Swarms of Tiny Robotic Ocean Explorers to Help With Marine Preservation…Or Become Fish Food

by Jaymi Heimbuch

Nope, it’s not a robotic fish. At least, not like what we’ve covered before. Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have been awarded nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation to create a whole new kind of robot, or rather robots. Lots of little robots that will collect lots of location-specific data that will help scientists learn more about marine ecosystems. But do we want lots of little floating robots in the oceans? Check out the video explaining why the scientists feel this will do far more good for marine ecosystems than harm.

Physorg reports, “While oceanographers have been skilled in detailing broad ocean processes, a need has emerged to zero in on functions unfolding at the small scale. By more clearly defining localized currents and focused data about temperature, salinity, pressure and biological properties, Jaffe and Franks believe [autonomous underwater explorers] AUEs will offer new and valued information about a range of oceanic phenomena.”

The hope for the robots is that they’ll be able to track very specific information about areas, such as what’s happening in marine protected areas, the health of nursery habitats, algae blooms and the dead zones they create, and other uses.

When you hear about tiny robots created to fill the oceans, you can’t help but connect a line to the issue we’re having with animals eating hunks of plastic floating in the Pacific Trash Vortex and elsewhere. What’s to stop marine life from eating these bits of swimming robots? Some will be about soccer-ball sized, and they won’t look like fish, which will make them less tempting for predators than the robotic fish currently being created. But these are just the “mothership” AUEs – others will be much smaller, floating along currents and transmitting information back to the larger AUEs. The smaller AUEs will be the ones to watch, ensuring they stay out of the bellies of hungry marine animals.

Oh, and did we mention they want school children to build the devices? Let’s strip away the impression of child labor, and instead look at it as a cool way to get kids interested in marine biology and technology.

“During the initial pilot phase of the project, Jaffe and members of his laboratory will build five or six of the soccer-ball-sized explorers and 20 of the smaller versions. An outreach component of the project will enlist school children to build and ultimately deploy AUEs.”

Tiny swarms of robots helping us understand the tiniest bits of our oceans – from plankton to temperature… It has the potential to be great, though putting more tiny things in the ocean doesn’t sound terribly appetizing.

Follow the link for a video - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/swarms-of-tiny-robotic-ocean-explorers-to-help-with-marine-preservation-or-become-fish-food-video.php

Instant Expert: The Copenhagen climate change summit

From New Scientist

It’s being billed as the meeting that will determine the future of humanity. Come early December, we will be inundated with news from the Copenhagen summit. Can it really save us from climate catastrophe? Catherine Brahic and Fred Pearce sift through the mass of science and policy to pick out the key points to watch

A LOW-CARBON FUTURE STARTS HERE

Why this year? Two years ago in Bali, member nations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is convening the Copenhagen summit, agreed that they would accelerate their efforts and draft a long-term plan to avoid dangerous climate change. Their deadline for doing so is the close of this year’s summit, on 14 December.

Hasn’t the Kyoto protocol shown all this to be pointless? Not necessarily. The Kyoto protocol was always intended as a first step. There are a number of differences this time around, most notably that the US opted out of the Kyoto protocol but is very much engaged in the Copenhagen process.

Why 250,000 megatonnes? We have already emitted over 500,000 megatonnes of carbon – equivalent to about 1,800,000 megatonnes of carbon dioxide – mostly by burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests. This year, climate scientists calculated that if we emit no more than 750,000 megatonnes in total, we will have a 75 per cent chance of limiting global warming to 2 °C.

What is the significance of 2 °C? The objective of the UNFCCC is to prevent “dangerous” climate change. Although any amount of warming may have consequences – including biodiversity loss, changing weather patterns and disappearing coastlines – many climate scientists predict that some of those changes will be irreversible beyond 2 °C and others will pose a serious threat to millions of people. As a consequence, 2 °C has been adopted by politicians as the threshold for dangerous climate change.

Is 2 °C little enough? That all depends: little enough for what? No amount of warming is risk-free, and modelling studies indicate that at 2 °C an additional 1 billion people will suffer water shortages and most of the world’s corals will be bleached. The world’s poorest nations, which include a number of island states that are particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise, are campaigning to limit warming to 1.5 °C. Given the effort that is going to be required to reach the 2 °C target, this is unlikely to be achieved. Moreover, lags in climate systems, plus the removal from the atmosphere of the fine aerosol particles now cooling the world, mean past emissions are likely to result in a 1.9 °C warming.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

There are no two ways about it: to have any chance of avoiding the disastrous consequences of exceeding our carbon budget, we must usher in a new era of low-carbon societies.

How this is done will depend on what deal can be reached between rich and developing nations. Both must agree to cut emissions according to their means and historical responsibility.

Developing nations will also need money and technology to green their industrialisation. Where this will come from will be a key preoccupation for the Copenhagen negotiators

MONEY

It could cost the poorest nations hundreds of billions of dollars a year to curb their emissions and adapt to inevitable climate change.

Rich nations are responsible for most of the gases that are already heating the planet, and have a duty to help foot this bill. Negotiators in Copenhagen will have to agree on how.

Funds could be raised through taxes on emissions permits, for instance, or on international airline tickets. Or there could be a levy on all carbon emissions above certain national thresholds – as proposed by Switzerland.

The European Union agreed last week to push for a fund worth €100 billion a year by 2020.

FORESTS

Around 15 per cent of emissions come from deforestation. WWF believes this could be cut by three-quarters by 2020, but that requires giving governments, landowners and forest communities incentives to stop destroying their forests.

Two years ago, climate negotiators promised to sign such a deal – dubbed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) – in Copenhagen.

The cash could come from rich nations buying carbon offsets to meet their emissions targets.

Brazil and Indonesia – which account for 60 per cent of emissions from deforestation – are keen. But close monitoring is essential to ensure loggers claiming cash for a forest do not continue chopping down individual trees or move their operations elsewhere.

Also, countries such as Costa Rica that have protected their forests say it unfairly rewards those who got rich destroying theirs.

TECHNOLOGY

Two billion people worldwide do not have access to mains electricity.

To bridge that gap and power industry in developing countries, the International Energy Agency says $13 trillion must be invested in the developing world in the next 20 years.

In Copenhagen, negotiators must seal a deal to ensure this goes mostly into low-carbon technologies – but how?

Western engineering firms want an open door to developing markets, perhaps secured by a “green free trade” deal. Countries like India and China want deals with rich nations that would give their own companies free access to western know-how.

DEAL BREAKERS

Who might thwart a deal?

The US may not be able to make credible promises if Congress has not passed a climate change bill in time.

If China and India think the US is not serious, they will hold back on pledges to green their own economic development.

Others might wield a veto, too. Some newly industrialised countries – Malaysia and South Korea for instance – now have emissions higher than many European countries. They may protest if asked to sign up to firm targets.

Malaysia’s emissions are four times what they were in 1990 and, per head of population, equal to the UK’s.

Saudi Arabia’s emissions have doubled and, per head, now beat all European countries except Luxembourg.

Qatar’s per-capita emissions are four times those of the US.

Gulf states tried to torpedo Kyoto because they felt it threatened oil exports. Copenhagen could threaten their internal industrialisation plans.

http://www.newscientist.com/special/copenhagen-climate-change-summit

Sushi salvation: Startup sees future of fish farms in giant Kevlar spheres

Alex Salkever

That luscious ahi tuna roll you chowed down on at your local sushi joint? It’s the same as eating an endangered Siberian tiger. Well, not quite. But scientists are increasingly worried that ahi, the blood-red belle of the raw-fish ball, is being quickly fished to extinction courtesy of the never-ending quest for superior sushi.

But now, a small startup in Hawaii has an ambitious goal to save the ahi. Its secret weapon? A giant, self-powered, Kevlar-coated ball that could prove a perfect way to raise tuna in captivity and supply discerning fish fiends with their piscine fix without further depleting wild stocks.
The company, Hawaii Oceanic Technology, was founded by Paul Troy, a former professor of oceanography at the University of Hawaii. A tinkerer and inventor, Troy had long followed the plight of marine fisheries. Three years ago, he began to sketch a plan for a radical new form of fish farming that would appease hard-core environmentalists and provide restaurants and fish markets with a reliable supply of ahi and, potentially, numerous other forms of seafood favored by homo sapiens.

Troy envisioned giant floating balls that could circulate and move up and down in the water column. He laid out a formal design for the system, filed patents, and started work on a prototype. Dubbed Oceanspheres, these balls will be constructed with an aluminum frame sheathed in Kevlar embedded with nanoscale anti-fouling particles. Kevlar was selected because water slips through it very easily, reducing drag on the cages, but the material is strong enough that sharks and other predators can’t chew through it.

As Reliance on Fish Farms Grows, So Does Environmental Cost

Troy’s timing is impeccable. No doubt, the world needs more righteous fish. Demand for seafood is rising at double the rate of population growth, according to the United Nation’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Organization. But many wild fisheries have showed significant signs of strain and even collapse, including the Pacific salmon and the Atlantic cod and bluefin tuna populations. Much of the growing demand is being met through aquaculture, which provides 43 percent of the world’s seafood according to the FAO. However, environmentalists and scientists have long held significant environmental and health concerns about current aquaculture methods.

Most of the industry remains unregulated and practices vary widely from country to country. Onshore and near shore practitioners often use high doses of antibiotics to keep their fish alive and allow them to grow quickly in environments that could not normally sustain dense fish populations. Instances of fish farmers in Asia using chemicals toxic to humans in order to boost yields have caused significant reputational damage to the industry. And discharges of fecal matter from high-density farms have concerned health advocates and recreational fishermen alike.

Additionally, many fish farms in coastal waters use species that are not endemic to the area. Often bred for rapid growth and weight gain, these farmed fish have the potential to cause problems for native species and potentially out-compete local populations if they escape from their pens or cages, a regular occurrence on many fish farms. The presence of farms in near-shore and coastal areas also creates conflicts with boaters and recreational fishermen.

Great High-Tech Balls of Fish

Troy believes his system can address all these concerns. Each Oceansphere will have a volume of 82,500 cubic meters and a diameter of roughly 50 meters, large enough to comfortably hold over 1,000 tons of seafood at densities that are very low compared to those found in traditional aquaculture. Unlike existing open-water aquaculture cage systems, Troy’s system would require no tethers. The tops of the spheres would float roughly 25 meters below the surface most of the time. The spheres could be raised to the waterline for replenishment of feed pellets and restocking or harvest, and can drop well below the 25 meter mark to grow fish species more accustomed to deeper depths.

Attached to the spheres will be small thrusters powered by ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). This is a system harvests the unlimited thermal energy of the ocean by sucking up colder water from below the sphere as well as warm water from above the sphere. The warm and cold water go into a type of heat exchanger, which converts the thermal differential into electricity to power the directional motors, telemetry, automated fish feed dispensers and other onboard systems. Similar systems are already used to power submarines and other submersible vehicles. The OTEC units allow the Oceanspheres to travel independently on predetermined courses, a capability that could alleviate concerns about fish feces by allowing for waste dispersal over wide areas. The self-propulsion and navigational capabilities also allow for Oceanspheres to be located in much deeper waters, where tethered cages can’t be used.

While the Oceansphere could accommodate any number of sea life species, as well as multiple types of sea life co-existing simultaneously inside the enclosure, Troy and HOT CEO Bill Spencer have chosen bigeye tuna as the first type of fish to raise. Stocks of tuna, which is popular for sashimi, have been in rapid decline due to overfishing. So precipitous has been the drop in both numbers caught and size of fish caught for the Atlantic bluefin that scientists now fear the giant fish may disappear from the ocean. Bigeye populations have not been as hard hit, but have begun to decline. Bigeye has become the most common source of ahi in sushi bars.

The fish is well suited to the Oceansphere model because it moves up and down in the water column often and will be comfortable at any depth where the cage might be deployed. High-grade bigeye costs $10 to $12 per pound in Japan’s wholesale fish markets, the premier seafood venue on the planet. HOT can produce the fish for roughly $3 per pound, including fish meal and the costs of maintaining and servicing the giant spheres and their inhabitants. In part, HOT can achieve these lower costs by raising the fish in lower densities and cleaner waters where disease is less of a problem and input costs for medicines or chemicals needed to sustain fish in less beneficial settings are avoided.

HOT’s tuna might be able to support even higher prices than the current market sustains because, Troy believes, the tuna will have much lower levels of mercury and PCBs than wild-caught tuna, due to the ability of HOT to closely control what the fish eat and to locate the cages in areas free of these hazardous contaminants. Even attaining an organic designation could be possible, should a program come into existence for seafood. Explains Troy, “Tuna farming today is a billion-dollar business. There are cages you can buy off the shelf that can moored to the bottom that are being used in Mexico. But they have to be moored close to the coastline in shallow depth. The whole idea of making this environmentally friendly is to ensure a lot of flushing of the effluents with clean water to promote oxidation and dispersion. The best way to do that is to be in the open ocean in very deep water.”

$120 Million Fish Farmers

Article continues – http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/04/sushi-salvation-startup-sees-future-of-fish-farms-in-giant-kevl/

Mystery Solved: Marine Microbe Is Source Of Rare Nutrient

richodesmium, shown in micrograph above, is a photosynthetic bacteria, common in warm, tropical and subtropical surface waters. Trichodesmium cells form filaments called trichomes that associate into the roughly 2mm colonies seen in these images. (Credit: Abby Heithoff, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

A new study of microscopic marine microbes, called phytoplankton, by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of South Carolina has solved a ten-year-old mystery about the source of an essential nutrient in the ocean.

Roughly a decade ago scientists discovered a rare form of organic phosphorus in marine organic matter. Not only were the researchers surprised to find this form of phosphorus, called phosphonate, but the concentrations in which it was found were very high, throughout the ocean.  Scientists hypothesized that phosphonate is produced and consumed in the ocean, but no one understood where it came from and why it was so abundant.

Enter Trichodesmium. In 2006, WHOI biologist Sonya Dyhrman along with other WHOI colleagues initiated a field and laboratory study with this phytoplankton group, which is plentiful in low-nutrient warm tropical and subtropical waters. They discovered that Tricodesmium uses phosphonate to fuel its biological processes, including the fixation of carbon and nitrogen.

Their finding was unexpected because, chemically, phosphonate has a very strong carbon-phosphorus bond that requires a lot of energy, and a special set of genes, for Trichodesmium to break.

But Dyhrman and her colleagues’s discovery that Trichodesmium could use this form of phosphorus to support carbon and nitrogen fixation still didn’t solve the basic mystery: where were the high concentrations of this rare compound coming from?

Now, a study newly published in Nature Geoscience by Dyhrman and her colleague Claudia Benitez-Nelson, a marine geochemist with the University of South Carolina, has solved the long-standing mystery.

“We’ve been fascinated by these phosphonate compounds for a while,” said Benitez-Nelson. “Sonya and I decided that something had to be producing them, and we had to start looking at all these organisms to figure out who it was.”

“After culturing several different kinds of phytoplankton and analyzing them using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, we found high concentrations of phosphonate in cultures of a specific Trichodesmium species – in fact an average of 10 percent of the cellular phosphorus is in the form of phosphonate.  Ten percent may not sound like much, but this is the most phosphonate ever detected in a marine microbe,” said Dyhrman.

They selected many species of phytoplankton, grew them under different conditions in the laboratory, and then collected the cells onto filters.  The filters were dried, and then analyzed by NMR.

“Our procedure is unique in that we are measuring filter samples directly using solid state ³¹P NMR” said Benitez-Nelson. “By carefully folding the filters, and using a non-destructive NMR method, we avoided subjecting the samples to anything that would break those phosphonate bonds. We got our detection limits down to extremely low levels.”

“When we first saw the phosphonate peak in the Trichodesmium culture, we were stunned, after a 10-year mystery it seemed ironic for Trichodesmium to both consume and produce this compound. We ran it again. We grew them under different nutrient conditions and, sure enough, the results were the same,” said Benitez-Nelson.

Trichodesmium plays an important ecological role in both the global carbon and nitrogen cycles. Like other phytoplankton, it photosynthesizes, drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to supply the Earth with oxygen and transforming carbon into a solid compound. Even more impressive, Trichodesmium can use nitrogen gas from the atmosphere and transform it into a compound that other organisms can consume. Because the open ocean is nitrogen-barren, nitrogen fixers such as Trichodesmium are critical to the marine food web, supplying nutrients, and stimulating more phytoplankton growth, which in turn moves more carbon and nitrogen through the food web.

This study determined that Trichodesmium transforms a percentage of all dissolved phosphorus into phosphonates – which is not readily consumed by other organisms. Living in low-phosphorus environments, this gives Trichodesmium a potential advantage over its competitors and, as nutrient supplies to the ocean change with climate, could shift the composition of phytoplankton communities in the ocean.

“Not only does this solve a mystery about where these forms of phosphorus are coming from, but the fact that it is Trichodesmium has ramifications for how the phosphorus cycle is linked to the cycling of carbon and nitrogen and how those cycles will function in the future ocean,” said Dyhrman.

There is a lot yet to be learned. “If we don’t understand what kinds of phosphorus are present in the ocean, we have no hope of predicting to what extent marine phytoplankton will sequester carbon in the future ocean,” said Dyhrman.

As ocean surface waters warm, scientists expect even greater limitations on the nutrient supply, particularly phosphorus. This could drive the production of phosphonate and the use of phosphonate as a phosphorus source. For Trichodesmium, which can use phosphonate, this scenario could be beneficial, and, for humans concerned about climate change, it could enhance the extraction of carbon from the ocean. However, Dyhrman and colleagues warn, if the phosphonate used by Trichodesmium is a methylated form, it could produce methane – a powerful greenhouse gas.

It is an interesting wrinkle that will be the focus of future research.

This work was funded by the National Science Foundation and WHOI.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090929181814.htm

Lifeless Ocean Deserts Expand 500,000 Sq.Km. in Past Decade

It’s pretty well known that ocean dead zones — oxygen starved areas such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico — are expanding. But new research in Geophysical Research Letters shows that ocean ‘deserts’ are also expanding. Discovery News has the story on these areas where virtually nothing lives:

Currently there are five ocean deserts (one each in the North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and Indian Ocean), each one easily as large as the entire United States.

According to the latest research that while the overall area of ocean deserts hasn’t expanded all that much, the areas in them most devoid of life have grown all the more barren — expanding by 5 million square kilometers from 1997-2007.

Cause Not Fully Determined – Climate Link Investigated
As far as the cause of this, researchers are trying to determine what, if any, link there is with climate change. Angelique White of Oregon State University said:

It seems like the link with climate is there. It’s hard to believe it’s not in response to the billions of us living on this planet.

 Get the full story: Discovery News

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/lifeless-ocean-deserts-expand-500000-square-kilometers-past-decade.php

(Some) Plastics Breaks Down in Ocean, After All — And Fast

Though ocean-borne plastic trash has a reputation as an indestructible, immortal environmental villain, scientists announced yesterday that some plastics actually decompose rapidly in the ocean. And, the researchers say, that’s not a good thing.

The team’s new study is the first to show that degrading plastics are leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A into the seas, possibly threatening ocean animals, and us.

Scientists had previously thought plastics broke down only at very high temperatures and over hundreds of years.

The researchers behind a new study, however, found that plastic breaks down at cooler temperatures than expected, and within a year of the trash hitting the water.

The Japan-based team collected samples in waters from the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, and elsewhere, lead researcher Katsuhiko Saido, a chemist with the College of Pharmacy at Nihon University in Japan, said via email.

All the water samples were found to contain derivatives of polystyrene, a common plastic used in disposable cutlery, Styrofoam, and DVD cases, among other things, said Saido, who presented the findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., today.

Plastic, he said, should be considered a new source of chemical pollution in the ocean.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090820-plastic-decomposes-oceans-seas.html

PICTURES: “Drained” Oceans Reveal Epic Landscapes

The seas off the Bahamas can seem like a swimming pool, but strip away the ocean (illustration at top), and the edges of the islands’ shallow Great Bahama Bank–where the light blue begins to turn dark in satellite images of the Caribbean–are revealed to be steep cliffs rising some 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) above a vast plain.

By comparison, Yosemite National Park’s nearly 5,000-foot-tall (1,520-meter) Half Dome (bottom) is a molehill.

For much of the seafloor, accurate computer images like the one at top are only now becoming possible.

Unmanned subs, mapping software, and other technology are finally improving to the point where we can map the oceans to the same level of detail as Mars, some 35 million miles away, according to a new National Geographic Channel documentary, Drain the Ocean, airing Sunday, August 9, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. (The National Geographic Channel is part owned by the National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News.)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/photogalleries/drain-the-ocean-pictures/index.html

New Research Submersibles Open Up Ocean Exploration

We’ve only explored about 5% of the ocean. There’s a lot to be learned but getting down to the bottom of it, literally, is a difficult task. New high tech submersibles could open up the ocean for exploration that can teach us about the mysteries of the deep for marine and climate science…but also for mining and drilling.

Popular Science reports that engineers are looking at the deep diving subs we already have and figuring out how to make them even better, with stronger batteries and better lights.

The new vehicles will be great for climate science. But also will open up the ocean floors – indeed about 98% oceans in their entirety – to those interested in mining for minerals or drilling for energy sources. Will getting to the deepest reaches of the ocean be worth it if the sea floor becomes a place to extract rather than explore?

It would certainly be an expensive task, no matter what. The article points out one engineer’s sub runs for several million dollars, and would work for both government sponsored scientific exploration as well as private exploration.

The article is very in depth and goes into the details about the updated subs. It’s a great read – click through to check it out.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/new-research-submersibles-open-up-ocean-for-exploration.php

Climate Change Causing Ocean Dead Zones to Grow

“Underwater video frame of the sea floor in the Western Baltic covered with dead or dying crabs, fish and clams killed by oxygen depletion”; Photo via Wikipedia

It’s not breaking news – we’ve been talking about the dead zones of our oceans expanding for some time – but it’s well worth listening to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute when they tell us that the dead zones are likely to grow as our climate changes. The problem is that each contribute to the other.

Researchers Peter Brewer and Edward Peltzer published an article in Science entitled “Perspective” that illustrates how rising CO2 levels can exaggerate the effects low oxygen levels can have on sea animals, and therefore on dead zones.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/climate-change-causing-ocean-dead-zones-to-grow.php