The Russia-Ukraine War in the Naval Front & more – 7th Nov 2023

Ahoy from Tibidabo! This is Rorshok’s Ocean Update from the 7th of November twenty twenty-three A summary of what's going down in the 70% surface of the Earth covered in saltwater.

The Russian and Ukrainian conflict keeps escalating in the Black Sea. On Saturday, the 4th, Ukrainian forces attacked a Russian missile carrier under construction at the Zaliv shipyard in Crimea. The vessel Askold reported several damages, and the strike prevented it from joining the Russian sea fleet. The next day, Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine's air force, confirmed the attack. The counterattack was not long in coming. On Sunday, the 5th of November, Russian forces bombarded Odessa’s Black Sea Port, in Ukraine, using four missiles and twenty-two drones that injured eight people. They also damaged several buildings and infrastructures and destroyed grains, an important export good, impacting significantly the already damaged economy of the country.

In other news, the Information Fusion Center - Indian Ocean Region (or IFC-IOR) declared in its monthly and annual reports that piracy, robberies, and smuggling are the biggest causes of concern in the Indian Ocean region. In twenty twenty-two, 161 piracy and armed robbery cases took place in the area. This year, the Center reported 811 cases of contraband until September. Overall, month after month, the number of cases of piracy, robberies, and smuggling is decreasing: in September, eight piracy and armed robbery incidents occurred, slightly less than the previous month in which ten incidents took place. Regarding contraband, the Center reported sixty-three incidents in September against the eighty-eight in August. The situation is slowly improving, but it still concerns the authorities.

Still on the Indian Ocean. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science believe they have solved the mystery of the Indian Ocean’s massive gravity hole. The Indian Ocean Geoid Low (or IOGL) is a huge gravitational anomaly. It weakens gravity and causes a lower sea level than the global average. In a study published in May in Geophysical Research Letters, the researchers found that 120 million years ago, the Indian plate broke from the supercontinent Gondwana and got closer to the Eurasian plate, passing over the Tethys plate. The remaining fragments, called Tethyan slabs, collided with a magma bubble beneath East Africa. The collision formed the plumes that caused the weakened gravity.

Moving on, Admiral Hari Kumar, the Indian Navy chief, put forward four principles to strengthen relations among Indian Ocean Region (or IOR) states on Tuesday, the 31st of October. He established the principles during the Goa Maritime Conclave, an initiative by the Indian Navy to reinforce collaborative maritime security efforts among IOR littoral states. Kumar's suggestions include establishing a dynamic working mechanism based on common maritime priorities, leveraging the unique capabilities and expertise of each state, developing regional Centers of Excellence for naval security information, and prioritizing efforts under bilateral, mini-lateral, and multilateral approaches in the IOR. Ministers and navy chiefs from twelve IOR countries participated in the conclave.

Next up, researchers from the University of New South Wales, in Australia revealed that over the past two decades, the Southern Ocean has absorbed almost the same amount of heat caused by human activity as the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans combined. Ocean warming has almost doubled between twenty ten and twenty twenty compared to the nineteen to two thousand period. The oceans now absorb more than 90% of excess human-generated heat. This increased heat uptake has implications for sea-level rise and climate impacts. The research highlights the urgent need for international action, especially from major emitters, to achieve net-zero carbon targets and address uncontrolled ocean warming. The world's oceans are experiencing record-high temperatures, leading to rising sea levels, ecosystem stress, and extreme weather events.

On another note, hurricanes are getting stronger. Andra Garner from Rowan University in New Jersey reported in the journal Scientific Reports that tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea are intensifying more rapidly due to rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change. The research, based on data from the hurricane database Hurdat2, shows that hurricanes today have over twice the probability of transitioning from a weak Category 1 storm to a strong Category 3 or higher within twenty-four hours compared to the period from nineteen seventy-one to nineteen ninety. Specifically, the likelihood increased from 3% to 8% from two thousand one to twenty twenty. The author emphasizes the importance of coastal planning and communication measures to help vulnerable communities adapt to the changing risks posed by tropical cyclones.

Still in the Atlantic. Marine biologist Fernando Lima and his team have deployed thousands of small sensors, or Envloggers, along the Atlantic Ocean's shorelines to study the zone's temperature and biodiversity changes, providing useful information about climate change's impact on marine life. These sensors offer high-resolution temperature data, revealing microhabitat variations that were previously unobserved. The research aims to fill gaps in understanding the effects of climate change on intertidal species and help protect marine biodiversity. It took Lima and his colleague Rui Seabra fifteen years to develop the Envloggers, founding the nonprofit startup ElectricBlue to meet the growing demand for these sensors worldwide.

From the Atlantic to the Antarctic. It’s the seventh consecutive year that the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources has declined to establish new marine protected areas around Antarctica. From the 16th to the 27th of October, the Commission met in Hobart, Australia, with the participation of twenty-six member countries and the European Union. In two thousand nine, the Commission committed to creating a network of new marine protected areas. This year, the proposal consisted of establishing new protected areas in the Weddell Sea, the Antarctic Peninsula, and East Antarctica, but China and Russia exercised their veto right for the seventh time. The two countries didn’t reveal the reasons for their veto, but last year César Cárdenas, a researcher from the Chilean Antarctic Institute, while commenting on their sixth veto, remarked on the geopolitical interest of the two countries for krill fishing in the area.

In unrelated news, the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (or PMEL) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle celebrates its fiftieth anniversary as a leading ocean research institute. To commemorate this milestone, on Monday, the 30th of October, the journal Oceanography published a special issue featuring twenty-nine articles highlighting PMEL's significant scientific contributions over the past five decades. PMEL's research focuses on ocean acidification, El Nino-Southern Oscillation, marine aerosols, among other aspects of oceanography. The lab's work is still fundamental in improving the understanding of climate change, extreme weather events, and marine ecosystems. PMEL has produced over 3,400 papers, and many stakeholders use its data for oceanographic studies.

A follow-up from a story we covered in a previous update. The Panama Canal is making further cuts to the number of ships using the waterway due to the severe drought that has been impacting the area for months now. From Friday the 3rd, the Panama Canal Authority decreased the number of transiting vessels from the already reduced thirty-one to twenty-five, and the number will probably go down further to eighteen from February twenty twenty-four. These measures are causing long delays and raising shipping rates elsewhere since vessels are trying to find alternative routes to the Canal. The cuts will increase the cost of shipping goods worldwide.

And to wrap up this edition, the Madeiran news outlet Diário de Notícias reported that a sixty-three-year-old woman disappeared into the ocean while taking a selfie with her husband at the Ponta Delgada pier in Portugal on Sunday, the 29th of October. A strong wave swept her away. Her husband, on the other hand, managed to swim ashore and save himself. Local authorities noted that people frequently put themselves in danger near the ocean despite awareness campaigns.

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