Migrants Rescued in the Mediterranean Sea & more– 5th Sep 2023

Ahoy from Tibidabo! This is Rorshok’s Ocean Update from the 5th of September twenty twenty-three A summary of what's going down in the 70% surface of the Earth covered in salt water

An Egyptian-flagged cargo ship rescued around 150 migrants from two overloaded sailboats off Greece on Wednesday, the 30th of August. The first boat had seventy-six people onboard, and the cargo ship rescued them off Zakynthos Island, in western Greece, on the route towards Italy. The second one, with eighty people onboard, was found off Kíthnos Island, in the East of Greece, close to the Capital.

The number of smuggling boats arriving in Greece increased in the last two months, especially on the Eastern side, close to Turkey.

The Mediterranean Sea was the theater of mass death of migrants over the past months, if not the past years— among the most recent ones, the shipwreck off Cutro, in Italy, and the one in Pylos, Greece. They brought the Italian and Greek Prime Ministers to form a Mediterranean Migration Alliance in their last meeting in Athens, on Thursday, the 31st of August. The two Prime Ministers declared the main focus of the alliance would be to facilitate cooperation with the African and Asian countries of origin and transit, tackling the cause of migration and managing mass migration flows. Italy and Greece are the most relevant countries of entry into the European Union from the boat routes starting from North Africa and Turkey.

Talking about Turkey, a second civilian cargo ship from Ukraine safely reached Istanbul on Monday, the 28th of August, after Russia withdrew from a UN-approved agreement on grain export from the Black Sea. Despite the Russian block, the vessel departed from Odessa port on Sunday, the 27th of August. Russia reacted by threatening to consider every boat in the Black Sea as a military target and to bomb the Ukrainian port infrastructure.

Another Ukrainian cargo ship has raised suspicions for refusing the assistance of the Romanian Agency for Saving Life at Sea (or ARSVOM). The forty-five-year-old boat Amanos departed from Kiliya on Monday, the 21st of August. ARSVOM received a distress call on Sunday, the 27th, reporting buoyancy issues, probably due to a breach in the bow. ARSMOV sent three SAR vessels (special boats for searching and rescuing), fearing the boat would sink and put the lives of the eight crewmembers in danger, but when the SAR vessels reached the boat in distress, Amanos declined help. Only later the Captain contacted ARSMOV saying they weren’t in need of assistance, as the minor intervention didn’t require any external help, and that they were heading towards Bulgaria. Romania withdrew the request for assistance, but two SAR vessels kept monitoring the ship until it exited from Romanian waters.

Still on cargo ships. The marine engineering company BAR Technologies, in collaboration with the Japanese Corporation Mitsubishi, disclosed a wind-power container. The Pyxis Ocean increased its fuel efficiency by thirty percent thanks to the BAR's WindWings technology, which uses wind in high-tech sails. Using wind to power boats is an ancient method that got overpassed with technology, but now it could be exactly this old method that would help the shipping industry in the process of decarbonization, by using less fuel.

In other news, Maui is struggling to keep the toxic fire debris from the ocean. In previous episodes, we talked about the disastrous fire that hit Hawaii. Now, the ocean ecosystem faces a huge danger if the toxic runoff reaches the waters. Coral reefs are located just offshore and are highly vulnerable. State and federal authorities are installing barriers to catch debris before entering the ocean, while the U.S. Coast Guard is putting absorbent booms in the ocean around the stormwater outlets, trying to capture oil and other dangerous materials. The U.S. Geological Survey is monitoring the water and collecting particles for analysis.

From the Pacific to the Southern Ocean. Three climatologists reported that phytoplankton have begun to bloom later and terminated earlier in the last twenty-five years. Phytoplankton has a very important role in combating global warming, as it absorbs the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere. Researchers at the Southern Ocean Carbon–Climate Observatory analyzed satellite pictures of the past three decades and found out that the blooming season of phytoplankton lasts fifty days less than the previous decade. As a result, less carbon is absorbed every year. The shortening of the blooming season will also have an impact on the food chain, as phytoplankton is the main food of zooplankton and some crustaceans.

Moving on to ocean warming. The high temperature of the water is intensifying the strength of hurricanes that release more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, raising the Earth's and the sea surface’s temperatures. A perfect example of this phenomenon is Hurricane Idalia, which went from category one to category four in only twenty-four hours on Wednesday, the 30th of August, off the Gulf of Mexico. Globally, the sea surface temperature reached twenty-one degrees Celsius (or seventy Fahrenheit), the warmest on record.

In other news, a discovery emerges from the deep ocean. Scientists have found a new species of marine bacteria that brings a wider understanding of underwater conditions. A team of Chinese experts grew the bacteria in a lab reproducing the mud conditions of the ocean floor. The bacteria belong to a family that is common all over the world, but yet not well studied. So far, it is known that it is very effective in recycling carbon and nitrogen.

What do cars have to do with oceans? Not much, before the car-selling company Kia announced the incorporation of recycled plastic collected from the Pacific Ocean in its upcoming models. The company is teaming up with The Ocean Cleanup, an international non-profit organization that removes plastic waste from the oceans, for a seven-year partnership. The Ocean Cleanup recently retrieved a fifty-five-ton haul of plastic trash from the Pacific Ocean, only in two trips, making it safe to say that Kia will not lack plastic material for its new cars.

Not only companies are raising awareness on the status of our oceans. The surfing champion Kelly Slater is using his fame to talk about environmental protection and the current situation of the oceans which, being a surfer, he experiences first-hand. Slater has spoken about the danger of swimming in contaminated waters, mentioning the Fukushima wastewater case, as well as the depletion of natural resources.

Ocean health awareness is really circling the globe. The Australian environmental street artist InkHunter is the author of a mural that promotes action for ocean protection. The Australian National Maritime Museum commissioned the artist, who named his work Shallow Iridescence. The idea behind the work is for society to develop a feeling of shared responsibility regarding the impact of human behavior in aquatic environments and to encourage people to go towards a path of sustainability. The museum also signed the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. This international partnership aims to gather and spread data and knowledge for the sustainable development of our oceans.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

Did you know that today is the perfect day to subscribe to our show? Already did that? Thanks! Then tell your friends about us!

Remember you can help us financially with the link in our show notes!

See you next week!