PRESS RELEASEMarine Experts attend FerryBox 08More than 60 marine experts from around the world attended FerryBox 08 on 29 and 30 September – a two-day conference at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton UK co-hosted by Chelsea Technologies Group. The subject of the conference is one of the fastest growing areas of marine science – where sophisticated equipment is fitted to cargo and passenger ships to provide continuous monitoring of the world’s oceans to improve our understanding of climate change. Shipping companies are collaborating with oceanographers to measure what is happening in our oceans, seas and lakes on a day-to-day basis. Such information is essential if we are to understand and quantify both the causes and effects of our Earth’s changing climate. Innovative sensor systems installed on the ships collect the data and a satellite communications system sends the numbers ashore for assessment. The oceanographic community is enthusiastic about expanding this interaction with the shipping industry and the shipping community is equally keen to find ways to partner. Richard Burt, Marketing Director of Chelsea Technologies Group said, ‘Chelsea was delighted to co-host the event as we have been supplying real time oceanographic monitoring systems for both military and commercial vessels for many years, and have built up a broad understanding of the design, installation and operation of such systems’. This knowledge has been further advanced through involvement in the European Union ‘FerryBox’ programme which led to the development of the Chelsea AquaLine FerryBox System. At the heart of the AquaLine System are a suite of Chelsea sensors, proven in some of the most harsh environments in the world, a passenger display system and automatic data transfer to a shore facility. FerryBox 08 heard from users worldwide including Akira Harahishma (National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan) about studies in the Seto Inland Sea and Herman Ridderinkhof (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research), on how the shortest route to the island of Texel has changed understanding of sediment transport into the Wadden Sea. Ute Schuster, UEA presented the co-ordinated work in the North Atlantic, by the EU’s Science Framework 6 project CarboOcean that researches the marine carbon cycle, and the International Ocean Carbon Coordination Project. Discussion on the further development of the FerryBox concept as part of integrated observing systems was led by David Mills from CEFAS. He described the new European Marine Ecosystem Observatory (Emeco) initiative. Emeco will support and make sustained measurements over decades at coastal and regional scales to quantify temporal variability in physical, chemical and biological properties. The Swire Group Charitable Trust recently pledged over £300,000 to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton to support a research programme that monitors the oceans using sensors fixed to a cargo ship. By using ocean-monitoring equipment installed on Swire’s cargo ship the MV Pacific Celebes, scientists from the centre have been able to capture data about remote areas of the globe where the oceans’ interaction with the atmosphere is largely unknown. Dr David Hydes, lead scientist for the NOCS Ferrybox programme commented “ the North Atlantic plays a major role in controlling the amount of carbon dioxide taken up by the oceans each year. Without this uptake the atmospheric concentration would rise more rapidly forcing up the rate of global warming and climate change. Integration of the data from the Atlantic system means that we now have the ability to monitor how the uptake of carbon dioxide changes from year to year, with a precision that can be used to quantify the results of reduced emissions of carbon dioxide when these are achieved.” He continued “The partnerships that are developing between the shipping industry and the research community are an example of how creative thinking like the FerryBox concept can make sustainable long term observations more possible by finding cost effective approaches.” David was pleased to report that the EuroGOOS Office in cooperation with SMHI, Sweden will be hosting next FerryBox Meeting in March 2010. Contact
Ellen Keegan for more information
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