Happy World Ocean Day!
Taking a look at the ocean from a different perspective
I’ve often expressed my concerns for the ocean and talked about the threats it is facing. But tomorrow (June 8) is World Ocean Day and I would rather do a little bit of celebrating.
On Earth Day I was reminded of the Arthur C. Clarke quote:
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.”
I recently stumbled across The Ocean Map from the Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG). That’s the image above. It is a 440m2 floor map.
According to the RMG, The Ocean Map is based on a type of map known as the “Spilhaus projection.”
In cartography, a projection refers to the way mapmakers represent a round globe on a flat surface.
The Spilhaus projection was devised in the 1940s by the oceanographer and inventor Athelstan Spilhaus. Born in South Africa in 1911, Spilhaus emigrated to the United States in the 1930s and joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
He developed the bathythermograph (a device for measuring ocean depth and temperature), established a program to support marine research, and published works on everything from future cities to mechanical toys.
He also created the world ocean map now known as the Spilhaus projection.
“The objective was to devise maps which showed the whole world ocean as a connected, single body of water uninterrupted by the edge of the map,” Spilhaus wrote in 1983. “The solution depends on the selection of suitable interruptions – the cuts on the Earth's skin to unfold and flatten it. If no interruptions are to be in the sea, all must lie within the land.’
I’d never heard of a Spillhaus projection, but I’m interested in learning more.
The thing that interests me most is that it turns our perceptions on their head. It’s the same thing we’ve always seen, but it is almost unrecognizable. And that’s a good thing. We tend to take the familiar for granted. By flipping things around, we can learn a new understanding of the ocean. Below is a video from NASA showing the ocean currents. There may be separate currents, but everything is connected as well. As are we to the ocean, even if we don’t live on the beach. Little things we do inland make a difference.
And changes to the ocean and its currents affect weather and climate — rain and wind and dust far away.
Celebrate World Ocean Day even if you aren’t at the beach today!
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