North West Tidal Barrages Could Provide up to 5% of UK's electricity

Engineers from The University of Liverpool claim that building estuary barrages (just blocking off where the tide meets the stream) throughout the North West could help to provide up to 5% of the UK's electricity.  Researchers who are collaborating with Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory have been examining ways to create electricity from tidal sources of renewable energy in the Eastern Irish Sea.
The study showed that if four estuary barrages could be built along the Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay, in addition to the Mersey and Dee estuaries, this could have the capability to meet about 50% of the North West region's electricity needs.  The barrages would provide a solid defense against the sea, along with good flood alleviation by draining the estuary following massive and heavy rainstorms.  Electricity generation could also help to achieve the UK's C02 emission reduction targets.          

"Professor Richard Burrows, from the Maritime Environmental and Water Systems Research Group, in the University’s Department of Engineering, said: "“With concerns mounting over the UK’s future energy provision it will soon become paramount that all sources of renewable energy are fully developed. Unlike the wind, tides are absolutely predictable. The geographical location of the UK, and the seas that surround it, provide a great platform for marine renewable sources.""
website:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090325092203.htm

picture:  http://www.mythandthemurray.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Goolwa_Barrage.jpg

San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault is a geological stretches to a length of approximately 800 miles (1287 kilometers) through California.  The fault is a right-lateral slip-fault that creates a boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate.  All of the land west of this fault along the Pacific Plate is moving slowly to the northwest while all of the land east of the fault is moving the opposite, southeast because of plate tectonics.

The rate of the movement is about 1/6th of an inch (.6 cm) per year.  The projected motion indicates that the Gulf of California will extend northward at the same time that the land west of the fault, including the Baja California peninsula along with California's coast slips past San Francisco.  It will then continue going northwestward as an island mass heading to the Aleutian Trench.  This is said to happen over a period of maybe twenty million years.

website:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/s/san_andreas_fault.htm
picture:  http://www.sanandreasfault.org/4020_A.jpg

Tsunamis

Tsunamis are a series of waves that sends surges of water onto a piece of land.  They can reach heights up to 100 feet.  These massive walls of water can destroy a huge destruction when they crash the shoreline.  These jaw-dropping waves are usually caused by underwater earthquakes within tectonic plate boundaries.  When the ocean floor at one of these boundaries rises or falls unexpectedly, it displaces the water above and shoots the on going waves which will then become a Tsunami.  Approximately 80% of Tsunamis occur with the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire" which is where many tectonic shifts create volcanoes and earthquakes normal.

Tsunamis can speed across the ocean at 500mph, which is just about as fast as a jet airplane.  If that pace is constant, it can make it across the entire Pacific in less than a day!  And because of their long wavelength's, Tsunamis lose very little energy throughout its course.  It is usually composed of multiple waves, called a wave train.  The best way to help defend a tsunami is an early warning that lets people reach higher ground.  "The Pacific Tsunami Warning System is a coalition of 26 nations headquartered in Hawaii.  It maintains a web of seismic equipment and water level gauges to identify tsunamis at sea.  Similar systems are proposed to protect coastal areas worldwide."

website http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/tsunami-profile/
picture:  www.youtube.com

The Tides

Tides are the cycle of the Earth's rising and falling ocean surface.  This is caused by the tidal forces of both the sun and moon acting upon the earth.  The tides cause drastic changes in depth throughout the sea.  They also produce oscillating currents which are also known as tidal streams.  Making prediction of the tides is essential for coastal navigation. "The strip of seashore that is submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide, the intertidal zone, is an important ecological product of ocean tides."  

The changing tides produced at a specific location on earth is the result of the Moon and Sun interacting with the Earth. "Though the gravitational force exerted by the Sun on the Earth is almost 200 times stronger than that exerted by the Moon, the tidal force produced by the Moon is about twice as strong as that produced by the Sun."  This is because the tidal force isn't necessarily related by the strength of a gravitational, but to its incline.  The field incline decreases with distance from the source more quickly than does the field strength.  The Sun is roughly 400 times further from the Earth than the Moon is.   The gradient of the Sun's field, along with the tidal force made by the sun is more weak than the Moon's. 
  
website:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/t/tide.htm
picture:  http://www.greenlaunches.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ocean_tides.jpg

The Gulf Stream

The Gulf stream which originates in Mexico, exits through the the straight of Florida, and then follows the eastern coastlines along with Newfoundland before crossing through the Atlantic Ocean.  The Gulf Stream splits into two at about at approximately 30 degrees west and and 40 degrees North.  The Northern stream crossing over to Northern Europe and the southern stream recirculating off the West coast of Africa.  This Gulf stream can also change climate over different parts of the current as well.

The Gulf Stream has a pretty big impact of the climate throughout the east coast of North America.  It influences the climate substantially from Florida to Newfoundland, along with the west coast of Europe.  However, there is some speculation that global warming can decrease or possibly shutdown thermohaline circulation which would reduce the North Atlantic Drift.  The time frame for this occurrence is not clear, but some estimates range from twenty to forty years, or 200-400 years.  Again it is not clear.  "This could trigger localised cooling in the North Atlantic and lead to cooling (or lesser warming) in that region, particularly affecting areas that are warmed by the North Atlantic Drift, such as Scandinavia and Great Britain" (Science Daily).  The chances of this happening is also not clear.  

website: http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/g/gulf_stream.htm

picture:  http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/img_topo1/gulf-stream2.jpg

Trophic Levels

The trophic level is the position in which an organism occupies the food chain.  The organism faces two fates: What will eat them and what will they eat.  It is a cycle in the ecosystem.  Everything is a prey and everything is a predator, just at different degrees.  A fish eats shrimp and other crustaceans, but seals eat the fish.  It is a continuing cycle throughout the ocean blue.  There is such a diverse amount of prey to feed on that losing one species of prey will not ruin the entire ecosystem.  No one predator is subject to to one species of prey.  The predator has adapted to consuming numerous types of prey because they know that that prey wont be around forever.  Its almost like the food we eat.  You don't want pizza every night right? you get sick of it.  Well its the same thing in the ocean except with sea creatures.

The food chain or the trophic levels are occupied by numerous species of sea life.  At the first level and second lie the plants like zooplankton and phytplankton.  The second level contains the zooplankton because it eats the phytoplanktobn.  In the trophic levels anything below you eats you.  So the third level is the crustaceans, and below them lie the fish, who eat the crustaceans.  The fifth level lies all the other animals that swim around the ocean, they eat anything above them depending on the animal.

website: http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/t/trophic_level.htm
picture: www.sciencelearn.org.nz 

Marine Conservation

 Marine conservation is the study of preserving biological and physical marine resources and ecosystem functions.  Marine conservations count on numerous amounts of scientific principles derived from marine biology, oceanography, fisheries science, and demand for marine resources and marine law.  

Marine conservation, which is also known as marine resources conservation, is the protection and conservation of ecosystems in oceans or seas.  Ecosystems are where sea animals interact with one another.  It focuses on three key things.  The first is damaged caused by humans to the marine ecosystems.  The second is on renewing damaged marine ecosystems.  And the third is focusing on vulnerable and weak marine species.

Coral reefs are the backbone of the ecosystem.  They provide tremendous amounts of food, shelter, and protection of different kinds of sea creatures.  Coral reefs are also an important aspect of sustaining human life through serving as a valuable food source (fish, mollusks, etc).  They also serve as a marine space for eco-tourism that provides economic benefits.  Unfortunately the coral reefs are becoming degraded and are in dire need of conservation.  Human activities like pollution, overfishing, and destructive fishing practices.  Other factors of the digression are sedimentation and excessive amounts of CO2 emissions.

website: http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/m/marine_conservation.htm
picture: http://www.solutions-site.org