I heard that Orlando, FL resident Sonya Baumstein had to bail on her attempt to be the first American to row solo across the Pacific Ocean. The Orlando station Bay News 9 had this to say:
Bad weather ends Orlando woman's attempt to row across Pacific
One week after setting off to become the first woman and the first American to solo row across the Pacific Ocean, expected bad weather has forced Sonya Baumstein to end her attempt at history.
The Orlando native was rescued Saturday off the coast of Japan after sending out a distress signal.
Baumstein, 30, launched her 6,000-mile journey last Sunday morning from Japan, heading for San Francisco. But the weather turned rough, forcing her to send out the distress signal around 2 p.m. Saturday. She was rescued around three hours later.
I love extreme adventuring and wish Sonya complete success on all of her future endeavors.
What stuck in my craw was this line:
The trip was also scientific in nature; partnered with NASA, Baumstein was also measuring water samples to study climate change.
Christ on a corn dog - doesn't anyone at NASA know about the Argo program?
What is Argo?
Argo is a global array of more than 3,000 free-drifting profiling floats that measures the temperature and salinity of the upper 2000 m of the ocean. This allows, for the first time, continuous monitoring of the temperature, salinity, and velocity of the upper ocean, with all data being relayed and made publicly available within hours after collection.
The map shows the 3,886 buoys that have uploaded their data within the last 30 days. The buoys profile a 2,000 Meter (that would be 1.24 miles) column of water recording temperature, salinity, velocity and direction through its ascent.
The idea that NASA has to piggyback on a venture like Ms. Baumstein's smacks of publicity rather than science. This is what the whole climate change story has been from the beginning. Yes, we are coming out of a cold period but we may well be entering a new one as our Sun is unusually quiet (and not as hot).
More on Argo here: How Argo floats work.
