Bryant, Dennis
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Melting Sea Ice: A Canary in the Coal Mine
The rapid loss of Arctic sea ice is a sentinel. Most of us will never venture into the Arctic, but it can and does provide us with a forewarning of impacts coming to our parts of the Earth – and some of the most significant impacts will directly affect the maritime industry. In earlier times, coal miners were sometimes overcome by the buildup of odorless carbon monoxide gas. Some died as a consequence. Eventually it was realized that canaries were more susceptible to the gas than were humans.
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Silence Your Ships
Anthropogenic (manmade) sound is creating havoc among marine mammals and other aquatic species. These creatures have very sensitive hearing, which they rely on to find food and mates and (for some) to communicate and navigate. Sound waves can travel much further and with much less loss of strength in water than in air. In pre-industrial times, the oceans were relatively quiet. Sailing ships generated almost no subsurface noise.
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The Lowdown on Ocean Acidification
Scientists say that the world’s oceans are acidifying. This term is correct, but somewhat misleading. Until recently, the oceans have had (so far as can be determined) a pH level of about 8.4 for millennia. A pH of 7.0 is neutral. Thus, the oceans are alkaline, not acidific. But, since the beginning of the industrial age when emissions of carbon dioxide started to rise, the oceans’ pH level has dropped to 8.3 and the waters have become less alkaline.
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Dynamic Positioning & the Potential for USCG Regulations
Dynamic positioning is a vessel capability provided by integration of a variety of individual systems and functions to automatically maintain a vessel’s position and heading by use of the vessel’s propellers and thrusters, and has been in use, particularly in the offshore oil and gas exploration business since the 1960s. To date, use of dynamic positioning has relied on industry best practices, classification society rules, and guidance from the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
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Rogue Waves
Ever since man has taken vessels onto the seas, mariners have reported encounters with monstrous waves that seem to arise out of nowhere from an otherwise average sea state. On his third voyage to the New World in 1498, Christopher Columbus recorded in his logbook that a giant wave lifted up his vessels as they transited the waterway between the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela and the island of Trinidad, a waterway he then named Bocas del Dragón (the Mouths of the Dragon).
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Sonar & the USCG
The USCG Plans to Widen its use of the subsea surveillance technology. The question is: is the investment warranted? The U.S. Coast Guard is planning to widely use sonar to support its maritime security and marine environmental protection missions. The agency currently has limited capability to detect objects below the water’s surface and relies on others (such as the U.S. Navy or the commercial sector) when such detection is needed. Sonar is an acronym for Sound Navigation and Ranging.
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GPS Spoofing and the Potential Perils to Ships at Sea
Simple annoyance or potential security threat? Spoof is defined as “a hoax or swindle.” In the world of electronic networks, a spoofing attack is a situation in which one program successfully masquerades as another by falsifying data and thereby gaining an improper advantage. We have all heard of, and possibly fallen victim to, fraudulent card readers (often inserted on self-service fuel pumps). The fraudulent card readers copy security information from the credit card…
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Places of Refuge
The concept of force majeure has been broadly accepted since mariners initially encountered the perils of the sea. Persons and governments ashore have been obligated, at least by natural law, to accept and succor those in distress at sea. Concomitant with force majeure is the notion of providing a ship in distress with a place or port of refuge. A place of refuge is where a ship could go to avoid or ameliorate the peril and then depart at the earliest opportunity.
