Species of Thaumatomastix (Thaumatomastigidae, Protista incertae sedis) from the Arctic sea ice biota (North-East Water Polynya, NE Greenland)

The sea ice biota of polar regions contains numerous heterotrophic flagellates very few of which have been properly identified. The whole mount technique for transmission electron microscopy enables the identification of loricate and scaly forms. A survey of Arctic ice samples (North-East Water Polynya, NE Greenland) revealed the presence of ca. 12 taxa belonging to the phagotrophic genus Thaumatomastix (Protista incertae sedis). Species of Thaumatomastix possess siliceous body scales and one naked and one scale-covered flagellum. The presence in both Arctic samples and sea ice material previously examined from the Antarctic indicates that this genus is most likely ubiquitous in polar sea ice and may be an important component in sea ice biota microbial activities.     

Inorganic carbon fluxes through the boundaries of the Greenland Sea Basin based on in situ observations and water transport estimates

A carbon budget for the exchange of total dissolved inorganic carbon C_T between the Greenland Sea and the surrounding seas has been constructed for winter and summer situations. An extensive data set of C_T collected over the years 1994–1997 within the European Sub-polar Ocean Programmes (ESOP1 and ESOP2) are used for the budget calculation. Based on these data, mean values of C_T in eight different boxes representing the inflow and outflow of water through the boundaries of the Greenland Sea Basin are estimated. The obtained values are then combined with simulated water transports taken from the ESOP2 version of the Miami Isopycnic Coordinate Ocean Model (MICOM). The fluxes of inorganic carbon are presented for three layers; a surface mixed layer, an intermediate layer and a deep layer, and the imbalance in the fluxes are attributed to air–sea exchange, biological fixation of inorganic carbon, and sedimentation. The main influx of carbon is found in the surface and the deep layers in the Fram Strait, and in the surface waters of direct Atlantic origin, whereas the main outflux is found in the surface layer over the Jan Mayen Fracture Zone and the Knipovich Ridge, transporting carbon into the Atlantic Ocean via the Denmark Strait and towards the Arctic Ocean via the Norwegian Sea, respectively. The flux calculation indicates that there is a net transport of carbon out of the Greenland Sea during wintertime. In the absence of biological activity, this imbalance is attributed to air sea exchange, and requires an oceanic uptake of CO₂ of 0.024±0.006 Gt C yr⁻¹. The flux calculations from the summer period are complicated by biological fixation of inorganic carbon, and show that data on organic carbon is required in order to estimate the air–sea exchange in the area.     

Maritime search and rescue: Benefit or burden for society?

Just twenty five years have passed since the International Maritime Organization (IMO) provided the legal and internationally harmonized framework for maritime search and rescue operations. While a number of nations only had to adapt their well-established national services it took great efforts for other nations to develop agencies able to fulfil or outstrip minimum requirements. However, the majority of nations (well aware of the humanitarian nature of that task) have been afraid to cope with this challenge and the related financial burdens since the benefits to local, regional, or even national economies are not always clear to the relevant national administrating authorities.     

Large-eddy simulation of cross-flow around ship sections

The present work is motivated by phenomena occurring in the flow field around ship-like bodies with an incoming lateral flow (cross-flow, 90 ° drift angle). Three-dimensional unsteady flows around different ship sections are investigated by using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) tools with large-eddy simulation (LES) subgrid-scale turbulence model. The simulation results are compared to measurements at several Reynolds numbers in the 90–200,000 range. Focus in our investigation is on the characterization of the motion of vortex structures generated by the separated flow. Another target in the study is to obtain better knowledge of the hydrodynamic forces acting on the sections. Computed pressure and drag coefficients are compared with experimental measurements. The comparison between simulations and measurements shows that an LES model can predict the flow field around ship sections in detail and the hydrodynamic forces acting on the sections.     

Food supply mechanisms for cold-water corals along a continental shelf edge

In recent years it has been documented that deep-water coral reefs of the species Lophelia pertusa are a major benthic habitat in Norwegian waters. However, basic information about the biology and ecology of this species is still unknown. Lophelia live and thrive under special environmental conditions of which factors such as temperature, water depth, water movement and food supply are important. The present work explores the hypothesis that Lophelia forms reefs in places where the encounter rate of food particles is sufficiently high and stable over long periods of time for continuous growth. This is done by relating the distribution of reefs with the results of numerical ocean modelling.Numerical simulations have been performed with an idealized bottom topography similar to what is found outside parts of the Norwegian coast. In the simulations the model is first forced with an along slope jet and then with an idealized atmospheric low pressure. The model results show that the encounter rates between the particles and the water layer near the seabed are particularly high close to the shelf break. This may indicate that many Lophelia reefs are located along the shelf edges because the supply of food is particularly good in these areas.A sensitivity study of the particle supply in the area close to the seabed for increasing latitude has also been done. This shows that the Ekman transport in the benthic layer tends to create a steady supply of food for benthic organisms near the shelf edge away from the equator.     

Children—automobility's immobilized others?

Within the social science literature on the so‐called modernity–mobility nexus, children, women, the elderly, poor people and the disabled are described as the immobilized ‘others’ of automobility. They are seen as powerless victims of the hegemony of the car, of the unequally distributed access to mobility and of the unequally distributed negative consequences of an increasingly faster and wider ranging automobility. The present paper focuses on children and questions whether there is any empirical support for this rather rigid theoretically driven construction of children's identity. With this objective, eight in‐depth interviews with children about their perception of themselves as travellers were conducted. The children saw themselves as both suffering and benefiting from automobility, as well as being both immobilized and mobilized. Thus, children are not necessarily automobility's others in the sense of a suffering, victimized or immobilized other altogether; they are also coping and partaking members of the automobile society. This is an important conclusion, since no matter how well meaning the intentions of the adult community, children might benefit more from being perceived as active members of society—with rights equal to those of adults as participants in the further development of the automobile society—than of being restricted to the role of powerless, patronized victims, dependent on the grace of others.