At the beginning of January An Tirishdeach published a letter from abroad giving an update on the progress of the Atlantic Rising Expedition, a number of readers have asked for more details of this, I hope this explains what it is all about.
HUNDREDS of letters from school children in Tiree were dropped into the Atlantic Ocean as part of a huge message in a bottle. Letters written by students at Tiree School were put into a buoy equipped with a tracking device so the progress of their messages can be followed via a website (www.atlanticrising.org) as the capsule drifts around the ocean with the currents. The message in a bottle was dropped into the ocean from a containership Safmarine Bayete on its route from Senegal to Brazil. This project is part of an international environmental education project, called Atlantic Rising.
Will Lorimer, from Atlantic Rising said:
“Students can visit the website and see where their letter has got to and where it is likely to wash up. We hope that one day someone will find the messages and get in touch. “The project is a good way to illustrate how currents move around the ocean. “Currents are a key way that heat moves around the ocean and so are very relevant to climate change.” The three directors of the charity Atlantic Rising (Will Lorimer, whose family have a house on Tiree, Tim Bromfield and Lynn Morris) visited the school last summer term to talk to students about climate change and collect their letters before embarking on a 32,000 km expedition around the edge of the Atlantic.
The idea behind the journey is to follow the one meter contour, predicted to be the new coastline of the ocean in 100 years time, if sea levels continue to rise. Along the way they are creating a network between schools in coastal communities of which Tiree School was a founding school. The trio, all 29, left the UK on September 1st last year and drove around the coast of Europe and West Africa to Ghana. They then shipped their Land Rover and themselves on a containership to Brazil. The journey continues northwards up the east coast of the Americas to Canada. The Atlantic Rising team will be returning to the school later this year to talk about the expedition.
For more information please visit www.atlanticrising.org or email lynn@atlanticrising.org
