With the US Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Affiliation’s Marine Cadastre device, you’ll be able to obtain 16 years of detailed every day ship actions, in addition to “visitors rely” maps generated from a 12 months’s price of information displaying the accrued trajectories of every ship. The information is collected completely from floor stations alongside the US coasts.
I downloaded all of the 2023 visitors rely maps and loaded them right into a geographic info system software program known as QGIS to visualise this 12 months’s marine visitors.
The maps are summary and electrical. As soon as the land plenty are eliminated, the ship tracks resemble long-exposure images of flares, high-energy particle collisions, or strands of fiber optic cable.
DATA: NOAA; MAP: JON KEEGAN / BEAUTIFUL PUBLIC DATA
DATA: NOAA; MAP: JON KEEGAN / BEAUTIFUL PUBLIC DATA
DATA: NOAA; MAP: JON KEEGAN / BEAUTIFUL PUBLIC DATA
DATA: NOAA; MAP: JON KEEGAN / BEAUTIFUL PUBLIC DATA
If you zoom into these maps, you might even see unusual geometric patterns of good circles or strains on a grid. A few of them are fishing grounds, others are scientific research that map the seafloor, and others signify ships coming and going from offshore oil platforms, particularly off the Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Hidden in plain sight
Having a worldwide, close to real-time system to trace the exact actions of all ships at sea looks as if a fantastic innovation, until you are attempting to maintain your ships’ actions and cargoes secret.
