube : eAR is a navigation software that integrates hydrographic charts data to the surrounding space vision using augmented reality. EasyMarine offers the opportunity to evaluate, at your own discretion, all spaces in detail, in any visibility condition and with all relevant information.

Antarctica: thousands of emperor penguin chicks wiped out

When a petrel attackes them, emperor penguing chicks stand together against it. 

From BBC by Jonathan Amos

Thousands of emperor penguin chicks drowned when the sea-ice on which they were being raised was destroyed in severe weather.

The catastrophe occurred in 2016 in Antarctica's Weddell Sea.
Scientists say the colony at the edge of the Brunt Ice Shelf has collapsed with adult birds showing no sign of trying to re-establish the population.
And it would probably be pointless for them to try as a giant iceberg is about to disrupt the site.
The dramatic loss of the young emperor birds is reported by a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

Emperor penguins need a reliable and stable platform of sea-ice

 photo : Christopher Walton

Drs Peter Fretwell and Phil Trathan noticed the disappearance of the so-called Halley Bay colony in satellite pictures.
It is possible even from 800km up to spot the animals' excrement, or guano, on the white ice and then to estimate the likely size of any gathering.
But the Brunt population, which had sustained an average of 14,000 to 25,000 breeding pairs for several decades (5-9% of the global population), essentially disappeared overnight.

 The developing chasm in the Brunt Ice Shelf may have doomed the colony anyway

Emperors are the tallest and heaviest of the penguin species and need reliable patches of sea-ice on which to breed, and this icy platform must persist from April, when the birds arrive, until December, when their chicks fledge.

 2015: The guano stains at Halley colony are visible from space

If the sea-ice breaks up too early, the young birds will not have the right feathers to start swimming.
This appears to have been what happened in 2016.

Strong winds hollowed out the sea-ice that had stuck hard to the side of the thicker Brunt shelf in its creeks, and never properly reformed. Not in 2017, nor in 2018.
Dr Fretwell said: "The sea-ice that's formed since 2016 hasn't been as strong. Storm events that occur in October and November will now blow it out early. So there's been some sort of regime change. Sea-ice that was previously stable and reliable is now just untenable."
The BAS team believes many adults have either avoided breeding in these later years or moved to new breeding sites across the Weddell Sea.
A colony some 50km away, close to the Dawson-Lambton Glacier, has seen a big rise in its numbers.

  2018: The Dawson-Lambton colony has increased its numbers

Quite why the sea-ice platform on the edge of the Brunt shelf has failed to regenerate is unclear. There is no obvious climate signal to point to in this case; atmospheric and ocean observations in the vicinity of the Brunt reveal little in the way of change.
But the sensitivity of this colony to shifting sea-ice trends does illustrate, says the team, the impact that future warming in Antarctica could have on emperor penguins in particular.
Research suggests the species might lose anywhere between 50% and 70% of its global population by the end of this century, if sea-ice is reduced to the extent that computer models envisage.

  Emperors are the tallest and heaviest of the penguin species

photo : Christopher Walton

This would have consequences beyond just the emperors themselves, commented Dr Michelle LaRue, an ecologist at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
"They're an important part of the food web; they're what we call a mesopredator. They're both prey for animals like leopard seals but they also prey themselves on fish and krill species. So, they do play an important role in the ecosystem," she told BBC News.

Dr Trathan said: "What's interesting for me is not that colonies move or that we can have major breeding failures - we know that. It's that we are talking here about the deep embayment of the Weddell Sea, which is potentially one of the climate change refugia for those cold-adapted species like emperor penguins.
"And so if we see major disturbances in these refugia - where we haven't previously seen changes in 60 years - that's an important signal."
Whether the Halley Bay colony specifically really had a future is a moot point.

The Brunt Ice Shelf is being split apart by a developing crack.
This chasm will eventually calve an iceberg the size of Greater London into the Weddell Sea, and any sea-ice stuck to the berg's edge may break up in the process.
The colony could have been doomed regardless of what happened in 2016.
Drs Peter Fretwell and Phil Trathan report their investigation in the journal Antarctic Science.

Links :

• NYTimes : An Emperor Penguin Colony in Antarctica Vanishes
• Gizmodo : 'Catastrophic' Breeding Failures Have Obliterated a Large Emperor ...
• SeattleTimes : Major emperor breeding ground gone barren since 2016 
• The Guardian : Antarctica: emperor penguin breeding ground sees sharp decline in ..
• CNN : The world's second-largest emperor penguin colony has nearly ...
• Smithsonian : One of Antarctica's Largest Emperor Penguin Colonies Has Suffered ...
  
• GeoGarage blog : 'Mega-colonies' of 1.5 million penguins discovered ... / Why did penguins stop flying? / A sneak peak of the 'Penguin Cam' robot infiltrates ...