Adding Sensors To Every Ship Entering the Arctic Could Help Map the Uncharted Seafloor (arctictoday.com) 40
Equipping every ship that enters the Arctic with sensors could help fill critical gaps in maritime charts. From a report: Throughout the world, the ocean floor's details remain largely a mystery; less than 10 percent has been mapped using modern sonar technology. Even in the United States, which has some of the best maritime maps in the world, only one-third of the ocean and coastal waters have been mapped to modern standards. But perhaps the starkest gaps in knowledge are in the Arctic. Only 4.7 percent of the Arctic has been mapped to modern standards.
"Especially when you get up north, the percentage of charts that are basically based on Royal Navy surveys from the 19th century is terrifying -- or should be terrifying," said David Titley, a retired U.S. Navy Rea Admiral who directs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at the Pennsylvania State University. Titley spoke alongside several other maritime experts at a recent Woodrow Wilson Center event on marine policy, highlighting the need for improved oceanic maps. When he was on active duty in the Navy, Titley said, "we were finding sea mounts that we had no idea were there. And conversely, we were getting rid of sea mounts on charts that weren't there." The problem, he said, comes down to accumulating -- and managing -- data. But there could be an intriguing solution: crowdsourcing. "How does every ship become a sensor?" Titley asks. Ships outfitted with sensors could provide the very information they need to travel more effectively.
Each ship would collect information on oceans, atmosphere, ecosystems, pollutants and more. As the ships traverse the ocean, they would help improve existing maps and information about the waters they tread. Maps are becoming more important as shipping activity increases -- both around the world and in the Arctic. In August, the Russian research ship Akademik Ioffe ran aground in Canada's Arctic. In 2015, the Finnish icebreaker Fennica ripped a three-foot gash in its hull -- while sailing within the relatively better charted waters of Alaska's Dutch Harbor. "The traditional way that we have supplied these ships with information -- with nautical charts and predicted tides and tide tables, and weather over radio facts -- are not anywhere near close to being what's necessary," said Rear Admiral Shep Smith, director of NOAA's Office of Coast Survey. The "next generation of services" would go much further, predicting the water level, salinity, and other information with more precision and detail. One of NOAA's top priorities, Smith said, is "the broad baseline mapping of the ocean -- including the hydrography, the depth and form of the sea floor, and oceanography." Such maps are necessary to support development, including transportation, offshore energy, fishing and stewardship of natural resources, he said.
"Especially when you get up north, the percentage of charts that are basically based on Royal Navy surveys from the 19th century is terrifying -- or should be terrifying," said David Titley, a retired U.S. Navy Rea Admiral who directs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at the Pennsylvania State University. Titley spoke alongside several other maritime experts at a recent Woodrow Wilson Center event on marine policy, highlighting the need for improved oceanic maps. When he was on active duty in the Navy, Titley said, "we were finding sea mounts that we had no idea were there. And conversely, we were getting rid of sea mounts on charts that weren't there." The problem, he said, comes down to accumulating -- and managing -- data. But there could be an intriguing solution: crowdsourcing. "How does every ship become a sensor?" Titley asks. Ships outfitted with sensors could provide the very information they need to travel more effectively.
Each ship would collect information on oceans, atmosphere, ecosystems, pollutants and more. As the ships traverse the ocean, they would help improve existing maps and information about the waters they tread. Maps are becoming more important as shipping activity increases -- both around the world and in the Arctic. In August, the Russian research ship Akademik Ioffe ran aground in Canada's Arctic. In 2015, the Finnish icebreaker Fennica ripped a three-foot gash in its hull -- while sailing within the relatively better charted waters of Alaska's Dutch Harbor. "The traditional way that we have supplied these ships with information -- with nautical charts and predicted tides and tide tables, and weather over radio facts -- are not anywhere near close to being what's necessary," said Rear Admiral Shep Smith, director of NOAA's Office of Coast Survey. The "next generation of services" would go much further, predicting the water level, salinity, and other information with more precision and detail. One of NOAA's top priorities, Smith said, is "the broad baseline mapping of the ocean -- including the hydrography, the depth and form of the sea floor, and oceanography." Such maps are necessary to support development, including transportation, offshore energy, fishing and stewardship of natural resources, he said.
Purpose Built Ships (Score:2, Insightful)
I expect that it would be more effective and provide a higher degree of accuracy to use a purpose built/modified ship to simply traverse the waters following satellite guided paths would be less expensive and simpler.
Not to mention that most ships are following trade routes.So your results would be highly limited.
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May be more effective, but not affordable. These ships are crossing the area anyway, with some relatively cheap equipment you can save some money.
Beside, Arctic trade routs are always changing, and expanding. Because of global warming. Canada can now easily trade with its second closest neighbor, Russia.
goddamned digital native millenials (Score:2)
Have we already forgotten about radiofax [noaa.gov] ?!!!
Re:Purpose Built Ships (Score:4, Informative)
Because of global warming. Canada can now easily trade with its second closest neighbor, Russia.
That's wrong for so many reasons. Not the climate change part. Canada doesn't do much trade with Russia compared to other countries that we trade with. And we certainly wouldn't ship goods through the north.
The vast majority of Canada's population and manufacturing base is close to the US. To move things overseas our infrastructure is built up to move goods east or west. There is almost no infrastructure to move things northward. Today there's a rail line (which has not been working the last year or two), some ice roads during winter, small planes, and cargo ships in mid summer to fall. This is because there's a large area land that was permafrost but the top part doesn't stay frozen anymore. The government hasn't put the investment in to build more permanent lines of transportation up north. So in order to ship goods to other nations as per your plan the goods would have to be shipped up north in the first place. Better to just ship them from the other ports in the first place.
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That really isn't speech...it's more like a seizure.
Why do you need more accuracy where ships are not (Score:2)
I expect that it would be more effective and provide a higher degree of accuracy to use a purpose built/modified ship
I don't think that's true at all, you could get very nearly the same level of accuracy from sensor packages retrofitted on existing ships.
Not to mention that most ships are following trade routes.
Yes, because that is where you need the most accuracy anyway, and they would be mapped first. That is the most win/win scenario I've seen for.a while.
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Not to mention that most ships are following trade routes.
Yes, because that is where you need the most accuracy anyway, and they would be mapped first. That is the most win/win scenario I've seen for.a while.
And that's *all* that will be mapped. Once you've done this with a few ships, you've mapped those areas. It is uninteresting to keep mapping the same routes over and over. And yes, the routes change somewhat, but they're still going to the same endpoints, which kind of limits how much they can change.
I think that a better approach would be to have commercial ships toss out solar-powered, motorized buoy-drones with mapping hardware at random points along their trip, and let them float/boat around in a spi
It is not all (Score:2)
You could still have exploratory vessels in the region that would have the additional sensors, so smoother areas would get more slowly mapped. But that would be OK because the bulk of ships would have access to greatly enhanced navigation charts for seas they were mostly in.
It is uninteresting to keep mapping the same routes over and over.
Well that's a bold statement considering we know nothing about the sea floor there today, what underwater volcanos might be doing, geologic movements, etc.
I think that a
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If there were active underwater volcanos, I'd expect holes in the ice above it (what with heat rising and all). I'm not saying there's no geological activity, but I'd expect it to move at a glacial pace, so to speak.
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I am, of course, referring to the areas that have recently thawed, which are presumably the areas of actual interest, as opposed to areas that have always been accessible by boat, which one would assume have been mapped for a long time.
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Undersea volcanoes do not generally have an effect on the sea ice above [livescience.com]. They can have more of an effect on glaciers when it's close enough to the surface.
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Re:Purpose Built Drones (Score:3)
Not a dedicated crewed ship, an ocean drone would be much better. Particularly for arctic conditions that are difficult to keep people comfortable and sometimes even alive. A remotely operated floating bed of instruments with GPS. You could probably even get oil exploration companies to help pay for it.
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A remotely operated floating bed of instruments with GPS.That'd be wonderful. Perhaps I could use the same technology to guide me underwater when I'm caving. Oh, but hang on ... aren't radio signals blocked by seawater (and slightly less effectively, in proportion to the water conductivity, by fresh water)? Perhaps that is why I've never once seen an advert for an underwater GPS device. (I have however seen hundreds of adverts though for waterproofed, boat ready GPS units for use on the air-ventilated parts of boats.)
Ummmm... "Floating" as in to float on the surface of a liquid, like the ocean where GPS and radio signals are very detectable. WTF are you smoking? I expected knee-jerk reactions to mentioning oil companies [I don't care], but having to explain floating is a surprise.
You know, Your cave diving hobby [or job] is dangerous if you don't keep your wits about you. I'm concerned for you.
Return on investment (Score:2)
I expect that it would be more effective and provide a higher degree of accuracy to use a purpose built/modified ship to simply traverse the waters following satellite guided paths would be less expensive and simpler.
More accurate maybe but almost certainly more expensive unless they are doing something rather daft.
Not to mention that most ships are following trade routes.So your results would be highly limited.
Probably not as limited as you think and it makes a lot of sense to start where most of the ships are traveling anyway.
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The sonar gear used to do deep scans doesn't take up that much space. Those are small enough to attach to a ROV or even a small fishing boat. They consist of a number of transducers (underwater loudspeakers) and microphones to pick up the sonar reflections. Placed inside a waterproof case, they don't take much more space than a 1 litre bottle cut in half. Signal processing by a PC or custom silicon converts the raw data back into height information which can be stored as point cloud or terrain data.
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Low-cost, high-durability sensors everywhere pls (Score:2)
This sort of thinking could be applied anywhere. Think what it would do to meteorology if any schmoe could buy an internet-connected weather station for peanuts. (Why reliable ones still so expensive?)
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ask the whales (Score:2)
Officially versus inofficialy (Score:3)
Throughout the world, the ocean floor's details remain largely a mystery; less than 10 percent has been mapped using modern sonar technology.
Actually basically everything interesting in the ocean is mapped, by the military.
This are magnetic fields in various water depths, local gravity, and other things like typical temperatures and current. And most certainly the terrain of the sea floor.
That is how submarines find their way staying half a year longer below the surface.
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It's a popular submarine route. I am sure we have accurate maps.
I'm guessing we have REALLY accurate maps but we don't freely share them because of the strategic importance of these areas. It's a really neat place to hide a couple of nuclear subs, and up north these are places that allow a few of subs to bottle up one navy or the other in a small portion of the world's oceans or force surface ships into really LONG voyages to get where they need to go.
Pay Them. (Score:3)
Offer to pay the ships for carrying the sensor package.
Price adjusted to where it is going and how much that data is needed.
Imagine a hard luck crab boat getting the cash it needs to make it to the next season by doing this sort of mapping mission to someplace only a seasoned artic crew should go.
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The areas under consideration start north of 64degN. That's 1200+km north from the relatively clement seas they operate in. Hell, I've worked at sea further north than that, and I don't consider myself arctic-specification. Abigail and Miguel spent muc
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Oh sure, we can just invent a way to violate the rules of physics and remote sense the ocean bottom from space..
Using radar? Doesn't penetrate water too well.
Using light? Again, doesn't go though water very far.
Hearing a sonar signal from space isn't going to happen....
What else do we have here?