Implications of climate change for shipping: Ports and supply chains

Ports are an important economic actor—at local, national, and international scales—that have been identified as being vulnerable to future changes to the climate. This paper details the findings from an international review of state‐of‐the‐art knowledge concerning climate risks, and adaptation responses, for ports and their supply chains. Evidence from both academic and gray literature indicates that there has already been major damage and disruption to ports across the world from climate‐related hazards and that such impacts are projected to increase in the years and decades to come. Findings indicate that while a substantial—and growing—body of scientific evidence on coastal risks and potential adaptation options is acting as a stimulus for port authorities to explicitly consider the risks for their assets and operations, only a notable few have actually made the next step toward implementing adaptation strategies. This paper concludes by putting forward constructive recommendations for the sector and suggestions for research to address remaining knowledge gaps. It emphasizes a call for collaboration between the research and practice communities, as well as the need to engage a broad range of stakeholders in the adaptation planning process

Development of a multi-sensor in situ fiber optic fluorometer

Objective is to develop and evaluate a multi-sensor in situ fiber optic fluorometer. The instrument is designed to sample and store in vivo strobe-stimulated fluorescence data at multiple depths and high frequencies (1 Hz). This information may be used for estimating the distribution and abundance of particulate pigment biomass, for supporting models of water column primary production and as a complement to remotely sensed ocean color estimates of pigment biomass. The instrument is unique in that it uses fiber optic technology to increase vertical resolution. While it is theoretically possible to accomplish this task using a large number of commercially available fluorometers, our proposed design would provide a less expensive approach. A laboratory prototype has been built and is being tested. Preliminary results indicate that the instrument meets all the project goals and that low cost, high frequency, high spatial resolution chlorophyll data are obtainable with the current design. Further work is required to develop the seagoing version, and optimize the configuration of the fiber sensors