Yesterday, we posted a grim post The Threat from Thwaites, Antarctica’s Riskiest Glacier about the potential collapse of the glacier’s ice shelf within a few years resulting in a rise in global sea levels by several feet.
While researching the post, I came across an old friend who will be playing a significant role in studying the ice shelf. I am referring to the yellow autonomous submarine named Boaty McBoatface.
At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union yesterday, scientists from The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) discussed the rapid retreat of Thwaites glacier and the implications that will have on our planet in the coming years. Thwaites, often referred to as the Doomsday Glacier, is massive, the size of Florida or Britain, and currently contributes four percent of annual global sea-level rise.
Thwaites glacier is retreating rapidly as a warming ocean slowly erases its ice from below, leading to faster flow, more fracturing, and a threat of collapse, according to an international team of scientists. If it does collapse, global sea levels could rise by several feet—putting millions of people living in coastal cities in danger zones for extreme flooding. The ice shelf, currently helping to restrain the glacier, could collapse within the next five to 10 years.
The Norwegian sail training ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl will be visiting New York harbor next week. The three-masted barque, built in 1914, will be docking at Brooklyn Bridge Park and will be available for tours from December 19 to 27, from 11:30am to 4:45pm.
Update: Since our original post, the tours are now fully booked.
The event will be hosted by the Institute of Marine Research, Statsraad Lehmkuhl, and Team Norway. During the tour you may meet some of the scientists and researchers that are doing research on board, Norwegian companies showcasing their ocean technologies and local partners. You will also experience the exhibition on board – on deck – as you are served hot Norwegian fish soup and warm beverages.
The good news, as reported by the New York Times, is that 11.2 million juvenile oysters have been added in the past six months to a section of the Hudson River off the coast of Lower Manhattan, where they are helping to filter the water and creating habitats for other marine life.
Oysters are natural filter feeders. They feed by pumping water through their gills, trapping particles of food as well as nutrients, suspended sediments and other contaminants. In doing so, oysters help keep the water clean and clear for underwater grasses and other aquatic life.
If they grow big enough, the oyster reefs can even play a role in dissipating wave energy, helping to protect the city’s shorelines from storm surges and flooding in extreme weather.
While many were disappointed by the lack of major breakthroughs at COP26, the recent U.N. climate talks, significant progress was made in beginning to clean up shipping emissions on global trade routes.
As reported by the Washington Post, the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, and others — 22 countries in all — signed the Clydebank Declaration for Green Shipping Corridors, a new framework for reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. The signatories commit to establishing “zero-emission maritime routes” for ships using clean marine fuels such as methanol or ammonia.
Earlier this year we posted Maersk Bets on Methanol — Orders One Feeder and Eight Large Dual Fuel Containerships. The feeder vessel is expected to be delivered in 2023, with the first of the eight 16,000 TEU ships, built by Hyundai, rolling out starting in 2024. This week Maersk revealed the new carbon-neutral large ship design.
In designing the large 16,000 TEU ships, Maersk started with a clean slate. In addition to engineering the dual-fuel engines capable of safely burning green methanol, they developed a forward accommodation design, with the stack all the way aft, which Maersk claims will increase energy efficiency by 20% per container compared to industry average. The eight ship series will cost $1.4 billion and will replace older vessels, generating annual CO2 emissions savings of around 1 million tonnes.
Maersk – Next Generation of Maersk Container Vessels Designed for Green Methanol
This year has been a catastrophe for Florida manatees. More than 1,000 manatees, about 15 percent of the state’s total population, have died, primarily of starvation, this year. For nourishment, manatees rely mainly on sea grass, beds of which have been smothered by pollutants along with outbreaks of toxic algae blooms intensified by climate change.
Now, for the first time, state and federal wildlife officials have decided to feed some of the wild marine mammals to help them survive the winter. The plan approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service would allow limited feeding in the Indian River Lagoon, using the same “leafy greens” — like romaine lettuce — that experts feed to manatees in captivity and at rehabilitation centers.
Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility
On the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 1,000 military families have been forced from their homes and suffered illness by drinking water apparently contaminated by petroleum from a leaking, World War II era, underground fuel storage facility on the base in Oahu, Hawaii.
The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility is located 100 feet above the Red Hill aquifer — which supplies drinking water to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and other areas of Hawaii.
Testing has revealed petroleum hydrocarbons and vapors in the water, the Navy said. US Pacific Fleet Deputy Commander Rear Adm. Blake Converse confirmed a petroleum leak was the cause.
On this, the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, I thought that it might be interesting to look one year forward to gauge how the US responded to the attack. On December 7, 1942, American shipyards launched 25 ships, 15 for the US Navy, including the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill and the 45,000-ton battleship USS New Jersey. The British Movietone newsreel below described the launchings on Pearl Harbor Day in 1942 as “only a fraction of Roosevelt’s mathematical certainty of the fate in store for Japan.”
Launching Of Aircraft Carrier Bunker Hill and Battleship New Jersey
Photo: Ocean Voyages Institute
The BBC is reporting that scientists have discovered marine animals living on plastic debris in an area of the open ocean dubbed “the Great Pacific Garbage Patch”.
Many of the creatures are coastal species, living miles from their usual habitats, on a patch halfway between the coast of California and Hawaii.
Plants and animals, including anemones, tiny marine bugs, mollusks, and crabs, were found on 90% of the debris. Scientists are concerned that plastic may help transport invasive species.
On April 19, 2021, Captain Dan Sandu, 68, from Romania, master of the general cargo ship MV Vantage Wave, died at sea, apparently from cardiac arrest. The ship was on route from Paradip India to Guangzhou, China, with cargo of aluminum ingots. Captain Sandu’s body was stored in the ship’s freezer until it could be repatriated.
Six months later, the captain’s body was still in the freezer after ports in 13 countries had refused to allow the body to be removed from the ship.
Reuters is reporting that Suiso Frontier, the world’s first liquefied hydrogen carrier could leave Japan for Australia to pick up its first cargo of hydrogen late this month. The ship will carry 1,250 m3 of liquefied hydrogen cooled to –253°C, at 1/800 of its original gas volume from Australia to Japan.
The A$500 million ($353 million) pilot project, led by Kawasaki and backed by the Japanese and Australian governments, was originally scheduled to ship its first cargo of hydrogen extracted from brown coal in Australia in spring. It was delayed to the second half of Kawasaki’s financial year in October to March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When things are going well, the international shipping supply chain is largely invisible and can be taken for granted by most of us. These days things are not going well. The pandemic has triggered massive trade imbalances. Critical links in the supply chain are broken, creating massive backlogs and bottlenecks in container shipping. Recently, the news program 60 Minutes featured a look at the outdated infrastructure causing America’s supply chain crunch.
Interesting news from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI).
While exploring a seamount by ROV from aboard the R/V Western Flyer in 2019 the MBARI team spotted what looked like an elephant’s tusk. The seamount is located 300 kilometers (185 miles) offshore of California and is 3,070 meters (10,000 feet) deep.
Only able to collect a small piece at the time, MBARI returned in July 2021 to retrieve the complete specimen. Now researchers are examining the tusk and have confirmed that the tusk—about one meter (just over three feet) in length—is from a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi). The cold, high-pressure environment of the deep sea uniquely preserved the tusk, giving researchers the opportunity to study it in greater detail. Computed tomography (CT) scans will reveal the full three-dimensional internal structure of the tusk and more information about the animal’s history, such as its age.
“This specimen’s deep-sea preservational environment is different from almost anything we have seen elsewhere,” said University of Michigan paleontologist Daniel Fisher, one of the researchers studying the tusk, who specializes in the study of mammoths and mastodons. “Other mammoths have been retrieved from the ocean, but generally not from depths of more than a few tens of meters.”
Divers and scientists recorded the massive spawning of coral in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef last week in a yearly show of life that signals hope that the world’s biggest coral reef ecosystem can recover from climate change.
“It’s a sign of hope that it’s doing well, and we need to keep protecting it,” said marine biologist Gareth Phillips, who monitored the coral spawning event, which is when the corals breed over two to three days by casting sperm and eggs into the water once every year in the Pacific Ocean.
Crowdsourcing has arrived on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Thousands of “citizen scientist” volunteers have spent the last 12 weeks participating in the Great Reef Census 2021. Volunteer teams of scientists, divers, tourists, and skippers have ventured to the far corners of the reef, from the tip of Cape York to the remote southern Swains. Last year, volunteers captured and uploaded over 13,000 images to the Great Reef Census platform. This year over 30,00 images have been submitted in the survey that ends tomorrow.
From the Great Reef Census website: Spanning 2,300km in length and comprising over 3,000 individual reefs, the Great Barrier Reef is one of the world’s most incredible natural icons, but only 5-10% is regularly surveyed. Given the immense size of the Reef, the impacts of disturbance events such as coral bleaching, extreme weather and poor water quality are often patchy, affecting some reefs more than others.
The University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center recently used its 3D printer to construct the world’s largest 3D-printed boat. In doing so, the university was awarded three Guinness World Records for the world’s largest prototype polymer 3D printer, largest solid 3D-printed object, and largest 3D-printed boat. The boat, named 3Dirigo, is 25′ long and weighs 5,000-pounds. 3Dirigo is built of a 50% plastic-wood cellulose blend and took 72 hours to print. The U of Maine 3D printer can print objects up 100′ long.
Below are two videos — the first of the 3Dirigo’s unveiling and the second a timelapse video of the boat being printed.
Would you rather take a voyage to the wreck of the Titanic or to the edge of space? A ticket for either happens to start at around $250,000, which makes the likelihood of experiencing either well out of reach for most of us mere mortals.
Oceangate Expeditions has announced its second annual trip to the Titanic’s final resting place. It will carry passengers, dubbed, ‘mission specialists,’ along with researchers, 12,500 ft beneath the North Atlantic Ocean to survey the vessel up close from inside the company’s submersible Titan.
The Titanic Expedition is conducted as a series of eight-day missions in May and June. Each seat now costs $250,000 – a $125,000 increase from last year.
In what is described as the first carbon-free humanitarian logistics effort, Grain de Sail has announced that it is partnering with two non-profits to deliver unused medical supplies from New York to the Dominican Republic by sail.
Grain de Sail is a French company that sells fine chocolates, coffee, and organic wines. Its cargo-sailboat, a modern 72′ schooner, was built to carry wines across the Atlantic from St. Malo, France to New York and then pick up cocoa and coffee in the Dominican Republic and return to France. The schooner is currently on its third transatlantic voyage, bound for New York City, carrying 10,000 bottles of wine.
A recent report by the National Academy of Public Administration concluded that the US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point has “lost its way.” The congressionally ordered review of the federal merchant marine academy determined that the school was beset with problems including aging facilities, a striking lack of diversity, and a curriculum that was failing to keep up with the needs of an evolving shipping industry.
“The findings and recommendations of this report address long-standing issues that put the safety and health of the midshipmen and the entire USMMA community in peril,” wrote Teresa W. Gerton, the public administration academy’s chief executive.