I-COOL

Here we are estimating the distance from Greenland to Spain, to the Canary Island of Plenitud. And comparing that distance from Greenland to the Canary Island of Plenitud.

Greenland to Spain= about 1747 miles and Spain to Plenitud=996 miles

Greenland to Plenitud = 2449 miles

Greenland to Plenitud is definitely a shorter route. If there were a need to redirect the glider to Spain and then to the Canaries, there would be about another 294 miles added. That equals about 473.146032 kilometers.

These are  the best images of global shipping lanes that are in the north atlantic.

Emily, Dave, Mario, Drew

For this post, we are highlighting the major points we have come across while looking up what political issues we may run into while running the glider mission from the Teledyne Webb facility in iceland to our friends in the canaries

Looking at the possible tracks we may follow while conducting this mission along with the currents that we will be facing, there are a number of countries whos eez(exclusive economic zone) we may enter, including Greenland, Canada, Norway, The United Kingdom, France,  Spain.  Knowing this it will be very important for us to rehash our friendships we made with a number of these countries we became friends with during the 27 mission.  Now one of the major components we have to consider that is stated in the law of the sea that one conducting scientific research by use of an auv if the researcher has a point of contact within that country who can defend what the auv is doing.  It is a huge plus for the cause also if the data is made public if it would prove to be useful in any way to any search and rescue efforts that may need to be made.  We luck out in the fact that the gliders happen to collect data on the currents which can prove very helpful when it comes to this sort of scenario.

There are many advantages to signing the law of the sea and there has been much debate over whether or not the US should sign it or not.  One of the major reasons the US has endorsed and considered signing the Law of the Sea is it's protection over research vessels which would allow for the collection of oceanic and atmospheric data that would prove beneficial for not only science but also for our navy.

There is also a major push for the property rights of knowledge which allow for data that is collected to be shared internationally which will also allow for the right to do the collection of the data everywhere.

Rachel, Connor, Sarah, John, Nilsen

What we want to do is get data from the ARGOS moorings and see what the density range is from the North Atlantic near Greenland and Iceland, to the Mid Atlantic by the Canaries. From this range we will then look at the capabilities of our Slocum gliders and see if this range is workable.

http://www.argo.net/

Google Earth Data: http://w3.jcommops.org/FTPRoot/Argo/Status/STATUS.KMZ

We used Google Earth to find the moorings and picked 4 locations we thought would be a good possible "fly zone".

We picked 4 spots to look at for now:

Site 1

Site 2

Site 3

Site 4:

The salinity and temperature ranges from:

Site 1:

Salinity: 35.25-35

Temp: 5-7C

Site 2:

Salinity:34.9-35.1

Temp: 3.5-7C

Site 3:

Salinity: 34.9-35

Temp:4-7C

Site 4:

Salinity: 35.2-36.6

Temp: 5-18C

This week we will work on getting density data and figuring out how to get all of the ARGOS data.

Chris Filosa and Abe Gelb

The weather in Iceland for next several days:

On Friday: Southwest 8 to 13 m/s. Widely intermittent rain or sleet, but mostly dry in the northeast and east. Temperature 0 to 5 deg. On Saturday and Sunday: Southwest wind, 8 to 13 m/s and widespread snowshowers, least in the east. Temperature 0 to 5 deg, C by the coast but slight frost inland. On Monday: South wind with rain and mild. On Tuesday: Turns likely to southwest wind with rain- or snowshowers in the south and west parts and dropping temperature.

Atlantic Ocean wind forecast for 4-13-11

Iceland weather forecast for 4-13-11

As for June and the months around it, judging by historical data it seems justifiable to predict that the weather will be warm/cool with mild winds and little percipitation:

(In graph form for July:)

For percipitation:

Numerous other factors can be seen on the below graph and associated website:

Iceland Climate Graph (Metric | Imperial units)

(Data accumulated over previous 40 years)

http://www.climatetemp.info/iceland/

Jason, Anthony, Ben

This week we did some research about PLOCAN, the Plataforma Oceanica de Canarias. The project was approved in 2007 as a node part of the Spanish Network of Large Scientific and Technological Infrastrucutres (ICTS) and is expected to by ready by 2013.  PLOCAN will contain a set of experimental facilities and laboratories on the ground, an offshore platform located on the edge of the continental shelf and deep observation sites. It will have a combination of sensors, vessels, underwater vehicles, etc. It will access the deep ocean to observe, produce, use or install services resources at depths that were not accessible in the past but for crude oil extraction.

We were unable to find any real time data for PLOCAN's glider but click here for a link to their buoy real time data.

Check out PLOCAN!

-Amelia, Kyle, and Cynthia

- This is a picture of sea surface temperature taken on April 12, around 2 a.m.  You can see how really cold water still lines the coast, but you can also see it farther off the coast that the currents from the storm  are really starting to mix in that warmer gulf coast water with the cooler northeast coast water, and the storm didn't give it a chance to settle so it's all over the place.

- This is a picture of the currents, taken around the same time.  There is a pretty uniform pattern of them pushing north, and they stay pretty strong along much of the east coast, being the strongest along the coast of Virginia and Delaware.

Meryl Geissler