Sea-level predictions more dramatic
Top climate scientists warned last week that sea levels could rise twice as much as previously projected as they presented the latest research on global warming.
A 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a sea level rise of 18 to 59 centimetres by the end of the century. But scientists meeting in Copenhagen dismissed those estimates as too conservative, saying new data suggests that sea level rise could exceed one metre and is unlikely to be less than 50 centimetres.
“This means that if the emissions of greenhouse gases is not reduced quickly and substantially even the best-case scenario will hit low-lying coastal areas housing one-tenth of humans on the planet hard,” organizers said in a statement at the three-day congress hosted by the University of Copenhagen.
The melting of polar ice sheets and of glaciers are two big factors that will affect sea levels, they added.
“Unless we undertake urgent and significant mitigation actions, the climate could cross a threshold during the 21st century committing the world to a sea level rise of metres,” said John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research.
The conclusions of the conference will be presented to politicians meeting in Copenhagen in December to discuss a new global agreement on greenhouse gas emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said scientists can analyze the dangers associated with global warming, but that it’s up to politicians to do something about it. “I am afraid that it is something that involves value judgment on the part of policy makers, and I am afraid that they shied away from it,” he told the conference. “It is time to take action.”
Some 1,600 abstracts from nearly 80 countries have been submitted to the conference, which will be attended by Nicholas Stern, the author of a British government report on the cost of climate change.
Fishing crews gather for annual blessing at Seattle’s Fishermen’s Terminal
Under a clear sky, fishermen and their families gathered at Fishermen’s Terminal this past Sunday before a fleet of boats that would soon head to open waters.
People thought about crew safety, a bountiful seafood harvest and appreciation for emergency responders.
The 81st annual ‘Blessing of the Fleet’ drew about 100 people from throughout the Seattle area to the terminal, marking a tradition started by the late Rev. O.L. Haavik.
Among the elected officials who spoke, U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott talked about how the tradition still has meaning. He noted that the Seattle-based Alaska Ranger sunk last year – five people lost their lives. The vessel was about 120 miles off Dutch Harbor in Alaska. ‘This is something that is with us all the time,’ said McDermott, a Seattle Democrat.
This year’s blessing comes as the nation and the world face difficult economic times. A lower demand for some ‘luxury’ fish, such as halibut and increased industry costs also are hurting, speakers said.
But Bob Alverson of the Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association noted that people in the industry are resilient. ‘One thing I like about fishermen is that they’re some of the most optimistic people around,’ he said.
On behalf of the entire fishing fleet this year, the F/V Middleton, a 56-foot boat owned by Seattle resident Kurt Hansen, received the annual blessing. Standing on his boat, Hansen raised a blue pennant that had the images of a fish and a cross.
‘Keep them safe,’ said the Rev. Erik Wilson Weiberg of Ballard First Lutheran Church. Then he turned to the audience and said: ‘Go in peace.’
OPEC: Current Oil Prices Cannot Guarantee Future Market Stability
The current excessively low oil prices cannot guarantee its long-term stability in the crude market, Secretary-General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Abdalla Salem El-Badri said this past Friday.
The moderation of prices since last summer’s extreme, certainly offers some short-term relief to consumers. However, if the current low price environment persists, this short-term relief may not translate into long-term gain, El-Badri said in a statement released by the OPEC secretariat in Vienna.
As to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) remarks that the world would get a 1-trillion-U.S. dollar economic stimulus if oil prices stay at around 40 dollars per barrel through 2009, El-Badri said OPEC wanted to see the global economy back on its feet, but the short, medium, and long-term timeframes are all interlinked.
If low oil prices persist, it is not economically viable for OPEC member states to invest in the industry. Low oil prices inevitably mean less investment, he said. El-Badri also said OPEC remained committed to ensuring a stable, sound and sustainable oil industry.
OPEC will hold a ministerial conference on March 15.
US Navy Names Newest Littoral Combat Ship USS Fort Worth
Secretary of the US Navy Donald C. Winter announced March 6 that the newest Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) will be named USS Fort Worth.
The Littoral Combat Ship is a 21st century ship designed to allow access to shallow coastal waters for missions such as mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare. It will also be outfitted with reconfigurable payloads that can be changed out quickly to accommodate various missions. The USS Fort Worth will be designated LCS-3 and will be built by Lockheed Martin. It will be 378 feet in length, have a waterline beam of 57 feet, displace approximately 3,000 tons and will make speed in excess of 40 knots.
Based on previous LCS construction timelines, the USS Fort Worth is slated for completion around 2012, according to the Navy. Currently, the USS Freedom (LCS-1) is the only littoral combat ship in service. Another ship, LCS-2, is being built and will be named the USS Independence. The vessels in the Freedom class are named after American mid-sized cities, small towns and communities.
There are two different LCS hull forms -a semi-planing monohull and an aluminum trimaran – designed and built by two industry teams, respectively led by Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. Lockheed Martin’s advanced seaframe is based on technologies introduced by Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri. The ship has a steel hull with aluminum superstructure and will be powered by two gas turbines and two diesel engines driving four large, acoustically optimised waterjets. The vessel will have automated stern doors, stern ramp, side launch doors and overhead crane for the launch and recovery of manned and unmanned vessels.
Both the Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics seaframes will be outfitted with reconfigurable payloads, called mission packages, which can be changed out quickly. Mission packages are supported by special detachments that will deploy manned and unmanned vehicles and sensors.
The numbers of LCS ships has not been finalised but there has been speculation for up to 60 LCS ships, within a total US naval fleet of 375 ships.
Fishing – The Most Dangerous Job in the World
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently stated that fishing at sea is probably the most dangerous occupation in the world. Data from those countries that collect accurate accounts show that occupational fatalities in their fishing industries far exceed their national average. For example, in the United States the fatality rate for the fishing industry is approximately 16 times higher than for fire-fighting or police work and 40 times the national average. Not only are the figures high, but there is little evidence to indicate they are decreasing.
The FAO estimates that around 24,000 people die every year (65 per day) out of a total of about 15 million workers engaged in full-time marine fishing. These people work aboard decked and undecked fishing vessels operating in marine capture fisheries, of whom more than 90 per cent are working on vessels less than 24 metres in length. The most dangerous fisheries are located in the north-eastern Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea.
It seems plausible that the fatality rate in countries for which information is not available might be higher than those mentioned above.
The US Navy – Charting a Course for Tomorrow’s Fleet
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments recently released a report intended to inform and shape the United States defense strategy review.
This paper assesses the adequacy and affordability of current US Navy plans in light of current trends in naval warfare, expected future budget environments, and, most importantly, the likely operational demands associated with three enduring, long-term strategic challenges. After conducting this assessment, the report lays out recommended changes to the current Navy plans in order to envision a future fleet that is both more capable and more affordable.
These recommended changes are shaped by the observation that the US Navy finds itself alone at the top of the global naval hierarchy with a comfortable margin of superiority. Given that the size of the US Navy’s battle force stands at 280 ships — less than half the size of the ultimate Cold War fleet — this may be surprising to some. However, while the US battle force is smaller than it has been in over seven decades, so too are the rest of the world’s navies.
Furthermore, the US Navy is transitioning from a fleet of ships to what officials describe as FORCEnet: a system of collaborative battle networks that would share data across the force to form common operational pictures and use internet protocol-based systems to enable interactive combat planning, targeting, and execution. This transition means that the Navy is now defined less by the numbers of ships in its Total Ship Battle Force, and more by the combined capabilities found in its Total Force Battle Network.
Based on the analysis of future tasks and missions for the Total Force Battle Network, as well as expected future budgets, this paper makes several recommended changes to the Navy’s current plans. Over the next thirty years, this plan would see the new construction of 328 major warships and submarines, not counting any ships built or leased for the sealift fleet. Using the more conservative Congressional Budget Office estimates as a basis for comparison, the average yearly total shipbuilding costs for this plan would be $21.8 billion, including $19.9 billion in new-ship construction. These figures include the costs for the SSBN(X), as well as those for small boats, craft, and manned underwater vehicles.
Nevertheless, the plan would still call for a significant increase in shipbuilding resources — about 74 percent more than the $12.6 billion per year spent on shipbuilding between FY 2003 and FY 2008.
The complete report (PDF format) can be downloaded from here
About the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA)
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is an independent, nonpartisan policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking and debate about United States national security strategy and investment options. CSBA’s goal is to enable policymakers to make informed decisions on matters of strategy, security policy and resource allocation. CSBA provides timely, impartial and insightful analyses to senior decision makers in the executive and legislative branches, as well as to the media and the broader national security community.
The 2009 Future Years Defense Program: Implications and Alternatives
(excerpted from the Congressional Budget Office; issued February 4, 2009)
Statement of J. Michael Gilmore, Assistant Director, Congressional Budget Office before the Committee on the Budget, U.S. House of Representatives
February 4, 2009
The 2009 FYDP, transmitted in April 2008, reflects changes to the department’s programs and priorities since February 2007. Overall, the budgetary implications of DoD’s current plans are similar to those described in CBO’s previous projections.
Carrying out plans proposed in the FYDP would require sustaining annual defense funding over the long term at higher real (inflation-adjusted) levels than those that occurred at the peak of the buildup in the mid-1980s.
Four factors in particular account for the projected high level of defense spending under the FYDP:
- Plans to purchase more new military equipment over the next several years and then to sustain that rate of procurement over the longer term;
- Plans, as part of military transformation, to develop and eventually produce weapon systems that provide new capabilities—systems whose estimated costs are also increasing;
- Plans to increase the size of military forces and the growing costs of pay and benefits for DoD’s military and civilian personnel; and
- Plans to meet the rising costs of operation and maintenance (O&M) for aging equipment as well as for newer, more complex equipment.
In CBO’s projection, defense resources will average about $549 billion annually (in constant 2009 dollars) from 2014 to 2026.
Click here for the full statement (28 pages in PDF format) on the CBO website.
Canada’s Military/Naval Procurement – A Flawed Process
The paper Canada: Military/Naval Procurement – A Flawed Process examines the history of naval procurement in Canada and provides recommendations to ensure the process is effective, efficient and responsive to the needs of Canadians.
Shipbuilding provides some of the best paying high technology and knowledge based jobs in Canada. It spans high technology construction techniques to the development and manufacturing of the most sophisticated and complex computer systems in the country. Building federal ships in Canada is a direct investment in the Canadian economy, in Canadian workers and Canadian technology unlike any other industrial sector.
Today there is both an urgent need to replace Canada’s existing government fleets and an urgent need to stimulate job creation. A major step in achieving these two goals in this economic environment would be to embark on a national effort to replace the current federal fleets. All federal fleets, the Navy, the Coast Guard and Fisheries and Oceans need to be replaced over the next two decades.
Embarking on a sustainable renewal program will be an investment in Canada for Canadians. The investment in this enterprise would stimulate research and development, design and manufacturing. It will create jobs for Canadians suffering from downturns in other industrial sectors.
However, for this to happen, the report claims Canada must first improve upon the process by which these vessels are procured. “Military/Naval Procurement – A Flawed Process” provides a roadmap to achieve both procurement reform and sustainable fleet renew through a continuous build strategy.
Canadian-built ships are among the best in the world. Continuing to give our sailors the equipment they deserve, and our workers the jobs they need, only makes sense. In the bigger picture, Canadians get the security and prosperity we deserve.
The paper Canada: Military/Naval Procurement – A Flawed Process can be downloaded from: http://www.cda-cdai.ca/Currie_Papers/Currie%20Paper%201-08%20Navy%20League.pdf
Fish that bounces like a ball on ocean floor discovered in Indonesia
A funky, psychedelic fish that bounces on the ocean floor like a rubber ball has been classified as a new species, a scientific journal reported.
The frogfish – which has a swirl of tan and peach zebra stripes that extend from its aqua eyes to its tail – was initially discovered by scuba diving instructors working in shallow waters off Ambon island in eastern Indonesia.The operator contacted Ted Pietsch, lead author of a paper published in this month’s edition of Copeia, the journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, who submitted DNA work identifying it as a new species.
The fish – which the University of Washington professor has named ‘psychedelica’ – is a member of the antennariid genus, Histiophryne, and like other frogfish, has fins on both sides of its body that have evolved to be leg-like.
But it has several behavioral traits not previously known to the others, Pietsch wrote.
Each time the fish strike the seabed, for instance, they push off with their fins and expel water from tiny gill openings to jet themselves forward. That, and an off-centered tail, causes them to bounce around in a bizarre, chaotic manner.
Mark Erdman, a senior adviser to the Conservation International’s marine program, said Thursday it was an exciting discovery.
‘I think people thought frogfishes were relatively well known and to get a new one like this is really quiet spectacular. … It’s a stunning animal,’ he said, adding that the fish’s stripes were probably intended to mimic coral.
‘It also speaks to the tremendous diversity in this region and to fact that there are still a lot of unknowns here – in Indonesia and in the Coral Triangle in general.’
The fish, which has a gelatinous fist-sized body covered with thick folds of skin that protect it from sharp-edged corals, also has a flat face with eyes directed forward, like humans, and a huge, yawning mouth.
Canadian Government Takes Steps to Obtain Vessels for Coast Guard
GATINEAU, Quebec — The Honourable Christian Paradis, Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) and the Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, today announced that the Government of Canada has taken the next step towards procuring mid-shore patrol vessels on behalf of the Canadian Coast Guard.
The government plans to procure up to twelve new mid-shore patrol vessels (MSPVs) to provide support for the Fisheries Conservation and Protection Program, as well as Maritime Security.
PWGSC has launched a process, and to provide industry with the opportunity for input, PWGSC issued a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) on February 26, 2009. The input received from industry will be taken into account when the government issues the final RFP in early Spring 2009.
“These vessels are a key priority of the Government of Canada,” said Minister Shea. “We have launched a procurement process which demonstrates the Government’s commitment to getting the right equipment for the Canadian Coast Guard at the right price for Canadians, with the right benefits for Canadian industry.”
Through industrial and regional benefits, this contract will boost the Canadian economy by providing for 100 percent of the contract in direct and indirect industrial and regional benefits. This means that the contractor will generate one dollar of economic activity in Canada for every dollar it receives from the contract.
