Ocean Currents flow somewhere else

Alert visitors to this site will have noticed that it has become moribund over the last couple of months. This is partly because of a lack of time to keep entries updated but also because I have gradually been forming an opinion that the site isn’t quite doing what I want it to do (and so haven’t been motivated to find the time to create new entries). I have come to the conclusion that what I really want is a site that offers more flexibility in terms of the kind of entries I can write and the topics I can cover. I don’t want to feel pressured to keep up regular entries on every marine science story I come across in New Scientist and the weekend papers, but I do want to be able to write about items that I find particularly interesting (and not just in relation to marine science).

So – from now onwards (unless I change my mind again!), Ocean Currents will not receive any new content. However, you can find my new web project which is a much more eclectic mixture of material (not just marine science) at http://timohare.wordpress.com. I will leave Ocean Currents open for access for a while but if and when visits drop to a minimal level I will probably pull the plug on it altogether.

Slow progress on ocean protection

From: BBC Website (20 November 2008).

News item on a major study that has revealed that less than 1% of the world’s ocean have been given protected status (in comparison to 12% of the land surface).

Tsunami in 2004 “not the first”

From: BBC Website (29 October 2008).

News item on two research projects that present sedimentary evidence for a major tsunami in the Thailand/Sumatra area some 600-700 years ago (pre-dating written and coral records).

Arctic ice thickness “plummets”

From: BBC Website (28 October 2008).

News item on new research which shows that the thickness of Arctic sea ice fell by up to one fifth over the last Arctic winter. The work complements other recent observations that have measured a reduction in the area covered by sea ice.

Ice sheet secrets to be revealed

From: BBC Website (27 October 2008).

News item on the announcement of a new research programme to investigate what lies beneath the ice sheets of Eastern Antarctica with a view to learning more about past and future climate change.

Major tidal power plan revealed

From: BBC Website (17 October 2008).

News item on a proposal for a major tidal power generation plant in the Pentland Firth.

Seaweed farms “could fuel future”

From: BBC Website (26 October 2008).

News item on the need for pilot seaweed and algae farms to assess the viability of using marine biomass for energy generation in the future.

Bristling skin is the secret of the high-speed shark

From: New Scientist, In brief, No 2682 (15 November 2008), p16.

News item on research which has examined the skin structure of shortfin mako sharks and developed an artifical skin which may ultimately be of use in the design of underwater vehicles. The shark skin is covered with scales which can bristle thereby causing vortices which buffer the shark from the water and prevent the formation of a turbulent wake.

Extra-salty sea

From: New Scientist, 60 Seconds, No 2680 (01 November 2008), p7.

Mini news item noting research that suggests that human activity has led to an increase in salinity of the Atlantic Ocean via increased evaporation and decreased rainfall resulting from anthropogenic warming.

Site Review: October 2008

Posts
As of the end of October 2008 there were 141 entries on the site, with 16 being added over the last month. If I am honest I know that I have not been quite as diligent at posting materials in recent weeks as I have been in the past but hopefully this is just a temprary blip rather than the start of a terminal decline.

Visits
By the end of October 2008, the total number of visits to the site stood at 1599, up 820 (more than double) on the previous month. The site is showing exponential growth in traffic, but I don’t suppose this will continue for much longer (in fact so far November is looking very similar to October). The best individual October day for the site was 14 October with 74 visits and this was also the best day for the site overall.

The top three most viewed entries over the month were:

1: Navy’s sonar has a killer sound [posted 8 October 2008]
2: Arctic ’methane chimneys’ raise fears of runaway climate change [posted 23 September 2008]
3: Unknown Earth – our planet’s seven biggest mysteries [posted 8 October 2008]

and the three most viewed entries since the start of the site are:

1: Arctic ’methane chimneys’ raise fears of runaway climate change [posted 23 September 2008]
2: La Nina knocks jet stream off course to dampen summer spirits [posted 26 June 2008]
3: New Orleans braced for chaos as hurricane looms [posted 06 September 2008]

Methane chimneys are obvious the ‘in thing’ at the moment.

My overall favourite story, not for its scientific content, but for its sheer craziness is:

Surfing rats [posted 27 October 2008]

Site Changes
I have decided to switch around the categories a bit, removing the rather broad categories such as “physics”, “chemistry” etc. and adding a new set of categories that relate to specific lectures that I give. These new categories provide a quick way for my students to locate material that has some relevance to individual lectures that I give (which was really the idea of this site in the first place). To accommodate the extra categories I have changed the category navigation so that categories appear in a drop-down menu rather than always being visible on the left-hand sidebar of the site. I hope this works well and is useful.