A 40-year-old tin of bacon and vacuum-packed leftovers are among the treats a scientist has enjoyed for Christmas dinner while spending 17 festive seasons in a tent in the Antarctic.
Geologist Dr Teal Riley will spend the season under canvas with a stranger.
He stays at the British Antarctic Survey's base - more than 6,200 miles (10,000km) from his home - for months.
He said it made him realise how special Christmas is when he does get to spend it with his family.
About 150 staff work at BAS's Rothera research station at this time each year, for what is the Antarctic summer.
Dr Riley, 49, has worked for the Cambridge-based organisation for 25 years and for most of those he has missed Christmas at home with his partner and their son.
The tiny pyramid tents are made of the same tightly woven cotton used by
Scott's Antarctic expeditions in the early 20th Century
He can be dropped off up to five hours' flying time away from the main base
Instead he spends it in a small tent in temperatures up to -20C (-4F) with a polar guide - a trained mountaineer he will have met just days beforehand.
"You do end up feeding off each other's mood - and you know when to shut up," he said.
Dr Riley flew out in mid-December and expects to be there for up to three months.
Polar guide Malcolm Airey (l) was Dr Riley's Christmas tent mate in 2014
One year they tucked in to a lovely tin of 40-year-old bacon (l) they found in an old hut
Christmas Day is much like any other and is spent in the field contributing to BAS's studies into climate change.
He is able to contact his family via email from a satellite phone but his priority remains getting on with the research.
Fieldwork teams went everywhere by dog sleds until 1994
Most travel now takes place on snow mobiles
"If you have good weather, you work," he said.
Although one Christmas he spent three days stuck in the tent because of storms.
"That can be quite terrifying," he said.
Temperatures in the field can reach up to -20C
However, they try to make extra time for dinner when the working day is done.
"Last season we had leftover chicken which had been vacuum-packed several months before.
"One year we came across an old dog sled depot used in the 1960s or 70s and found some tins of bacon - one of them was quite reasonable, so we had that."
Dr Teal added: "I'm not a Grinch, so it really does make Christmas feel much more special when I can actually be at home with my family."
The Chinese cargo ship Huai Hia Ji 1 Hao (yellow) transits southeast on the Huangpu river.
Upon nearing the center of GPS interference area the track jumps to the ring on land and to other random positions nearby.
Positions from other affected vessels are shown in red.
GPS interference can be pinpointed based on this ring of false AIS positions.
Approximately 200 meters in diameter, many of the positions in the ring had reported speeds near 31 knots (much faster than a normal vessel speed) and a course going counterclockwise around the circle.
A ring of false AIS positions marks an apparent GPS interference device deployed in an office building identified as the Qingdao tax administration office.
AIS data courtesy Global Fishing Watch / Orbcomm / Spire.
Of the locations observed, 16 were oil terminals; the others were corporate and government offices.
GPS spoofing in Shanghai that resulted in reported positions from ships, fitness trackers and other GPS enabled devices forming circles some distance from the shore was first observed by the non-profit C4ADS.
Subsequently, Professor Todd Humphreys briefed the phenomena at an Institute of Navigation conference in September.
This caught the interest of an analyst at the environmental non-profit Skytruth.
Evaluating a larger data set of ship AIS (Automatic Identification System) data, analyst Bjorn Bergman discovered at least 20 locations near the Chinese coast where similar spoofing had taken place in the last two years.
Aggressive GPS spoofing impacting shipping has been detected in over 20 Chinese coastal sites during 2019. These included the ports of Shanghai, Fuzhou (Huilutou), Qingdao, Quanzhou (Shiyucun), Dalian, and Tianjin.
Sixteen of these “spoofing circle” locations were oil terminals.
The most frequent occurrences by far were at the port of Dalian in northern China, close to the border with North Korea.
Based upon the timing of the spoofing, imposition of sanctions on purchase of Iranian oil by the United States, and observations by others of Iranian oil being received by China, Bergman suggests that much of the spoofing is designed to help conceal these transactions.
Of the four locations not associated with oil terminals, three were government offices and one was the headquarters of the Qingjian industrial group, a huge engineering and construction conglomerate.
These infrequent and irregular events may be related to visits by important government officials.
A C4ADS report earlier this year demonstrated Russia uses GPS spoofing extensively for government VIP protection.
On March 1, 2019 AIS vessel position data around an oil terminal east of Dalian China shows accurate vessel positions and speeds.
On that date, none of the four locations of GPS interference were active.
Consequently no vessel positions appear on land and stationary vessels are accurately shown with near 0 speeds (green).
On September 5, 2019 two GPS interference locations were active and this had a dramatic effect on scrambling vessel positions in the area.
Many positions now appear orbiting the presumed GPS interference devices and others appear scattered on land.
On the water many positions are appearing with very high speeds (over 25 knots, red) and it’s not possible to distinguish true and false locations.
However some slow speed positions (green) are appearing at dock where they would be expected, so some AIS broadcasts appear to be unaffected.
The tanker Jin Niu Zuo approaches an oil terminal east of Dalian on September 5. Initially, positions with normal transit speeds appear (yellow).
With closer proximity, scattered high speed positions begin to emerge (red) and eventually most positions appear in the ring surrounding the presumed AIS interference device.
Bergman suggests that the actual spoofing device is located at the center of each of the rings formed by false GPS reports.
He has also observed that not all AIS/GPS receivers in the impacted area are affected, the spoofing circles tend to be about 200 meters in diameter, many false vessel positions orbit the circle counterclockwise at 21 knots or 31 knots, and some receivers are spoofed to locations other than the circle.
A new video showing how to spoof GPS from a Windows computer!
You don’t need to be a hacker (or know Linux) to spoof anymore. Scary.
Mass GPS spoofing is most easily detected and analyzed in coastal areas because of the availability of large data sets from AIS transmissions.
AIS is a maritime safety system that uses GPS for location and movement information.
This data is broadcast to other ships and shore stations to help prevent collisions and improve traffic management.
Example of vessel traffic in Shangai
Close-up, Ship locations reported near Shanghai inner harbor, just before being spoofed.
Here is an interesting plot of the locations ships reported just before being spoofed: This indicates that the spoofing is affecting ships from the location of the circle all the way up the Huangpu to the Yangtze (about 10 km) and then along a stretch of the Yangtze that spans about 30 km.
Affected ships are also found south of the circle for about 10 km along the Huangpu. This view suggests that there is a higher density of prior-to-spoofed locations along the Huangpu just west of the bounding box.
This may be due to a higher density of ships in that area, but given that the overall span of the first chart above is roughly centered on the bounding box, I think it’s safe to conclude that the higher density of prior-to-spoofed locations in the above chart indicates that the spoofer’s actual location is near the bounding box (and thus near the circle).
Image: Todd Humphreys
The U.S. Coast Guard first experimented with receiving AIS signals by satellite in 2008.
Since that time, numerous governments and commercial entities have established AIS data services using both space-based and terrestrial receivers.
It is likely that the kinds of disruptions seen in Russian and Chinese maritime regions are occurring elsewhere.
The lack of easily accessible data from non-maritime areas, though, makes this more difficult to detect.
Confounding this problem is an apparent reluctance of many users to report disruptions.
The U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center has had only one official report a GPS problem from a user in Russian waters and one from Chinese waters, for example.
Yet it is clear that thousands of vessels have been impacted in ways that must have been quite evident to their captains and crews.
I would never believe the most scary yet beautiful sailing experince in my 27 years of sailing would happen in the waters right outside my hometown!
I want to state that I under no circumstandses encourage anyone to head out in a storm force 10.
On the other hand I will say that this is an amazing way to build confidence in yourself and your yacht.
But to do this you will have to trust your boat and gear 100%, and make sure she can take it.
To get to that level you will have to try in more and more wind and waves and observe how the boat, and not the least yorself, copes in the different conditions.
And when the day comes you will at some time man up and go for it.
If you dont trust yourself and the boat, but still force yourself to try, you will most lightly have a very frightening experience that will sit with you for a long time, maybe ruining your joy for the sport.
So go prepeared.
Anyway, step onboard and join me for this insane offshore rollercoaster ride!
