Almost 25% of the ocean floor on Earth has already been mapped. The rest will be completed by 2030 – science

During the United Nations Ocean Conference, which took place in Lisbon this week, an update was made of what has already been set on the ocean floor. In the latest update, this was mentioned 23.4% of the ocean area is already underwater, and in the last year alone 10 million square kilometers have been added to the map.

According to the BBC, the latest cartographic expansion is mainly due to Data contributed by institutions, governments and companies from their own archives to the project. Most of this data is kept confidential because it could reveal trade or defense secrets, but according to Seabed 2030 project manager Jamie McMichael-Phillips, there’s no cause for concern. For a mapping project, the rendered images do not need to be of high resolution quality, and the low-end images work well.

In the exhibition, see some of the ships that map the oceans:

The sea ​​floor 2030 that it An organization that is trying to gather as much information as possible about the bottom of the planet’s ocean and create a complete map by 2030. According to the organization, knowledge of the oceans is important for a number of reasons, such as increasing the safety of navigation, managing fisheries and, of course, conserving water. It is said that marine life tends to congregate around underwater mountains and every place is a biodiversity hotspot.

On the other hand, the texture of the ocean floor influences the behavior of currents and the mixing of vertical water. This information is essential to improve climate change prediction models, as the oceans play a major role in the heat distributed across the planet.

The organization has announced a new partnership with The Nippon Foundation (the project’s lead financier) and GEBCO (the General Oceanic Bathymetric Chart) to complete ocean mapping by 2030. All collected data will be freely available on an ocean map that is generated by GEBCO.

“Despite covering about 70% of the planet, our knowledge of what lies beneath this blue surface has been very limited. Without this important information, we will not be able to have a sustainable future,” Male Mitsuyuki OnoExecutive Director of the Nippon Foundation. He also said that a complete map of the ocean’s surface is an essential tool for solving environmental challenges.including marine pollution, thus protecting the future of the planet.

Seabed 2030 is one of the programs of the Ocean Decade, a United Nations initiative that aims to Mobilizing governments, the private sector, scientists and civil society to design and deliver transformative knowledge; It could lead to actions that reverse the decline in ocean health and enable a shift towards sustainable management of the marine environment.

The initiative invites all interested parties to use sonar equipment to explore the ocean floor, whether large ships or small yachts can contribute to the cause. The BBC He mentions the new UK ship, RRS Sir David Attenborough Equipment to log millions of square kilometers during your career. But there are other ‘contractors’ who find mapping ‘holes’ during their travels and end up doing expeditions, straying a bit out of their ways to make their contribution.

However, many parts of the planet are so far away that few ships visit them, making it difficult to obtain data on the depths of the oceans. Researchers already Using independent small ships to make the recordings, as with the Saildrone Surveyor, which made a trip between San Francisco and Honolulu last year. Its flight took 28 days and allowed the robot to record 22,000 kilometers from the ocean surface.

Marine robotics company Ocean Infinity is building 78-meter boats in Vietnam, which, although not yet authorized to sail without crew, intends to be autonomous in the future. These boats monitored by satellites, It can make a significant contribution to site mapping, at much lower costs and safely because there is no one on board.

The goal seems well defined: by 2030 it is necessary to map 100% of the oceans and technology will play a critical role in achieving the goals.