Author: Neville

9 May 2013, 6.55am EST
A trainer, a bookie and a ‘drunk’: the Waterhouse saga simply screams Sydney

The Gai Waterhouse-John Singleton horse racing imbroglio has the feel of fiction. Its cast of characters could easily spring from the treatment for a new Underbelly series or the pages of a Peter Corris novel. News and narrative have here aligned with rare precision. The Racing NSW stewards hearing…

Author

David Rowe

Professor of Cultural Research at University of Western Sydney
.

Disclosure Statement

David Rowe is currently receiving ARC funding for A Nation of ‘Good Sports’? Cultural Citizenship and Sport in Contemporary Australia (DP130104502).

The University of Western Sydney Provides funding as a Member of The Conversation.
uws.edu.au

7cvrgqyp-1367989089Gai Waterhouse and John Singleton in happier times: their acrimonious split and subsequent stewards’ inquiry has typified the culture of Sydney. AAP/Paul Miller .

The Gai Waterhouse-John Singleton horse racing imbroglio has the feel of fiction. Its cast of characters could easily spring from the treatment for a new Underbelly series or the pages of a Peter Corris novel. News and narrative have here aligned with rare precision.

The Racing NSW stewards hearing has provided rich material for imaginative play, generating multiple walk-on parts for actors described by others in the production as: the “drunk” (John Singleton), the “trumped-up jockey” (Allan Robinson), the “brothel owner” (Eddie Hayson), the “footballer” (Andrew Johns), the “bookie” (Tom Waterhouse), the “snob” and “failed actress” (Gai Waterhouse). Its participants have played to the gallery, feeling “like rock stars” (in Singleton’s words) while competing for nightly news grabs.

Although this is a national story, its context is unmistakeable. The main character of this mediated melodrama is Sydney itself. Should Leviathan, John Birmingham’s rambunctious unauthorised biography of Sydney, deservedly go to a new edition, it would surely contain a vivid portrait of 21st century Sydney as seen through the More Joyous affair.

Birmingham quotes the archetypal Sydney “character”, William Charles Wentworth, who in 1824 held that:

Scandal appears to be a favourite amusement to which idlers resort to kill time and prevent ennui, and, consequently, the same families are eternally changing from friendship to hostility, and from hostility back to friendship again.

Wentworth might have written those same words today for an upmarket magazine or edgy blog in describing the Waterhouse-Singleton daily spectacle of frayed friendships and tentative reconciliations.

What does the current scandal tell us about Sydney past and present, and its place within the national imagination? Despite Melbourne’s own rich history of scandal and transgression, it is Sydney that has assumed and retained the mantle of Australia’s “Sin City”. Sydney is enduringly characterised by a residual freewheeling, colonial, “whatever it takes” lawlessness coupled with a brazen, aggressively unenlightened self-interest.

It is notable that Singleton versus Waterhouse has occurred at a time when another very Sydney matter has been played out in the daily national news. The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry into the awarding of lucrative mining leases – with its daily revelations of long lunches and friends with benefits – has reinforced long-held views that the spirit of the Rum Corps still runs through the city like the Tank Stream (now a drain) below it.

Horse racing has played more than a bit part in this dubious civic reputation. The “sport of kings” has always been a confusing mixture of establishment respectability, genuine equine affinity, working class “vocabularies of hope”, celebrity attention seeking, and dubious connections.

But the figure of the “colourful racing identity” is essentially a Sydney invention, a defamation-defying euphemism for its roll call of SP bookies, loan sharks, bent politicians, “whale” wagerers and their associates. Its vivid tableau of spivs and mug punters resonates well with an image of place where the odds are seen to be loaded against honest citizens in favour of more worldly rule benders and influence peddlers.

The current controversy over the promotion of sport gambling on television is not mainly about horse racing or focused on Sydney. The terms of reference for the Senate inquiry into “the advertising and promotion of gambling services in sport” are generic, referring only to “in-game promotion and the integration of gambling into commentary and coverage”, “exposure to, and influence on, children”, the “effect on the integrity of, and public attitudes to, sport”, and so on.

Gai Waterhouse’s bookmaker son, the omnipresent Tom, is at the centre of the stewards’ inquiry. AAP/Paul Miller.

Yet in public debate on the issue, the Waterhouse name – and especially Tom, scion of the bookmaking dynasty – has been much in evidence. It is the omnipresence of Waterhouse’s youthful, smiling visage in and outside sport broadcasts, and his use as a faux television sports commentator to promote gambling on sport, that has given additional impetus to anti-gambling campaigns.

Tom makes much of being “born to bet”, but understandably less of the part of his patrimony that saw his grandfather Bill and father Robbie – both bookmakers – warned off racecourses after the 1984 Fine Cotton affair.

The prominence of Waterhouse in the national controversy about sport and betting inevitably evoked the image of Sydney as a place where “anything goes”. When the Sydney-based Channel Nine and Tom Waterhouse stretched the TV-sport-gambling trifecta to its limit, it was easily read as the national dissemination of this Sydney ethos.

When allegations (as noted, furiously contested) were made that Tom had conferred with his mother Gai over the health of Singleton’s horse More Joyous, there was more focus on the noisy spat than surprised concern at what had been alleged. Sydney, for many, was just acting the part.

David Williamson’s characterisation of Sydney in Emerald City “as New York without the intellect” is oftencited as a put-down. But there are many in Australia, and some of the city’s own residents, who would award it the status of documentary. As events at Randwick unfold, we are witnessing a very Sydney tale that’s been running far longer than The Mousetrap

Decline in Snow Cover Spells Trouble for Many Plants, Animals

May 7, 2013 — For plants and animals forced to tough out harsh winter weather, the coverlet of snow that blankets the north country is a refuge, a stable beneath-the-snow habitat that gives essential respite from biting winds and subzero temperatures.

——————————————————————————–

Share This:

13

But in a warming world, winter and spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere is in decline, putting at risk many plants and animals that depend on the space beneath the snow to survive the blustery chill of winter.

In a report published May 2 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison describes the gradual decay of the Northern Hemisphere’s “subnivium,” the term scientists use to describe the seasonal microenvironment beneath the snow, a habitat where life from microbes to bears take full advantage of warmer temperatures, near constant humidity and the absence of wind.

“Underneath that homogenous blanket of snow is an incredibly stable refuge where the vast majority of organisms persist through the winter,” explains Jonathan Pauli, a UW-Madison professor of forest and wildlife ecology and a co-author of the new report. “The snow holds in heat radiating from the ground, plants photosynthesize, and it’s a haven for insects, reptiles, amphibians and many other organisms.”

Since 1970, snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere — the part of the world that contains the largest land masses affected by snow — has diminished by as much as 3.2 million square kilometers during the critical spring months of March and April. Maximum snow cover has shifted from February to January and spring melt has accelerated by almost two weeks, according to Pauli and his colleagues, Benjamin Zuckerberg and Warren Porter, also of UW-Madison, and John P. Whiteman of the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

“The winter ecology of Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest is changing,” says Zuckerberg, a UW-Madison professor of forest and wildlife ecology. “There is concern these winter ecosystems could change dramatically over the next several years.”

As is true for ecosystem changes anywhere, a decaying subnivium would have far-reaching consequences. Reptiles and amphibians, which can survive being frozen solid, are put at risk when temperatures fluctuate, bringing them prematurely out of their winter torpor only to be lashed by late spring storms or big drops in temperature. Insects also undergo phases of freeze tolerance and the migrating birds that depend on invertebrates as a food staple may find the cupboard bare when the protective snow cover goes missing.

“There are thresholds beyond which some organisms just won’t be able to make a living,” says Pauli. “The subnivium provides a stable environment, but it is also … [read more]

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Scaling Up Gyroscopes: From Navigation to Measuring Earth’s Rotation

May 6, 2013 — Accurately sensing rotation is important to a variety of technologies, from today’s smartphones to navigational instruments that help keep submarines, planes, and satellites on course. In a paper accepted for publication in the American Institute of Physics’ journal Review of Scientific Instruments, researchers from the Technical University of Munich and New Zealand’s University of Canterbury discuss what are called “large ring laser gyroscopes” that are six orders of magnitude more sensitive than gyroscopes commercially available.

——————————————————————————–

Share This:

2

In part, the increased sensitivity comes from the scaled-up size — the largest of these gyroscopes encloses an area of 834 square meters — meaning these instruments are no longer compatible with navigation applications. In addition, a very involved series of corrections must be made when using these instruments to account for a variety of factors, including the gravitational attraction of the moon. According to the researchers, however, the progress in these devices has made possible entirely new applications in geodesy, geophysics, seismology, and testing theories in fundamental physics such as the effects of general relativity.

Ring laser gyroscopes rely on laser beams propagating in opposite directions along the same closed loop or “ring.” The beams interfere with one another forming a stable pattern, but that pattern shifts in direct proportion to the rotation rate of the whole laser-ring system (called the “Sagnac effect”). Large ring laser gyroscopes are attached to the Earth’s crust so that a shift in that pattern (seen as an observed beat note in an actively lasing device) is directly proportional to the rotation rate of the Earth.

Perturbations in that rotation rate capture the momentum exchange between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, and so large ring laser gyroscopes could be used to indirectly monitor the combined effects of variations in global air and water currents, for example.

They may also be used both to supplement and improve calculations currently made with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) techniques for measuring the orientation of the instantaneous rotation axis of the Earth and the length of day. Additionally, changes in the ring’s orientation also shifts the beat note of the interferometer, making the large ring laser gyroscope useful for detecting tilts in the Earth’s crust, which current seismometers cannot distinguish from horizontal acceleration.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Canada drops out of race to tap methane hydrates

Funding ended for research into how to exploit world’s largest fossil energy resource

By Santiago Ortega Arango, CBC News

Posted: May 7, 2013 5:42 AM ET

Last Updated: May 7, 2013 6:09 AM ET
Read 325 comments325

Since 2003, Natural Resources Canada has spent more than $10.5 million on research into methane hydrate extraction, including a joint venture with Japan at the Mallik drilling site in the Mackenzie River delta. Since 2003, Natural Resources Canada has spent more than $10.5 million on research into methane hydrate extraction, including a joint venture with Japan at the Mallik drilling site in the Mackenzie River delta. (Courtesy Geological Survey of Canada)

Facebook

6

Twitter

6

Share

12

Email

Related Stories
Methane hydrates find excites Alaskan officialsMethane hydrates: Energy’s most dangerous game

External Links
UNEP global outlook on methane gas hydratesGeological Survey of Canada
(Note:CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external links.)

Canada is abandoning a 15-year program that was researching ways to tap a potentially revolutionary energy source, just as Japan is starting to use the results to exploit the new fossil-fuel frontier: methane hydrates.

Methane hydrates are crystals full of methane gas found both offshore and under the permafrost. Low temperatures and high pressure cause methane and water to crystallize into ice-like deposits.

They represent an unexploited source of energy estimated to be larger than all the world’s known coal, oil and gas reserves combined.
Offshore hydrates can be formed in large white clusters, but it is more common to find them mixed in sand on the ocean floor.Offshore hydrates can be formed in large white clusters, but it is more common to find them mixed in sand on the ocean floor. (Courtesy Scientific Party, RV Atlantis/Alvin Expedition)
Methane is considered to be cleaner than other fossil fuels, and if methane is used instead of oil and coal, significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved.

Producing gas from hydrates could also avoid the water pollution issues connected with the extraction of shale gas through “fracking” techniques. The environmental impact of methane production has yet to be completely assessed, but researchers say they expect the issues would be comparable to those of offshore conventional natural gas production.

Canada and Japan have been partners in the quest to extract methane from hydrates. Since 2000, Natural Resources Canada has invested more than $16 million in the venture. Japan spent around $60 million between 2002 and 2008 to finance production tests in the Canadian Arctic.

On March 18 this year the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. reached a milestone, successfully completing a test to produce methane gas from offshore hydrate formations for the first time, using extraction techniques pioneered in Canada.

Despite the success, Canadian federal funding from Natural Resources Canada for research into exploiting methane hydrates was cut as of March 31 — just a couple of weeks after the offshore production tests in Japan. The ministry told CBC News the decision was made in 2012.

Enormous potential

Canada has confirmed reserves of methane hydrates in the Mackenzie River Delta, the Arctic Archipelago and along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

According to a 2012 study from the University of Alberta and the Geological Survey of Canada, the total amount of methane gas in Canada is measured in trillions of cubic metres. Estimates put methane hydrates at anywhere from two to 30 times the amount of conventional natural gas present in the country.

In spite of that potential volume, the recent technological breakthrough permitting deposits to be tapped, and a successful research record, Canada has lost interest in commercializing this vast source of energy.

Paul Duchesne, manager of media relationships for Natural Resources Canada, told CBC News in an email that growing interest in shale gas and low prices for conventional sources of natural gas make energy from methane hydrates non-competitive.

“As a result, additional research into gas hydrates … [is] not a current priority,” he wrote.

Other countries are still pursuing hydrate research. Last year, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said that methane hydrates “could potentially yield significant new supplies of natural gas and further expand U.S. energy supplies.” He compared the current methane hydrate research to the long-term research investments that paved the way for the shale-gas boom. The U.S. conducted production tests in Alaska in 2012.

In March 2012, a German-Taiwanese venture was launched to study the methane resources in the South China Sea.

Norway, South Korea and India are also involved in ongoing hydrate research.

Lowering the pressure

A lot of research has been necessary, because harvesting energy from methane hydrates is tricky.

Michael Whiticar, a professor of biochemistry from the Earth and Ocean Science Department at the University of Victoria, says that hydrates store large amounts of gas in a relatively small area. One cubic metre of hydrate can hold around 160 cubic metres of methane and 0.8 cubic metres of water.

‘This recent success of the Japanese is actually quite a success for Canada, because together we worked hard over more than a decade to prove these techniques and to understand the science behind it.’—Scott Dallimore, Geological Survey of Canada

Even so, they’re hard to get at. Whiticar explains that offshore hydrates can be formed in large white clusters, but it is more common to find them mixed in ocean sand, like “sugar mixed with the sediments.”

Canada has been involved with research to develop extraction techniques since 1998, when the Mallik Methane Hydrate Site was set up in the Mackenzie River delta, 130 km north of Inuvik in the Northwest Territories.

Scott Dallimore, a research scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada in Sidney, B.C., says the first projects involved taking core samples from the permafrost to study the characteristics, behaviour and availability of methane hydrates.

In 2002, an international test project was set up in Mallik using a technique that heated the methane hydrate layers to release the gas. It failed, but at the same time, other tests that reduced the pressure in the layers did work.

To extract the gas using this approach, it is necessary to drill until a deep layer rich in methane hydrates is found. Then water is pumped out to lower the pressure, disintegrating the crystals and releasing the methane.
In 2002, an international test project was set up produce gas in Mallik using a technique that heated the methane hydrate layers to release the gas. It failed, but at the same time, other tests that reduced the pressure in the layers did work. To extract the gas using this the pressure-reduction approach, it is necessary to drill until a deep layer rich in methane hydrates is found. Then water is pumped out to lower the pressure, disintegrating the crystals and releasing the methane.In 2002, an international test project was set up produce gas in Mallik using a technique that heated the methane hydrate layers to release the gas. It failed, but at the same time, other tests that reduced the pressure in the layers did work. To extract the gas using this the pressure-reduction approach, it is necessary to drill until a deep layer rich in methane hydrates is found. Then water is pumped out to lower the pressure, disintegrating the crystals and releasing the methane. (Courtesy Geological Survey of Canada)
A new, full-scale test using pressure reduction was done at the Mallik site in 2007 and 2008. This time, Canadian and Japanese researchers were able to successfully extract methane gas over the course of five days.

After Mallik, Natural Resources Canada continued to fund follow-up analysis of the data and technical and environmental aspects of production. Japanese researchers took that knowledge and have adapted it to their offshore conditions.

During six days of operation in March this year off the southern coast of Japan near the Mie and Aichi Prefectures, the Japanese produced 120,000 cubic metres of methane gas. That’s about 10 times as much as the previous test in Canada.

“This recent success of the Japanese is actually quite a success for Canada, because together we worked hard over more than a decade to prove these techniques and to understand the science behind it,” Dallimore says.

Strategic direction

Despite the success of the program, as of April, Canada is no longer financing further research into gas recovery from methane hydrates.

Some Canadian research projects are continuing to explore the oceanographic and climatic role of methane hydrates, but none is focused on using them as an energy source.
The Mallik drilling well is known as being the production site of the first constant stream of natural gas from Methane Gas Hydrates.The Mallik drilling well is known as being the production site of the first constant stream of natural gas from Methane Gas Hydrates. (Courtesy Geological Survey of Canada)
“The course of our research had reached a natural conclusion, we demonstrated that gas hydrates could be produced,” Dallimore says.

The next step would have consisted of a long-term production test, which could last from six months to one year, and then full commercial production.

“My hope is that at some point someone might turn to Canada and evaluate the site we worked at,” Dallimore says.

While Canada has decided it isn’t feasible to make further investments in the field, methane hydrate research is strategic for Japan. Exploiting the abundant methane hydrate deposits near its coast would allow Japan to end its foreign energy dependency, with enough recoverable gas to meet its power demands for 100 years.

Japanese researchers are working toward establishing commercial extraction operations for some of these deposits by 2019.

Share Tools
Report Typo
Send Feedback

Facebook

Twitter

Share

Email

.

Comments (325)
Hide comments.

Sort comments by: Most recentFirst to lastHighest ratedMost activeGoDisplay:5
10
25
50
comments per page.abs zvezda2013/05/07
at 8:05 PM ETshort sighted bad call on this one Conservatives. Just as Japan gets it working , Canada pulls out. Zero pollution and more reserves than coal, oil combined and safer than fracking

Again this shows who controls the conservative government both Prov. and Fed. and it is the oil and gas companies in Alberta.Rating1181Agree　with comment (1326people agree)Disagree with comment (145people disagree)ReplyShow 15 repliesPolicyReport abuse (0)..
LekkerFokken2013/05/07
at 8:21 PM ETCan’t have that competing with the tar sands..Rating1106Agree　with comment (1207people agree)Disagree with comment (101people disagree)ReplyShow 5 repliesPolicyReport abuse (0)..
ollie122013/05/07
at 7:48 PM ETWhat is this government doing besides, losing 3.billion and some (or more), overpaying for contracts (250million for ships when Norway bought the same for 10 million) and selling all our resources, shutting down our science, taking over our public media – when is it ever going to end and when it ends what will be left?.Rating871Agree　with comment (935people agree)Disagree with comment (64people disagree)ReplyShow 7 repliesPolicyReport abuse (0)..
TMLfan in exile2013/05/07
at 8:31 PM ETBy pulling out now we will once again be behind when the time comes that we need the infrastructure to exploit this.

What this govt did with regard to this resource is the equivalent of Ford packing it in once he showed the world what a production line could do..Rating641Agree　with comment (689people agree)Disagree with comment (48people disagree)ReplyShow 3 repliesPolicyReport abuse (0)..
busman21122013/05/07
at 8:59 PM ETIf this resource was in Alberta I think the story would be different..Rating636Agree　with comment (709people agree)Disagree with comment (73people disagree)ReplyShow 7 repliesPolicyReport abuse (0)..

First
Previous
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Next
Last
.

Log in or Sign up to submit your comment.

Stay Connected with CBC News
Mobile
Facebook
Podcasts
Twitter
Alerts
Newsletter
.Big Box Advertisement

Top News Headlines

Cleveland police face questions after missing women found
Cleveland police face questions after missing women found Video Read 310 comments310 Video.
Toronto marathon runner, 18, died of heart abnormality Read 23 comments23 Sharks oust Canucks for 1st playoff sweep Video Read 25 comments25 Driving study could keep seniors on the road longer Read 17 comments17 Canadiens’ Game 4 loss to Senators costly Video Read 2 comments2

Must Watch
Amanda Lang and Kevin O’Leary take you inside the business world with their trade mark thought-provoking coverage.
Lang & O’Leary Exchange

42:09

Amanda Lang and Kevin O’Leary take you inside the business world with their trade mark thought-provoking coverage.

Stock market and business news
Business update

3:18

Stock market and business news

John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club, on why Canada should follow the EU’s lead and ban pesticides they say are killing bees
Saving the Bees

5:04

John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club, on why Canada should follow the EU’s lead and ban pesticides they say are killing bees

Amanda Lang and Kevin O’Leary take you inside the business world with their trade mark thought-provoking coverage.
Lang & O’Leary Exchange

42:12

Amanda Lang and Kevin O’Leary take you inside the business world with their trade mark thought-provoking coverage.

Latest Business Headlines

Dow closes at record high above 15,000
Dow closes at record high above 15,000 Read 78 comments78 .
Harper says foreign worker program is being fixed Video Read 381 comments381 Rogers seeks order that Bell sell Movie Network if Astral takeover is allowed Read 15 comments15 Loonie nudges towards parity Read 21 comments21 Microsoft changing Windows 8 to address ‘learning curve’ Video Read 117 comments117

Lang & O’Leary Exchange

WATCHRecent shows and interviewsAmanda and Kevin’s recent discussions about business news and newsmakers
.

Oceans under surveillance

Three projects seek to track changes in Atlantic overturning circulation currents.
Quirin Schiermeier

07 May 2013

Researchers deploy a float that forms part of the Rapid Climate Change monitoring array.

Ben Moat/NOC

Article tools
Print
•Email
•Download PDF
•Rights & Permissions

•Share/bookmark

A ‘global conveyor belt’ stirs the oceans from top to bottom, with surface currents transporting warm water to the poles while cold water in the depths flows back to the tropics. But it operates in fits and starts, with the strength of the currents varying widely. Eager for a better understanding of how the vagaries of the conveyor belt shape weather and climate, oceanographers are planning two new large-scale projects to watch over Atlantic currents.

An array of instruments between Florida and the Canary Islands has been continuously monitoring the strength of the North Atlantic portion of the global conveyor belt since 2004. In December, if all goes well, an international project led by the United States will begin another set of continuous measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), using an array of sensors strung between South Africa and Argentina. And this month, US and British funding agencies are set to decide whether they will support a new surface-to-bottom monitoring array between Labrador in Canada and Scotland, UK. The United Kingdom will also decide whether to continue operating the existing array.

Expanding such monitoring is crucial if scientists are to improve seasonal weather and climate forecasts, says Harry Bryden, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton, UK. Components of the AMOC, such as the Gulf Stream, ferry vast amounts of heat from the tropics to high latitudes, heating the winds that keep Europe’s climate mild. As a result, year-to-year and longer-term changes in the strength of these currents can affect seasonal conditions across much of Europe, Africa, South America and North America.

Related stories
•NASA ready to test the waters
•Earth Monitoring: Observing the ocean from within
•Ocean circulation noisy, not stalling

More related stories

Observations from the UK-funded Rapid Climate Change monitoring array (RAPID) — the existing line of instrument-equipped moorings that measure current speed and direction, water temperature, salinity and pressure at various depths along the latitude line at 26.5° north — suggest that the strength of the overturning circulation can vary enormously1. In April 2009, the array recorded2 a 30% drop in average current strength that persisted for a year, reducing the amount of heat transported to the North Atlantic by almost 200 trillion watts — equal to the output of more than 100,000 large power plants.

The anomaly — much bigger than any change that models suggested could happen — was driven by unusual wind patterns, strengthening of warm surface currents and weakening of cold water flows in the deep ocean. It has been linked to the unusually harsh winter in Europe in 2009–10. Bryden wonders whether the anomaly also helped to produce unusually wet weather in the United Kingdom. “We had six lousy summers in a row in Britain,” he says. “What’s going on?”

Expand

Source: Rapid: NERC; SAMOC: NOAA; OSNAP: S. Lozier

To investigate, scientists are now focusing on a crucial component of the conveyor belt: the region of the North Atlantic in which surface water heading north from the tropics cools and sinks before it moves back towards the equator. Climate models suggest that the rate of this formation of deep water will decrease by the end of the century3. That is problematic not only because deep-water formation drives the ocean circulation, but also because it carries vast amounts of carbon dioxide to the depths, sequestering it from the atmosphere.

“We need to find out how water masses at high latitudes are tied to the larger Atlantic circulation,” says Susan Lozier, a physical oceanographer at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “That is not only of interest to oceano­graphers. The ocean moves such huge amounts of heat and carbon around that most everyone should care.”

To understand how deep-water formation works, and why it varies, Lozier and her colleagues have proposed setting up an array of moored instruments and autonomous gliders called the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP). This consists of two legs: a western line extending from southern Labrador to the southwest tip of Greenland, and an eastern line from Greenland to Scotland (see ‘Ebb and flow’). If the US National Science Foundation and the UK Natural Environment Research Council approve the US$24-million project, measurements of heat and currents in the deep-water-formation region could start in July 2014. They are expected to give their decision later this month. If the array goes ahead, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands have all promised to contribute instruments to it.

Scientists are also trying to trace the cold, deep water as it flows into the turbulent South Atlantic, which also receives an influx of warm surface water from the Indian Ocean. South Africa, Brazil, France, Argentina and the United States are all contributing to a monitoring array that is being built at 34.5° south, between South Africa and Argentina, as part of the US$5-million South Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (SAMOC) programme.

By the end of the year, if all goes well, a network of bottom-moored instruments will begin to record water temperature and salinity at different levels in the deep, cold currents that run along the edges of the ocean basin. By combining those data with acoustic measure­ments of current velocity and bottom pressure, and with temperature and salinity data recorded by freely drifting profiling floats in the open ocean, scientists should be able to calculate the strength of the overturning circulation at that latitude, says Silvia Garzoli, chief scientist at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Florida, and a member of the project’s executive committee.

Most scientists regard the idea that global warming will trigger a collapse of ocean circulation — the apocalyptic scenario that inspired the 2004 action film The Day After Tomorrow — to be exceedingly unlikely. But Bryden says that the 2009 Atlantic circulation glitch is an indication of just how surprising ocean behaviour can be. “The next one,” he says, “may be twice as big.”
Nature 497, 167–168 (09 May 2013) doi:10.1038/497167a

Safe drinking water disappearing fast in Bangladesh

Extreme weather increases salinity of water in coastal areas while excessive demand in Dhaka leaves dwindling supply
Share 65

inShare.6
Email

Syful Islam in Dhaka for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, part of the Guardian Development Network

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 7 May 2013 12.34 BST

Bangladesh drinking water
A Bangladeshi woman queues to collect drinking water from a temple in Dhaka, where potable water is in short supply. Photograph: Pavel Rahman/AP

The availability of safe drinking water, particularly in Bangladesh’s hard to reach areas, is expected to worsen as the country experiences the effects of climate change, experts say.

According to a study by the World Bank’s water and sanitation programme (pdf), about 28 million Bangladeshis, or just over 20% of the population, are living in harsh conditions in the “hard-to-reach areas” that make up a quarter of the country’s landmass. The study found that char – land that emerges from riverbeds as a result of the deposit of sediments – is among the most inaccessible, along with hilly areas, coastal regions and haors – bowl-shaped wetland areas in north-east Bangladesh.

“People living in hard-to-reach areas are often vulnerable to natural calamities like flooding, riverbank erosion and siltation,” said Rokeya Ahmed, a water and sanitation specialist at the World Bank. “As a result of climate change, salinity in Bangladesh’s coastal areas has increased [a great deal], causing a lack of sweet water. Women in coastal and haor areas need to go miles to collect a pitcher of safe drinking water.”

Worsening weather extremes that bring floods, storm surges and cyclones are contributing to increases in water salinity and other problems accessing clean water, the report said. Shahdat Hossain, a grocer in Matlab district, a hard-to-reach area about 50km (31 miles) from the capital, Dhaka, said his town is subject to regular riverbank erosion and flooding.

“Riverbank erosion has turned many people in this area into refugees,” he said. “Since this area is very close to the Bay of Bengal, the amount of arsenic in the groundwater is also very high. We need to dig much deeper to get arsenic-free water.”

Experts expect the struggle to find potable water to intensify during the summer. Shareful Hassan, a consultant on geographic information systems and a researcher on the World Bank study, says surface water sources have already dried up in many parts of the country, which will have a heavy impact on access to drinking water, sanitation and ecosystems.

“In the drought-prone Barind Tract area in north Bangladesh, you have to dig more than 350 metres to get safe drinking water,” he said, adding that the situation is expected to worsen because unusually low rainfall in the area means underground aquifers are not being replenished.

Disappearing groundwater

Even in Dhaka, people have been reporting dwindling water supplies. Eftekharul Alam, an engineer for the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, said groundwater levels in the city are falling drastically as a result of excessive extraction to meet its growing needs.

Dhaka’s underground aquifers are usually recharged with water that percolates underground in nearby districts, but the levels of underground fresh water in those districts have also dropped, allowing seawater to start seeping into the aquifers. If this continues, experts say, Dhaka’s drinking water could become increasingly undrinkable.

According to Ainun Nishat, a climate change expert and vice-chancellor of Brac University in Dhaka, rainfall across Bangladesh has halved and become more unpredictable over the past five years. That has led to problems including growing salinity in groundwater.

“Salinity in the water of coastal areas has now reached over 20 parts per thousand, but the human body can only tolerate five parts per thousand,” he said.

Nishat says the best option for drought- and saline-prone areas is to preserve rainwater in artificial ponds and distribute it to communities. He agrees with other experts that the government must turn to technology to provide drinking water.

Filtration and desalination plants are expensive, but experts say they offer the only chance to avert a looming crisis. Nishat suggests installing sand filter systems, in which hand pumps are used to suck water from artificial ponds through a filter that makes the water potable.

For those living in hard-to-reach areas, the search for a solution has become a matter of urgency. “We now frequently face cyclones and flash floods which cause the swamping of croplands by saltwater and put us in danger,” said Shafiqul Islam, a farmer in Barisal, a southern Bangladesh district that the World Bank study categorised as “extremely” hard to reach. “Our lives are under severe threat. Getting safe drinking water has become a big challenge.”

• Syful Islam is a journalist with the Financial Express newspaper, published in Dhaka

Print this

Article history

Global development
Access to water

Environment

World news
Bangladesh

Series
Guardian development network

More from Guardian development network on

Global development
Access to water

World news
Bangladesh

More news

More on this story

MDG Bangladesh prawn farming

Bangladesh tackles climate change by fusing rice paddies with fish farms

Integrating coastal aquaculture with wet rice farming could boost Bangladesh’s food security and combat climate change

Sea change: the Bay of Bengal’s vanishing islands

Gallery Bangladesh: after the floods comes the hunger – in pictures

Bangladesh’s once welcome floods are now harbingers of disaster

Bangladesh farmers caught in vicious cycle of flood and debt

‘We have seen the enemy’: Bangladesh’s war against climate change

Share

inShare.
Email

What’s this?

More from the Guardian

Anne Frank’s diary isn’t pornographic – it just reveals an uncomfortable truth 02 May 2013

At Boots, science is for boys and pink princess toys are for girls 01 May 2013

Who’s afraid of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? 01 May 2013

In Somalia, western donors made famine more, not less likely 02 May 2013

Beating hunger will need more nutrition aid, says report 01 May 2013

What’s this?

More from around the web

Latest solar cell breakthrough a nark’s worst nightmare (SolarQuotes.com.au)

Shockwaves sent through world (Yahoo!7 News Video)

The Latest Killer Extension for Gmail (Forbes)

Cool sculptural toys from Russia’s Sergey Safonov (Lost at E Minor)

Stupidest inventions (Live4)

Ads by Google

Is God a Trinity?

Why theologians can’t explain the Trinity; the answer might surprise!

www.ucg.org.au

Save $1500 on Electricity

Reduce Your Power Bill by 75%? Fast & Free – Find out More Today!

www.solarmarket.com.au

Water Treatment Systems

Water Treatment Systems. Wastewater Treatment & Recycling/ Quick Quote.

www.cleanawater.com.au/Water-Treat