Strider is going to be a research vessel

[Roger Long]

My spring, and possibly summer, cruise plans are shaping up to be rather unusual and interesting. Strider is going to become an oceanographic research vessel.

Full story here:

http://www.rogerlongboats.com/RVStrider.htm
​

 

[Ross]

What a wonderful way to add purpose to a voyage.
Someday when you have time google "krill" and read about those important little critters.
Also Donna Lange has made known to me a group called "OceansWatch". They are interesting. http://www.donnalange.com/joinoceanswatch.html

 

[tsmwebb]

Very interesting!

We send data to YOTREPS when we're on passage. In theory that data is used by weather researchers and the server is provided in return for the data. Given the messy nature of the data (uncalibrated instruments, human d/e and lots of missing fields) I suspect the weather guys are getting a bum deal. I think it would be rewarding to be able to be able to gather more useful data. I suspect others out in the world cruising community would be into that, too. If you've got any leads on people who might be looking for the kinds of data that can be collected from small, slow, random moving boats with little power, payload and data access I'm sure I can find people who would be willing to collect data.

We intend to be here in La Paz through Friday so I'll have 'net access 'till then.

--Tom.

 

[Roger Long]

Someday when you have time google "krill" and read about those important little critters.

One of the very scary things about CO2 is that it raises the acidity of the water (Ph is one of the things we'll be measuring). There is a very fine margin between current acidity levels, which have been about the same for eons, and the level at which creatures that need to extract calcium from the water and combine it with carbon to make shells can no longer do so. The proportion of that margin that has been used up since the industrial revolution is significant. Creatures making shells, dying, and carrying the CO2 to the bottom sediments is one of primary mechanisms by which the oceans help regulate CO2 levels. If we go over that tipping point....

 

[John]

One of the very scary things about CO2 is that it raises the acidity of the water (Ph is one of the things we'll be measuring). There is a very fine margin between current acidity levels, which have been about the same for eons, and the level at which creatures that need to extract calcium from the water and combine it with carbon to make shells can no longer do so. The proportion of that margin that has been used up since the industrial revolution is significant. Creatures making shells, dying, and carrying the CO2 to the bottom sediments is one of primary mechanisms by which the oceans help regulate CO2 levels. If we go over that tipping point....

What is so incredible to me is that there are still many people who deny that all this change (1) is happening at all, or (2) is caused by human activity. What it boils down to is that they are trying to fit the facts into their political agenda rather than the opposite. And what is even more incredible is that many of these people are sailors. They, more than anybody else, should wake up and smell the coffee.

And our kids and grand kids will be the ones who suffer the most for this.

 

[Ross]

The krill feces sequesters carbon for a thousand years according to the paper I read on the web. Too much CO2 makes the water acidic enough to desolve calcium carbonate hence the limestone caverns.

 

[Roger Long]

The krill feces sequesters carbon for a thousand years according to the paper I read on the web. Too much CO2 makes the water acidic enough to desolve calcium carbonate hence the limestone caverns.

No calcium carbonate, no shells. No shells, no shit, No shit, no carbon sequestration. We're in deep shit. No shit.

 

[Roger Long]

If you've got any leads on people who might be looking for the kinds of data that can be collected from small, slow, random moving boats with little power, payload and data access I'm sure I can find people who would be willing to collect data.

I can see this idea turning into something much more widespread. First step though is to make it respectable in the research community. If this cruise turns out as it should, there could be a lot of opportunities for similar projects.

Stay in touch and have a good next leg.

 

[dvideohd]

John....

There are just a lot of misconceptions out there....

A - It's not about a rise of 10's of degrees - thus causing massive hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, tsunamis, and the like.. We can thank a lack of knowledge about that - and also thank Science according to Hollywood &/or Disney...

B - It IS about a small rise in the wrong location... A small rise in average temperature along an ocean/ice boundary - or on Greenland - has TREMENDOUS impact. So it is about SMALL CHANGES WITH BIG IMPACTs... this aspect a lot of people don't understand - and that is one of the real merits Roger is out to work on... (good job Roger!!)

C - The GREEN POLICE do not do anyone any service... It's a classic problem in a lot of respects...
1 - There is a problem....
2 - We have to DO SOMETHING
3 - This is SOMETHING
4 - THEREFORE - we should do "THIS"....
Its the Politician's way... If Politicians are not seen to be doing something to fix the problem, then they are seen to be ignoring it... It does not occur to a lot of folks that it might be better to wait and make sure that that the THING being done to address the problem is not worse than the problem... Examples being Rabbits in Australia, Kudzu in the US Southern states, etc, etc, etc... This ecosystem is complex.. we need to know more.. and not do dumb stuff.... you betcha.....

D - There are MOTIVATED Interests mucking the waters up.. Example - There is a POWERFUL lobby against SUV drivers.. General theory is that an SUV driver is EVIL and should be repressed - whereas the Hybrid Driver is GOOD and should be promoted.... Lot of such expression on NPR, for example. The reality is "how much fuel do you burn" - not the type vehicle.. Hybrid drivers that commute 100 miles each way to work - burn more than SUV or Hummer drivers/owners that bike or drive a mile to work. So there is NO "MEDIA Praise/Derrogatory" aspect to the lifestyle - and how much the respective drivers burn... I think this is motivated interests at work. Ditto about public transport and the fuel/energy consumed there.. 40' busses with one passenger will burn more fuel than a Hummer....

E - only "politically acceptable" expressions of outrage get used on environmental issues... for those "few degrees of change" - land use is not discussed at all... nor the effect of roads and towns on overall climate change... The effect of the Hummer is small... compared to the interstate highway system that runs on it... or importing your produce at the local market from Central or South America... Again.... real research will perhaps quantitify all this - if the research is not SKEWED by the political correctness of grant awarding... (case in point: (a) - Dr. Gray's continued failure to secure adequate funding for hurricane research and (b) Skews in NASA funding for certain research items - both cases were non objective grant awarding situations).

I do think Roger is on to doing some real research of merit... I do not mean to be going off" on this topic - and ranting... But there is a real need for REAL INFORMATION and too many opinions and too much political "whacking" going. Makes making real decisions hard - when you do not have information....

**********
Regarding the "man-made" comment... Deforestation of North Africa has been going on for 1000's of years - and has had a real effect... I do not think it irreversable - but it is not trivial to correct... Most Political versions of Envionmentalists don't want to talk about land use.. but it is by far and away a - or perhas THE - major driving element in climate change - outside of natural causes... Deforestation - in Brazil, or Ohio, or North Africa has a BIG EFFECT..

*****************
One ocean related issue that I would like to see more about - is the effect of plastics on the ocean ecosystem... I think this is a big issue.... as plasitcs break down to smaller and smaller pieces... how much finds it's way to the ecosystem? Sailors know that there is an amazing amount of crap floating around and breaking down to smaller and smaller parts...

***************

If you want to communicate how man has affected the enviroment.. watch the weather... you see a big city with it's temperature... look a the surrounding rural areas and see correspondinly lower temperatures... Cities heat up the local termperatures..

Ditto on all the RUN OFF water that collects from towns and QUICKLY takes surface contaminants off to local lakes or water channels... and we DRINK that stuff....

Look at the loss of the Lousianna coastline - fast - or the DEAD ZONE extending out from the Mississippi River Mouth...

These are all man made effects.... not related directly to SUVs, either..

I would hope some real collective science about causes and cures will result in the next few years...

**********
I suspect that some of your "no GW" folks are rebelling against the Political Correctness aspect of what should be objective science - It's easy to pass a rule against SUVs traveling on roads - MUCH HARDER to make sure that all RUN OFF WATER from a town to the harbor is free from Sewage and Contaminants...

Haven't we all seen how "SKEWED" those rules are...

**************

--jerry

 

[John]

Jerry wrote: "I suspect that some of your "no GW" folks are rebelling against the Political Correctness aspect of what should be objective science - It's easy to pass a rule against SUVs traveling on roads - MUCH HARDER to make sure that all RUN OFF WATER from a town to the harbor is free from Sewage and Contaminants..."

I've read a lot of stuff by and about those GW deniers. Actually, what they are doing is following their masters, the ones who pay their bills, which is the oil companies. This is not some conspiracy theory; it's fact; that is who is giving money to the great majority of them. As for Dr. Gray, I assume you mean William Gray, who is a retired professor who is basically out of the field and out of touch. The reason he can't get funding is that he doesn't deserve funding.

 

[Ross]

The inter relationships that affect the global enviornment are of such a complex nature as to be nearly impossible to quantify individually. For example in pre-columbian america the Chesapeake bay was home to un-numbered populations of water fowl, fish, crustations and mollusks and the balance was good. Today the Chesapeake bay is home to a greatly depleted population of fish, crustations, and mollusks and the forests and water fowl have been replaced with farms, chickens, highways, people and towns and cities. If we are to restore the bay to a pre-columbian condition we will have to reverse all of the changes that have happened in 400 years. That isn't going to happen so the best we can hope for is to quantify the present conditions and use that as a starting point and make small changes a few at a time and measure the effect that these changes have on the bay. It has taken 400 years to get to where we are and it won't be corrected quickly or soon.

 

[sailaway78]

Thanks Jerry

Much better said than I ever could. While I do not deny there is a problem, and there needs to be some things addressed, I just cannot buy into the fear tactics that seem to be the bread and butter of both sides. This should not be a political issue, but that is what it has turned into.

 

[bob20012]

CO2 and taxing Farting Cows (google it! its true)

I think any research is important and think what your doing is great. I'm not sure I agree about CO2/man caused GW. I read there's 20k scientist that have signed a petition disagreeing..

"Judge a tree by their fruits" ... taxing farting cows says its all
google this and read the article gore-confronted-on-global-warming-hysteria/

Much better said than I ever could. While I do not deny there is a problem, and there needs to be some things addressed, I just cannot buy into the fear tactics that seem to be the bread and butter of both sides. This should not be a political issue, but that is what it has turned into.

 

[Roger Long]

I just cannot buy into the fear tactics that seem to be the bread and butter of both sides.

Having worked almost exclusively for oceanographic institutions for decades, I've been very close to the scientific community without actually being in it. I have talked with a lot of scientists in those years and had a chance to observe funding and grant writing dynamics a lot more closely than most.

My perspective from this vantage point is that the proposition that global warming is an idea ginned up or exaggerated to extract grant money is totally a product of right wing propoganda and just one of the many lies that got us into our current mess. The reason is simple. There are lots of things to study. If you are going to be dishonest and make up subjects to justify grants, there much easier and more certain ways to extract the money. The dishonest scientist is going to go with the flow and not pursue ideas in opposition to the most powerful and entrenched interests on the planet. I'm probably doing this carbon sampling in the spring because it was hard to get money for such studies during the last eight years.

There is plenty of scientific disagreement about the extent and nature of greenhouse gas contribution but that is simply because it is a complex subject. There is no serious and informed disagreement about the fact that we must cut emmissions well beyond what is probably technically and politically feasible. Putting forward such disagreement HAS become one of the best ways to attract funding and support from outside of mainstream sources.

 

[John]

More disinformation

I think any research is important and think what your doing is great. I'm not sure I agree about CO2/man caused GW. I read there's 20k scientist that have signed a petition disagreeing..
/

I heard about this "petition". It was not signed by 20,000 scientists; the majority were not scientists and of those scientists who did sign it, most were not in that particular field. The overwhelming majority of those in the field who "disagree" with the idea of human caused global warming are in the direct pay of the oil companies. Truth be told, they are not scientists, they are propagandists masquerading as scientists. This is a simple fact and any google search can get the facts on that.

Politically, there was opposition to the idea of human caused global warming because the consequences would inevitably mean more government regulation. Some in the political world oppose this no matter what, so they sought to fit the facts to their ideology. This is the wrong way to go about investigating anything. Over the years, the powers-that-be have strongly resisted the idea of human caused global warming, but the facts have overwhelmed their resistance, in the main.

Roger long hits the nail on the head when he comments on the disagreement in the scientific community over global warming because of the complexity of how climate changes. One detail: Almost all predictions as to how fast the ice caps would melt, etc. have been wrong; they have underestimated the speed of these processes. This is because of what they call "positive feedback loops". For instance, as the (white) ice melts, it reveals the (dark) water which absorbs more heat.

 

[Ross]

Re: More disinformation

There is no question concerning the fact that global warming exists. The dispute is over the quantitative contribution of the activities of human endeavour. I have no doubt that human activity has exacerbated the problem but the long term effects of global warming can only be delayed but not reversed by the actions of humans. We must be perpared to experience greater extremes in the weather patterns than we have been accustomed to seeing. Forty years ago we could go ice skating every winter. The past fifteen years the ponds have remained open all winter.

 

[Maine Sail]

Guys..

Please can we try and keep this thread from being moved to the sails call lounge. Everyone has political views but the front page sailing forums are just not the place for them.

 

[Ross]

Re: Guys..

For two or three centuries the US government collected weather data from ships that were sailing in all oceans. From these data came the pilot charts for the winds on the seas for every month of the year. I would be pleased if there was a data collecting center for the observations the pleasure boaters could report of water conditions and quality. A 12 inch disk painted in black and white quadrants and lowered into the water can give water clarity information with a lo-tech devise while on a cruise.