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Warmest oceans on record adds to hurricanes, wildfires risks

The deeper the red, the warmer the water in this illustration from NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service.
NOAA

From Bloomberg by Brian K Sullivan

The world’s seas are simmering, with record high temperatures spurring worry among forecasters that the global warming effect may generate a chaotic year of extreme weather ahead.

Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans all hit the record books for warmth last month, according to the U.S.
National Centers for Environmental Information.
The high temperatures could offer clues on the ferocity of the Atlantic hurricane season, the eruption of wildfires from the Amazon region to Australia, and whether the record heat and severe thunderstorms raking the southern U.S.
will continue.

In the Gulf of Mexico, where offshore drilling accounts for about 17% of U.S.
oil output, water temperatures were 76.3 degrees Fahrenheit (24.6 Celsius), 1.7 degrees above the long-term average, said Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University.
If Gulf waters stay warm, it could be the fuel that intensifies any storm that comes that way, Klotzbach said.

“The entire tropical ocean is above average,” said Michelle L’Heureux, a forecaster at the U.S.
Climate Prediction Center.
“And there is a global warming component to that.
It is really amazing when you look at all the tropical oceans and see how warm they are.”

The record warm water in the Gulf of Mexico spilled over into every coastal community along the shoreline with all-time high temperatures on land, said Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring section at the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina.
Florida recorded its warmest March on record, and Miami reached 93 degrees Wednesday, a record for the date and 10 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service.

While coronavirus has the nation’s attenton right now, global warming continues to be a threat.
Sea water “remembers and holds onto heat” better than the atmosphere, Arndt said.

A NOAA satellite infrared map of the Western Hemisphere displays heat radiating off of clouds and the surface of the earth, captured by GOES East (GOES-16) on April 20, 2020 at approximately noon EST.

NOAA

Overall, the five warmest years in the world’s seas, as measured by modern instruments, have occurred over just the last half-dozen or so years.
It’s “definitely climate-change related,” said Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts.
“Oceans are absorbing about 90% of the heat trapped by extra greenhouse gases.”

Worldwide, sea temperatures were 1.49 degrees Fahrenheit above average in March.
That’s the second highest level recorded since 1880 for the month of March, according to U.S.
data.
In 2016, temperatures were 1.55 degrees above average.

The first of Colorado State’s 2020 storm reports, led by Klotzbach, forecast this year that eight hurricanes could spin out of the Atlantic with an above-average chance at least one will make landfall in the U.S.
during the six-month season starting June 1.
The U.S.
is set to issue its hurricane forecast next month.
Arctic Systems

The searing global temperatures this year can also be traced back to intense climate systems around the Arctic that bottled up much of that region’s cold, preventing it from spilling south into temperate regions.
Combined with global warming, this was a one-two punch for sea temperatures that’s brought them to historic highs.

One of the best-known examples of how oceans drive global weather patterns is the development of the climate system known as El Nino.
It occurs when unusually warm waters in the equatorial Pacific interact with the atmosphere to alter weather patterns worldwide.
In the Atlantic, for instance, El Ninos can cause severe wind shear that can break up developing storms with the potential to become dangerous hurricanes.

This year, the chance of an El Nino developing is small, and scientists are theorizing one reason could be that climate change is warming all the world’s oceans.
El Nino “depends on contrasts, as well as absolute values of sea-surface temperatures,” according to Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Strengthening Their Fury

Meanwhile, if the Atlantic stays warm through the six-month storm season that starts June 1, the tropical systems can use it as fuel to strengthen their fury.
In 2017, a small storm called Harvey actually fell apart as it crossed Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula into the Gulf, but once it got there it reformed and grew into a Category 4 monster that went on to flood Texas, killing at least 68 people, and caused about $125 billion in damage.

If the Gulf stays record warm “then it raises the risk of another Harvey type storm perhaps,” Trenberth said.

The oceans also play a role in setting the stage for wildfires.
In the case of Australia and the Amazon, really warm areas of the ocean can pull rain away from the land, causing drier conditions and, in extreme cases, drought.
Last year, for instance, the Indian Ocean was really warm off Africa, so that is where all the storms went.
Australia was left high and dry.

Back in the Atlantic, research by Katia Fernandes, a geosciences professor at the University of Arkansas, has also shown a correlation between sea surface temperatures in the northern tropical Atlantic and drought and wildfires in the Amazon.
The warmer the water, the further north rainfall is pulled across South America.

According to the Fernandes model, even Atlantic temperatures in March can serve to predict if the Amazon will be dry and susceptible to fires.

For California, the outlook isn’t as clear.
Wildfires there depend as much on how well vegetation grows, providing fuel for the flames, as it does on the weather conditions coming off the Pacific.

“Tricky question,” said Mike Anderson, California state climatologist.
“Our weather outcomes are influenced by sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, but it depends on where and when the warm waters appear and how long they persist.
In the end we have a highly variable climate that doesn’t map in a statistically convenient way to patterns of sea-surface temperatures.”

Links :

• NOAA : Assessing the Global Climate in March 2020
• The Weather Channel : March 2020 Was Earth's Second-Warmest March on Record, NOAA Says
• Time : World's Oceans Now Warmest on Record, Increasing Risk of ...
• Scientific American : 2020 on Track to Rank in the Top 5 Hottest Years on Record  
• EcoWatch : NOAA: 2020 Could Be Warmest Year on Record

COLREGS: Still fit for purpose?

From Maritime Executive by Harry Hirst

There has been much debate about the COLREGS over the last 12 months or so, with many suggesting that it is now time for not just some amendments but a total revision of the Rules.
So are the COLREGS still fit for purpose?

The future: autonomous ships

Many believe that in the not so distant future, the fundamental changes in the way in which ships will be operated will render the current COLREGS unworkable.
This is primarily a reference to autonomous ships, but it is also the case that the increasing use of automation and reducing numbers of crew are likely to result in the bridges of crewed ships in the future being unmanned for some if not all of the time.

It is generally understood that a fully autonomous ship (one with no crew) or any vessel with an unmanned bridge or cockpit (one with no watch-keeper) cannot comply with the COLREGS.
That understanding comes from Rule 5 which requires every vessel to “at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight as well as by hearing…” and seeing and hearing in this context have always been understood and interpreted as references to the human senses.

It is worth noting however, that this and the other Rules are not directed at humans but at vessels.
So for example, the requirement is for every vessel to maintain a proper look-out, to proceed at a safe speed, and to determine if there is risk of collision; and for the action taken to avoid collision to be large enough to be readily apparent to another vessel observing visually or by radar.
Similarly, in restricted visibility the requirement is for every vessel which hears “apparently forward of her beam the fog signal of another vessel....” to reduce her speed.

The actions of “seeing” and “hearing” do not have to be limited to their human functions; they could be interpreted more widely so as to include the electronic “eye” (camera) and “ear” (microphone) as well as the human eye and ear.
If this wider interpretation were to be adopted then a fully autonomous ship, or a vessel with an unmanned bridge, which is properly equipped with cameras and microphones should be capable of complying with Rule 5.
Indeed, such a vessel may in fact be better equipped for doing so, when one considers, for example, the ability of infra-red and thermal imaging cameras to “see” in the dark and microphones to determine the direction from which a sound is emanating.

Care would be needed to limit the scope of the equipment which can qualify as an electronic “eye.” It could not include radar for example, as the Rule for vessels navigating in or near an area of restricted visibility recognizes that a vessel which is not in sight of another vessel may nevertheless detect the presence of that other vessel by radar.
A vessel fitted with a thermal imaging camera might similarly be able to detect the presence of another vessel in restricted visibility in circumstances where the human eye could not.
The powers of the human eye, however, are well documented, and I believe it should be possible to program the electronic eyes and master computer on an autonomous ship to know when the prevailing visibility calls for the application of Rule 19.

There still remains the issue of seamanship however: how does an autonomous ship, or a vessel with an unmanned bridge, know what “precaution...may be required by the ordinary practice of seamen?” The answer, I believe, will be provided by artificial intelligence (AI).
Computers can be programmed to learn (think: Chess; Go), and it would appear therefore, that the technology may already exist to program a vessel computer to know what the practice of good seamanship requires.

I am not convinced therefore, that the COLREGS necessarily require any amendments to accommodate the fundamental changes in the way that ships will be operated in the future, save perhaps, to include a definition in Rule 3 extending the meaning of the words “by sight,” “visually,” “by hearing,” and “hears.”

The suggestion that new rules must be written now to take into account both manned and unmanned ships, does of course, beg the question: why? The owners of manned ships have to ensure their vessels comply with the COLREGS whatever they might think about these Rules, which have been in operation now for over 40 years.
Why should it be any different for the owner of an unmanned ship?

It is also worth remembering that these Rules, whilst worded differently to their predecessors, prescribe the same basic collision avoidance maneuvers; for example, when two power-driven vessels are meeting head-on, for both to alter their courses to starboard.

The current Rules have evolved into their present arrangement and wordings through a series of incremental changes and amendments over the years, and as result their entry into force during the 1970’s was seamless and largely without incident.
Implementing a complete set of new rules especially new maneuvering rules, or introducing wide ranging amendments to the current Rules, is a potential recipe for disaster.
It would also be a time consuming and costly endeavor, being one that will require international agreement and re-training on a global basis.
I believe we should proceed cautiously therefore before we seek to totally revise the “rules of the road” for the sea.

The present: collisions are still happening

Collisions at sea are still happening, but whilst the number of collisions each year is not noticeably decreasing the world fleet capacity has increased significantly since the COLREGS came into force.

When expressed as a percentage of the world fleet therefore, the number of collisions is actually decreasing over time and therefore showing some improvement.
This said, the number of collisions is still unacceptably high, and it is still very much the case that most all collisions are the result of human error and in particular, a failure to properly implement – or comply with – the Rules.

This however, is not reason to change the Rules.
The Rules are not the cause of collisions; the cause of collisions is the failure by mariners to properly comply with the Rules.
If, as some suggest, the many technologies designed to improve the avoidance of collisions since the rules came into force are being ignored, then the problem is with the mariners and not with the regulators ashore, or with any disconnect between the two.

No amount of regulation will force a mariner to use a particular piece of equipment or technology, just as no amount of regulation will force a mariner to properly comply with the Rules.
Proper compliance with the Rules is a seamanship issue, and seamanship is taught in the classroom and acquired from experience at sea.

The Rules: lack of proper understanding

The cause of collisions is not the COLREGS but how mariners interpret and (mis-) apply the Rules.
Too many mariners today, I feel, lack a proper understanding of the Rules and how they are to be applied.

The causes of most all collisions can be broken down into two broad categories –

1. failure to maintain a proper look-out; and
2. failure to take the appropriate avoiding action.

Proper look-out

With a proper look-out the mariner will make “a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision.” Many collisions occur because the mariner fails to do so, and in particular, to properly appraise the risk of collision.
This is so notwithstanding the technological advances that have occurred during the last 40 years and notably the development of AIS and ARPA which make the job of detecting other vessels and determining their movements much easier today than it was when the COLREGS first came into force.

I question therefore whether mariners are being properly trained in the use and limitations of these “new” navigational aids, and what is meant by “a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision.” An all too frequent criticism of the mariner today is that he or she spends too much time looking at the ARPA and ECDIS and not enough time looking out of the bridge windows.
Certainly, very few mariners today it seems ever slow down to allow themselves more time to make a full appraisal.

A full appraisal requires a proper understanding of the three most important phrases in the Rules: “risk of collision,” “close quarters situation,” and “passing at a safe distance.” These phrases are not defined in the COLREGS, and this is not surprising as their meanings will clearly vary with the prevailing circumstances and conditions of every case.

Too many mariners do not appear to have a proper understanding of the meaning of these phrases and, I believe, are interpreting them too narrowly.
Many mariners, for example, are interpreting “risk of collision” to mean the two vessels will definitely collide if no avoiding action is taken; and believe a few cables is a safe passing distance at sea in open waters in all conditions.

Inappropriate action

Even when a proper look-out is being maintained, collisions are still occurring because mariners are failing to take the appropriate avoiding action.
Action taken to avoid collision should be “positive, made in ample time and with due regard to the observance of good seamanship.” All too often the action taken is too little and too late.
I question therefore, whether mariners are being properly taught the meaning of “positive” and “in ample time.”

Indeed, I have heard of some mariners using the trial maneuver facility on the ARPA to determine what is the minimum alteration of course they have to make to avoid actual collision and ensure the other vessel passes a few cables clear.

Many mariners also do not understand that the overtaking, head-on, and crossing Rules do not apply in restricted visibility when the vessels are not in sight of one another.

No reason to change

That many mariners today appear to lack a proper understanding of the Rules and how they are to be applied is not, in my opinion, reason to change the COLREGS.
It might be reason to do so if this lack of understanding arose from the way in which the Rules have been drafted.
The COLREGS, however, are simply and concisely worded, and the Rules have been logically arranged; and as noted above, the problem is not with the words used in the Rules but with the meanings of those words.

Summary

For all these reasons I believe the COLREGS are still fit for purpose and there is no need for the Rules to be totally revised, whether to accommodate autonomous ships or to reduce the number of collisions.
There are going to be some fundamental changes to the ways in which ships will be operated in the future but these changes will only require a few minor amendments to the COLREGS to ensure the Rules continue to be workable.
If the shipping industry is serious about reducing the number of collisions it would do better to focus its attention on the way in which mariners are taught the Rules and how to apply them, and not upon the Rules and how they might be changed.

Links :

• Safety4Sea : The Nautical Institute: Autonomous ships should comply with COLREGs / Non compliance with COLREGs could lead to collision
• SeaNews : Ship Collisions Are Still a Major Problem: Can AI Help?
  
• YouTube : IRPCS / Colregs, rules of the road

La route du hareng

On Saturday July 28th, 2019 Pierre-André Huglo
left Ouistreham for the Long Route 2018 on Fresh Herring his Contessa 32. 

‘The Boundless Sea’ explores centuries of ocean voyaging

From CSMonitor by Steve Donoghue

Humans have been conducting war, commerce, and exploration on the world’s oceans for thousands of years, and the oceans have been reflected in human literature from its beginnings.
Histories of that relationship abound, including Lincoln Paine’s “The Sea and Civilization,” James Stavridis’ “Sea Power,” and Samuel Eliot Morison’s “The European Discovery of America.”
Now comes David Abulafia’s “The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans,” which focuses on Earth's three largest oceans: the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian.


These pages feature the great sea-going nations of the past, the globe-circling commercial empires built on fragile ships and enormous risks, and Abulafia includes a colorful cast of mostly well-known figures such as Walter Raleigh, Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Christopher Columbus, Francis Drake, Vasco da Gama, Martin Frobisher, James Cook, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and Juan Ponce de León, along with equally important figures who will probably be less familiar to some readers, like the great Ming admiral Zheng He or the ancient Roman author Pliny the Elder.

Due to the sheer immensity of Abulafia’s subject – human interactions over centuries on three vast watery arenas – none of these figures can stay for long.
When it comes to poor old Pliny the Elder, our author only has time to repeat a well-worn slander about “a man whose obsession with scientific detail was so powerful that he lingered too long in the gas-filled air of the Bay of Naples and fell victim to the famous eruption of Vesuvius.”
(To set the record straight, Pliny was a naval officer attempting to get residents out of harm’s way at nearby Stabiae, not some oblivious tourist; Abulafia’s source for the slander is, oddly enough, Pliny’s own “Natural History,” a book in which Pliny describes quite a bit but not, alas, the circumstances of his own death).
Likewise the book has enough room to mention Captain Edward Preble’s defeat of the Tripoli pirates during the 1801 First Barbary War but must hurry on without mentioning the star vessel of his squadron - the USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides,” whose decks you can still walk today in Boston.

But that’s one of the problems with a volume as big and inviting as this.
Even while you’re floating along on the generous glories of its narrative, you’re noticing little bits and pieces that are missing.
Far more notable, even given the page count here, is the sheer amount of detail Abulafia actually manages to include.
Readers get glimpses of thousands of worlds, from the first American traders encountering Chinese merchants in their elaborate business hostels (“They were not supposed to bring in women,” Abulafia writes, “but occasionally smuggled wives or mistresses in nonetheless”) to the notorious scourge of all pre-modern epic sea voyages: scurvy, which made long voyages “a deathtrap.”

And through it all, Abulafia keeps one eye on the broader aspects of his subject, both the growing interconnectedness of his three separate water-worlds but also on the larger conceptions of what the oceans mean as spheres of human endeavor.

“Who has mastery over the sea itself?” Abulafia asks, looking back to the days of Dutch and Portuguese supremacy.
In 1609, the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius wrote that classical and Biblical literature clearly indicated that the open oceans should be neutral, international fields of play.
In our unprecedentedly interconnected age, the issue is intensely relevant.
“The question that the Dutch raised has still not gone away: in the twenty-first century the South China Sea has become the focus of intense legal debates in which theoretical claims and practical realities are closely intertwined,” he writes.
“The Boundless Sea” largely steers clear of those 21st-century questions, and it likewise doesn’t consider the rampant, worldwide damage humans are doing to these oceans.

“So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her seasons for that,” Herman Melville writes in “Moby-Dick,” and this is the line “The Boundless Sea” follows so engagingly.
Here we have the passion and vanity on full and glorious display.