Sushihunter
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http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/newsworldnation/925497-227/tsunami-trash-drifts-to-shores.html
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Tsunami trash drifts to shores
By PAUL ROGERS
San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Millions of tons of debris that washed into the ocean during Japan’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in March – everything from furniture to roofs to pieces of cars – are now moving steadily toward the United States and raising concerns about a potential environmental headache.
Scientists using computer models say the wreckage, which is scattered across hundreds of miles of the Pacific Ocean, is expected to reach Midway and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by next spring and beaches in California, Oregon and Washington in 2013 or early 2014.
“Can you imagine San Francisco put through a shredder? A big grinder?” said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle oceanographer who has studied marine debris for more than 20 years.
“The area north of Tokyo was basically shredded. We are going to see boats, parts of homes, lots of plastic bottles, chair cushions, kids’ toys, everything.”
The debris is moving east at roughly 10 miles a day, and is spread over an area about 350 miles wide and 1,300 miles long – an area roughly the size of California – Ebbesmeyer estimates, with the leading edge approaching the international date line.
While lots of the material will break up and sink, some will not, he said.
“I’ve seen pieces of wood float for 20 or 30 years,” he said. “I have Jeep tires with wheels that floated for 30 years. Things float a lot longer than you think.”
Complicating the issue, nobody knows for sure the exact area where the debris is spread or its density. And nobody knows what is still floating, what has sunk, or what may be lurking just below the surface. That’s because estimates are based on computer models of currents and winds, rather than actual observations from scientists in boats and planes. After ships with the Navy’s 7th Fleet reported and photographed the debris, researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Hawaii tracked the refuse with satellites for a month after the March 11 quake and tsunami.
But by April 14, as it spread over a wider area, it could no longer be detected with the resolution of the satellites that NOAA uses.
“Right after the earthquake we saw huge amounts of wood and fishing gear and households in the water,” said Kris McElwee, Pacific islands coordinator for NOAA’s marine debris program in Honolulu. “And then we saw for a few weeks these kind of stringers of wood patches. But they are dispersed enough now that you can’t see them on satellite images. So we don’t know what has sunk and what’s still floating out there.”
McElwee noted that after other major disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, massive amounts of material that washed out to sea did not turn up on beaches in other countries. Instead, the flotsam caused problems near the beaches where it originated, creating hazards for ships and disrupting commercial fishing.
Still, the currents in every part of the ocean are different, and federal officials are watching the Japanese debris with concern.
On June 27, representatives from the Coast Guard, NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. State Department and other agencies met for the first time in Honolulu to share information about the Japanese debris and begin to chart a strategy.
Among their plans: to notify the U.S. Navy and commercial shipping companies that regularly sail across the Pacific so they can begin to document what is floating. That could lead to expeditions to go map and study it.
But the Pacific Ocean is vast. The area between Japan and Hawaii is roughly 3,800 miles of open ocean – twice the distance from San Francisco to Chicago. Even more daunting, NOAA scientists have calculated that to survey 1 million square kilometers – roughly 1 percent of the North Pacific Ocean – would take 68 ships sailing 10 hours a day for one year.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Tsunami trash drifts to shores
By PAUL ROGERS
San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Millions of tons of debris that washed into the ocean during Japan’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in March – everything from furniture to roofs to pieces of cars – are now moving steadily toward the United States and raising concerns about a potential environmental headache.
Scientists using computer models say the wreckage, which is scattered across hundreds of miles of the Pacific Ocean, is expected to reach Midway and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by next spring and beaches in California, Oregon and Washington in 2013 or early 2014.
“Can you imagine San Francisco put through a shredder? A big grinder?” said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle oceanographer who has studied marine debris for more than 20 years.
“The area north of Tokyo was basically shredded. We are going to see boats, parts of homes, lots of plastic bottles, chair cushions, kids’ toys, everything.”
The debris is moving east at roughly 10 miles a day, and is spread over an area about 350 miles wide and 1,300 miles long – an area roughly the size of California – Ebbesmeyer estimates, with the leading edge approaching the international date line.
While lots of the material will break up and sink, some will not, he said.
“I’ve seen pieces of wood float for 20 or 30 years,” he said. “I have Jeep tires with wheels that floated for 30 years. Things float a lot longer than you think.”
Complicating the issue, nobody knows for sure the exact area where the debris is spread or its density. And nobody knows what is still floating, what has sunk, or what may be lurking just below the surface. That’s because estimates are based on computer models of currents and winds, rather than actual observations from scientists in boats and planes. After ships with the Navy’s 7th Fleet reported and photographed the debris, researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Hawaii tracked the refuse with satellites for a month after the March 11 quake and tsunami.
But by April 14, as it spread over a wider area, it could no longer be detected with the resolution of the satellites that NOAA uses.
“Right after the earthquake we saw huge amounts of wood and fishing gear and households in the water,” said Kris McElwee, Pacific islands coordinator for NOAA’s marine debris program in Honolulu. “And then we saw for a few weeks these kind of stringers of wood patches. But they are dispersed enough now that you can’t see them on satellite images. So we don’t know what has sunk and what’s still floating out there.”
McElwee noted that after other major disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, massive amounts of material that washed out to sea did not turn up on beaches in other countries. Instead, the flotsam caused problems near the beaches where it originated, creating hazards for ships and disrupting commercial fishing.
Still, the currents in every part of the ocean are different, and federal officials are watching the Japanese debris with concern.
On June 27, representatives from the Coast Guard, NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. State Department and other agencies met for the first time in Honolulu to share information about the Japanese debris and begin to chart a strategy.
Among their plans: to notify the U.S. Navy and commercial shipping companies that regularly sail across the Pacific so they can begin to document what is floating. That could lead to expeditions to go map and study it.
But the Pacific Ocean is vast. The area between Japan and Hawaii is roughly 3,800 miles of open ocean – twice the distance from San Francisco to Chicago. Even more daunting, NOAA scientists have calculated that to survey 1 million square kilometers – roughly 1 percent of the North Pacific Ocean – would take 68 ships sailing 10 hours a day for one year.
