Climatologists request military escort in Indian Ocean

Independent : Climate researchers are seeking help from Australian and US naval forces—to fight pirates. The Argo project, which involves 30 nations, uses some 3000 robotic instruments to provide data on the heat and saltiness of the world’s oceans. Its researchers, however, have not been able to deploy 20 of the instruments in an area of the west Indian Ocean, north of Mauritius, because it’s one of the world’s most dangerous areas for piracy; in the first half of this year, 163 of 266 attacks reported globally were carried out by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean—an increase of 100 over the same period last year. The area is of special interest to climatologists because it has had a major influence on Australian and south Asian weather and climate.