DEATH’S DOOR

DEATH'S DOOR

(The full story, with related interviews and full-color photos are in the article in Soundings Magazine November 2008 issue..)

The Crew of a 44-foot cutter narrowly survive a knockdown, a 360-degree roll and, ultimately, the loss of their boat in a fierce Atlantic storm..

By Douglas A. Campbell Senior Writer

There was no conversation in the saloon of the 44-foot cutter Sean Seamour II, where the crew had retreated to ride out the huge storm waves one spring night in 2007. A drogue had been deployed on more than 500 feet of line, and a reefed storm jib was keeping the bow pointing downwind.

Outside, the storm howled, and mountains of water loomed 70 feet above the stern. Inside, only Rudy Snel’s voice occasionally broke through the roar, which had become background noise. Wind speeds were consistently reading above 70 knots. The 62-year-old Snel sat at the chart table and let his new friends know whenever there was a gust of more than 80 knots.

Ben Tye, 31, was sitting in the curved settee behind the oval table to port. Jean Pierre de Lutz, 56, the skipper, a citizen of the united States and France who owned the center cockpit Beneteau, was in one of the cushioned seats to starboard. As seas pounded the port bow with frightening frequency, Snel, a retired school teacher, remained at the nav station long enough to announce a high gust of 85.5 knots. Then he went back to the aft stateroom to nap. His rest would be short-lived; the following near-death experience would be anything but.

Sean Seamour II was caught in Tropical Storm Andrea may 6, 2007, off North Carolina. In the next 12 hours, two other yachts – one with a professional crew of three, the other sailed by a 75-year-old couple and their 45-year-old daughter – would be abandoned in the storm. And the 54-foot yacht Flying Colours would, after it’s EPIRB had transmitted two erratic signals, disappear without a track with it’s professional crew of four.

Although the search for Flying Colours was futile, Coast Guard helicopter crews saved nine sailors, including Snel, Tye and de Lutz, as they flew rescue sorties in this powerful storm, which at its peak generated 70-foot seas and produced winds as strong as 100 mph. Without exaggeration, the trio of sailors aboard Sean Seamour II are lucky to be alive today.

In hindsight, professional weather forecasters and yacht routers would agree there had been sufficient warning of the looming storm. Regardless, the severity of the conditions on board Sean Seamour II went far beyond what the three sailors had anticipated when they left Jacksonville, Fla., five days earlier for the start of a trans-Atlantic voyage.

The destination was France, with stops in the Azores and Gibraltar. Snel and Tye were volunteer crewmembers. They had never met de Lutz, a European management consultant and former hotelier in France, before he picked them up at the airport in Jacksonville when they arrived for the voyage. Each had signed aboard to acquire offshore sailing experience. Snel, from Ottawa had sailed a 27-footer on the Great lakes. Tye, a professional chef who had quit the hot kitchen to become a professional sailor, lives in the United Kingdom and had taught sailing around the world, though typically on lakes or coastal waters and within sight of land.

WELL PREPARED

Both were impressed with de Lutz when they saw his exhaustive preparations for heading offshore. Sean Seamour II, aboard which de Lutz had previously completed one of his two Atlantic crossings, had been stripped of its equipment following its last voyage. The gear was stored in an air-conditioned warehouse.

In preparation for the 2007 Atlantic crossing, de Lutz had the marina where he kept his 44-footer send out his life raft and GPIRB for recertification, which included checking the device’s battery. (A GPIRB is an electronic position-indicating radio beacon, or EPIRB, that incorporates a GPS and is able to send a precise location to rescuers.) De Lutz says the Georgia-based company reported that the emergency transmitter was in good condition and that its battery was good until the following November, but could last another five years.

Sean Seamour ii also had two drogues, once a Seabrake model de Lutz says he had used five or six times in a heavy mistral in the Mediterranean and three times in “critical conditions” at the tail end of Hurricane Bertha in 1996. He had bought a 500-meter reel of line, cut into four sections, for the drogue rode, as well as new chain segments and swivels. He says he trained Snel and Tye on the use of the drogue before departing.

Preparations for the voyage also included installation of a new wind sensor, autopilot hydraulic pump, stuffing box seal, house battery bank, fuel filter system, sail-handling sheets, rudder bearings, auxiliary tiller, and all life vests, flares and other safety equipment. In addition, de Lutz had examined the entire rig and the running lights, serviced the engine, polished the fuel, and sent the life raft and GPIRB for recertification.

For navigation and communications, Sean Seamour II had paper charts as well as two computers programmed with navigation and satellite telephone software, for sure in receiving weather information. The crew tried the electronics before they left, the skipper says.

De Lutz says he also briefed the crew on the boat’s equipment and tools, and discussed such safety contingencies as closing seacocks and companionway doors, executing proper lashings, and a discussion on how to use the electronics, drogues and more. Moreover, beginning a week before departure, the seven-day weather GPRIB files (computer generated weather forecasts) were downloaded and studied regularly. These shows two high- and two low-pressure systems “fairly balanced” over the western Atlantic, De Lutz says.

EPIRBs

Early on the morning of May 2, 2007, Sea Seamour II headed down Florida’s St. Johns River. In the afternoon, de Lutz stopped to top off his fuel tanks, and then the three men entered the Atlantic. Tye hoped for some adventure.

“Being outside one’s comfort zone is what it is all about for me,” says Tye. “Only then can you truly perform at your maximum level.” But no one on board expected the maelstrom they would encounter in just four days.

Sean Seamour II had two EPIRBs on board. The GPIRB, with its state-of-the-art technology, was mounted in a bracket in the cabin. The second EPIRB, an older 406 MHz model registered to de Lutz’s old boat, Lou Pantai, was mounted on the hard dodger. The emergency beacons certainly provided some sense of security for a boat headed offshore. Tye, for instance, says he wouldn’t have boarded de Lutz’s boat had there been no EPIRB.

But in the end, even they provided no guarantee of rescue. When the sailors were in desperate straits, confusion over the registration of the GPIRB actually caused rescue authorities to dismiss its emergency signal as a false alert (see accompanying story). What ultimately summoned rescue forces and saved the trio was the signal transmitted by the older backup device.

DeLutz steered for the Gulf Stream to take advantage of the current as long as the winds were favorable. On the first night out, Snel, taking the early watch, marveled at a large pod of dolphins.

There were squalls and some rough water in the Gulf Stream, and at one point, because the boat was taking on water from an unidentified leak, there was talk of heading for Norfolk, Va., to make repairs. But de Lutz determined that the leak was from the recently replaced rudder bearings. He packed in more grease and continued the northeasterly course.

When winds shifted to the northwest early May 5, de Lutz steered to the east on a route that would pass 300 miles north of Bermuda, on track for the Azores. At about 6;20 the following morning, the crew spotted an aircraft carrier heading to Newport News, Va. They were sailing in 30-knot winds, gusting to 35 knots.

HERE COMES ANDREA

“About 2 in the afternoon,” Snel says, “Ben and I were on the back of the cockpit, and off on the horizon we see these different-looking, wispy clouds, yellowish-brown on the top. I said it looks like fog. He said no, it’s rain.”

In fact, it was the leading edge of the low de Lutz now knew was coming. The GPRIB files and weather-fax indicated the storm was about eight hours away, de Lutz says. In about a half-hour, the crew of Sean Seamour Ii would find themselves in growing seas and increasing winds. De Lutz held the easterly course, hoping the weather would pass by. But at 4 o’clock in the afternoon may 6, in deteriorating conditions 217 miles east of Cape Hatteras, N.C., he turned to starboard to run with the north-northeast winds. Despite the sailors’ access to a variety of weather information, de Lutz apparently didn’t have enough data to fully grasp with the complex, converging weather systems would ultimately produce – an extremely powerful storm with hurricane-force winds and crippling seas.

With the storm jib reefed to one quarter on the roller furling of the inner forestay, the crew set the Seabrake drogue off the stern, the line passing through the aft starboard cleat and led to the main port-side winch so more line could be let out if needed. The drogues drifted back about 110 yards, to the second following wave. Then the crew wrapped the line with chafing tape and slathered it with grease. It was tiring work. The wind already was blowing hard from the north, and the seas had built to 20 feet or more.

The drogue set the boat on a slight angle to the following seas, on a starboard tack. Snel recalls climbing the companionway ladder a couple times and taking videos of the building seas, with waves riding above the stern, block the view aft.

Just before dark, de Lutz decided the drogue needed more line, and the crew joined him to add another 60 yards, bringing the total length to more than 500 feet.

“The boat handled very nicely throughout the storm, with very little rudder adjustment required,” de Lutz recalls. Now seas were 25 feet and the boat was heading south at 6 knots. Over the next several hours, the wind strengthened, and waves grew to 40 feet and higher.

With the extra line added to the drogue, the crew had retreated to the cabin for the night, riding alone in their thoughts, save for Snel’s occasional announcement of the wind speed. Outside, intermittent crossing waves hammered the port side of a hull, jarring Snel’s confidence. The noise, he thought, was like that of a truck running into the bow, again and again. When Snel announced that the wind instrument was at 85.5 knots 00 the maximum the unit could read – Tye said “That’s something to tell my chums back home.”

About 2:30 on the morning of may 7, Snel decided to try to get comfortable on the birth in the after cabin. De Lutz took over the watch at the nav station; Rye remained on the port settee.

KNOCKDOWNS

Not 10 minutes later, Snel found himself hurled across the aft cabin, slamming into the starboard furniture and straining his back. In the saloon, Tye became and projectile, flying through the air, reaching out, trying to grab something. De Lutz tried to break his fall; Tye hit the starboard side of cabin.

Sean Seamour II suddenly was on its side. As the yacht righted itself, de Lutz told his crew to remain on the starboard side, hoping that would eliminate further chance of injury. The crew didn’t know it at the time, but they now believe that during the knockdown, the line to the drogue parted. Without the tension of the drogue keeping the boat on course, disaster was imminent. It was just a matter of time. Moreover, there was water in the bilge, which apparently entered through engine room vents as waves washed across the boat’s stern. The crew ran the bilge pumps continuously.

Then the skipper looked out the companionway. The hard dodger had been sheered off in the knockdown and was gone, along with the 406 EPIRB, which did not have a hydrostatic release. De Lutz assumed the EPIRB had sunk with the dodger, preventing it was transmitting a signal.

Also, the helm was damaged so that the boat could not be steered. The hell seemed intact, and it was too early to assess the rig. But sending he had lost control of the vessel, de Lutz returned to the cabin, took the GPIRB out of its cradle on the wall beside the companionway, and activated it. The strobe on the unit began flashing, an indicator that it was performing properly. He put the unit back in its cradle and joined the crew in securing and assessing the conditions below deck.

FATAL BLOW

A crippling assault on the 44 foot cutter came about 15 minutes later, when an enormous wave hit the port side, rolling the boat. Water flooded in through vents in the cabin top around the mast. Rather than rolling completely over, however, the boat stabilized with its keep pointing to the night sky.

Snel had been in the galley, and de Lutz had been sitting on the cabin sole, his feet braced under the chart table. When the knockdown occurred, Snel heard the skipper yell and turned to see de Lutz pinned under the heavy saloon table, which had not been secured to the floor. As water flooded in through vents now positioned beneath the inverted hell, Snel sloshed across what had been the overhead and heaved the table off the skipper, who got to his feet in the rising water. Several of his ribs were broken.

There still was little discussion. De Lutz thinks he told the crew he planned to get outside to check the life raft. He was worried the boat might not right itself, and he wanted to make sure the raft was secure.

Snel made the first move to get out of the boat, but de Lutz gently pulled him back. Kneeling in a foot of water, the skipper reached down for the dogs securing a hatch now in the bottom of the capsized vessel. Showing remarkable courage, he opened the hatch, took what breath he could with several broken ribs, and made his way through the opening and into the dark sea.

The follow sequence of events happened very quickly. De Lutz swam after, under the cockpit, and toward the rear deck where the life raft was supposed to be mounted. In the darkness, he couldn’t locate the raft.

Meanwhile, in the cabin Tye was confused. He had seen the skipper leave without an explanation. How, Tye wondered, could de Lutz possibly survive out there? Feeling claustrophobic as the water level rose, Tye believed he was going to die.

Snel was worried, too. He didn’t know whether de Lutz had made it out or was stuck. After a few moments, Snel again prepared himself to follow de Lutz out the same hatch. Just then, the boat began to right itself.

SAVE THE LIFE RAFT

Outside, the skipper had his hands full. “I needed some air, so I swam to the port side,” de Lutz says. Just then, the boat resumed its roll, the starboard side rising out of the water just as he got his hands on the port rail. Like a sailor on a capsized dinghy, de Lutz allowed the turn of the boat to pull him back aboard. Clambering down into the cabin, he told the men to get the pumps going. The crew was incredibly calm, according to the accounts of all three. Tye still believed he was going to die; but he was right-side up again and, for the moment anyway, things appeared to be a bit more under control.

De Lutz returned to the deck to survey the damage and find the life raft. There was some moonlight filtering through clouds, and his eyes adapted quickly in the dark. The two forestays and the starboard shrouds had parted, and the most was bent and nearly severed three inches above the cabin top.

Standing on the heaving deck in seas that had reached 70 feet, de Lutz saw that the life raft was inflated and trapped upside down in the water beneath the mast. Its ballast bags and canopy lines were tangled in the spreaders and the rigging. De Lutz realized he had to somehow cut the raft free to keep it from being punctured. Adrenaline over-came pain from the broken ribs as he struggled to life the mast off the raft.

“I had to squeeze under the mast to lift it, keeping a leg free to push the raft forward,” de Lutz recalls. “Several times, the wave movement… compressed me against the deck and arch pole.”

To untangle the raft, De Lutz had had to cut off it’s ballast bags and then the canopy. He eventually was able to work the raft to the leeward, or starboard, side of the boat, where he tethered it. Tye and Snel, meanwhile, had cut open a plastic water jug and were bailing in 18-inch deep water, heaving it out the open companionway because the pumps were falling behind.

De Lutz wanted to lighten the bow by jettisoning anchors and 140 yard of chain. He also wanted to reroute the bilge pumps through the cabin top vents so he could close the companionway. But when he looked into the cabin and saw the green light on the GPIRB starting to fade, he says his plans suddenly were “uprooted.”

“I was absolutely panicked that if this EPIRB doesn’t work, nobody knows our predicament,” de Lutz says.

De Lutz concentrated on trying to revive the GPIRB and on sending a mayday by radio. Both efforts were unsuccessful. The single sideband radio was of little use with the backstay-mounted antenna missing. And with the rig on deck, the mast-head antenna for the VHF also was useless. The satellite telephone was out of commission, too.

ABANDON SHIP

All the while, waves that washed across the stern and broke over the boat slopped through the open companionway and down around the mast. Sean Seamour II began to wallow. Near first light at around 5:20, a large wave crashed on the boat. The bow was already riding low. De Lutz, who earlier had dismissed Snel’s suggestion that they take to the life raft, gave the order to abandon ship.

All three men were wearing foul weather gear and inflatable life vests on safety harnesses with tethers. As he climbed out of the cabin, Snel stuffed some flares in his pockets, where he also carried a knife and the GPIRB. But in their haste to get into the raft, they left the ditch bag with all it’s survival gear on board.

The noise was incredible, and the spray stung the men’s faces.

Tye says they got into the raft as quickly as possible but then realized it was still tethered to the boat. Fearful of puncturing the raft, Snel had dropped his knife into the sea. “Fortunately, I had a knife in my jacket, “ Tye says. He passed it to Snel, who cut the tether, and the raft went over the crest of the first wave. When it climbed When it climbed from the trough to the next crest, Sean Seamour II had vanished. They had gotten off just in time.

In some ways, their new vessel seemed little better than the one now headed for the bottom. When de Lutz had slashed away the canopy to free the raft from the rigging, the survival gear packed in the raft was lost. And without a canopy or ballast bags to keep it upright, the raft was pray to each towering, breaking wave and every 70-mph gust that got under the edge of the raft. Their tethers attached to webbing on the raft floor were the only things that kept them from being separated.

Things looked bad. “It didn’t take long to think, Here we are with a GPIRB that’s not working,” Snel remembers. “Nobody knows where we are. The three of us are dead.”

After a while, Snel says he decided to make the best of it by looking around and trying to “enjoy the scenery. I tried to estimate wave heights.” His conservative estimate – later verified by the Coast Guard – was 70 feet.

The waves came from different directions, and on several occasions they’d collide in spectacular fashion. “You’d see a pillar of water shoot up 15 feet across, just straight up,” Snel remembers. “Amazing!”

RESCUE

The hours in the raft were an ordeal. The men struggled with righting the raft every time it got knocked over and with helping the injured de Lutz back aboard. The skipper was not in good shape. “J.P. went through two episodes of shaking, lying with his head in my lap,” Snel remembers. “He was just waiting for that peaceful feeling of hypothermia coming over him so he could just fade away.”

De Lutz agrees that he was in serious trouble. “Hypothermia was gaining on me, and my strength was depleting with the very difficult tasks of attempting [to] upright the raft [and] climb on,” de Lutz says. “At one point, the pain… was so acute I hoped for relief in drowning and almost did. I was resigned to that fate.

“I had tied myself to the raft so my body might be found. The tether was short, and Rudy reached down and pulled me to the surface, and somehow they managed to pull me aboard. From there on, I was slipping in and out of consciousness, quite oblivious to what was happening.” De Lutz wound up with 10 broken ribs.

After two hours in the raft and with hope fading, the sailors spotted a C-130 aircraft. “J.P. gave a weak little cheer,” Snel says. “It flew by three or four times. I was busy trying to light hand-held flares.” Snel says he had practiced lighting flares before, but now the “stupid things wouldn’t strike. Finally, I got a parachute flare out, pointed it into the wind. It went up 50 feet and blew horizontally into the wave.”

Up in the C-130, a crewmember looking back saw the flare. The aircraft immediately dropped a big, floating flare to mark the location. It was 7:11 a.m. May 7.

A half-hour later, a helicopter was launched from Elizabeth City, N.C., assigned to rescue the crew of a boat identified as the Lou Pantai, which was the name of the same yacht the C-130 had been assigned to find. That’s the boat name that de Lutz’s older 406 EPIRB – the one that was lost when the boat rolled the first time – was still registered under. Unbeknownst to the men, the emergency beacon had activated when the boat capsized, and its signal had been received.

Not quite two hours later, a scene unfolded that Snel remembers as surreal. Without warning, a helicopter appeared, hovering above the huge waves, flying into wind that had by now subsided to 50 mph. “Awhile later, I see the rescue swimmer coming swimming up to the raft,” remembers Snel, who a year later was being treated for post-traumatic stress. “[He] puts his elbow over the raft and says, ‘How you all doing.’”

De Lutz was the first to ride up in Drew Dazzo’s basket. “Then there was a bit of a wait” Snel says. “Ben said, ‘They’re not coming back for the rest of us.’ “ But Dazzo returned and loaded Snel in the basket. The rescue swimmer waiting with Tye until the basket returned to the surface. The Dazzo retrieved the GPIRB, punctured the raft to deflate it, and rode up to the helicopter with Tye.

(The full story, with related interviews and full-color photos are in the article in Soundings Magazine November 2008 issue..)

Robin Storm previous s/v Sean Seamour II posts:
Summary of Action for CG6014 for the S/V SEAN SEAMOUR II- REDUX - Plus
WebExclusive  EPIRBs and the s/v Sean Seamour II - Part III
WebExclusive  EPIRBs and the s/v Sean Seamour II - Part II
EPIRBs and the s/v Sean Seamour II
NHC Report on Subtropical Storm Andrea
 Cheating Death On The High Seas
The s/v Sean Seamour II & The Hatteras Trench
High Sea's Update On Sean Seamour II
The Story of the Sailing Vessel Sean Seamour II
gCaptain previous s/v Sean Seamour II posts:
gCaptain Exclusive - Sailing in Severe Weather Lessons Learned

RS

Marine Debris Will Likely Worsen In The 21st Century

Marine Debris Will Likely Worsen In The 21st Century

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2008) — Current measures to prevent and reduce marine debris are inadequate, and the problem will likely worsen, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council.

The United States and the international maritime community should adopt a goal of "zero discharge" of waste into the marine environment, and a system to assess the effectiveness of existing and future marine debris prevention and reduction actions should be implemented. In addition, better leadership, coordination, and integration of mandates and resources are needed, as responsibilities for preventing and mitigating marine debris are scattered across federal organizations and management regimes.

"The committee found that despite all the regulations and limitations over the last 20 years, there are still large quantities of waste and litter in the oceans," said Keith Criddle, chair of the committee that wrote the report and the Ted Stevens Distinguished Professor of Marine Policy at the Juneau Center for Fisheries and Ocean Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "We concluded that the United States must take the lead and coordinate with other coastal countries, as well as with local and state governments, to better manage marine debris and try to achieve zero discharge."

A National Research Council committee was convened at the request of Congress to assess the effectiveness of international and national measures to prevent and reduce marine debris and its impact. Marine debris, man-made materials that intentionally or accidentally enter and pollute the ocean, can cause significant harm. For instance, birds, fish, and marine mammals ingest debris, especially plastics, which can lead to digestive problems and uptake of toxic compounds.

Animals can also suffer injuries or die after becoming entangled in fishing-related debris such as plastic net fragments, rope, and packing straps. Marine debris also poses a health and safety hazard to beachgoers and divers, and could impact coastal recreation and tourism revenue. While marine debris comes from sources both on land and at sea, the committee focused on debris discharged at sea for the purposes of this report.

Although Congress previously called for federal interagency coordination to address the marine debris problem, leadership and governance remain inefficient and current mitigation efforts are episodic and crisis driven, the committee found. A national framework to identify priorities for dealing with marine debris and its removal efforts should be established. Additionally, Congress should designate a lead agency to expand programs to comprehensively address the problem, including land-based marine litter, derelict fishing gear, shipborne waste, and abandoned vessels.

Under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex V, which entered into force in 1988, many discharges from ships are permissible at sea. The committee said this approach does not encourage innovation or measures to minimize waste. It suggested that MARPOL Annex V be amended to include a prohibition on discharge of garbage at sea, allowing for limited exceptions based on specific vessel-operation scenarios. In order to discourage waste disposal at sea, ships also need to have access to adequate shoreside waste reception facilities for garbage and should be provided incentives, such as low disposal fees to use them, the report adds.

Nevertheless, some ships have already adopted zero or minimal discharge practices. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should disseminate best management practices for how vessels can attain zero discharge, source reduction, and waste minimization, the committee urged. EPA should also take the lead to work with academia, industry, and nongovernmental organizations to develop industry standards and guidelines for source reduction, reuse, and recycling for solid wastes that are generated during ship operations.

The committee was specifically asked to address the challenges surrounding derelict fishing gear. While regulated under MARPOL Annex V and domestic implementing laws, it is a persistent problem because of accidental losses and legal loopholes. Also, current regulations do not include accountability measures for commercial and recreational fishing vessels for loss of their fishing gear, offering few incentives to take responsibility for cleanup.

Effective marking of fishing gear is critical for identifying the sources or fisheries that may have deployed the gear, and NOAA should develop marking protocols, the report claims. Fishery management organizations should also adopt a "no fault" policy regarding the documentation and recovery of lost fishing gear. Under this policy, local fishermen, state officials, and the public should develop cost-effective derelict fishing gear removal and disposal programs, and fishermen participating in removal efforts could receive financial credit or be exempted from landfill fees.

Moreover, the high costs and difficulty in providing adequate reception facilities, particularly in remote areas, discourages proper disposal of used fishing gear and can also be a disincentive to retrieval. Therefore, EPA, NOAA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should help fishing communities explore alternative strategies and technologies for management, disposal, and recycling of used and recovered gear.

Within the issue of derelict fishing gear, the committee also addressed the growing concern about a specific type of gear known as fish aggregating devices, which are man-made floating objects designed to simulate natural debris and attract fish. These devices pose a threat as they are allowed to float freely and are often made of waste fishing net. The committee concluded that abandoned fish aggregating devices become derelict fishing gear when the captain of the vessel does not retrieve them. Under MARPOL Annex V, this should be considered an illegal disposal if the devices contain synthetic ropes, webbing, or other plastics. NOAA should modify the federal regulations to clarify the circumstances under which abandoned fish aggregating devices become illegal discharge. The committee also indicated that international and domestic fisheries organizations should do more to regulate these devices and prevent them from becoming debris.

The report was sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

WEATHER NOTE

NASA data show Arctic saw fastest August sea ice retreat on record

Following a record-breaking season of arctic sea ice decline in 2007, NASA scientists have kept a close watch on the 2008 melt season. Although the melt season did not break the record for ice loss, NASA data are showing that for a four-week period in August 2008, sea ice melted faster during that period than ever before.

Each year at the end of summer, sea ice in the Arctic melts to reach its annual minimum. Ice that remains, or "perennial ice," has survived from year to year and contains old, thick ice. The area of arctic sea ice, including perennial and seasonal ice, has taken a hit in past years as melt has accelerated. Researchers believe that if the rate of decline continues, all arctic sea ice could be gone within the century.

"I was not expecting that ice cover at the end of summer this year would be as bad as 2007 because winter ice cover was almost normal," said Joey Comiso of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We saw a lot of cooling in the Arctic that we believe was associated with La Ni�a. Sea ice in Canada had recovered and even expanded in the Bering Sea and Baffin Bay. Overall, sea ice recovered to almost average levels. That was a good sign that this year might not be as bad as last year."

The 2008 sea ice minimum was second to 2007 for the record-lowest extent of sea ice, according to a joint announcement Sept. 16 by NASA and the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colo. As of Sept. 12, 2008, the ice extent was 1.74 million square miles. That's 0.86 million square miles below the average minimum extent recorded from 1979 to 2000, according to NSIDC.

Contributing to the near-record sea ice minimum in 2008 was a month-long period in the summer that saw the fastest-ever rate of seasonal retreat during that period. From August 1 to August 31, NASA data show that arctic sea ice extent declined at a rate of 32,700 square miles per day, compared to a rate of about 24,400 square miles per day in August 2007. Since measurements began, the arctic sea ice extent has declined at an average rate of 19,700 miles per day at the point when the extent reaches its annual minimum.

Observations of changes to sea ice over time are possible due to a 30-year record of data from NASA and other agency satellites, including Nimbus-7, Aqua, Terra and the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat).

Researchers say that the recent seasonal acceleration could be in part due to conditioning going on in the Arctic. For example, research by Jennifer Kay of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and colleagues reported this April in Geophysical Research Letters that reduced cloud cover in 2007 allowed more sunlight to reach Earth, contributing to a measureable amount of sea ice melt at the surface. Reduced cloud cover also contributed to warmer ocean surface temperatures that led to melting of the ice from below.

"Based on what we've learned over the last 30 years, we know that the perennial ice cover is now in trouble," Comiso said. "You need more than just one winter of cooling for the ice to recover to the average extent observed since the measurements began. But the trend is going the other way. A warming Arctic causes the surface water to get warmer, which delays the onset of freeze up in the winter and leads to a shorter period of ice growth. Without the chance to thicken, sea ice becomes thinner and more vulnerable to continued melt."

MARITIME NOTE

Cargo sweeping allowed to continue on lakes

By JOHN FLESHER
AP Environmental Write

TRAVERSE CITY -- Great Lakes freight haulers will continue sweeping residues of iron ore, coal, limestone and other cargo overboard under a new federal policy that rejects environmentalists' pleas to end the practice.

But the Coast Guard said it was adopting its rule on an interim basis and was opening a new study phase that could lead to tougher requirements, including mandatory use of residue control methods.

For many years, ship crews have used high-powered hoses to wash their decks after loading or dropping off dry bulk cargo in port. They're believed to sweep about 1 million pounds of waste material into the lakes every year.

The regulation, published Monday in the Federal Register, lets cargo sweeping continue but encourages shippers to find ways to discharge less waste material.

It also sets new reporting and record-keeping requirements and adds more locations to a list of ecologically sensitive places where sweeping is off-limits, such as fish spawning areas, wetlands and wildlife refuges.

"Congress expected us to strike an appropriate balance between maritime commercial and environmental protection needs," the Coast Guard said.

The Lake Carriers' Association, which represents U.S.-flagged vessels on the Great Lakes, praised the decision Tuesday. The trade group says cargo sweeping does no environmental harm, and prohibiting it could impose huge costs while creating hazards for crew members.

But spokesman Glen Nekvasil said shippers already have reduced the volume of bits and pieces left on decks and in tunnels as cargo is moved on conveyor belts between a ship's hold and onshore storage facilities. It's unclear what more could be done, he said.

"It is in the companies' best interest, and the docks' best interest, to minimize residues. The customer is paying for that cargo to be delivered," Nekvasil said.

The Coast Guard listed a number of possibilities, such as enclosing or redesigning conveyors; spreading tarps to collect residues; using water mist to limit dust; and training crews on reducing cargo waste.

An environmental impact study found that ship residues can be seen on lake bottoms in small concentrations, but the effects are "barely detectable."

But the Coast Guard said in a news release it "remains concerned that the potential risk from the practice of washing dry cargo residue into the Great Lakes, no matter how benign it appears, may increase over time."

Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger, commander of the 9th District based in Cleveland, invited public comments as the study moves forward.

"The outcome of the final regulatory phase is not predetermined," he said.

Environmental groups contend dry cargo waste is just another form of garbage, which cannot legally be dumped into the lakes, and may do more harm to bottomlands than presently known.

Michael Murray, a staff scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, said he was encouraged that the study would continue and hoped for an eventual phaseout of cargo sweeping.

"We recognize that politically or even logistically it might be a little hard to adopt what we were hoping for at this point," Murray said.

With the prohibitions on cargo sweeping in sensitive areas, "we've at least gotten to the point where the agency is acknowledging this isn't an innocuous practice," said Joel Brammeier, vice president for policy with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "That's progress."

HAVE A SAFE WEEKEND

RS

Water table depth tied to droughts

Water table depth tied to droughts

Will there be another "dust bowl" in the Great Plains similar to the one that swept the region in the 1930s?

It depends on water storage underground. Groundwater depth has a significant effect on whether the Great Plains will have a drought or bountiful year.

Recent modeling results show that the depth of the water table, which results from lateral water flow at the surface and subsurface, determines the relative susceptibility of regions to changes in temperature and precipitation.

"Groundwater is critical to understand the processes of recharge and drought in a changing climate," said Reed Maxwell, an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who along with a colleague at Bonn University analyzed the models that appear in the Sept. 28 edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Maxwell and Stefan Kollet studied the response of a watershed in the southern Great Plains in Oklahoma using a groundwater/surface-water/land-surface model.

The southern Great Plains are an important agricultural region that has experienced severe droughts during the past century including the "dust bowl" of the 1930s. This area is characterized by little winter snowpack, rolling terrain and seasonal precipitation.

While the onset of droughts in the region may depend on sea surface temperature, the length and depth of major droughts appear to depend on soil moisture conditions and land-atmosphere interactions.

That's what the recent study takes into account. Maxwell and Kollet created three future climate simulations based on the observed meteorological conditions from 1999. All included an increase in air temperature of 2.5 degrees Celsius. One had no change in precipitation; one had an increase in precipitation by 20 percent; and one had a decrease in precipitation by 20 percent.

"These disturbances were meant to represent the variability and uncertainty in regional changes to central North America under global model simulations of future climate," Maxwell said.

The models showed that groundwater storage acts as a moderator of watershed response and climate feedbacks. In areas with a shallow water table, changes in land conditions, such as how wet or dry the soil is and how much water is available for plant function, are related to an increase in atmospheric temperatures. In areas with deep water tables, changes at the land surface are directly related to amount of precipitation and plant type.

But in the critical zone, identified here between two and five meter's depth, there is a very strong correlation between the water table depth and the land surface.

"These findings also have strong implications for drought and show a strong dependence on areas of convergent flow and water table depth," Maxwell said. "The role of lateral subsurface flow should not be ignored in climate-change simulations and drought analysis."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

WEATHER NOTE

In Natural Disasters, America is lacking a culture of preparedness

By Retired Lt. General Russel Honoré, NNPA Guest Commentary
September 22, 2008

America needs a culture of preparedness. We are seeing that more state governments are struggling in response to recent disasters. Recent Red Cross data shows that for every dollar spent on preparedness, it saves six to nine dollars during disaster response and recovery. As many have seen, disasters cause drama, drama for state governments especially when plans don't execute or the storm trumps the states capability to deal with the disaster response.

"Blame the Federal government and FEMA", that is the get-out-of-jail-free card that the state governments have. We can do better, this America and one solution is to transform state government.

First and foremost, we have to optimize technology. We need to issue disaster assistance cards which can easily be activated and provide financial assistance to those who need it. Secondly, all state employees should be trained to register folks for relief following a disaster, which currently few states are trained to execute when needed. Officials also need to be mindful to pre-position food water and tarps in communities, as well as use local businesses to serve as a large part of the area's disaster response. Each area affected should have assistance locations and they should be well marked. They shouldn't block major roads and supplies should be given to anyone who shows up, no matter what county they are from.

Cities should utilize resources and use local businesses as an integral part of the disaster response. Businesses should be aware of response logistics and local governments should have pre-arranged contracts with local businesses to provide emergency goods and services. One idea would be to have local businesses provide hot meals at fixed prices - approximately 8 dollars each.

Officials should also think of the residents in disaster areas as resources as well. School systems in each state should integrate disaster preparedness and first aid into its curriculum and every college graduate should be first aid certified. We need to involve the members of our communities, where we can create a civilian response corps in each community. I like to call them "men of consequence" - those who volunteer their time and talent to create resilient communities. These volunteers would be prepared and trained to clear debris from roads and help shore up levees. They would be taught how to operate distribution points and help evacuate communities.

A very important point that I must make is that local officials must assure that residents in our communities have power. It is imperative that various laws are passed that will require gas stations and drug/grocery stores to have generators. When cities lose electrical power, our quality of life regresses back 80 years - people have no television, no running water or working sewer, no internet or cell phones. Facilities such as hospitals, courthouses and emergency response stations should have mandatory generators on the 2nd floor to protect the power source. As we saw during Hurricane Katrina, many City of New Orleans public buildings did have generators - but unfortunately they were in the basement or at ground level, which did not serve them in the disaster.

Lastly, officials need to improve evacuation contra flow. We need full use of interstate highways. The federal government owns the flow on the interstate but during hurricane Gustav, unfortunately, we saw city, state and county officials blocking traffic on interstate highways. This policy needs to be reviewed and the act of surrounding states rerouting traffic to protect the flow of tourist traffic to local resorts is unacceptable. Going 40 miles in 12 hours is another disaster in the making.

We need to create a culture of preparedness in America. Our forefathers knew how to take care of themselves, their families, and the communities in which they lived. As citizens, we need to be prepared to do that same - we cannot wait on the federal government to do it for us. For more information, go to www. CNN.com.

Retired Lieutenant General Russel Honoré serves as Emergency Preparedness contributor to CNN Worldwide. He focuses exclusively on disaster preparedness, response, and recovery activities, with multi-sector integration of emergency management. Then Lt. Gen. Honoré was also a recipient of the NNPA 2006 Newsmaker of the Year Award for his leadership and sensitivity during the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Before retiring, he commanded Joint Task Force-Katrina. In that capacity, he led the Department of Defense response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and directed the operations of more than 22,000 Service members, 200 aircraft, and 20 ships.

MARITIME NOTE

EU assembly urges tougher maritime safety rules

The Associated Press

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

BRUSSELS, Belgium: The European Parliament has urged EU governments to back tougher rules on maritime safety.

The European Union's assembly voted Wednesday to support two proposals which are opposed by most of the 27 EU member nations.

One would give the EU a greater say in forcing governments to ensure that ships flying their flags meet international safety standards. The other proposal would set common EU standards for insurance and liability for ship operators.

Governments say such issues should be left to national authorities, not the EU.

Talks to find a compromise are expected to start Oct. 7

RS

May 2008 Earthquake in China Could Be Followed by Another Significant Rupture

May 2008 Earthquake in China Could Be Followed by Another Significant Rupture

Researchers analyzing the May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China's Sichuan province have found that geological stress has significantly increased on three major fault systems in the region.

The magnitude 7.9 quake on May 12 has brought several nearby faults closer to failure and could trigger another major earthquake in the region.

Geophysicists used computer models to calculate the changes in stress along the Xianshuihe, Kunlun, and Min Jiang faults-strike-slip faults like the San Andreas-which lie about 150 to 450 kilometers (90 to 280 miles) from the Longmen Shan rupture that caused the devastating quake. The research team also examined seismic activity in the region over the past decade.

They found that the May 12 event has doubled the probabilities of future earthquakes on these fault lines. Specifically, they estimated the probability of another earthquake of magnitude 6 or greater in the region is 57 to 71 percent over the next decade. There is an 8 to 12 percent chance of a quake larger than magnitude 7 in the next decade and 23-31 percent in the next 30 years.

The research team was led by Shinji Toda of the Geological Survey of Japan, and includes Jian Lin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Mustapha Meghraoui of the Institute of Geophysics in Strasbourg (France), and Ross Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Their findings were published September 9 in the online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"One great earthquake seems to make the next one more likely, not less," said Stein, who has been collaborating with Lin and Toda for nearly two decades. "We tend to think of earthquakes as relieving stress on a fault. That may be true for the one that ruptured, but not for the adjacent faults."

In 1999, a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, was followed four months later by an M7.1 event in nearby Duzce. The devastating December 2004 Sumatra earthquake (M9.2) and tsunami were followed by an M8.7 quake three months later.

"Because the Tibetan Plateau is one of the most seismically active regions in the world, we believe there is credible evidence for a new major quake in this region," said Lin, a senior scientist in WHOI's Department of Geology and Geophysics. "The research community cannot forecast the timing of earthquakes, and there are still significant uncertainties in our models. But the Turkey and Sumatra events indicate that one major earthquake can indeed promote another.

Researchers see it as a domino-like effect, where the movement of one piece of Earth's crust means that another piece must move up, down, or away. While the stress in the crust gets reduced in some locations, it is transferred to other faults nearby.

Large aftershocks that occurred on August 1 and 5 in the Sichuan region of China may fit with this predicted pattern.

"Earthquake prediction is a bit like the thundercloud and lightning," Toda explained. "We can forecast that lightning will come from a thundercloud, but we cannot predict the exact time and place where the lightning will hit. With earthquakes, we can roughly forecast the probability of activity over broad ranges of time, magnitude, and location, but we cannot determine the exact value for any of these."

On May 12, 2008, about 300 kilometers of the Longmen Shan fault zone ruptured in an earthquake that killed at least 69,000 people and left another 5 million homeless. It was the deadliest and strongest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed at least 240,000.

As pieces of the Longman Shan fault slipped by as much as nine meters (28 feet) in the May quake, stress increased along the neighboring Xianshuihe, Kunlun, and Min Jiang faults, according to Toda and colleagues. All three faults have a history of large quakes, though portions of each have been quiet for most of the past century. All three faults were considered to be primed for an earthquake even before the recent events.

In addition to the broad prediction of earthquake triggering, the researchers have also forecasted the rate and distribution of seismic shocks greater than magnitude 6, a prediction that they plan to test from seismic stations over the next decade.

"Our paper predicts the change in the rate of small earthquakes for the faults in the region, and now we can test that prediction," said Stein. "If the rate of shocks increases on the adjacent faults, then we can confirm at least part of our hypothesis that large shocks are also more likely. It may take time, but it is a testable hypothesis."

In western China, the intrusion of the Indian sub-continent pushes the Tibetan Plateau up and over the older Sichuan Basin and other parts of the Eurasian continent. An estimated 33 percent of world's continental earthquakes occur in China, even though it only occupies 7 percent of the planet's land mass. Nearly 55 percent of all human loss to earthquakes occurs in China.

"Earthquakes do not kill people, buildings do," said Lin, who was a high school student in China when the devastating Tangshan earthquake struck. "There needs to be widespread education in earthquake preparedness, as well as systematic inspection of buildings in these regions of heightened risk. Every new building inspection and evacuation plan could potentially save lives."

"We hope the long-term forecasting allows the Chinese government to make it a priority to mitigate future damage," Toda added. "We recommend that Chinese scientists carefully observe changes in seismicity by installing new seismometers in the region."

Lin, Toda, and Stein were preparing to teach an earthquake modeling course to Meghraoui's students and colleagues in France when the May 12 earthquake occurred. The researchers immediately went into action, working with an international group of scientists to analyze the new stresses on the system.

An early version of the manuscript by Toda et al was circulated to several dozen Chinese scientists and government officials as they sought to assess the risk of aftershocks in the weeks after the earthquake. Chinese government organizations and scientists are now examining the paper in detail.

"The recent quake reminded us that Earth scientists have a tremendous responsibility to work on issues of societal relevance," said Lin. "We don't want to create panic, but there is legitimate cause for concern and we have a major role to play in educating the public about what we know."

Funding for this research was provided by the Charles D. Hollister Endowed Fund for Support of Innovative Research at WHOI and the EOST-Institut de Physique du Globe de Strasbourg, France.

WEATHER NOTE

Pupils to help beaches be safer for summer

SCHOOL children are being targeted as part of a campaign to plug a regional lifeguard shortage.

Intensive beach lifeguard courses are being held in Teignmouth this October half-term after the town's beaches were left short-staffed during the summer.

Teignbridge Council, which received fewer applications this year, hopes the RNLI will take over the running of the lifeguard service from them.

The courses will be run by the RNLI in partnership with Surf Life Saving GB who will teach prospective lifeguards from their local clubs across the south west.

Iain Palmer, president of Teignmouth Beach Surf Lifesaving Club, said the shortage was 'an on-going problem' but he hoped the latest drive to train lifeguards would ease it.

"We have not had a very good season weather-wise, but we have struggled to man beaches because of the shortage. It has been an on-going problem for the last two or three years," he explained.

He said there was a shortage of at least 300 lifeguards across the region in the summer months.

At the moment council lifeguards keep watch on Teignmouth and Dawlish Warren beaches.

Sparse numbers meant some beaches were only manned on weekends during the summer with swimmers relying on coloured flags to guide them.

The shortage meant there was no lifeguard on duty when 42-year-old holidaymaker Nigel Hunt, of Newport, Wales, died after getting into difficulties off waters at Teignmouth on July 24.

The 'no swimming' red flags had been flying because of choppy sea conditions and high winds earlier that day.

But Mr Palmer said he hoped the latest recruitment drive would boost numbers.

"It's a great chance for people to get their qualifications. We hope there are going to be 16 more qualified lifeguards by next summer," he said.

At the moment council lifeguards patrol Teignmouth and Dawlish Warren and the clubs assist on a voluntary basis.

Mr Palmer said he understood the council has been in talks with the RNLI who are going to patrol the beaches from next season.

A Teignbridge Council spokesman confirmed: "There has been a regional shortage of qualified lifeguards, and in Teignbridge we received fewer applications than usual for the posts this year.

"We welcome any initiatives which help train new lifeguards, and hope there are more qualified lifeguards available next year.

"We have been working closely with the RNLI since last year to arrange for them to run Teignbridge's lifeguard service from next season, a move which will also help bring more lifeguards to Teignbridge's beaches and resorts."

The week-long Beach Lifeguard Qualification is an essential requirement for anyone applying for a position as an RNLI lifeguard. Courses will run from Monday, October 27 to Sunday, November 2 and combine practical and theory sessions.

Skills taught will include beach safety operating procedures, hazard awareness, accident prevention, first aid including CPR, and pool and open water rescue skills including sea rescues using equipment such as rescue tubes and rescue boards.

Places on the courses will be allocated on a first come, first served, basis.

Potential applicants must demonstrate a high level of fitness, own their own wetsuit and be able to swim 400m in under seven and half minutes.

Those applicants who gain the Beach Lifeguard Qualification will be able to apply to become a RNLI lifeguard in December in time for the 2009 season.

The course will cost £50. This covers membership of the SLSGB along with the cost of the training manual and examination fees.

MARITIME NOTE

Shipping firm sets date to retrieve bodies

OPERATIONS TO remove bodies trapped inside an ill-fated ferry will start on Oct. 24.

Retrieval operations for toxic chemicals that also went down with M/V Princess of the Stars should have been finished at that time, said Jordan L. Go, vice-president for freight of shipowner Sulpicio Lines, Inc.

"Weather permitting, we’re targeting Oct. 24," he said in a phone interview. A series of typhoons has affected operations on the wreck.

Mr. Go said they have yet to sign a contract with Harbor Star Shipping Services, Inc. which will remove the bodies pending the company’s submission of its retrieval plan.

Asked about the cost of operation, Mr. Go said, "It’s difficult to say at the moment because the [salvor] has yet to make an assessment on the location of bodies. There are many variables that we have to consider and we want to make sure that when the salvor execute the plan, it would be comprehensive."

RS

Cool Summer, Warm Future: Extreme Heat Days Increase For Southern California

Cool Summer, Warm Future: Extreme Heat Days Increase For Southern California

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2008) — Summer 2008 in Southern California goes down in the books as cooler than normal.

The thermometer in downtown Los Angeles topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius) just once in July, August and the first two-thirds of September.

But don't expect this summer's respite from the usual blistering heat to continue in the years to come, cautions a group of NASA and university scientists: The long-term forecast calls for increased numbers of scorching days and longer, more frequent heat waves.

One hundred years of daily temperature data in Los Angeles were analyzed by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the University of California, Berkeley; and California State University, Los Angeles. They found that the number of extreme heat days (above 90 degrees Fahrenheit or 32.2 degrees Celsius in downtown Los Angeles) has increased sharply over the past century. A century ago, the region averaged about two such days a year; today the average is more than 25. In addition, the duration of heat waves (two or more extreme heat days in a row) has also soared, from two-day events a century ago to one- to two-week events today.

"We found an astonishing trend – a dramatic increase in the number of heat waves per year," says Arbi Tamrazian, lead author of the study, and a senior at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tamrazian and his colleagues analyzed data from Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Calif., and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in downtown Los Angeles. They tracked the number of extreme heat days and heat waves from 1906 to 2006. The team found that the average annual maximum daytime temperature in Los Angeles has risen by 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 degrees Celsius) over the past century, and the minimum nighttime temperature has increased nearly as much. They also found that heat waves lasting six or more days have been occurring regularly since the 1970s. More recently, two-week heat waves have become more common.

The team forecasts that in coming decades, we can expect 10- to 14-day heat waves to become the norm. And because these will be hotter heat waves, they will be more threatening to public health.

"The bottom line is that we're definitely going to be living in a warmer Southern California," says study co-author Bill Patzert, a JPL climatologist and oceanographer. "Summers as we now know them are likely to begin in May and continue into the fall. What we call 'scorcher' days today will be normal tomorrow. Our snow pack will be less, our fire seasons will be longer, and unhealthy air alerts will be a summer staple.

"We'll still get the occasional cool year like this year," Patzert continued, "but the trend is still towards more extreme heat days and longer heat waves."

So what's behind this long-term warming trend? Patzert says global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases is responsible for some of the overall heating observed in Los Angeles and the rest of California. Most of the increase in heat days and length of heat waves, however, is due to a phenomenon called the "urban heat island effect."

Heat island-induced heat waves are a growing concern for urban and suburban dwellers worldwide. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, studies around the world have shown that this effect makes urban areas from 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 6 degrees Celsius) warmer than their surrounding rural areas. Patzert says this effect is steadily warming Southern California, though more modestly than some larger urban areas around the world.

"Dramatic urbanization has resulted in an extreme makeover for Southern California, with more homes, lawns, shopping centers, traffic, freeways and agriculture, all absorbing and retaining solar radiation, making our megalopolis warmer,” Patzert said.

These trends may capture the attention of utility companies and public health officials. "We'll be using more power and water to stay cool," says study co-author Steve LaDochy of California State University, Los Angeles. "Extreme heat, both day and night, will become more and more dangerous, even deadly."

The findings are published in the July 2008 issue of the Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. JPL oceanographer and climate scientist Josh Willis was also a co-author on the research.

WEATHER NOTE

Hurricane Ike’s effects linger in the Great Lakes

Although Hurricane Ike is long gone, its impact lingers more than a thousand miles from where it made landfall. Runoff from tributaries dumped massive amounts of sediment into Lake Michigan, contaminating the water, compromising near-shore navigation and raising E coli bacteria to levels unsafe for swimming.

According to Richard Whitman, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) expert on beach health, 'The local effects that Ike had on Lake Michigan's Indiana shoreline, water depth, and water quality have been profound.'

While assessing Ike's impact on the lake, Whitman noted that 'The velocity and height of a tributary emptying into Lake Michigan at Portage, Indiana went off the chart. We measured a tremendous amount of sediment accumulation Near Ogden Dunes.'

USGS scientists use high tech, state-of-the-art equipment in the lake to measure runoff, the lake's currents, and sediment input during storms. These data are used to forecast whether a beach is unsafe for swimmers. Beaches are subject to high bacteria levels following storms.

Heavy rains from Ike significantly impacted northwestern Indiana and Chicago because the ground was already saturated by a stalled cold front.

MARITIME NOTE

Boat users risking their lives by not following safety advice

Over the last few days a number of small vessels have been given assistance by Coastguards and Lifeboats after they were taken to sea without having even the basic safety equipment for communicating a problem on board. Fortunately all aboard were rescued without harm to themselves or their boats. It is VITAL, even when taking a small boat a short distance off shore, that some means of communication is carried. The best means is a VHF Radio with channels specifically selected for maritime use. Flares are also desirable and when these are fired can be seen for quite a distance. Even a mobile telephone is better than nothing, but beware once a mobile phone gets wet it is useless and communications can be very erratic at sea with cliffs, headlands etc. interrupting the signal strength, and remember your phone is only good to use, even in an emergency call ‘999’, if you are in the footprint of an aerial of your network provider.

( Have you ever seen an aerial at sea???? )

Gustav found one gap in marine industry hurricane preparation

The breaking of their moorings by three vessels in the New Orleans Industrial Canal--more correctly the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC)-- during Hurricane Gustav appears to have been an isolated exception to the general effectiveness of maritime industry preparations for the storm.

The Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association says that the Coast Guard, Corps of Engineers and inland barge industry have collaborated extensively since the 2005 hurricane season to better prepare for and respond to hurricane events along the Gulf Coast.

Specifically, the collaboration produced a detailed, written protocol for storm preparation, communications and response efforts as they pertain to the marine industry, including rigid procedures for evacuating vessels in advance of a storm, or securing vessels in-place when evacuation is not feasible.

The protocol proved effective during Hurricane Gustav, with the exception of the isolated incidents inside the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC).

In the New Orleans area, the hurricane protocol originally focused on the vulnerable reach of the Lower Mississippi River below the Port of New Orleans. Knowing that a planned closure of the IHNC Lock in the summer of 2008 could pose additional challenges to the marine industry's storm preparation and evacuation efforts, the Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard called for a special meeting with the inland barge industry in the spring of 2008 to address potential problems.

During Hurricane Gustav, three vessels that were docked in the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal broke from their moorings, posing potential threat to nearby structures. These vessels were not in active service, and were not owned by any company actively involved in maritime commerce. It is presumed these vessels had been decommissioned and were destined for scrap. A thorough investigation will determine the ownership of these vessels and the reasons why they failed to remain secured during the storm.

Of all the inland barge vessels that were in active service and located within the New Orleans jurisdiction of protocol as Hurricane Gustav approached, ninety-five percent complied with advisories to evacuate the area, and none remained in the IHNC during the storm. As a result, virtually no damage was inflicted by loose barges that were in active service on this reach of the waterway.

The Coast Guard, Corps of Engineers and inland barge industry went to great lengths to anticipate all sources of risk in the IHNC and address them in advance of the IHNC Lock closure in August, including specific procedures and limitations for securing vessels in the IHNC during a storm. There was obviously a failure inside the IHNC during Hurricane Gustav, and pending conclusion of the investigation, additional measures will be developed in order to avoid recurrence of this event.

The GICA was established in 1905 to promote the concept of a single channel connecting all major Gulf Coast ports. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway was completed in 1949 as a result of a major collaborative effort. The GICA says it is the only organization focused on promotion, protection and maintenance of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

RS

Why Disasters Are Getting Worse

Why Disasters Are Getting Worse

In the space of two weeks, Hurricane Gustav has caused an estimated $3 billion in losses in the U.S. and killed about 110 people in the U.S. and the Caribbean, catastrophic floods in northern India have left a million people homeless, and a 6.2-magnitude earthquake has rocked China's southwest, smashing more than 400,000 homes.

If it seems like disasters are getting more common, it's because they are. But some disasters seem to be affecting us in worse ways — and not for the reasons you may think. Floods and storms have led to most of the excess damage. The number of flood and storm disasters has gone up 7.4% every year in recent decades, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. (Between 2000 and 2007, the growth was even faster, with an average annual rate of increase of 8.4%.) Of the total 197 million people affected by disasters in 2007, 164 million were affected by floods.

It is tempting to look at the lineup of storms in the Atlantic Ocean (Hanna, Ike, Josephine) and, in the name of everything green, blame climate change for this state of affairs. But there is another inconvenient truth out there: We are getting more vulnerable to weather mostly because of where we live, not just how we live.

In recent decades, people around the world have moved en masse to big cities near water. The population of Miami-Dade County in Florida was about 150,000 in the 1930s, a decade fraught with severe hurricanes. Since then, the population of Miami-Dade County has rocketed 1,600%, to 2,400,000.

So the same-intensity hurricane today wreaks all sorts of havoc that wouldn't have occurred had human beings not migrated. (To see how your own coastal county has changed in population, check out this cool graphing tool from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)

If climate change is having an effect on the intensities of storms, it's not obvious in the historical weather data. And whatever effect it is having is much, much smaller than the effect of development along coastlines. In fact, if you look at all storms from 1900 to 2005 and imagine today's populations on the coasts, as Roger Pielke Jr., and his colleagues did in a 2008 [ITALIC "Natural Hazards Review"] paper, you would see that the worst hurricane would have actually happened in 1926.

If it happened today, the Great Miami storm would have caused from $140 billion to $157 billion in damages. (Hurricane Katrina, the costliest storm in U.S. history, caused $100 billion in losses.) "There has been no trend in the number or intensity of storms at landfall since 1900," says Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. "The storms themselves haven't changed."

What's changed is what we've put in storms' way. Crowding together in coastal cities puts us at risk on a few levels. First, it is harder for us to evacuate before a storm because of gridlock. And in much of the developing world, people don't get the kinds of early warnings that Americans get. So large migrant populations — usually living in flimsy housing — get flooded out year after year. That helps explain why Asia has repeatedly been the hardest hit area by disasters in recent years.

Secondly, even if we get everyone to safety, we still have more stuff in harm's way than ever before. So each big hurricane costs more than the big one before it, even controlling for inflation.

But the most insidious effect of building condos and industry along water is that we are systematically stripping coasts of the protection that used to cushion the blow of extreme weather. Three years after Katrina, southern Louisiana is still losing a football field's worth of wetlands every 38 minutes.

Human beings have been clearing away our best protections all over the world, says Kathleen Tierney, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "The natural protections are diminishing — whether you're talking about mangrove forests in areas affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami, wetlands in the Gulf Coast or forests, which offer protection against landslides and mudslides."

Before we become hopelessly lost in despair, however, there is good news: we can do something about this problem. We can enact meaningful building codes and stop keeping insurance premiums artificially low in flood zones.

But first we need to understand that disasters aren't just caused by FEMA and greenhouse gases. Says Tierney: "I don't think that people have an understanding of questions they should be asking — about where they live, about design and construction, about building inspection, fire protection. These just aren't things that are on people's minds."

Increasingly, climate change is on people's minds, and that is for the better. Even if climate change has not been the primary driver of disaster losses, it is likely to cause far deadlier disasters in the future if left unchecked.

But even if greenhouse gas emissions miraculously plummet next year, we would not expect to see a big change in disaster losses. So it's important to stay focused on the real cause of the problem, says Pielke. "Talking about land-use policies in coastal Mississippi may not be the sexiest topic, but that's what's going to make the most difference on this issue," he says.

WEATHER NOTE

After Hurricane Ike, Finding the Coastline Rearranged, Again

By CORNELIA DEAN

From the plane flying over the Gulf Islands National Seashore, scientists from the United States Geological Survey were scanning the ocean, trying to find Ship Island. Their maps and G.P.S. system told them they were over its eastern end, but there was no sign of it.

“I don’t see Ship anywhere,” said Asbury H. Sallenger, a oceanographer at the Geological Survey who was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat and had the best view. "On the map we see it, but all I see is breakers. There is just zip left of this thing."

Eventually, the scientists spotted the western part of Ship, but its eastern half had all but disappeared. A small patch of land and whitecaps breaking on underwater shoals were all that remained.

The damage was considerable, but it was the kind of land loss they would see often on their flight, which they made about 48 hours after Hurricane Ike struck the Gulf Coast, as part of the survey’s long-standing effort to track storm damage on the coast.

The geologists should not have been surprised. Scientists studying the way stormy weather erodes the coast have long been able to identify regions at risk for inundation if sea-level rise continues, an inevitability in a warming world.

For example, researchers have estimated that large stretches of another barrier chain, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, will vanish if seas rise more than two feet, which many scientists consider quite likely by 2100.

But on the Gulf Coast, “we are not talking 100 years,” Dr. Sallenger said, “we are talking three years,” the time since Hurricane Katrina and a parade of other storms, including Hurricanes Gustav and Ike this year, virtually destroyed several islands running west into Louisiana. Among them are the Chandeleur Islands, a barrier chain formed thousands of years ago in a now-defunct delta of the Mississippi River, and other islands in the Breton National Wildlife Refuge.

Storms and climate change are partly to blame. But the region as a whole is subsiding. And in some areas, some critics contend, federal dredging projects are robbing islands of sand.

The result is a chain of feeble island remnants. In many places, as Dr. Sallenger observed at one point, “there ain’t nothing here but white water.”

So Karen Morgan, a geologist at the Geological Survey making still photos of the landscape, at times found herself instructing the pilot, Rob Kent, to navigate not by a shoreline but by a line of white water breaking over the submerged shoals that are the islands’ remains. In some places, there were not even breakers to show where dry land had been.

These islands are uninhabited, but they are valuable nonetheless, and not just for storm protection. With their extensive dunes and vegetation, the islands were once an important nesting place for brown pelicans and a variety of other birds. In the last few years, Dr. Sallenger said, the Chandeleurs have lost about 85 percent of their land mass, and with this loss “the habitat for birds on the flyway has decreased by an enormous percentage.”

Of course, the islands have not vanished altogether. And the scientists, who fly this coast regularly, have many times seen islands in these chains erode in storms and then recover — at least somewhat. But that can happen only as long as their underlying platforms of marsh remain intact, providing a place for sand to collect. In many places today, those platforms are “frail and really beaten down,” Dr. Sallenger said.

Dr. Sallenger said the Geological Survey scientists would try to advise officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the refuge, what they could expect in the next 5 to 10 years. The outlook is grim.

Storms have already lopped miles off each end of the largest island in the Chandeleur chain. Will the islands bounce back? “We are going to look at the data again,” Dr. Sallenger said. “It looks very tenuous.”

The outlook for Ship Island is similarly daunting, in large part because of the difficulty of finding the necessary sand. “This is a very big operation to put this back together,” Dr. Sallenger said. “It’s not a small deal.”

MARITIME NOTE

New Edition of International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code Available From Labelmaster

Publication is a must for anyone handling packaged dangerous goods and maritime pollutants by sea

Chicago, Illinois (Vocus/PRWEB ) October 2, 2008 -- Many maritime countries have taken steps to regulate the carriage of marine pollutants in packaged form. Shippers can turn to the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code as the authoritative text on all aspects of handling packaged dangerous goods and marine pollutants by sea. The new edition of the IMDG Code will be available from Labelmaster®, a U.S.-based manufacturer of hazardous materials and regulatory compliance products, on October 27. You can start using the publication from January 1st 2009, but usage is mandatory as of January 1st 2010.

Included in the IMDG Code are detailed requirements for labeling, marking, and documentation, and training provisions for articles defined as dangerous. The Code also includes packaging requirements for each article, as well as testing procedures for large and small packages.

First published in 1965, the 34th edition of the IMDG Code includes the following new features:

• EmS numbers are added to Column 15 of the Dangerous Goods List
• Substantial changes to the Dangerous Goods List
• Revisions to the construction and testing of packages and IBCs
• New recommendations for the training needs of shore side personnel

The IMDG Code is available at $219.00 for a two-volume, perfect-bound set, or on a USB drive or CD at $495. The IMDG Code Supplement is also available for $109.00 each. Special pricing is available for five copies or more. To order, please call 1-800-621-5808 or email sales@labelmaster.com.

For additional information on IMDG Code products visit:

IMDG Code: www.labelmaster.com/IMDGCode

IMDG Code Supplement: www.labelmaster.com/IMDGCodeSupplement

IMDG Code USB Drive: www.labelmaster.com/IMDGRegstick

IMDG Code Software: www.labelmaster.com/IMDGCodeCD

Labelmaster, established in 1967, is a developer, manufacturer, distributor, and marketer of hazardous materials compliance products, including labels, forms, packaging, software, and publications. The company's 40 years of experience in providing regulatory information and products for all transportation modes make it especially qualified as a total compliance resource. For additional information visit www.labelmaster.com.

RS

Scientist Uncovers Miscalculation In Geological Undersea Record

Scientist Uncovers Miscalculation In Geological Undersea Record

ScienceDaily (Sep. 13, 2008)

The precise timing of the origin of life on Earth and the changes in life during the past 4.5 billion years has been a subject of great controversy for the past century.

The principal indicator of the amount of organic carbon produced by biological activity traditionally used is the ratio of the less abundant isotope of carbon, ¹³C, to the more abundant isotope, ¹²C. As plants preferentially incorporate ¹²C, during periods of high production of organic material the ¹³C/¹²C ratio of carbonate material becomes elevated. Using this principle, the history of organic material has been interpreted by geologists using the 13C/12C ratio of carbonates and organics, wherever these materials can be sampled and dated.

While this idea appears to be sound over the last 150 million years or so, prior to this time there are no open oceanic sediment records which record the ¹³C/¹²C ratio, and therefore, geologists are forced to use materials associated with carbonate platforms or epicontinental seas.

In order to test whether platform-associated sediments are related to the global carbon cycle, a paper by University of Miami Professor Dr. Peter K. Swart appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This paper examines changes over the past 10 million years at sites off the Bahamas (Atlantic Ocean), the Maldives (Indian Ocean), and Great Barrier Reef (Pacific Ocean). The variations in the ¹³C/¹²C ratio are synchronous at all of the sites studied, but are unrelated to the global change in the ¹³C/¹²C ratio.

It appears that records related to carbonate platforms which are often used throughout the early history of the Earth are not good recorders of the ¹³C/¹²C ratio in the open oceans. Hence, the work presented suggests that assumptions made previously about changes in the ¹³C/¹²C ratios of carbonate sediments in the geological record are incorrect.

"This study is a major step in terms of rethinking how geologists interpret variations in the ¹³C/¹²C ratio throughout Earth's history. If the approach does not work over the past 10 million years, then why would it work during older time periods?" said Swart. "As a consequence of our findings, changes in ¹³C/¹²C records need to be reevaluated, conclusions regarding changes in the reservoirs of carbon will have to be reassessed, and some of the widely-held ideas regarding the elevation of CO₂ during specific periods of the Earth's geological history will have to be adjusted."

The study is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Comparative Sedimentology Laboratory at the University of Miami.

WEATHER NOTE

Climate: New spin on ocean's role

New studies of the Southern Ocean are revealing previously unknown features of giant spinning eddies that have a profound influence on marine life and on the world's climate.

These massive swirling structures � the largest are known as gyres - can be thousands of kilometres across and can extend down as deep as 500 metres or more, a research team led by a UNSW mathematician, Dr Gary Froyland, has shown in the latest study published in Physical Review Letters.

"The water in the gyres does not mix well with the rest of the ocean, so for long periods these gyres can trap pollutants, nutrients, drifting plants and animals, and become physical barriers that divert even major ocean currents," Dr Froyland says.

"In effect, they provide a kind of skeleton for global ocean flows. We're only just beginning to get a grip on understanding their size, scale and functions, but we are sure that they have a major effect on marine biology and on the way that heat and carbon are distributed around the planet by the oceans."

One of the best known large-scale gyres in the world's oceans is that associated with the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, notes fellow researcher Professor Matthew England, co-director of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre.

MARITIME NOTE

Donjon responds to Ike

Hillside, N.J. headquartered Donjon Marine Co., Inc. has been playing its part in cleaning up after Hurricane Ike.

Donjon, whose services include marine salvage, heavy lift, dredging and related emergency response, was contracted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through the company's salvage and related services contract with the U.S. Navy, Supervisor of Salvage of Diving, to remove and dispose of debris after Ike's trek through Texas.

To date, this debris has included vessels, containers and upland material, such as sections of houses and local storefronts, which accumulated in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway just outside Galveston, Texas.

Donjon subcontracted this work to various area-based marine service providers for equipment and labor, while Donjon provided onsite project management, logistical and financial support.

Great Lakes – dry cargo residue discharge

The US Coast Guard issued a press release stating that, next Monday, it will formally propose regulations that will, if adopted, require operators of lake carriers to keep records of loading, unloading, and discharges of dry cargo residue. It will also encourage lake carriers to use control measures to reduce the amount of dry cargo residue entering waters of the Great Lakes. Discharges into certain protected and sensitive waters will be prohibited. Comments on the proposal should be submitted by January 15, 2009. (9/25/08).

Australia – report on ship-fishing vessel collision

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) issued the report of its investigation of a collision between a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carrier and a fishing vessel on 30 November 2007 off Queensland. Neither vessel was maintaining a proper lookout and the LPG carrier failed to report the collision and made no attempt to contact the damaged fishing vessel. (9/25/08).

STAY SAFE!
RS