People for Puget Sound

A premier organization that actually cares for Puget Sound (certainly our section of the Salish Sea) celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, as well as making a change in its leadership. People for Puget Sound has been working for the Sound's protection and recovery since 1911, and boaters and non-boaters alike owe them our thanks - - lots of thanks.


Mike Sato, Director of Communications, Education and Involvement, issued a press release earlier this week announcing the hiring of Tom Bancroft as the organization's next executive director.

"Tom Bancroft, who holds a PhD in ecology, has had a distinguished career as an environmentalist and leader. Most recently he was Chief Scientist and Vice President of the National Audubon Society. Prior to that he was Vice President of The Wilderness Society. While he will be new to the Puget Sound region, he is well-acquainted with our challenges. Just last year, he headed up National Audubon’s scientific evaluations of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf. He has worked for many years on restoration and management of the Everglades, and he is familiar with Puget Sound and its watersheds from his work with The Wilderness Society."


Dr. Bancroft will be  succeeding founder and Executive Director Kathy Fletcher who will be retiring at the end of June 2011.


Dr. Bancroft explained that he boated a lot more when he was working in the Everglades and out into the Florida Keys but not much since then. He hope to be on the water here both for pleasure and for work.


In celebrating its anniversary People for Puget Sound will be taking the S/V Adventuress and the M/Y Carmelits on voyages to communities around the Sound, "reprising the inaugural voyage that launched People for Puget Sound in 1991". For details go to www.onepugetsound.org/voyage.


Retiring leader Kathy Fletcher has been an extraordinary founder-executive director. A personal connection for me, besides supporting People for Puget Sound in this blog, our youngest daughter, while at Western Washington University's environmental science program, did an internship under Kathy. I later met Kathy aboard the classic tug "Owl" while doing some boathandling coaching on Lake Union.


Now we welcome Tom Bancroft onto our waters and into our concerns for a healthy Sound.


This is a most worthy organization, one that has well earned the respect of many in the Puget Sound area and far beyond, boaters as well as non-boaters. You can keep up with them by subscribing (free) to their news clips and weather postings email list entering "subscribe" in the subject line, subscribing (again free) to their electronic newsletter, and, hopefully, then supporting them.

Is Big Brother on the High Seas?

Let's face it, most of us value independence (we're not that far from our teenage progeny). We like being able to move freely, unrestrained, the world, or at least our little chunk of it, our oyster. We boaters certainly enjoy being able to cruise wherever, whenever, however.


But herein may lie a dilemma, so let's go back a bit.  Three years ago I posted an introductory description of the Automatic Identification System (AIS), a great system which identified and shows vessels on your navigation plotter, not by line-of-sight radar, but by radio transmission. Quite different than radar, being radio AIS can "see"  behind hills and around corners and show the vessel  on your plotter. Required of all vessels over 300 gross tons and certain high-speed yachts, AIS transmits the location, heading, speed, cargo, and destination of the vessel. While AIS transmitters are not yet required of recreation boats, many of us have AIS receivers so that we can receive these AIS transmissions (and have them appear on our navigation plotters). For a fuller description go to my January 2008 posting.


Then this past January I posted a description of an expanded world-wide fun use of the AIS showing vessels all over the world, where they were heading, at what speed, etc., a very creative project of the University of the Aegean, in Mytilene, Greece.


Quite frankly, I'm pretty long on this collision avoidance system


Now comes Ralph Naranjo, noted technical editor of Practical Sailor, around-the-world sailor, safe-boating advocate, and former Vanderstar Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy, raising the issue: Is the AIS chipping away at our freedom?


Naranjo points out in Practical Sailor that that AIS system is also the foundation of the Department of Homeland Security's vessel-tracking system run by the US Coast Guard. Dubbed the National Automatic Identification System (NAIS), security seems to be at the top of the list of objectives, according to Naranjo. He quotes a directive, "AIS data is combined with other government intelligence and surveillance information to form a holistic, over-arching view of marine traffic . . . detecting anomalies, monitoring suspicious vessels, and pinpointing the location of potential threats."


While compulsory AIS transmission by recreational vessels is at best in the distant future (remember that with deregulations of years ago no longer are recreational vessels is US waters required even to have VHF radios aboard!), the notion of AIS "surveillance" does conjure up some concerns, at least some disturbances. Of course such monitoring is de rigor for airplane pilots, commercial as well as recreational, but we're boaters. . . .


Big brother? Orwell's 1984? Privacy issues? Freedom of the Seas? Want to weigh in on this?  Simply click "comments" at the end of this posting and have at it.


You'll find Ralph Naranjo's complete article on Practical Sailor.

Illustration courtesy of Practical Sailor 

The Social Media: Facebook

While the film "The Social Network" has eight Academy Award nominations, won four Golden Globes as well as four Critics' Choice awards, plus many more prizes and nominations, Facebook (about which the film is based) continues to make changes without necessarily telling its over 350-million users, and many, many boaters are on Facebook.


[Fact: Facebook is the third largest country in the world based on population, just behind China and India.]

[Fact: Facebook played a crucial role in the January 26th uprising in Egypt, as well as protests in other Mideast countries.]


Last Friday in Washington DC's examiner.com,  Tanya Gupta wrote:

Are you wondering why you aren't getting news from Alicia?  Did Bob block you?  Did you "hide" your friends newsfeed and then just forgot?  Are you wondering why more people are not commenting on your posts?

No, you are not being paranoid.

Facebook went and did another change without telling you.  Now the default is that your FB page will only show posts from people you interact with the most or your most recent interactions.  The result is that close friends stay close, whereas the friends you hoped to get closer to through Facebook are slowly becoming invisible to you.

If you want to stay in touch with everyone then re-set your Facebook settings so that you can keep in touch with all your friends.

Go to the bottom on your newsfeed page and find the button that says "edit options". Then select "all of your friends and pages", and save.  This should do it.  But remember - this only fixes it for you so that you see everybody else's feed.  However FB users who don't know about this will still not be able to see your feed.  So let your friends know so that they can change their settings!

(And a shout out to Lesley Scher for passing this on to me)

The New Coastal Radar Is almost Here!

Almost two years ago we cited Cliff Mass' blog about the possibility of there being a new coastal weather radar for the West Coast. Cliff, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington, now gives us a status update, and the news is exciting!

At the recent annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, several of us had the chance to sit down with the NWS folks that are responsible for the installation of the new radar. Let me tell you what we have learned.

Bottom line: the National Weather Service is confident that the new radar will be operational by the end of September (2011).

So by the start of the next storm season, we will finally be able to see the details of incoming storms and weather systems. This is fortunate--next year will probably be a neutral El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) year...neither El Nino nor La Nina. Such years are the ones when the most powerful storms hit our region (but no guarantees storm lovers!!)

Now the details.

First, the location of the radar is now public knowledge: Langley Hill in Grays Harbor County.

A wonderful location, with clear views out to the Pacific Ocean. And the radar will able to see the heavy precipitation on the windward side of the Olympics and over the Willapa Hills. The National Weather Service is close to signing the final paperwork for leasing that site

Second, the National Weather Service now has our radar in hand. This is not a new radar, but one used for training purposes by the military (and the only one available) and identical to the radars used by the NWS over the rest of the country (known as the NEXRAD or WSR-88D radars). I was told it was "lightly used" , sort of like buying a used car from an elderly grandmother. It will be completely refurbished and updated before installation. Using a preexisting radar not only saves money, but the NWS folks know how to maintain and service it. They were nervous about getting a new radar--one different than the current network.

Third, our radar will be one of the first in the nation to be updated with dual-polarization. All the current radars are single polarization, which means the electromagnetic radiation it emits has only one orientation--horizontal.

In dual polarization, two orientations (horizontal and vertical) are emitted and received. Why is this good? Well, by getting the two orientations all kinds of magic is possible---determining the shape and type of precipitation, getting a much better handle on the intensity of precipitation (especially in terrain), and more. Eventually all the NWS radars will have it, but this will be one of the first.

Fourth, our radar will be the ONLY one in the nation using a zero degree scan angle. Weather radars scan in two ways. First, they constantly turn in azimuth (0 to 360 degrees). During the first scan the antenna is directly at an angle .5 degree above the horizon. Then it does a scan at 1.0 degrees, then 1.5 degrees, etc. Here is a figure that shows you the height of the radar beams for the various scan angles close to the radar (up to 120 nautical miles, 220 km).

Now the lowest scan is near the surface close to the radar, but get 100 km out and the beam is 1000 meters up in the air! And at 200 km out the beam is 2000 meters (over 6000 ft) above the surface. So you are missing what is happening lower down. These radars can view 300-400 km out, so you can miss a lot at low levels, particularly at a distance. And WE want to see as much as possible at low levels over the Pacific!

Several of us have pushed the NWS to do something special with this radar, allowing a zero degree angle, and they have agreed. This will allow us to see much farther out at low levels than normal and will be a boon for viewing weather out over the Pacific. Again, no other NWS radar in the country has this capability--hopefully our radar will inspire the NWS to try this elsewhere.

During the next few months, a lot of action will begin at the site. Trenching for utilities, putting down a concrete pad, erecting a building for the generator, putting up the tower, and more. The radar should be installed midsummer. By late September a local meteorological revolution will occur and for the first time one of the stormiest areas in the country will be able to see incoming storms. And folks in the coastal communities and those in the marine industries of the Washington Pacific coast will have what the rest of us have enjoyed for years...decent weather radar coverage, with all the safety and economic benefits. Finally, I should note that Senator Maria Cantwell deserves credit for getting the resources to make this happen.

With good radar coverage, incidents like the New Carissa grounding (on the Oregon Coast), will hopefully be less frequent.


Cliff Mass' blog is listed to the left of this posting.