Extraction of Sand & more– 12th Sep 2023

Ahoy from Tibidabo! This is Rorshok’s Ocean Update from the 12th of September twenty twenty-three A summary of what's going down in the 70% surface of the Earth covered in salt water

Let’s kick this episode off with some news on sand. According to the United Nations, six billion tonnes of sand are extracted every year from the world’s oceans. On Tuesday, the 5th, The Environment Programme of the United Nations (or UNEP) warned that the extraction of sand can seriously affect the ecosystem: The practice will not only affect biodiversity, but it will also produce water turbidity and noises that will disturb marine mammals. To tackle the issue, the UNEP launched a global data platform to monitor sediment extraction of all marine environments. The platform is called Marine Sand Watch and uses AI to control the removal of sand, clay, silt, gravel, and rock. The situation is particularly concerning in the North Sea, Southeast Asia, and the East Coast of the United States, where marine dredging is the most intense.

Talking about data from the oceans, the Saildrone start-up company created automatic vehicles that, without the support of a crew, can collect data about marine life, the ocean floor, Earth’s weather, and much more. Thanks to its technology, Saildrone has already tracked hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean and discovered an underwater mountain located in the Pacific Ocean. Furthermore, the uncrewed vehicles are mapping the entire ocean floor. The long-term goal of Saildrone is to gather data for science, fisheries, weather forecasting, maritime security, and ocean mapping.

Saildrone’s historical data are available to the public. Wanna check it out? Follow the link in our show notes!

On Wednesday the 6th, two cargo ships, one with the Maltese and one with the Portuguese flag collided off the Greek island of Kefalonia. The Maltese vessel had twelve crew members onboard, while there were eleven people in the Portuguese boat. The collision caused a fire on one of the two vessels. The crew members immediately took action to extinguish the fire, and no one was harmed. A fleet of tugboats rapidly intervened on the scene to tow the two cargo ships. The vessels will be checked in the port of Argostoli, and the Captains will have to testify in court.

Let’s move on to the Panama Canal. In previous episodes, we have seen how the serious drought that hit the Canal caused delays in the transit of ships. The gas shipping company Avance Gas has recently declared that a shipper paid 2.5 million US dollars plus the regular shipping fee to skip the queue and secure his chance to sail across the Canal. The regular fee ranges between $150,000 and $1 million dollars depending on the size of the vessels.

The Canal Authorities held an auction for vessels to have the opportunity to skip the waiting line in the middle of August twenty twenty-three. Even though Avance Gas knew how much the winning bidder paid, it didn’t reveal the name of the winner. Moreover, on the 18th of August, the shipping company Maersk paid the regular fee plus $900,000 dollars to get a slot to cross the Canal.

From Panama to Singapore. PUB, Singapore's national water agency, has successfully created a plant that uses electricity to extract CO2 from seawater. The project can extract 100 kilograms of CO2 daily, using a technology from a US firm called Equatic. Gurdev Singh, the PUB general manager leading the project, said that its aim is to gain enough funds by the end of the year to build a plant with a daily capacity of ten tons.

On Wednesday, the 6th, more than two hundred scientists from all over the world signed and published an open letter asking to prioritize and accelerate ocean-based carbon dioxide removal research and development. The letter was delivered in time for the gathering of the world leaders for the UN General Assembly. In the letter, the scientists underlined the need for more research for a better understanding of the risks and benefits of accelerating ocean-based carbon dioxide removal. The signatories are experts in oceanography, environmental sciences, and climate science. The ocean holds fifty times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere; scientists warned that carbon dioxide removal has unknown consequences as there is no research on its impact and effectiveness. The open letter states the scientists’ commitment to advancing research on the topic, emphasizing the importance of addressing climate change and protecting the marine ecosystem.

In other news, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (or ASEAN) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian Ocean Rim Association and Pacific Islands Forum on Monday, the 4th. The Memorandum consists of a series of agreements meant to strengthen the cooperation between the countries of the Indian and the Pacific Ocean in fields such as sustainable development, blue and green economy, digital economy, and disaster management. Retno Marsudi, the Indonesian Foreign Minister, stated in the welcoming speech that the Memorandum helps to maintain peace, stability, and prosperity in the regions.

Still in the Indian Ocean. Climate change is affecting the lifestyle of coastal communities in Tanzania. According to a BBC video report, The rising temperatures of the water are strongly impacting traditional fishing and seaweed production. The women in the coastal community of Jambiani, in Zanzibar, are now changing their main income activity, learning to swim in order to farm crops of sponges, which is quickly becoming more profitable than the previous ocean-related jobs.

From sponges to bacteria. A flesh-eating bacteria known as Vibrio is proliferating with the rise of ocean temperatures. During the last summer, Vibrio killed three people and sickened another four in total in Connecticut and New York. This bacteria usually lives in hot coastal waters, and people can contract it while swimming if they have a small cut or scratch. While people in the Gulf of Mexico are aware of the bacteria because of the hot water, it's spreading on the upper East Coast because it caught the local population unprepared. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that around one hundred people die and 80,000 get sick each year because of Vibrio. Researchers are concerned about the bacteria colonizing the whole area and becoming a permanent local threat.

On that note about climate change. El Niño, the tropical weather pattern of the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, is now moving up to the Oregon coast, overheating the water in the region and impacting its marine life. As a result of El Niño’s presence, different species might migrate towards the North and the warm water could be lethal for plankton, the main food for salmon and other fish of the area. Moreover, high tides and rising sea levels are increasing the risks of flooding on the Oregonian coastline, while the winter precipitation in the mountains could come down as rain instead of the usual snow.

From the West to the East coast of the United States. The University of Maine is opening a graduate training program focusing on the world’s ocean and its changes. The National Science Foundation will contribute three million US dollars towards the program. Joshua Stoll, an associate professor of marine policy, will be in charge of designing and implementing the program over the next five years. It will target around forty-five master’s and doctoral students who are interested in focusing their studies and research on the rapid change of the ocean and its ecosystem, transversally crossing the fields of marine ecology, oceanography, genomics, computational, and social sciences.

Closing with a one-hundred-year-old cargo ship that ran aground off the Southwest coast of Finland, in the Åland archipelago, on Friday, the 1st of September. The Captain of the vessel David Saari fell asleep, and the ancient vessel, part of Finnish maritime history, grounded on its way from Godby to Naantal, while carrying grain.

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