NTSB: ATB grounding caused by failure to spot a charted rock

NTSB report

 

From MartimeExecutive

The National Transportation Safety Board has released its report on the grounding of an ATB cargo barge on a rock just off Kodiak Island last year.

The casualty was caused by improper use of an electronic chart system (ECS), according to NTSB: the master overlooked the symbol for a submerged rock, and the chart system's auto-checking function was not used to verify the safety of the voyage. 

 Area where the Cingluku/Jungjuk grounded, as indicated by a circled X.
(Background source: Google Maps)

 

On the morning of May 22, 2023, the ATB tug/barge combination Cingluku / Jungjuk left the small port of Togiak, Alaska, headed for Seward.

The Cingluku had supplies on board for another vessel, and planned to rendezvous in Shakmanof Cove on Kodiak Island.

The barge was unladen and partially ballasted, and was drawing about six feet of water at the stern.

 Approximate voyage trackline of the Cingluku/Jungjuk.

(Background source: Google Earth)

 

On May 23 at midday, as Cingluku transited False Pass, the captain - a 20-year veteran of the towing industry - laid out a course to Shakmanof Cove using the tug's electronic chart system.

It was his first time on a voyage into the remote bay on Kodiak's northern coast.

The tug continued on through the rest of the day and all of May 24, arriving off Kodiak on the morning of the 25th.

 

Track of the Cingluku/Jungjuk as it approached Shakmanof Cove, overlaid on
NOAA ENC US4AK5PM.

(Background source: NOAA ENC as viewed on Made Smart automatic identification system)

The United States Coast Pilot 9 (Alaska) noted a rock in the area where the ATB
grounded stating, “Kizhuyak Point: A rock, which uncovers about 4 feet, is 400 yards
north from this point. Shoal water extends 300 yards north of the rock.”

The tug approached Shakmanof Cove at about 1030 hours in the morning, and the mate joined the master on watch.

Two deckhands and the engineer were stationed on the bow in preparation for landing, but had little forward visibility because of the barge's large bow ramp.

At about 1047, as the ATB rounded Kizhuyak Point, the barge ran aground on a submerged rock about 400 yards off the shoreline.

The tug was not affected, and its ATB coupling to the barge remained in place. Alaska's strong tides came to the rescue and lifted the barge off about six hours later.

The crew remained in the cove to await good weather and arrange for a dive inspection.

Divers found no signs of penetration of the hull, and there was no flooding in the barge's void spaces.

After the ATB reached Seward, it was drydocked for a class inspection.

The damage included a 16-20 foot long dents in the bottom plating and frame damage in the same area, in way of the centerline forward ballast tank.

The total estimated cost of repairs came to about $1.5 million.

Hull damage along the bottom of the barge (NTSB)

Frame damage inside the ballast tank (NTSB)

While the rock was not visible from the surface, it was a charted hazard, and it appeared on the NOAA chart that the master had used to prepare the voyage plan.

ENC US4AK5PM, as viewed by investigators using an equivalent ECS.

The chart shows an isolated danger symbol over the rock that the ATB struck.

(Backgroundsource: NOAA ENC as viewed on Rose Point ECS)

 

RNC for the area near Shakmanof Cove.

The symbol for the rock in the area of the grounding is indicated by a red circle.

(Background Source: NOAA Chart 16594, 14th Edition, January 2015)

visualization with the GeoGarage platform

 

ENC US4AK5PM, for the area near Shakmanof Cove, as viewed by investigators using an equivalent ECS.
The asterisk symbol for the rock in the area of the grounding is indicated by a red circle.

(Background source: NOAA ENC as viewed on Rose Point ECS)

 

The tug's master and mate used the common ECS platform Rose Point, often found on working vessels in Alaska.

The system has a depth contour safety feature that highlights shoals and hazards based on the vessel's draft, but the crew told NTSB they didn't use it.

The reason, they said, was that "the soundings don't really mean anything" in Western Alaska, where much of the survey data dates back many decades.

The software can also highlight isolated dangers, like this submerged rock, but that option was turned off.

The company's policy in its SMS did not require the use of these features, and the firm did not give its crews formal training on the use of the software.
 

US4AK5PM NOAA visualizations

 

"When investigators viewed the area on an equivalent ECS, the asterisk marking the rock was displayed alongside soundings of similar size and color, so it is possible that the captain mistook the asterisk for a depth sounding or other chart information when plotting and reviewing the route," concluded NTSB. "Using other available resources, such as the Coast Pilot, would have helped the captain in identifying the rock when planning and reviewing the route."

Links :

• MarineLog : NTSB reports on role of ECS in $1.47 million Alaska ATB grounding
• MarineLink : Chart Error Led to ATB Grounding in Alaska

New prototype device generates hydrogen from untreated seawater

A representation of the team’s bipolar membrane system that converts seawater into hydrogen gas

image: Nina Fujikawa/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

 
From Science Alert by Clare Watson

Scientists have found a clever way to generate hydrogen straight from salty seawater.

This could be another step towards a clean energy future, if renewables power the process.

The new device makes a few chemical modifications to existing technologies, making it possible to extract hydrogen from untreated, unpurified seawater – which could alleviate concerns about using precious water supplies.

"We have split natural seawater into oxygen and hydrogen… to produce green hydrogen by electrolysis, using a non-precious and cheap catalyst in a commercial electrolyzer," explains chemical engineer Shizhang Qiao of the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Traditionally, hydrogen fuel has been made using natural gas, but it can also be made through electrolysis.

Electrolysis is a water-splitting reaction that uses electricity to bump hydrogen atoms out of elbow-shaped water molecules, and an electrolyzer is a device in which that happens.

Right now, this process can be achieved using electricity from fossil fuels or from renewable energy sources, but both systems require fresh water.

Finding a way to achieve electrolysis with seawater could make the future of green hydrogen fuel production far more sustainable.

Researchers have been trying to develop an alternative to commercial electrolyzers, which only work with purified fresh water, out of concern for water shortages.

Accessible freshwater makes up just 1 percent of Earth's total water, but there is a virtually limitless supply of seawater that could be used.

While concerns about water scarcity are valid, recent estimates suggest that the amount of water needed to sustain future hydrogen use is far, far less than the trillions of liters of water used to extract and burn fossil fuels today.

Scientists are still mindful of the environmental impacts, though.

For decades they have been trying to develop devices to make hydrogen from seawater but kept running into several hurdles.

When popped into an electrolyzer, unwanted chlorine ions in seawater erode the catalyst materials meant to drive the hydrogen-yielding, water-splitting reaction.

Massive insoluble precipitates also form, blocking reaction sites and hindering large-scale production.

The new system developed by Qiao and colleagues avoids both these problems.

As described in their new paper (Nature Energy), the researchers layered a hard Lewis acid substance over a series of common cobalt oxide catalysts to split water molecules.

In a series of tests, the modified catalysts resisted chlorine attack and prevented any precipitates from forming.
"This is a general strategy that can be applied to different catalysts without the need for specifically engineered catalysts and electrolyzer design," write the researchers in their published paper.

While it sounds promising, the decades-long effort to develop seawater electrolyzers should serve as a reminder of the challenges ahead in commercializing this or any other technology.
"Direct seawater electrolysis without the purification process and chemical additives is highly attractive and has been investigated for about 40 years, but the key challenges of this technology remain in both catalyst engineering and device design," the researchers note.

Recent progress is encouraging, with this new device being one of manypromising attempts to generate hydrogen from seawater.

For instance, scientists from China and Australia recently developed a prototype device designed to float on the ocean surface and split hydrogen from seawater using solar energy.

Another prototype in the works takes a totally different approach, harvesting water from humid air before extracting hydrogen.

Of course, prototypes are a far cry from industrial-scale methods, so it's good to have a healthy mix of potential systems in the pipeline to see which ones deliver.

Qiao and colleagues are working on scaling up their system by using a larger electrolyzer. But many factors can make or break a potential technology.

Commercializing any process boils down to the cost of materials, energy inputs, and efficiency at scale – where small gains can make a big difference in how much hydrogen is produced.

Cobalt, the material used in the metal oxide catalysts, is also not without its problems.

Like any precious metal used in batteries or solar panels, it must be mined sustainably and recycled where possible.

Having tested the durability of their set-up, Qiao and colleagues think their modified catalysts can go the distance.

Their system can deliver similar outputs to a commercial electrolyzer under the same low temperatures and operational conditions.
But with other researchers making strides to steadily improve the efficiencies of conventional electrolyzers, it really is anyone's game.

 Links :

• EnergyPost : Making Hydrogen direct from seawater using double-membrane electrolysis
• Eco Business : Scientists develop technology to produce green hydrogen from seawate

 

New Cuban radar site near US military base could aid China spying, think tank says

A satellite image shows Russian vessels and downtown Havana, Cuba, on June 13, 2024.

New satellite images released on July 2 show work at four Cuban bases that could indicate improved intelligence capabilities connected with China. 

(Maxar Technologies via Reuters)

 

La Habana puerto with the GeoGarage platform (GeoCuba nautical raster chart)
 

From Reuters by Michael Martina

 

Cuba is building a new radar site likely to be capable of spying on the United States' nearby Guantanamo Bay naval base, a Washington think tank found using satellite images, the latest upgrade to the country's surveillance capabilities long thought to be linked to China.

 

 

The base, under construction since 2021 but previously not publicly reported, is east of the city of Santiago de Cuba near the El Salao neighborhood, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a report published on Monday and later referenced by the Wall Street Journal.

 

Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio denied that Cuba was harboring Chinese military interests on the island.
"(The) Wall Street Journal persists in launching an intimidation campaign related to #Cuba.
Without citing a verifiable source or showing evidence, it seeks to scare the public with tales about Chinese military bases that do not exist and no one has seen, including the US embassy in Cuba," de Cossio said on social media.

Cuba's proximity to the U.S. and its southern military bases makes it a good location for China, Washington's top strategic rival, to seek to collect signals intelligence.
CSIS called the new site a "powerful tool" that once operational will be able to monitor air and maritime activity of the U.S. military.
The facility, known as a circularly disposed antenna array with a diameter of approximately 130 to 200 meters could be able to track signals as far as 3,000-8,000 nautical miles (3,452 – 9,206 miles) away, CSIS said.

A buoy is seen near the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, June 2, 2017. 

REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo Purchase LicensingRights, opens new tab

"Access to such an outpost would provide China with a highly strategic vantage point near Naval Station Guantanamo Bay," it said, referring to the key U.S. military base 45 miles (73 km) east of Santiago, Cuba`s second largest city.
Such arrays were used heavily during the Cold War, but Russia and the U.S. have since decommissioned most of their sites in favor of more advanced technology, CSIS said.
However, the think tank said China has been actively building new such arrays, including on reef outposts in the South China Sea.

Last year, Biden administration officials said Beijing has been spying from Cuba for years and made a push to upgrade its intelligence collection capabilities there beginning in 2019, allegations that both Beijing and Havana have denied.
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to comment on the report, but told a briefing on Tuesday that the U.S. was "closely monitoring" China's presence in Cuba.

"We know that the PRC (People's Republic of China) is going to keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba and the United States is going to keep working to disrupt it," Patel said without giving details.
The White House National Security Council and the U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
China's embassy in Washington said the U.S. had repeatedly "hyped up" the idea of China's spying and surveillance from Cuba.
"Such claims are nothing but slander," embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said.
CSIS also said satellite images from March 2024 show Cuba's largest active signals intelligence site at Bejucal, located in the hills near Havana and linked to suspected Chinese intelligence activity for years, has undergone "major updates" in the past decade, calling it a "clear indication of an evolving mission set."
"Collecting data on activities like military exercises, missile tests, rocket launches, and submarine maneuvers would allow China to develop a more sophisticated picture of U.S. military practices," CSIS said.
It said certain radar systems installed in Cuba in recent years are in range to monitor rocket launches from Cape Canaveral and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, a likely interest for China as it seeks to catch up to U.S. space launch technology.

 

Links :

• WSJ : Satellite Images Show Expansion of Suspected Chinese Spy Bases in Cuba
• Business Insider : Suspected Chinese spy bases in Cuba are growing, including one near a US naval base: report

Norway set to make history as first nation to mine seafloor minerals amidst environmental debate

The part of the continental shelf that is within Norwegian waters, companies can apply for an exploitation license for the areas marked in yellow.

Credit: Sokkeldirektoratet.

From ArcticToday

The Norwegian Ministry of Energy unveiled last week a proposal for a licensing round for seabed mineral exploration on the Norwegian continental shelf.

This keeps Norway on course to become the first country in the world to allow the mining of seafloor minerals.

The proposal aims to identify areas suitable for sustainable mineral extraction, contributing to the global push for green technologies.

The proposal delineates specific regions where companies can apply for exploitation licenses, initiating exploration and gathering data.

This step follows a strong parliamentary backing and the formal opening of areas in the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea earlier this year.

“The world needs minerals for the green transition, and Norway is poised to lead in their sustainable extraction. We aim to balance resource management with environmental stewardship, starting with today’s public consultation,” Minister of Energy Terje Aasland said in a press release.

The consultation, open until September 26, 2024, encompasses 386 blocks, about 38% of the newly available area.

The Ministry plans to award licenses by mid-2025, adhering to rigorous environmental standards throughout the process.

As a part of the licensing procedure, applicants must submit detailed work programs, which the ministry will review in order to emphasize sustainable and responsible exploitation.

According to the ministry, the first steps towards seabed mineral extraction in Norway are being carefully monitored to ensure minimal environmental impact and alignment with the country’s long-standing commitment to sustainable ocean management.

Despite the government’s stated commitment to environmental concerns, groups such as Norway’s branch of the WWF have claimed seabed mining could cause irreversible damage.

“Norway positioned itself at the forefront of seabed mining initiatives, despite stark warnings from national and international experts and significant criticism from the European Union and global research communities,” the WWF said in a statement.

Graph by Fauna & Flora International 2021 via Planet Tracker.

Links :

• Nature : Norway’s approval of sea-bed mining undermines efforts to protect the ocean
• HightNorthNews : Norway Takes Next Step to Mine Seabed Minerals to Dismay of Environmental Groups
• NYTimes : Norway Moves to Allow Seabed Mining Exploration
• WSJ : Norway Opens Door for Deep-Sea Mining of Copper and Other Critical Materials
• Reuters : Norway parliament deal marks major step towards seabed mining 
• CourtHouseNews : WWF sues Norway for greenlighting seabed mining
• Wired : Norway's deep sea mining decision is a warning
• CNBC :  Norway defends deep-sea mining, says it may help to break China and Russia’s rare earths stronghold
• GeoGarage blog : ‘Really a sad day’ as Norway votes to allow deep-sea mining in Arctic waters 

Whales and orcas feeding together

Normally rivals, whales join orcas to take advantage of their of their fish stunning skills and go on a feeding frenzy.

In the rollers of the Tevennec lighthouse

𝑫𝑨𝑵𝑺 𝑳𝑬𝑺 𝑹𝑶𝑼𝑳𝑬𝑨𝑼𝑿 𝑫𝑼 𝑷𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑬 𝑫𝑬 𝑻𝑬𝑽𝑬𝑵𝑵𝑬𝑪
La tempête déferlait sur la Bretagne. Le phare de Tévennec réputé hanté était soumis aux assauts de la mer.
𝑀𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑒𝑢 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑟𝑖𝑛#bretagne #tempete pic.twitter.com/TyLEW3aeXt

— Mathieu Rivrin - Photographies (@mathieurivrin) August 8, 2023

The storm was breaking over Brittany.

The Tévennec lighthouse, reputed to be haunted, was under attack from the sea.
𝑀𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑒𝑢 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑟𝑖𝑛

 

Localization of the Tevennec lighthouse with the GeoGarage platform (SHOM nautical raster chart)
 

Tracking 30 years of sea level rise

From NASA 

Thirty years ago, scientists and engineers launched a new satellite to study the rising and falling of seas over time, a task that once could only be done from the coast.

TOPEX/Poseidon rocketed into space on August 10, 1992, and started a 30-year record of ocean surface height around the world.

The observations have confirmed on a global scale what scientists previously saw from the shoreline: the seas are rising, and the pace is quickening.

Scientists have found that global mean sea level—shown in the line plot above and below—has risen 10.1 centimeters (3.98 inches) since 1992.

Over the past 140 years, satellites and tide gauges together show that global sea level has risen 21 to 24 centimeters (8 to 9 inches).

Starting with TOPEX/Poseidon, NASA and partner space agencies have flown a continuous series of satellites that use radar altimeters to monitor ocean surface topography—essentially, the vertical shape and height of the ocean.

Radar altimeters continually send out pulses of radio waves (microwaves) that reflect off the ocean surface back toward the satellite.

The instruments calculate the time it takes for the signal to return, while also tracking the precise location of the satellite in space.

From this, scientists derive the height of the sea surface directly underneath the satellite.

Since 1992, five missions with similar altimeters have repeated the same orbit every 10 days: TOPEX/Poseidon (1992 to 2006), Jason-1 (2001 to 2013), the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 (2008 to 2019), Jason-3 (2016 to present), and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich (2020 to present).

The missions were built through various partnerships between NASA, France’s Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

 

Together, the mission teams have assembled a unified, standardized ocean topography record that is equivalent to the work of a half-million tide gauges.

The scientists accumulated and corroborated a data record that is now long enough and sensitive enough to detect global and regional sea level changes beyond the seasonal, yearly, and decadal cycles that naturally occur.

“With 30 years of data, we can finally see what a huge impact we have on the Earth’s climate,” said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA’s project scientist for Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich.

“The rise of sea level caused by human interference with the climate now dwarfs the natural cycles. And it is happening faster and faster every decade.”

The map at the top of this page shows global trends in sea level as observed from 1993 to 2022 by TOPEX/Poseidon, the three Jason missions, and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich.

Note the spatial variations in the rate of sea level rise, with some parts of the ocean rising faster (depicted in red and deep orange) than the global rate.

Many of the anomalies reflect long-term shifts in ocean currents and heat distribution.

1992 - 2022

The altimetry data also show that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating.

Over the course of the 20th century, global mean sea level rose at about 1.5 millimeters per year. By the early 1990s, it was about 2.5 mm per year.

Over the past decade, the rate has increased to 3.9 mm (0.15 inches) per year.

In the line plot, the highs and lows each year are caused by the exchange of water between the land and sea. “Winter rain and snowfall in the northern hemisphere shifts water from ocean to land, and it takes some time for this to runoff back into the oceans,” Willis noted. 

“This effect usually causes about 1 centimeter of rise and fall each year, with a bit more or less during El Niño and La Niña years. It’s literally like the heartbeat of the planet.”

While a few millimeters of sea level rise per year may seem small, scientists estimate that every 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) of sea level rise translates into 2.5 meters (8.5 feet) of beachfront lost along the average coast.

It also means that high tides and storm surges can rise even higher, bringing more coastal flooding, even on sunny days.

In a report issued in February 2022, U.S. scientists concluded that by 2050 sea level along U.S. coastlines could rise between 25 to 30 centimeters (10 to 12 inches) above today’s levels.

“What stands out from the satellite altimetry record is that the rise over 30 years is about ten times bigger than the natural exchange of water between ocean and land in a year,” Willis said.

“In other words, the human-caused rise in global sea level is now ten times bigger than the natural cycles.”

 

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich ocean-observing satellite starts providing science data

Greenland’s marine ecosystem is experiencing a radical ‘regime change’

Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images

From Grist by Avery Schuyler 

Warming seas and dwindling sea ice are bringing new species to Arctic waters, a potentially irreversible tipping point for the ecosystem.

When marine biologist Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen began studying the boreal waters that surround Greenland 40 years ago, an inflatable raft carried him through vast expanses of polar pack ice, with narwhals and walruses frequently passing by.
The astounding blue sea ice seemed almost inviolable in its grandeur.

But with Greenland reaching its highest temperatures in the past 1,000 years, the scene is changing.
Arctic sea ice, which is responsible for maintaining cool polar temperatures, is dwindling rapidly.
The oldest and thickest of it has declined by 95 percentduring three decades of global warming.

“There’s a whole beautiful landscape that used to be there,” said Heide-Jørgensen, a researcher at Greenland Institute of Natural Resources.
“Nowadays, we can see that all the ice is gone.”

So too are a growing number of the creatures that lived among it.
Inuit communities are seeing little to no evidence of endemic species like the narwhals and walruses that Heide-Jørgensen grew familiar with.
Instead, they are finding animals native to more southerly waters, including mackerel, bluefin tuna, and many kinds of cetaceans, all of them drawn to the warming waters and abundant prey.

Visual observation and remote sensing leave Heide-Jørgensen and fisheries biologist Brian Mackenzie with little doubt that a potentially irreversible regime shift – a change from one stable ecological condition to another – is occurring.
Unprecedented numbers of dolphins and fin and humpback whales suggest a tipping point in the marine ecosystem off the east coast of the world’s largest island.
This climate-driven shift means not only that meteorological and climatological phenomena thousands of miles away can affect local conditions in unexpected ways, but they create the potential for cascading effects throughout entire ecosystems.

“It has a very specific driving force for the tipping element, which is the sea ice.” said Heide-Jørgensen, who attributes the regime shift primarily to a significant decrease in summer sea ice arriving from the Beaufort Sea.

That body of water, located along the northernmost seaboard of Alaska, generates the pack ice found off the coast of eastern Greenland.
It is carried there over the course of several years by winds and currents.
For native marine species in Greenland, the ice regulates temperatures by reflecting sunlight and provides critical habitat and nursery grounds for animals, invertebrates, and algae.

As the tern flies, the Beaufort Sea is about as far from these waters as Anchorage, Alaska, is from Portland, Oregon.
“It’s a huge distance,” said Heide-Jørgensen.
He noted that the scope of what’s happening in Greenland shows that the effects of climate change are certain and long-ranging, impacting ecosystems across thousands of miles.
“It goes far beyond what we had originally thought.
Local systems can be severely affected by something so far away, which is a lesson learned.”

While many studies have shown regime shifts in other marine ecosystems across the globe, there has been little revealed on such shifts in the Arctic until now.
The researchers note that the process that spurred the radical change likely began 10 to 20 years ago when temperatures started to increase more dramatically.
Thanks to 19th-century explorers, records of ice throughout Greenland date to 1820 and help reveal climatological patterns and effects.

“It contributes to the general evidence basis for how climate change is affecting life in the oceans,” said Mackenzie, a professor at Technical University of Denmark.
“There’s now many studies showing changes in distributions, changes in food webs, and so on.
Not many for the Arctic or in sort of remote places like this.
And so it’s contributing to the pattern that we’ve been seeing in the scientific community.”

Humpback whales, usually found off the coast of New England and Newfoundland and in the waters north of Scandinavia, are now migrating by the thousands along the east coast of Greenland.
Fin whales, also usually seen offshore in the North Atlantic, are increasingly common as well.
And while this shift isn’t necessarily bad for the opportunistic cetaceans, which can adapt to a certain threshold of oceanic shifts, it places immense stress on endemic species like narwhal.
The researchers suspect the native creatures are moving north as the water warms and interlopers arrive.

Newcomers like the whales, which require a lot of food to sustain themselves and migrate thousands of miles, are now consuming more than 1 million tons of food per year, outcompeting other animals.
“There are big ecological implications for local biodiversity and the interactions among species,” said Mackenzie.
“Particularly in predator to prey competition relationships.”

Marine species aren’t the only ones who will experience these ramifications.
Changes in species distributions, especially fish, could reshape commercial fisheries.

Bluefin tuna had never been recorded off the eastern shore of Greenland prior to 2012, but have been recorded every year since.
“We got some reports from Greenlandic fishing crews that they had caught some bluefin tuna as bycatch,” said Mackenzie.
“And we could see that the temperature in the area had increased quite a bit compared to previous years. The thermal habitat expanded, and that’s one of the reasons why we think the tuna started to show up.
Mackerel itself had not been seen in Greenland waters before 2011, and we think that the tuna more or less followed the mackerel.
With changes like this, it’s likely that there’s multiple effects throughout the entire food web, especially at lower trophic levels.”

Unless ice export from the north increases and temperatures cool, it is very likely that this new regime will become permanent.
“It would require the unlikely and substantial reversal of current warming, and several years to reverse the trend with little multiyear ice in the Arctic Ocean,” said Heide-Jørgensen.
“No climate deals seem to cover that at the moment.”

Given the pace of global climate change, the Arctic Ocean could within our lifetimes record its first summer without ice.
Some studies suggest that may happen within a few decades.
“Forty or 50 years ago, that concept would be unthinkable,” Mackenzie said.
“But it looks like it’s going to happen.
And if that does happen, it would mean even more major changes on the food web and ecosystems up there.”

World's largest deep-sea octopus nursery discovered

Scientists discovered over 1,000 females, many brooding eggs, in a shimmering “octopus garden" that may be seeping natural gas or hot water.

From National Geographic by Jason Bittel

OFF THE COAST of Monterey, California, and some two miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, scientists piloting a remotely-operated submersible saw something no one has ever seen before.
Octopuses. 

Hundreds of them. 

Huddled on a rocky outcrop at the base of an underwater mountain.
“We went down the eastern flank of this small hill, and that’s when—boom—we just started seeing pockets of dozens here, dozens there, dozens everywhere,” says Chad King, chief scientist on the Exploration Vessel Nautilus.

All in all, King estimates that more than 1,000 octopuses known as Muusoctopus robustus were nestled among the rocks, most of which appeared to be inverted, or turned inside out.

For this species, that inside-out pose is common among females that are brooding, or protecting their growing young.

In some cases, the submersible’s camera could even spot tiny embryos cradled within their mothers’ arms.
“Out of that 1,000, we might have seen two or three octopuses that were just swimming around,” says King, who is also a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. 

“So I’d say almost 99 percent were brooding.”
What’s more, the scientists noticed that the water appeared to shimmer in multiple places where the octopuses were concentrated—“kind of like an oasis or a heat wave off the pavement,” says King.
This suggests that warm water may be seeping out of the seamount in places, and the octopuses are huddled in those spots. 

Though the submersible was not equipped with temperature probes on this dive, if the finding is verified, it could mean the octopuses are seeking out such warmth to help incubate their eggs.
“It definitely looked like the octopuses wanted to be there,” says King.

 

Brooding mother octopuses curl up, facing their suckers outward in a defensive position.

ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute under 

 

Octopus garden

Amazingly, the discovery comes just months after scientists reported the only other deep-sea octopus nursery on record — an aggregation of around 100 octopuses along the Dorado Outcrop off Costa Rica. They may even be the same species as those discovered off of California, but no one can say for sure yet.
(Related: “Deepest Octopus Nursery Discovered, Holds Dark Secret”)

“I've been working on octopuses since 1982, and I would have sworn that our observations at Dorado Outcrop were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” writes Janet Voight, a marine biologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, in an email. 

“To see these videos 10 months after our paper came out makes me think there are a lot more places like this down there than I ever dared imagine.”
There are key differences between the octopus sightings, however.

For starters, the Costa Rican sighting involved far fewer octopuses.

Also, Voight and lead author Anne Hartwell were able to confirm that the Costa Rica site did, indeed, have warm fluid billowing up from the seafloor.

However, in that case, it appears to have been a bad thing, because none of the eggs the octopuses were incubating seemed to be growing. It may be that the water was actually too hot.
In the new video captured by the Nautilus team, though, Voight sees signs of life.

If you look closely at one of the egg cases, you can just make out the eye of a developing embryo.
“Which means that these eggs are developing well,” says Voight, “or at least that one is.”

So many questions

 
While the new footage offers an exciting glimpse into the lives of these creatures, it also reveals how little we know about these octopuses and the environment they inhabit.
For instance, not everyone is convinced that the shimmer means warmth.
According to senior scientist Bruce Robison of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the geologists who study this region say it’s been inactive for millions of years. “

Thus it's very unlikely that there is any heat involved,” he writes in an email.
(Related: “Octopus Cares For Her Eggs For 53 Months, Then Dies”)

If anything, Robison guesses the shimmer could be caused by a seepage of methane gas.

King, however, says they didn’t see any of the bacterial mats, clams and other species you’d expect to see with a methane seep. Furthermore, it may not even be the heat the octopuses are attracted to. “Maybe it’s just because that’s the best rock available,” says King.

Adds Voight: “This observation is just further proof that we have no idea of what is going on in the deep sea.”

Links :

• The Guardian : Discovered in the deep: an octopus’s garden in the shade
• Smithsonian : Biologists Discover Four New Octopus Species in the Deep Ocean Off Costa Rica

Goodbye Natick! Microsoft has given up on one of its coolest projects ever — underwater data center pilot canned despite successful outcomes and won't come back

From TechRadar by Wayne Williams 

Microsoft has officially killed off Project Natick, its underwater data center experiment, which began life in 2015.

Noelle Walsh, Head of Microsoft’s Cloud Operations + Innovation, told Data Center Dynamics, "I'm not building subsea data centers anywhere in the world. My team worked on it, and it worked. We learned a lot about operations below sea level and vibration and impacts on the server. So we'll apply those learnings to other cases."

Although we’d not heard anything about the subsea project in a while it was assumed to still be active, but we now know that’s not the case.

Microsoft’s Project Natick: Power washing a data center that sat on the sea floor off the Orkney Islands in Scotland

(photo by Jonathan Banks/Microsoft)

 

Moving towards robotics

The underwater data center project was first tested off the coast of Scotland in 2018. Microsoft placed 855 servers underwater for over two years, and only six of them failed. For comparison, eight out of 135 servers failed in a similar land test. In percentage terms, that’s 0.7% failure rate underwater versus a 5.9% rate on land.

At the time, Project Natick lead Ben Cutler said he believed the subsea success rate was down to the absence of humans on board interacting with the servers in the capsule and the use of less corrosive nitrogen in place of oxygen.

Enthusing about the early findings, Microsoft Research's technical team principal member Spencer Fowers said, “We have been able to run really well on what most land-based data centers consider an unreliable grid. We are hopeful that we can look at our findings and say maybe we don’t need to have quite as much infrastructure focused on power and reliability.”

Project Natick was incredibly promising and Microsoft was even looking at how it could be used as an ‘artificial reef data center’ that would not only provide a good home for servers but also ocean life, but ultimately it has come to nothing.

Microsoft is exploring other advanced technologies, like robotics, to improve data center operations. Walsh told DCD, "We're looking at robotics more from the perspective that some of these new servers will be very heavy. How can we automate that versus having people push things around? We are learning from other industries on robotics, but we're also very cognizant that we need people. I don't want people worried about their jobs.” The tech giant is also considering other ways of powering data centers including looking into modular nuclear reactors.

 

While Microsoft has ended its underwater initiative, other companies, like ones in China, are starting their own underwater data center projects.

 

Links :

• TechRadar : Microsoft's deep-sea experiment just revealed some very shocking server data
• DataCenterDynamics : Microsoft confirms Project Natick underwater data center is no more
• TomHardware : Microsoft shelves its underwater data center — Project Natick had fewer server failures compared to servers on land
• Microsoft : How Microsoft kept its underwater datacenter connected while retrieving it from the ocean
• Computing : Microsoft quietly shelved underwater data centre project  
• GeoGarage blog : How oceans are being used to cool massive data centres ./ Microsoft finds underwater datacenters are reliable, practical and use energy sustainably / Microsoft plumbs ocean’s depths to test underwater data center
  

Every ship sunk in WWII

You can also explore the data for yourself on the Esri dashboard map Sunken Ships of the Second World War. This dashboard allows you to map the sunken ships of WWII by country, by year, by the 'country that did the sinking' and by belligerent (Axis, Allies or Neutrals).

 

From GoogleMapMania by Kleir Clarke

 

Over the course of the Second World War more than 20,000 ships were sunk around the world.Esri's Paul Heersink has spent the last ten years scouring historical records to create and map the 'most comprehensive dataset' of ships sunk in WWII.
Resurfacing the Past is a fascinating story map which not only visualizes where Allied and Axis ships were lost in WWII, it also explores the WWII sunken data by year, by size and by type.

 

For example the animated GIF above shows the number of Allied and Axis ships sunken in each year of the war.

 

It clearly shows how the Allies "suffered devastating losses in the first years of the war

"However by 1943 it was the Axis who were losing the battle for the seas. The map reveals that from March 1943 "the Allied forces sank more ships every month than they lost."

Mapping the sinks sunk in WWII by type reveals that most of the ships that were sunk in the war were not designed to be combat ships.

Non-combat ships such as tankers, tugs, cargo ships and floating hospitals suffered the most losses.

The Resurfacing the Past story map guides you through the huge scope of Paul Heersink's sunken ship data, highlighting some of the important stories that the data reveals.

Cap Taillat, do you Saint Tropez Gulf

video LR Production

other video from Dreaam Air drone

Old map with minutes de sondes

 

Cap Taillat forms the boundary between the communes of La Croix Valmer and Ramatuelle

 

Raster map 7267

ENC FR572670

A new general chart of the West Indies from the latest marine journals and surveys. Regulated and ascertained by astronomical observations

Creator Bennett, John / Sayer, Robert, 1725-1794

courtesy of Yale collection

Marine fungus can break down floating plastic pollution

A plastic particle (red) is colonised by the marine fungus Parengyodontium album

Annika Vaksmaa/NIOZ

From New Scientist by Adrian Barnett

A fungus found on litter floating in the North Pacific Ocean can break down the most abundant type of plastic that ends up in the sea.

In lab experiments, Annika Vaksmaa at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and her colleagues have shown that the white, thread-like fungus can successfully degrade one of the most pernicious plastics, polyethylene, providing the plastic has first been exposed to UV radiation, such as from sunlight.

UV radiation can induce chemical modifications in polyethylene that make the plastic more susceptible to attack by the fungal enzymes, says Vaksmaa.

 

The digestion process releases carbon dioxide, the emissions weight for weight are no greater than the small amount that humans release while breathing, the team found.

Vaksmaa believes that the fungus, known as Parengyodontium album, has great potential, but she is cautious about putting it to use in the wild. 

“If we take a microbe and add it to a natural system, then we may ruin it while trying to do good,” she says. Instead, she suggests it may be best to gather the plastic first and bring it back to land to be digested by P. album that has been grown in bulk. 

This could be achieved using well-established techniques, similar to those used in the brewing industry, she says.

The need for UV exposure means that P. album won’t work on plastic that sinks. 

But given the diversity of marine fungi, Vaksmaa thinks it very probable that her team will find some deep-sea species that can do this.

Humans produce more than 400 billion kilograms of plastic each year, and up to 4 per cent of it is thought to end up in the ocean. 

“It’s great to see that microbes can help with mitigating relatively large problems. But dealing with it at its source is key, which means actually stopping plastic from ending up in nature in the first place,” she says.

Links :

• New Scientist : Could mysterious marine fungi save us from antibiotic resistance?
• Phy : Study identifies fungus that breaks down ocean plastic

Top secret underwater drone dubbed the Manta Ray is spotted in California naval base on Google Earth

Explore the cutting-edge technology that powers Manta Ray, 

the first-of-its-kind uncrewed underwater vehicle.
see NorthropGrumman

From DailyMail by Sabrina Penty

The satellite image currently remains visible to the public
The vessel is docked at Port Hueneme naval base, California

A top-secret US submarine drone weapon dubbed the 'Manta Ray' has been spotted by hawk-eyed online users on Google Earth and remains visible to the public.

Vusialization with the GeoGarage platform (NOAA nautical raster chart)

Gmaps view of Manta ray UUV based in california, NS 34°9'13.304" W 119°12'31.185"

 

Satellite images showing the vessel docked at Port Hueneme naval base in California went viral on Sunday, before some social media users said the satellite images were removed, and replaced with what people believed were edited boats.
 

Someone managed to find the DARPA Manta Ray on google maps
Coordinates
34°09'12"N 119°12'31"W pic.twitter.com/uMdDj2dMsO

— nikola 3 (@ronin19217435) June 20, 2024

 

As it stands, however, satellite images of the vessel can be seen on Google Earth.

The vessel - named after the sea creature due to its diamond-shaped body and wing-like fins - is used for underwater threat detection and was designed by Northrop Grumman Corporation.

The aerospace group's futuristic underwater drone is part of a US navy project to develop a new class of underwater drones which are capable of carrying out much longer missions.

The futuristic looking top-secret vessel is plainly visible on both Google Maps and Google Earth. Picture shows a satellite image of the 'Manta Ray'

The vessel is docked at Port Hueneme naval base in California

 

not visible on Bing Maps
 

The unmanned, underwater craft, has been designed to move through the ocean without human supervision or the need to refuel, and it is also able to hibernate on the seabed in a 'low power mode'.

The ultimate goal is allowing soldiers to continue their mission on land without being interrupted to power, maintain and refuel an underwater machine.

Northrop Grumman also says that due to its modular design, it can be dismantled and transported in standard shipping containers for rapid deployment.

The military machine is the first in a new class of long duration, long range and payload-capable unmanned undersea vehicles, which carry out missions without the need of human interference.

Until recently, its pioneering design, which allows it to stay submerged for long periods of time, had been kept secret. 

 

Pictured: The Manta Ray prototype completing full-scale testing off the coast of Southern California. The Manta Ray prototype uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) is designed for long-duration undersea missions

Manufacturer Northrop Grumman say they completed full-scale testing off the coast of Southern California in February and March.

Manta Ray was built through the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program

But when the underwater vessel was released into the sea for testing, and captured on Google Earth over the weekend, internet users were quick to spot the top-secret US drone weapon.

Just last week, Northrop Grumman revealed more details on its robotic 'Manta Ray' submersible in some newly-released videos.

In these, footage shows a tour of the first test dive and a rundown on the project never-before-seen clips.

Northrop Grumman announced that it had completed full-scale, in-water testing off the coast of Southern California in February and March this year.

With the underwater vehicle undergoing recent testing, questions have been raised over the emergence of advanced sea drones in reshaping naval combat, as Ukrainian forces have been using smaller, more affordable technology to sink Russian ships.

DARPA program manager Dr. Kyle Woerner (right) talks with a member of the Northrop Grumman team while standing atop the Manta Ray vehicle. 

The Manta Ray prototype completed full-scale testing off the coast of Southern California

Some defense analysts have speculated that the US navy ants to develop a drone capable of carrying out long missions to search the seas for Russian and Chinese submarines, according to The Telegraph.

This comes after it was first announced four years ago that a new class of 'extra-large Manta Ray' underwater drones would be built by Lockheed Martin after the Pentagon awarded the firm $12.3 million.

The leader in global security and aerospace had been awarded the contract to start the first phase of the Manta Ray program from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) - the U.S. Department of Defense's experimental research arm

By harnessing marine organisms' ability to sense even the most minute disturbances in their environments, DARPA said it could be able to preemptively discover even the smallest autonomous vehicles.

 

Links :

• Futurism : Top secret aquatic drone spotted on Google Maps. Oops ?
• DARPA : Manta Ray UUV prototype completes in-water testing
  

‘So far we’ve just been lucky’: Maritime security expert warns of Russian risks in North Sea

 

 

From FTM by Dimitri Tokmetzis / Birte Schohaus

The North Sea is an industrial area in the making, important for the energy, data and food supply of the whole of Europe.
It’s high time to take safety in, on and around the North Sea seriously, says professor of international relations Christian Bueger.
Is professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen.

Directs the Ocean Infrastructures Research Group and the Copenhagen Ocean Hub.

Sits on the board of the SafeSeas network on maritime security.
His most recent book is Understanding Maritime Security (Oxford University Press).

Countries are jostling for control in the South China Sea.
Somali pirates regularly make headlines when attacking boats in the Arabian Peninsula.
In the Mediterranean, coastguards and navies have their hands full combating human and drug smuggling.

By comparison, the North Sea looks like a calm European inland sea.
But appearances are deceptive, says Christian Bueger.
He is a professor of international relations at the University of Copenhagen, specialising in maritime security.
The Dane investigates all aspects of maritime security: from piracy to conflicts between states and from sabotage to espionage .
His conclusion: security in the North Sea is at risk.

In an interview with FTM, the professor explains what makes the situation in, on and around the North Sea so complicated and, in his opinion, dangerous.
Bueger talks about the tactics of the Russian authorities, unclear regulations and powers and the security risk of the visible infrastructure on the seabed.
He argues for a different view.

When did you, as a security expert, start paying attention to the North Sea?

“For me, it was one of the outcomes of the Brexit process: that we need to start paying attention to the North Sea.
Because before Brexit it was mainly a European [sea], with the Norwegians having a close partnership with the European Union.
Right after Brexit, we had a couple of these incidents between French and British fishermen, leading basically to new forms of uncertainty and insecurity.
That was initially what brought me to the North Sea as a type of security region.”

 

A joint investigation by Follow the Money and Belgian newspaper De Tijd showed this week that Russian ships have been engaging in suspicious activities in the North Sea since 2014.
Security services suspect Russia of using both military and civilian ships for espionage and sabotage of data and electricity cables, gas pipelines and other infrastructure on the seabed.

But the big impetus for navies, security services and experts to pay closer attention to security, according to Bueger, was the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022: before the new section of this pipeline, which would transport Russian gas to Germany, could be put into use, both the new and old parts of Nord Stream were blown up near the Danish island of Bornholm.
(Investigations so far don’t point to Russia as the culprit, as media and experts first suspected, but to Ukraine.
In all likelihood, a Ukrainian team from a sailboat planted and detonated the explosives.)

A year later, in October 2023, the Chinese container ship Newnew Polarbear destroyed a gas pipeline and some data cables with a dragging anchor – presumably on purpose.

What are the biggest security threats for the North Sea?

“I think it would be a series of mysterious accidents that cause damage to the environment, largely, which would be primarily staged to demonstrate our ongoing vulnerability: that whatever we do, it’s not enough.
So that would be, for me, the most worrying and most realistic threat in the region.

It could be a shadow fleet, it could be an attack on a life pipeline.
We’re seeing quite a series of mysterious accidents.
It could continue and it could be much worse.
So far we’ve just been lucky.

There are a lot of bilateral arrangements between the states, and that is largely energy cooperation in the end.
...
It's not security cooperation: you have quite a number of environmental agreements.
But it's largely interpreted in terms of preventing accidents and things like that.
And not necessarily in security terms.”

What strategies does Russia use in the North Sea and how long have they been doing that for?

“Russian fishing vessels are being used for intelligence operations, and that is not a new thing.

In 2014, the UK Royal Navy took me out at sea.
On the bridge, they had a picture of a fishing vessel.
I asked them ‘why do you have this picture hanging there’, and then the guy said: ‘ah this is one of the Russian spy vessels.’ We know what they look like.
When we see it, we report that.”

Bueger emphasises that this form of espionage – also known as greyzone tactics – has existed for decades.
In Soviet times, Soviet ships carried a security officer from the secret service on board.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, things calmed down a bit.
In the 1990s, European countries hoped for a rapprochement, and exchanges took place between research vessels.

That changed around 2014, at about the same time as Russia's annexation of Crimea.
During the same period, Western countries became more active in the Arctic.
Due to climate change, the Arctic becomes navigable in summer, which greatly reduces the travel time between China and Europe.
New gas fields are also being developed in the north of Russia.
Russia is therefore trying to strengthen its grip on the area and keep other powers out.

Since then, there has been a significant increase in greyzone tactics by civilian ships.
This is now official policy in Russia, says Bueger.
It is described in black and white in the new maritime doctrine drawn up in 2022.
Civilian ships, such as fishing boats, container ships and oil tankers, must cooperate in military missions.

“One of the explanations is also that the Russian Navy is just overstretched.
So they are trying to find alternative means to exert influence.

The point of doing that is not actually to find out anything.
It’s more about putting the threat out, or demonstrating the vulnerability: ‘Hey, we can sail along your cables and cut at any time.’ You literally cannot do anything.
It’s just about keeping us busy, worrying about the threat.
And this works really, really well.”

All those cables and pipes are easy to find, they are simply located on all kinds of maps.
Is that wise?

“This is what we call the visibility paradox: if you want to protect the infrastructure from accidents, then you need to put it on the [nautical] map as accurately as possible, but at the same time, if you want to protect it from deliberately being targeted, then you should hide it.
You can’t get out of this.”

What can the North Sea countries do when a ship displays suspicious behaviour in their exclusive economic zones, an area 12 to 200 nautical miles from the shore?

“Exclusive Economic Zones are a tricky legal construct, and many countries have not fully clarified what their legislation is.
So for instance, I learned from the German federal police that is in charge of patrolling the exclusive economic zone that there is no criminal offence in the German law for the exclusive economic zone.
So basically if you find a Russian vessel tempering with the pipeline or a cable, the only thing that the federal police can do is say ‘hello, can you please stop that?’ and they don’t have any power to arrest.”

How can security in the North Sea be improved?

“Europe doesn't have a secure information-sharing network, which would involve military actors.
And because of that … the Belgians launched a new initiative a couple of weeks ago and negotiated a memorandum of understanding for the North Sea, which is primarily focused on information-sharing between the North Sea countries, excluding France.
So what the Belgians are planning is to set up an entirely new information-sharing network, which would be secure and trusted, and also deals with how the industry can actually feed into that network.

“If you find a Russian vessel tempering with a pipeline, the only thing that the German federal police can do is say ‘hello, can you please stop that?’”

When it comes to the [role of] companies, I think we can see different models: the Norwegian position is largely that much of the protection should be handled by the industry, because it's just cheaper and they have the technical knowledge.
In the UK, we see the idea is more that it should be a governmental task.
Of course, the UK has this sophisticated maritime security infrastructure – but it's not really clear who should be in charge of handling that.”

Does stricter action make sense?

“There is some reluctance.
For example, many experts have been calling for the Danes to inspect the Russian vessels and check for insurance certificates and so on.
Denmark is afraid of doing that.
You don't know what kind of repercussions this could have elsewhere in terms of threats to infrastructure.

Can joint EU policy help? For example, a joint navy? And what’s NATO’s role in all this?

“NATO has been very, very, very active – in particular since the Nord Stream incident it has put emphasis on the region again; their first reaction was sending military ships, including by the Italian navy, to the region.

The European Union is a complex entity.
And here we have on the one side all the work on critical infrastructures in general, but the implementation of that is largely in the hands of nation states, and of the member states.

I've been advocating for a long time that the solution lies on these regional sea levels: the Mediterranean is a radically different context and set up to the North Sea.
The North Sea is an interesting template, because it's so much simpler: you're only dealing with Norway and the UK – both NATO states.
And, of course, in the Mediterranean, this is all a lot more complex, because of the North African countries, but then also Israel, Greece, Turkey, and all these tensions in that particular space.

It would be good to harmonise the law on a regional level so that we have clear cut interpretations of what is allowed and what can be criminalised in the specific exclusive economic zone.

And then if the next Russian research vessel passes by, you at least have some legal foundations in terms of telling the Russian Navy, ‘hey, what you're doing here does not fall under our interpretation of the freedom of scientific exploration.’ So clarifying that legal space is one of the things that is utterly missing.”

Links :

• FMT : Almost 200Russian ships suspected of spying in the North Sea