Kilometers Of Ocean Research Articles

Application Comparison of the Lex Loci Delicti Commission Theory between the Oil Spill Case in the Gulf of Mexico and the Carbon Emissions Case in the Netherlands

The event of a disastrous oil spill from British Petroleum's offshore drilling installation on the 20th of April 2010 was caused by a leaking underwater pipeline, which polluted the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Subsequently, there was the Carbon Emission Case in the Netherlands, which required Shell to reduce their carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 from the carbon emissions generated in 2019. Both events were deeply concerning and directly effected the citizens of the respective countries. In the first case, the spill of approximately 5,000 barrels or 210,000 gallons (795,000 liters) of crude oil spread extensively due to ocean currents where the contaminated area ended up covering 9,933 square kilometers of ocean (77 x 129km). This oil spill, which was a result of British Petroleum's negligence, lead to legal action taken against the company for violations of international environmental laws, due to environmental pollution. In the second case, Shell, was deemed to have contributed significantly to climate change in the Netherlands. The company was responsible for twice the amount of greenhouse gas emissions than the Netherlands. The research method employed in this journal uses a normative juridical research approach, focusing on legal norms within the decisions for Case MDL No. 2179 and the Verdict issued by the Haugue District Court. In this journal, the author concludes that both British Petroleum and Shell have been proven to commit unlawful acts against the international environment laws through environmental pollution.

Becoming Educators in Oceania: From Ridge to Reef to the Region and Then Returning Home

Becoming Educators in Oceania:From Ridge to Reef to the Region and Then Returning Home Rosarine Rafai (bio), Jiokapeci Qalo-Qiolevu (bio), Maca Radua-Stephens (bio), Debra McDougall, David Oakeshott, and Rachel Emerine Hicks, Special Issue Editors The Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific (usp) became a flourishing hub of creative thought and practice under the direction of founder Epeli Hau'ofa. Much has been written about the visual and performing art that has emerged from the center—work that has helped to realize Hau'ofa's vision of usp as a "hatching ground" for a powerful new sense of regional identity (2008, 51). This dialogue piece focuses on an aspect of the center's work that has received less attention: academic teaching. It is based on a conversation between Rosarine Rafai, Jiokapeci Qalo-Qiolevu, and Maca Radua-Stephens, three educators who teach a compulsory second-year class called "Pacific Worlds" (uu 204), which is run through the Oceania Centre and enrolls thousands of students across thirty-three million square kilometers of ocean and four time zones on usp's fourteen regional campuses and at its ten smaller in-country centers.1 Their conversation shows how some of the creative and relationship-building processes that have been described in relation to the center's artistic production are brought into the classroom and maintained amid the challenges of online delivery. The Oceania Centre was indelibly shaped by Hau'ofa's own mana as Oceania's most celebrated scholar-storyteller. Its creative production was also enabled by its position on the margins of the formal structures of the university. As Lea Lani Kinikini Kauvaka observed, the center "was a learning space that showed us just how, for the large majority of learners, classroom-style brick-and-mortar learning imported by nineteenth-century missionaries was not working as well as it ought to" (2016, 144). [End Page 442] Hau'ofa's students and colleagues have recalled that he was determined not to ask for too much from the university administration so that the center could fly under the radar, welcoming artists without formal training or accreditation to learn and work together (Naidu 2019, 27; White 2008, xvii–xviii; Teaiwa 2010). Katherine Higgins observed that "Hau'ofa had a limited budget but plenty of time to imagine something unique: a home for Oceanian arts and culture" (2009, 41). In her rich descriptions of the work of the Red Wave Collective, a group of painters and sculptors working at the center in the 2000s, Higgins highlighted how the center's physical space and architecture helped create an environment that "fosters the potential of each individual while simultaneously forming a dedicated community of artists who learn from one another" (2009, 39). Situated on the geographic edge of the university's Suva campus, the center features meeting spaces without walls that draw on Pacific vernacular architecture. Over the years, these open spaces have brought together a range of creators—dancers and welders, musicians and painters—to work across genres and generate a unique contemporary Oceanic vision. The openness of the center's physical structures has been mirrored in broader approaches to Oceanic identity. In 1996 and 1997, Hau'ofa declared, "As far as I am concerned, anyone who has lived in our region and is committed to Oceania is an Oceanian" (2008, 51). His words were particularly powerful in the context of the deeply divisive racialized politics of Fiji and Solomon Islands at the turn of the millennium. Artists at the center have also grappled with their own hybrid identities and have sought to articulate visions of a more inclusive Oceania in song, dance, and images (Higgins 2009, 45–46). Some observers praise the Oceania Centre for maintaining integrity in an era when larger forces were undermining usp's core mission. Vijay Naidu described changes in the university in response to the rise of free-market approaches to education, the growing influence of donor nations on usp's administration, and constraints on discussion of politics, economics, and policy on usp's Suva campus in the years since Fiji's interim government came into power after the 2006 coup...

Multiphase Reactive Transport and Platelet Ice Accretion in the Sea Ice of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica

AbstractSea ice seasonally to interannually forms a thermal, chemical, and physical boundary between the atmosphere and hydrosphere over tens of millions of square kilometers of ocean. Its presence affects both local and global climate and ocean dynamics, ice shelf processes, and biological communities. Accurate incorporation of sea ice growth and decay, and its associated thermal and physiochemical processes, is underrepresented in large‐scale models due to the complex physics that dictate oceanic ice formation and evolution. Two phenomena complicate sea ice simulation, particularly in the Antarctic: the multiphase physics of reactive transport brought about by the inhomogeneous solidification of seawater, and the buoyancy driven accretion of platelet ice formed by supercooled ice shelf water onto the basal surface of the overlying ice. Here a one‐dimensional finite difference model capable of simulating both processes is developed and tested against ice core data. Temperature, salinity, liquid fraction, fluid velocity, total salt content, and ice structure are computed during model runs. The model results agree well with empirical observations and simulations highlight the effect platelet ice accretion has on overall ice thickness and characteristics. Results from sensitivity studies emphasize the need to further constrain sea ice microstructure and the associated physics, particularly permeability‐porosity relationships, if a complete model of sea ice evolution is to be obtained. Additionally, implications for terrestrial ice shelves and icy moons in the solar system are discussed.

Hydrographic Vertical Separation Surfaces (HyVSEPs) for the Tidal Waters of Canada

ABSTRACTSince the advent of Global Navigation Satellite Systems, it has been possible to perform hydrographic survey reductions through the ellipsoid, which has the potential to simplify operations and improve bathymetric products. This technique requires a spatially continuous separation surface connecting chart datum (CD) to a geodetic ellipsoid. The Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS), with support from the Canadian Geodetic Survey, has developed a new suite of such surfaces, termed Hydrographic Vertical Separations Surfaces, or HyVSEPs, for CD and seven tidal levels. They capture the spatial variability of the tidal datum and levels between tide gauges and offshore using semiempirical models coupling observations at tide stations with relative sea-level rise estimates, dynamic ocean model solutions, satellite altimetry, and a geoid model. HyVSEPs are available for all tidal waters of Canada, covering over seven million square kilometers of ocean and more than 200,000 kilometers of shoreline. This document provides an overview of the CHS's modeling approach, tools, methods, and procedures.The HyVSEP for CD defines the new hydrographic datum for the tidal waters of Canada. HyVSEPs for other tidal levels are fundamental for coastal studies, climate change adaptation and the definition of the Canadian shoreline and offshore boundaries. HyVSEPs for inland waters are not discussed.

Icebergs Fertilize Southern Ocean, Sequester Carbon

Huge, drifting ice rafts (the white spot on the satellite image below ) shed minerals as they melt, painting trails of nutrients, teeming phytoplankton, and chlorophyll across hundreds of kilometers of ocean.

Medico-Legal Death Investigation Systems in the Pacific and Creating a Stronger Pacific Disaster Victim Identification Network

Introduction: The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) consist of 20,000 to 30,000 scattered islands spread across 8.5 million square kilometers of Ocean. There are three ethnogeographic distinct sub-groupings in the Pacific and they are Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. The evolution of the global Medico-Legal Death Investigation (MDI) system has produced the Coroner's, Medical examiner's and the newer European Continental systems. However, the PICs maintain post-colonial mixed medico-legal systems. Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) is an important part of the MDI system. Objective: To review the MDI systems in the PICs and the recommend measures accordingly to strengthen the network for DVI in the Pacific. Methods: This is a qualitative research paper focusing on independent self-governing PICs from Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. Discussion: The PICs criminal codes, legal systems and post-colonial adaption of MDI systems are emerging. There are also many developmental limitations for MDI systems in the PICs. Despite the profound historical evidence of disasters of varying magnitudes, the Pacific MDI and DVI network exists as an informal one through personal acquaintance. Therefore, this demands a better and effective MDI system in the PICs particularly with regards to DVI. Conclusion: The need to fortify and better the DVI network in the Pacific will depend on good regional indicators. There is a crucial need for the operatives of the MDI system in the PICs to form a link through intergovernmental participation and association with other Pacific networks to drive the sustained development of the national and regional MDI system. Through this collaboration the Pacific DVI network could also be established centrally in a PIC that has a steady Forensic Science Service. Upcoming Forensic experts could operate out of this central location to serve the PICs accordingly. This eventually will achieve a standard practice and regionalization of the Pacific MDI network.

Mental health in the low income Pacific Island Countries – Time for change in paradigms

There are 35 countries and territories that make up the Western Pacific region of the World Health Organization (WHO). Of these, the 14 Pacific Island Countries (PIC) can be categorized as low or medium income and developing countries. The populations range between 10,000 and 250,000; their per capita GNP is mostly well below US $4000. Although independent decades ago from the many colonial powers, their progress in economic and health care development has been slow and fragmentary. There are challenging reasons for this. The island countries mostly have dozens of thinly populated islands separated by hundreds of kilometers of ocean. Cook Islands, for instance, has 15 populated Islands totaling about 250 square kilometers of land in 2 million square kilometers of sea and hundreds of kilometers of sea separating the islands. Sea transport between the islands is slow and expensive. Air travel is prohibitively expensive and infrequent. Fish, the only currently exploitable resource is exploited by huge fishing fleets with mother and processing ships from north Asia, which pay nominal fees for the license to fish in the economic zones of the developing countries. The health care systems have innovated local systems to overcome these real problems. Among them has been the fairly good training of registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and systems of contact by telephone, and email in recent times (and radio telephone in past years) to get assistance in diagnosis and treatment for the widely separated small hospitals and clinics. Few are able to afford helicopter evacuations of seriously ill persons and only a few dire emergencies are evacuated through the infrequent commercial flights on small aircraft that serve the outlying areas. The small hospitals in the largest islands have relatively few doctors and even less specialists, many of whom are expatriates as local training of doctors is limited to only 2 established medical schools – one in Fiji and the other in Papua New Guinea for the whole region of 14 developing countries. Most medical students are on scholarships as fees are prohibitive. Perhaps the most serious casualty is the mental health services of these 14 PICs. There are only about 12–15 psychiatrists in the 14 countries for about 8 million people. All of the psychiatrists are in the capital cities of 5 of the 14 countries and at least 6 of the 14 countries do not even have a qualified psychiatric nurse. At least 4 have small mental hospitals that have for the most part been badly run and continue to institutionalize the pervasive stigma of mental illness with locked wards, barbed wire and incarcerated patients.

The use of Odors at Different Spatial Scales: Comparing Birds with Fish

Salmon travel hundreds of kilometers of open ocean and meandering rivers to return to their natal stream to spawn; procellariiform seabirds soar over thousands of kilometers of the ocean's surface searching for foraging opportunities and accurately return to their nesting islands. These large-scale olfactory-guided behaviors are among the most dramatic examples of animal navigation ever described. At much closer ranges, the sense of smell can be used for behaviors as diverse as tracking prey, nest location, and mate selection. Both fish and birds face similar problems interpreting olfactory information in fluid mediums where odors are dispersed as filamentous patches. Similar to insects, which have served as model organisms for investigating olfactory related behaviors, the few fish and bird species that have been studied tend to use olfactory information in conjunction with other sensory modalities. Similar to insects, fish and birds also employ oscillatory or cross-stream movement as sampling mechanisms. This review compares and contrasts the use of odors by fish and birds over a range of spatial scales that span from thousands of kilometers to less than a meter. In so doing, we identify behavioral similarities and new questions that need to be addressed regarding the olfactory ecology of these diverse groups of organisms.

Collagen’s Triglycine Repeat Number and Phylogeny Suggest an Interdomain Transfer Event from a Devonian or Silurian Organism into Trichodesmium erythraeum

Two competing effects at two vastly different scales may explain collagen’s current translation length. The necessity to have long molecules for maintaining mechanical integrity at the organism and supraorganism scales may be limited by the need to have small molecules capable of robust self-assembly at the nanoscale. The triglycine repeat regions of all 556 currently cataloged organisms with collagen-like genes were ranked by length. This revealed a sharp boundary in the GXY transcript number at 1032 amino acids (344 GXY repeats). An anomalous exception, however, is the intron-free Trichodesmium erythraeum collagen gene. Immunogold atomic force microscopy reveals, for the first time, the presence of a collagen-like protein in T. erythraeum. A phylogenetic protein sequence analysis which includes vertebrates, nonvertebrates, shrimp white spot syndrome virus, Streptococcus equi, and Bacillus cereus predicts that the collagen-like sequence may have emerged shortly after the divergence of fibrillar and nonfibrillar collagens. The presence of this anomalously long collagen gene within a prokaryote may represent an interdomain transfer from eukaryotes into prokaryotes that gives T. erythraeum the ability to form blooms that cover hundreds of square kilometers of ocean. We propose that the collagen gene entered the prokaryote intron-free only after it had been molded by years of mechanical selective pressure in larger organisms and only after large, dense food sources such as marine vertebrates became available. This anomalously long collagen-like sequence may explain T. erythraeum’s ability to aggregate and thus concentrate its toxin for food-source procurement.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00239-008-9111-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Brief Review of Known Effects of Noise on Marine Mammals

Marine mammals, especially cetaceans, are highly vocal and dependent on sound for almost all aspects of their lives, e.g. food-finding, reproduction, communication, detection of predators/hazards, and navigation. They are thus likely sensitive to anthropogenic noise. Sound has a large potential area of impact, sometimes covering millions of square kilometers of ocean with levels high enough to cause possible disturbance in marine mammals. There can be great variation in the reaction of marine mammals to noise, depending on such factors as species, individual, age, sex, prior experience with noise, and behavioral state. Species with similar hearing capabilities can respond differently to the same noise. Observed effects of noise on marine mammals include: changes in vocalizations, respiration, swim speed, diving, and foraging behavior; displacement, avoidance, shifts in migration path, stress, hearing damage, and strandings. Responses of marine mammals to noise can often be subtle and barely detectable, and there are many documented cases of apparent tolerance of noise. However, marine mammals showing no obvious avoidance or changes in activities may still suffer important, even lethal, consequences. Acoustically-induced strandings may displace a local beaked whale ( Ziphiidae ) population (for an extended period if not permanently) or even possibly eliminate most of its members. As beaked whales seem to be found in small, possibly genetically isolated, resident populations, even a transient and localized acoustic impact could have prolonged population consequences. Observed reactions to noise in marine mammals could theoretically result in impacts such as decreased foraging efficiency, higher energetic demands, less group cohesion, higher predation, decreased reproduction, and thus seriously impact the population. Alternatively, they may be harmless. However, noise is thought to contribute to at least some species’ declines or lack of recovery (Southern resident killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) , western gray whales ( Eschrichtius robustus ) off Sakhalin).

Ocean sound channel ray path perturbations from internal-wave shear and strain

The relative importance of internal-wave strain and internal-wave shear on perturbation of acoustic ray trajectories in the ocean is analyzed. Previous estimates based on the Garrett-Munk internal-wave spectral model are updated using data from recent field studies of internal waves. Estimates of the ratio of the rms shear effect to the rms strain effect based on data from the upper kilometer of ocean are as high as 0.25–0.4, exceeding the estimates of 0.08–0.17 stemming from the model. Increased strength of three phenomena that have shear to strain ratios higher than the internal-wave average can cause this effect. These are near-inertial waves, internal tides, and vortical modes.

Meeting the Library and Information Needs of the South Pacific Region: The Role of the USP Library

ABSTRACTThe South Pacific Commission region covers 29 million square kilometres of ocean and comprises 22 island nations. The University of the South Pacific is a regional university which meets the educational needs of 12 of these nations. Its main campus is based in Suva, Fiji. In 1991 the university had almost 10 000 students, 70% of whom undertook their studies by distance education. The university is one of the largest resource bases in the region, and the university's main library in Suva is also one of the largest in the region. In view of this, and the small sizes of the few national and other libraries in the region, the USP Library has assumed a number of roles normally not associated with a university library.

The Political Economy of Marine Fisheries Development in Indonesia

The seas surrounding Indonesia have shaped its history and will continue to play a major part in determining the future course of its development. As an archipelagic nation, Indonesia's marine environment is a dominating physical reality. The sea makes up roughly two-thirds of the nation's total area. In addition to 2.7 million square kilometers of territorial waters, Indonesia's jurisdiction extends over a further 2.1 million square kilometers of ocean as its Exclusive Economic Zone. Among the many resources found in this vast expanse, none--including, I would argue, oil and gas--is more important than fisheries resources. Fish provides more than 60 percent of the animal protein intake of the average IndonesianI and is the only affordable source for the majority of the population. According to the Directorate General of Fisheries (DGF), approximately 1.3 million Indonesians are directly employed as fishers in the marine sector,2 with at least an equal number employed in various supportive roles, including boat building and fish processing, distribution, and marketing.3 In addition, fisheries products are becoming increasingly important as sources of export earnings.

The Onshore Transport of an Oil Spill by Internal Waves

Internal waves generated by tidal currents concentrated and transported an oil spill (liquid asphalt) onshore. Plankton net samples were collected in front of and behind a set of internal waves as well as in the convergence and divergence zones over the waves. Tar "balls" were most abundant (greater than 30-fold) in the samples from the convergence zone. Comparison of the abundance of tar balls in front of and behind the set of waves suggests that the internal waves "caught" about 68% of the asphalt encountered and concentrated and swept shoreward tar balls from almost 8 kilometers of ocean.

American and Soviet expedition into the Southern Ocean sea ice in October and November 1981

At the end of the austral winter, the Southern Ocean sea ice covers over 20 million square kilometers of ocean, an area larger than Antarctica. In November the ice begins to melt rapidly, retreating to only 20% of winter value by February. The basis of our understanding of the complex Southern Ocean is data obtained during the ice‐free period; yet, it is in the ice‐covered state, where the data base is essentially zero, that many significant events are believed to take place. Direct observations within the ice cover are limited to ships inadvertently locked in the ice, notably the Weddell Sea experience of the Deutschland in 1912, to coastal observations at Antarctic stations, and to a few year‐long bottom‐moored current meter deployments below the winter ice: in total, a very small data set that is restricted to a few types of measurements. It is likely that the extensive winter ice cover surrounding Antarctica represents the largest segment of the world ocean without a fundamental data set.