On a modern yacht in the middle of the ocean with a broken rudder, send out a call for help, then out of the misty past THIS, the Götheborg out of Sweden, comes to rescues you ... Wow!
[The arrival of the Götheborg on the scene was rapid and surprising, as we did not expect to see a merchant ship from the East India Company of the XVIII century. This moment was very strange, and we wondered if we were dreaming. Where were we? What time period was it?]
One of the biggest habits that humanity has to kick is that of seeing a human-free space and assuming it’s worthless/empty unless we fill it up with something. It’s happening with plans for the ocean, deforestation for “development”, talk of delivery drones filling the future sky, cube sats that will hide the stars. This “space” is the planetary engine, and it’s incredibly valuable NOW. doing all sorts of things that keep us alive & enrich our lives. We should protect it. #ocean#climate#Earth
With all of the horrible things happening in the world, it’s nice to find the wins. Especially in the area of our environment. A group called Coral Guardian is restoring coral reefs, and it’s quite magnificent.
These photos represent 7 years of work on the Indonesia’s Hatamin Island. In this they have increased the fish population by 5x with 53k corals restored.
🌊 Miniature octopuses, scuba tanks, life rafts, flippers, sharks and some very rare green dragons are still washing ashore along the Cornwall coast today, 25 years after a container of Lego was washed off the deck of a cargo ship.
A look underneath seafloor hydrothermal vents on 🌎has revealed cave systems teeming w/ worms, snails & chemosynthetic bacteria living in 75F-degree water.
Methinks this may have significance for the origin of life on Earth & maybe Enceladus!
We generally think that over-fishing is about fish that humans eat. But around a third of all wild-caught fish are turned into fishmeal, because fishmeal is around 65% protein and therefore in demand for for feeding farmed fish and pigs. It's an almost invisible trade with huge consequences. But it's not an efficient way to make more protein. We need to re-think these links and ask whether it's really worth the damage to the ocean & communities.#ocean#fish#fishmeal
I'm in Appledore in Devon, to give a talk later about Blue Machine and I've just discovered that they have a KNITTED OCEAN outside their church. And this is the Best Thing Ever.
It still blows my mind that the last “Bovril Boats” didn’t stop operating in the Thames until 1998. 1998 ! Their job was to take Lordon’s sewage down the Thames from Beckton and to dump it into the North Sea (but oh, on the ebb tide, so that was ok). Dumping anything in the ocean is an admission that our systems on land have failed, but in this case it was failure by design. We cannot continue to treat the ocean like this. #ocean#sewage
I haven't posted about this for a while, but holy hell, ocean temperatures are absolutely insane right now.
Of course, given how quickly human industry is altering the atmosphere — on a scale that Nature never accomplished — it’s really no surprise to see the ocean responding this way.
More than 90% of the excess heat trapped in the Earth system due to human-caused global warming has been absorbed by the oceans, which currently store 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and 20 times more than land plants and soil combined.
It’s not certain, however, how long this ratio can be sustained. As the ocean continues to heat up like the rest of the planet, its waters are projected to become less efficient at taking in carbon dioxide and may release it back into the atmosphere more rapidly.
Also, the more CO2 the ocean absorbs, the more acidic its chemistry becomes. After years of working overtime to take in some of the excess carbon we’ve pumped into the atmosphere, ocean acidification has already increased 30% compared to pre-industrial levels, and could increase an additional 120% in the decades ahead. That, in turn, could lead to severe disruptions in the worldwide food chain, followed by famine and starvation such as we’ve never seen.
I wish I was exaggerating. But I’m not. We are in grave danger.
“Climate change” isn’t just about the climate being different. It’s about a highly complex and interwoven system shifting how it operates, and the cascade of consequences is almost certainly going to take us by surprise. Our world is far more intricately interdependent than we generally appreciate. And there will be more things like this:
“Ocean acidification is going to do all sorts of weird things to animals’ sensory perception.”
🐙 🐙 🐙 🐙 ⛰️ 🔎 🌊
Why do thousands of deep-sea octopuses congregate two miles below the surface, at the base of an underwater mountain off California? Researchers now think they know the secret behind this real-life octopus garden, the largest known gathering of deep-sea octopuses on Earth....
I used to live in a little cabin with a view of the ocean so I often got to see sailboats sailing around the bay. You could never get tired of that view!
The ocean is full of connections, and here's another one. The idea that whale poo helps redistribute the critical nutrient iron in iron-poor seas has been around for a while, but now it looks as though the penguins are at it too.
What’s important is that when species suffer population decreases, it’s not just about losing charasmatic animals - it’s about breaking the links in the ocean systems for recycling and energy distribution.
If you're one of those organised people who is already thinking about Christmas presents, the FT has just named Blue Machine as one of its best science books of 2023.
And one of the nicest things about the reaction to it has been that even people who have no initial interest in the ocean really love it, as well as those who start as fans. Do give the gift of the ocean this festive season!
This tiny disco ball with a face is called a Hummingbird Bobtail Squid, and it doesn't get bigger than a couple of inches in length. Widespread throughout the tropical waters of the central Indo-Pacific area, it prefers sandy or fine sediment seafloors where it can easily bury itself in case of danger. It rests under the sand during the day and comes out at night to feed on small benthic crustaceans primarily. Its glowing abilities, which help hide its profile from being silhouetted by the moonlight, come from a bioluminescent bacteria with which it shares a symbiotic relationship.
Corals across several countries are bleaching and dying en masse from unprecedented levels of heat stress, prompting fears that an unfolding tragedy in Central America, North America, and the Caribbean could become a global event.
US government scientists have confirmed reefs in Panama, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico, and six countries in the Caribbean, including the Bahamas and Cuba, are suffering significant bleaching, alongside corals in Florida that began turning white almost a month ago.
“I don’t think any of these places have seen heat stress like this before,” said Dr Derek Manzello, coordinator of Coral Reef Watch at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“This will only get worse until there is a global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This is essentially a big field experiment. The big fear is there will be catastrophic mortality.”
This just went straight into my top ten favourite boat names.
I’m in Guernsey (for the first time) to speak at their literary festival tomorrow on Blue Machine, so if you know anyone on the island, do encourage them to come along. #books#Guernsey#ocean#boats
“Instead of seeing the ocean as a “solution” for climate change, we need to see it as a test of a new attitude to our planet, one that doesn’t treat it as a combination of universal rubbish bin and exploitable resource. Ask not what the ocean can do for you, but what you can do for the ocean.”
The hardback version of Blue Machine is so very beautiful but the paperback version is coming soon (May 2nd) and (ta-da!) here is the new cover, on the right. If you think ocean is only blue liquid filler, this is for you.
'Blue Machine is quite simply one of the best books I have ever read.' - Dr George McGavin
Ocean heat record broken, with grim implications for the planet (www.bbc.co.uk)
The oceans are a vital regulator for the climate and our weather but are rapidly heating up.