Tag Archives: Southern Ocean

Countries mull Antarctic marine sanctuary plans

Countries that regulate fishing in the Antarctic are meeting in an effort to break an impasse over proposals to create marine sanctuaries off the continent’s coast.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which brings together 24 countries and the European Union, meets Monday and Tuesday in the German port city of Bremerhaven.

Countries including Russia, Ukraine and China balked last year at a plan put forward by the U.S. and New Zealand to protect the Ross Sea, considered one of the world’s most pristine. There is also disagreement over an Australian-European plan for a sanctuary covering a number of areas of the Southern Ocean in the eastern hemisphere..

Deputy German agriculture minister Peter Bleser urged delegates to “take this opportunity” to advance marine protection.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

New chart shows the entire topography of the Antarctic seafloor in detail for the first time

Reliable information on the depth and floor structure of the Southern Ocean has so far been available for only few coastal regions of the Antarctic. An international team of scientists under the leadership of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, has for the first time succeeded in creating a digital map of the entire Antarctic seafloor. The International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) for the first time shows the detailed topography of the seafloor for the entire area south of 60°S. An article presented to the scientific world by IBCSO has now appeared online in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org

Dwindling buffer effect?

(Phys.org) —The Southern Ocean could absorb relatively less carbon dioxide in future if the global temperatures continue to rise as a result of human activities, as climate researchers from ETH Zurich demonstrate based on an analysis of two sediment drill cores from the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. The study has just been published in the journal Science. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org

In a First, Scientists Track Blue Whales by Song

By John Johnson Blue whales may be the planet’s biggest creature, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to track and study. This should help, however: Australian researchers on the Southern Ocean were able to get around what one called the “needle in a haystack” problem by dropping acoustic buoys into the water and… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Great Finds

Sea Shepherd seeks criminal case against whalers

Sea Shepherd is asking Dutch authorities to prosecute Japanese whalers for allegedly attacking the radical conservationist group’s ships in the Southern Ocean.

Lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld has filed a criminal complaint with Dutch prosecutors accusing the crew of the Nisshin Maru whaling ship of deliberately ramming Sea Shepherd‘s ships in January.

The case is being brought in the Netherlands because the Sea Shepherd ships Steve Irwin and Bob Barker both sail under the Dutch flag.

It intensifies a legal battle going on between Sea Shepherd and Japan‘s whaling fleet stemming from their repeated clashes on the high seas in recent years.

In the complaint announced Thursday, Zegveld accused the Nisshin Maru and shipping company Tomoyuki Ogawa of crimes including “sea robbery” a little-used offense formerly used to prosecute pirates.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News

Adventurers re-enact Shackleton's Antarctic voyage

It’s been lauded as one of the greatest survival stories of all-time.

Nearly 100 years later, a group of British and Australian adventurers have discovered why. They re-enacted Ernest Shackleton‘s journey to save his crew when their ship got stuck in Antarctica‘s icy waters.

Tim Jarvis and Barry Gray on Monday reached an old whaling station on the remote island of South Georgia, 19 days after leaving Elephant Island. Just as Shackleton did in 1917, Jarvis and his team sailed 800 nautical miles across the Southern Ocean in a small lifeboat and then climbed over crevasse-filled mountains in South Georgia.

The modern-day team of six used similar equipment and clothes. But the harsh conditions forced several of them to abandon their attempt along the way.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News