For over four years, the design to use wave driven upwelling pumps to pull nutrient rich water from the depths to the surface has been spear headed by Phill Kithill, a Native New Mexican inventor. The idea is simple; use the kinetic energy of waves to pull up deep nutrient rich water to the surface allowing phytoplankton to blooms, which in turn provide food for fish and sequester CO₂.

These pumps would operate offshore helping to amplify natural blooms and create algae blooms in dead zones or areas of water with no life in the photosynthetic zone. These pumps do not only sequester carbon and create food, but they create jobs in the countries that choose to produce them and possible carbon credits in the future for those countries or companies.

 Do the pumps work though?

 Karl and Letelier, 2008 research and others support the hypothesis that controlled upwelling can in fact lead to phytoplankton blooms. Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton absorb CO₂ and release O₂. Once they are eaten or die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, that CO₂ is sequestered or stored. The key factors determining CO₂ ocean sequestration by N₂- fixation or photosynthesis depend among other things on extra residual Phosphate found at higher concentrations in deep water or up welled water (Karl and Letelier, 2008). If wave driven pumps can be made to bring up Iron (Fe) and Phosphorus (P) to the photosynthetic zones, algae booms or diazotroph blooms will be triggered allowing for CO₂ sequestration and food production (Karl and Letelier, 2008).

Preliminary tests off the coasts of Hawaii and the pacific coast of Mexico show that not only are the pumps feasible, they are functional. In the Hawaiian two-week test, increased fish presence around the pumps was noted as well as the presence of a whale shark (Kithil, 2009). This is not scientifically significant, but indicative of possible increased food sources. To see how they work, please view an interactive diagram on the Atmocean website under pump technology.

Why do we need upwelling pumps?

These upwelling pumps may not only increase productivity but also help stop the spread of dead zones. Due to climate change models, it has been found that increased atmospheric temperatures have created a greater stratification of natural upwelling cycles (Polovina et al. 2008). Polovina et al. 2008 data has also been consistent with previous data that supports increased vertical stratification, limiting natural upwelling cycles of oceans since the 1950’s which remains consistent with output models on global warming. Low surface chlorophyll areas in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans have expanded by 6.6 million km² or by about 15% from 1998 through 2006 (Polovina et al. 2008). The North Atlantic with the smallest oligotrophic gyre (less than 0.07 mg chl/m³) is expanding most rapidly at around 4.3%/year (Polovina et al. 2008). These pumps would help amplify natural blooms and limit vertical stratification perhaps reversing the studied trend of increasing dead zones. This is of course in conjunction with increased food sources and sequestered carbon which remain the main goals and purpose of these natural pumps. To see more applications, please visit Atmocean application page.

This is a brief background into how wave driven upwelling pumps work as well as the reason for having them. To find out more about this exciting project or get involved, join atmocean upwelling pumps project found at ECOwaves.org.

 References

 Karl, David M., Letelier, Ricardo M. Nitrogen fixation-enhanced carbon sequestration in low-nitrate, low chlorophyll seascapes. Marine Ecology Progress Series. Inter-Research 2008. www.int-res.com

 Kithil, Phil. Atmocean Inc. 607 Cerrillos, Santa Fe, NM. 2009. Website: http://www.atmocean.com/index.htm

 Polovina, Jeffrey J., Howell, Evan A., Abecassis, Melanie. Ocean’s least productive waters are expanding. Geophysical Research Letters. Vol: 35 L03618. 2008

One of the most inspirational couples we know are Brian and Alicia of Sarabande. In October 2008 Frankie and I untied their lines and cast them off for their Global Circumnavigation. As a Bon Voyage present I made them official voyage crew shirts. They looked smashing sailing Sarabande out of New York Harbor, under the Verrazano Bridge and out to sea in their matching crew shirts. Chaeck out their around the World progress on their blog site – www.adventuresofsarabande.com

Brian and Alicia in their Sarabande Crew tees

Sarabande - The Adventure Begins

A close up of Sarabande in the "The Adventure Begins" art.

He has a thought about the E-Reader situation and has some nice statistics.  Click here to read more.

PACKER executive John Alexander has questioned his craft’s provenance…. From The Australian. Full story

This site may contain information about: sailboats. The blog is also related to: nice boat.

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Well the water pump leaked again, this will be the third time that I have had to tighten the screws on the front of the housing, I will have to get some loctite for next time it happens. There wasn’t much of a leak thanks to Frances’s keen observational sense and we got to it early. It seems to me that Shurflo water pumps have a major design flaw.

One of our burner controls on the hob has become stuck, so I will have to dismantle that and try to fix it, as things usually come in threes, I wonder what is next.

Well I have ordered another 3G antenna that I will be able to hoist up on high and will then be able to make a good assessment of Orange internet coverage, beginning with the Shroppie when we start to head back up towards Nantwich on Tuesday. I will have to pick the antenna up and try and come up with some mast arrangement before Tuesday

Orange provide a coverage map here:-

Orange Coverage

And I have extracted close ups covering the Shroppie from Brewood to Nantwich so that I can at least know what to expect as we travel along the canal.

The first one covers Brewood to Gnosall

Coverage, Brewood - Gnosall

1065.10 Miles, 726 Locks, 74 Swing Bridges, 48 Lift Bridges, 7 Tunnel

For the uninitiated, I have bought a sailboat, and her name is September Blue.  Bit of advice for those of you considering purchasing new boats:  take time off work to play with them.  I took enough time to go up to Richmond and bring her to her new home, but then I had to go right back to my job and work for a living.  I listened to September Blue’s silent blandishments for an entire week before I could go out on the lake.  But that’s a subject for another post.  Point being is . . . I’d been waiting a while to go out on the lake, and when my noble crew had to go ashore for dinner with his in-laws last Saturday, I wasn’t done sailing.  So I tossed him up on the dock and set back out upon the waters of East Tennessee.  We’d had good luck with the wind that day, sailing from Concord Park halfway to Lenoir City. We were forced to turn about when we got about to where Beal’s Chapel Road gets near the river.  If you click on the link, ignore the marked route.  Google Maps doesn’t offer a “by water” option for routing.

Once back at the dock, two things were clear.  First, I wasn’t done sailing, and second, the sun was about done shining.  I’ve never had to share the boat ramp before, but from the great exodus of bass boats, it was clear that sunset was imminent.  The sky to the west was dyed a blood read by the setting sun.  As we waited for the dock to clear we were impressed with the efficiency of the fishermen clearing their boats from the water.  Only the one ski boat took more than five minutes on the ramp.  As there were two ramps, we only had about a ten minute wait. While we were waiting, I got the bright idea for my wife to come out and meet me at the dock when she got off work, and we would do some night sailing. But she wasn’t interested in running all the way out to Concord Park after working a twelve hour shift in the Emergency Room, and she offered a counter-proposal:  I would meet her at Calhoun’s On the River for dinner.  It’s the only restaurant in town we know of with a dock.

My supercargo now deployed, I set back out onto the lake.  And at that point, my luck with the wind utterly deserted me.  The surface of the lake had turned into a dark mirror.  The last of the sun vanished over the western horizon, and I turned on my running lights.  I have since learned that F and I had not been using them right the night before.  Apparently, I am not supposed to show a mast light when I am under sail.  Just the sidelights and stern light.  But, since I was motoring, I also turned on the forward white masthead light. Apparently the rear one is for when I am lying at anchor only.

For a waterway, the Tennessee River is remarkably well lit, at least in the Knoxville area.  All around me the houses and mansions were taking on warm, friendly glows as the golden lights shined out of their windows onto the water.  Closer in, the shoreline became a darker mass, barely differentiable from the water.  I looked again at the glassy water, sighed, and dropped the outboard into the water.  And off I went, motoring into the dark.  I think I may have the soul of a sailor.  The outboard was moving me right along, conveniently and exactly in the direction I wanted.  And yet I resented the snarling thing being stuck right below my right ear.  I couldn’t hear myself think. 

The speedometer on September Blue does not work reliably.  Even thought I was running at 2/3 throttle, most of the time it read 0.0 knots.  But I had the GPS with me and I was able to track my progress.  I’d brought it along to help me keep the boat in the middle of the river in the dark.  But it also allowed me to see how fast I was headed up river.  And while I wasn’t sure exactly how fast I was going, it wasn’t fast enough to get me Calhoun’s by dinner time.  But I continued on.  Crusing through the blackness, even under power, was an adventure. 

Then I noticed something:  my running lights were getting dimmer.  F and I had used them for four hours the night before, and we’d run the depth finder all day.  The internal battery on the GPS was dead, so it was drawing off my mains.  The running lights, masthead light, deapth finder, and GPS had been drawing off my primary batteries.  If the  batteries gave out, I’d be blind and deaf.  Oh, and the channel markers aren’t lit.  They only have reflectors.  And I hadn’t brought the flashlight.  So on top of everything else, I needed to try to miss the channel markets.

So that large “punting” sound you heard echoing across East Tennessee last Saturday night was me scrubbing the mission.  I re-routed my wife to meet me at the Lakefront Tavern near the boat ramp for dinner.  I’ll try to make it to Calhoun’s via water another day.

Here are my favourite flickr photos for November.

On the longtail boat to Koh Yao Noi

Just a one and a half hour ride on a longtail boat from the busy tourist island of Phuket lies Koh Yao Noi, a small island where developers have not yet started their abuse of beachfronts. Rolien, a good friend who lives on Phuket, and I just spend three days there. Three days of doing nothing more than being on Koh Yao Noi. Rooms with views over Pha Nga Bay offer the only activity necessary, looking at it.

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We took our motorbikes to the island

On a boat-ride through the canals: the ‘backyard’ of a house-boat, complete with drying laundry. This is what I like about Amsterdam…

See also Qussa.nl: Stories from Afar and Up Close

The complex at Ellesmere Port is vast, so it’s difficult to provide an all encompassing scene to give you a real overview of the place. However, whilst this picture is just a portion of what’s on offer, it does show a number of the key elements which shows you why this is such a good place for a canal museum.

• Canals which still work
• Canals with locks
• Basin areas and moorings
• Lots of brightly painted boats
• Typical canal art
• Working boats and lots more requiring restoration and depicting a good cross-section of the kind of boats which worked the canals
• A huge complex of different building which were used during the heyday of canals
• Volunteers getting stuck in!

Lake Como.

Posted for Watery Wednesday

Bass Boats have gone through a extensive evolution to get to the point where they are today. The first “bass boat
” was deliberate to be a hulled out canoe made from chippings off of very large trees. The Caddo Indians of east Texas and western Louisiana are credited with this type of boat “invention.”

They used these boats to fish to provide food for their families. Bass during that time were the number one food preference to capacitate family groups to survive. Fortunately for these families, bass were found in very large supplies in the muddy waterways of the southeastern United States, just where these tribes were located. Thus began the evolution of the bass boat as we know it today. Below are present day considerations and tips for purchasing a bass boat. Great selection of boat covers.

Consider your Towing Vehicle:

Bass boats and trailers with a full tank of gas and installed with all the fishing gear simply weighs over 3500 pounds. Before you consider your purchase of a bass boat, make sure your towing vehicle can hoop to the load. Also, remember to take into care towing up plateau and hills.

Bass Boats:

There are key questions that an angler
looking into buying a bass boat needs to ask themselves. Where are you essentially going to be doing your fishing? What is the size of the body of water? Will it be small lakes and rivers? If so, maybe all you will need is a small boat with a small outboard motor. If you are planning on fishing in incomparable bodies of water, a smallest of 19-foot boat is your best choice. Overall, the three main characteristics famous and looked for in the bass boat of today are shoal draft, maneuverability and fortitude of the boat. View cheap boat covers

Bass Boats have gone through a extensive evolution to get to the point where they are today. The first “bass boat
” was deliberate to be a hulled out canoe made from chippings off of very large trees. The Caddo Indians of east Texas and western Louisiana are credited with this type of boat “invention.”

They used these boats to fish to provide food for their families. Bass during that time were the number one food preference to capacitate family groups to survive. Fortunately for these families, bass were found in very large supplies in the muddy waterways of the southeastern United States, just where these tribes were located. Thus began the evolution of the bass boat as we know it today. Below are present day considerations and tips for purchasing a bass boat. Great selection of boat covers.

Consider your Towing Vehicle:

Bass boats and trailers with a full tank of gas and installed with all the fishing gear simply weighs over 3500 pounds. Before you consider your purchase of a bass boat, make sure your towing vehicle can hoop to the load. Also, remember to take into care towing up plateau and hills.

Bass Boats:

There are key questions that an angler
looking into buying a bass boat needs to ask themselves. Where are you essentially going to be doing your fishing? What is the size of the body of water? Will it be small lakes and rivers? If so, maybe all you will need is a small boat with a small outboard motor. If you are planning on fishing in incomparable bodies of water, a smallest of 19-foot boat is your best choice. Overall, the three main characteristics famous and looked for in the bass boat of today are shoal draft, maneuverability and fortitude of the boat. View cheap boat covers

Published: vybes.com

It appears that the Australia’s three-way stand-off with Sri Lankan asylum seekers onboard the Oceanic Viking and Indonesia may be over. It began:

on October 16 when a boatload of 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, all ethnic Tamils, were rescued from their sinking boat by the Australian ship, but in Indonesia’s search and rescue zone.

Initially Indonesia refused to allow the boat to dock at an Indonesian port, but after negotiations … Indonesia took the boat “on humanitarian grounds” because there was a sick child on board.

But the asylum seekers refused to leave the Australian ship, demanding they be taken to Christmas Island for processing by Australian authorities.

Oceanic Viking breakthrough: asylum seekers to come ashore

There has been a spike in asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat following the increasing violence in Afghanistan and the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Kevin Rudd’s government has been heavily criticised for both its handling of the Oceanic Viking incident and refugee policy in general. His stance is supposed to be tough on people smugglers and border security but humane towards refugees. Critics see it as either too hard or too soft. It’s either encouraging so-called boatpeople or abusing the rights of asylum seekers.

Veteran News Limited journalist Piers Ackerman prides himself on his right wing zeal. Never a friend of Labor governments, he rarely misses a chance to go for the throat:

The Rudd Government has only succeeded in making Australia a more enticing destination for wannabe migrants who don’t meet the nation’s needs, it has helped people jump the queue of refugees seeking resettlement and it has boosted the bank balances of international people smugglers.

Rudd’s red carpet to asylum seekers

Jeremy Sears of An Onymous Lefty is a regular critic of Ackerman. He addressed his remarks to those whom he sees as driven by xenophobia:

One of the most obvious questions I’d like to ask the “THEY’D BETTER NOT LAND HERE” crowd is – where would you like to send them?

//
// //
// You realise that what the people on the boats are doing is precisely what you would do in the same circumstances.
And yet you want them STOPPED. You want them LOCKED UP. You want them SENT HOME.
And the party that promises to treat these people the worst, that party will get your vote?

I’m not scared of the “boat people”. I’m scared of YOU.

Mark Thompson blogs at Seeking Asylum Down Under. His detailed responses to the current situation have looked for the positives in a sea of negativity:

Rudd is between a rock and hard place, politically speaking, as the Coalition [Liberal and National parties opposition] and its conga line of fear mongers in the media whip up the refugee issue yet again. Many people are very prone to xenophobic responses on ‘boat people’, choosing to believe the fear drum beaten relentlessly by Turnbull, Stone, Andrews and Ruddock et al. There appears to be something in a large slice of the collective psyche that responds negatively to people arriving on boats.

His hope is for multi-lateral approaches to asylum seekers:

Australia must model best practice in this area, ensuring the provisions of international legal instruments and human rights conventions are followed to the letter. This can be a win/win for asylum seekers, the respective processing authorities, and the countries in the firing line. Opening a regional dialogue and developing a well-resourced multilateral approach, empowering all parties with a stake in a solution to this growing human crisis, would be a good start.

Labor all at sea on asylum seekers – but an opportunity presents itself.

Although this issue has generated a lot of heat and was a crucial part of the 2001 Australian Federal election, very few bloggers have posted about it lately. Perhaps it’s just too complex or a case of Tampa déjà vu.