Contrary to what is a widely held belief not ALL Shipowners and Shipmanagers are looking at the lowest possible denominator when it comes to Safety and protection of the environment, or the cheapest possible crews to man their ships.
There are obviously some that do, but the majority are actually very socially conscious and of their role in environmental protection.
A conference of Green Award holders was held in Athens, Greece on 11th Oct. 2017, organized by Gard P&I Club:
http://www.greenaward.org/greenaward/75-latest-news.html
Notice that USCG was represented and held a key note speech, but there are NO US based Shipping companies on the list of Certificate Holders:
http://www.greenaward.org/greenaward/21-all-certificate-holders-(list).html
Why is that???
USA is among the major Ship OWNING nations under FoCs. Does not a single one of the many US Shipwoners meet the Green Award standard??
EU is taking the lead on clean oceans and safer shipping:
Let’s talk about bad science. They are citing data and making inferences while their own website states that they have a small number of sensors.
I might be missing something but what’s a “Lightning Stroke”? To me this reads like something that was translated to English.
That’s what the really really smart people in academia call them. 
Strokes strike.
A lightning stroke is what strikes something or goes from cloud to cloud.
It sounds like they’re aware of the limitations of the system. Lightning detection isn’t exactly hard. To build a lightning strike location detection network, you need circuitry that’s only a little more complex than an AM radio, then you need to know your location (GPS), and you need a precise clock (again, GPS).
If you’re willing to give them the assumption that they’re honest and competent, then there’s no reason not to at least entertain their hypotheses and conclusions. If you’re not willing to accept the assumption of their competence or honesty, then there’s not much else to talk about.
I would be interested in seeing someone compare data from a second source, like Blitzortung.org’s network or something.
edit: a friendlier map of the Blitzortung data http://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=sat;r=0;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;n=0;y=3.8632;x=-197.2131;z=4;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;
How do they get the ocean data? Is it done using triangulation data from multiple sensors?
The amateur net of “blitzortung.org” has only land based sensors:
- up to 500 km the detection and the localization are fine
- up to 2000 km they may detect 10-20% of the lightning
- at >2000 km only the strongest flashes are detected and possibly triangulated
- only regions with sensors are covered, and, by definition, not the oceans
Some meteorological services or universities have long-range detections, as the Meteorological Department of the University of Hawaii in the Northern Pacific. For now, they triangulate with six stations at Hawaii, Unalaska, Kwajalein, Guam, Okinawa and Jayapura (Hollandia Papua).
Space based detection sees all flashes. However, there are some minutes of time between the flash and the publication, too long for some applications, like air navigation.
Yes.
Okay then substitute Blitzortung, with independent data source.
Space based detection sees all flashes. However, there are some minutes of time between the flash and the publication, too long for some applications, like air navigation.
Satellites have GPS which can timestamp thee data, fine for post hoc aggregation and study.
In other words, as I suspected from the beginning, this is all bullshit.
My post was a reply to @Kennebec_Captain’s question; I do not know why my replies are never shown as my reply to someone’s post.
I thought, KC was interested in lightning along his actual trips…
I have no interest, nor the resources, nor the time, to challenge the publication’s statement.
However, seeing your defense of this study, I will tell you, how I approach those things:
- Was the study started to answer a burning general problem?
- Was it started to prove a previous political or hysterical position?
- Was the ability to collect data at the beginning of the time-lapse identical to the final ones?
- Were comparable data, in intensity and relevance in this case, compared?
- Who paid for this study, directly or indirectly?
- Statistics may prove a lot of things… and their contrary… all is a matter of the user’s intents…
Long-range detections are a bit more than AM radio.
You need to identify clearly the direct waves and the ionosphere-reflected ones. You need to separate clearly the start of a flash in one cloud and the arrival in another one, and much more…
Google says that the WWLLN was used.
University of Washington in Seattle operating a network of lightning location sensors at VLF (3-30 kHz). Most ground-based observations in the VLF band are dominated by impulsive signals from lightning discharges called “sferics”. Significant radiated electromagnetic power exists from a few hertz to several hundred megahertz, with the bulk of the energy radiated at VLF.
With our network of sferic sensors we are producing regular maps of lightning activity over the entire Earth. Our map showing the entire world uses coloured spots to indicate lightning strokes (red stars inside an open circle are active WWLLN lightning sensor locations).
I would have thought it was from sat observations but evidently it is ground based.