Archive for November 24th, 2009
Boats, Boats, and More Boats
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
We continued to take screenshots of shipping traffic and overlay them into Google Earth.
Wednesday November 18th didn't show much traffic outside the shipping lanes except for one that got away from the rest of the pack.
Thursday November 19th was just as quiet as wednesday, however there were fewer ships seen.
Tuesday November 24th showed a bit more traffic outside the shipping lanes but not enough to cause a panic.
Monday November 23rd showed the most boat traffic all week with the most number of ships. A few even came close to RU27's current waypoint.
Our group has been inputting screenshots into Google Earth of the worst case scenarios in order to help determine what possible issues could arise when trying to pick up Scarlet.
We have also added additional .kmz files that can be downloaded from theRUCOOL website that show recent shipping traffic and the worst case scenario. These can be under the vessel tracking group.
We are also currently working on comparing the amount of traffic to the wave height and jet stream data in order to see if they have an effect on the number of ships we see and their location.
~Leo, Amelia, Shannon
CODAR update: Updated and new KMZs.
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Hello,
While the CODAR sites in Galicia are being fixed, the CODAR group has continued working on MARCOOS kmzs. This past week, we added boxes that contain the current time of the MARCOOS Totals. Clicking on any of the arrows will cause a balloon to pop-up with the date and time of the current totals. Next up for the MARCOOS kmz is adding a contour plot so that we can easily distinguish the speed of the surface currents by color.
Here is a screen shot taken at 1:10 am on 11/24/09.
As you can see the vector totals are for 11/24/09 0100 hrs, indicating that the script is working correctly.
Also, we began working on imputing CODAR site radials into Google Earth. These scratch plots will allow our technicians to quickly and easily view radials by clicking on the placemarks of all of our sites. With these plots, CODAR site performance can be easily monitored in near real-time without the need for manual plotting.
An example of a scratch plot.
Example of the Eastern and Gulf Coasts including Puerto Rico that are processed in the National Network CODAR sites KMZ.
All of the working KMZs can be found at http://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/index.php/COOL-Students/Atlantic-Crossing-Class.html . The others will soon follow.
Thanks,
Mike and Lisa
Weather Group Update Week of 11/24
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Who else has crossed the Atlantic?
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009As RU27 draws closer and closer to its destination in Spain, we begin to look at more than just ship or biological crossings of the Atlantic Ocean. While Magellan, Drake, and Columbus we're easy choices for comparison, we've also been putting the tracks of lesser known crossings into Google Earth. From tuna and turtles to the first swimmer and non electric powered paddle boaters. And we've even added the mysterious path of Amelia Aerhart. Our google earth Atlantic really is starting to look like a spider web of colors with many types of voyages traipsing across the ocean.