Did you catch GliderPaloosa 2013? No? Neither did I. It was easy to miss as it was almost entirely underwater. GliderPaloosa 2013 was an event held in September and October, sponsored by NOAA in cooperation with Dalhousie University, the University of Maine, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which launched between 12 to 16 autonomous underwater robotic vehicles, also known as Slocum gliders, from Nova Scotia to Georgia. These gliders were deployed through the peak fall Atlantic storm season to collect data on ocean conditions, which will help improve scientists’ understanding of hurricanes and pave the way for future improvements in hurricane intensity forecasts. See also our recent post: Underwater Gliders Gather Data to Help Predict Hurricanes
These gliders, named after Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single handed around the world, use buoyancy and gravity to glide up and down through the oceans, powered only by tiny pumps which move small amounts of water around to adjust the glider’s buoyancy. The gliders were conceived by Douglas C. Webb with the support of Henry Stommel and others. They are capable of extended independent underwater travel and data collection, surfacing periodically to transmit data to shore by satellite. Here is Doug Webb talking about Slocum gliders.
On July 9, 1866, Captains Hudson and Fitch with their dog, Fanny, sailed from New York in a three masted full-rigged 26 foot long boat named “Red, White, and Blue.” They arrived in Margate in in East Kent, UK on August 16th. While the rigging was conventional, if diminutive, “Red, White, and Blue’s” hull was a galvanized metal lifeboat. The trip was intended to publicize a new metal lifeboat design by New York boat builder, O.K. Ingersoll. The words “Ingersoll’s Improved Metallic Life Boat” were written on both sides of the hull.
The brochure for for the cruise liner 
There was a 
President Obama recently nominated 
A recent article in 
Got a minute? Here is an animation of the world’s weather across the globe, showing the winds blowing across our ocean planet, as forecast by supercomputers and updated every three hours. You can also rotate the globe in any direction or zoom in and out by clicking and dragging with your mouse, so if you want to look specifically at the North Atlantic or the Southern Ocean, you can do do so. Be careful, however. The display can be mesmerizing.
This year, 
On a winter’s day, when the temperature here on the banks of the Hudson River is in the low 30s F, but with the wind off the water feels more like the low 20s, there are many reasons to want to pick up and move to sunny and warm, Southern California. And now I’ve found one more — a press release, issued today, from the 
On the morning of December 7, 1941, 
Reports are that Canada is filing a claim to extend its northern sea boundary to encompass an area of over 1 million square miles of Arctic seafloor which includes the North Pole, under provisions of the 
Recently, the crew of the the