WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

18-22 January 2010

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2010 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 25 January 2010. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the Tropics -- In the South Indian Ocean basin Tropical Cyclone Edzani continued to travel to the southwest and the south during much of last week before weakening at the end of the week. During the previous week, Tropical Cyclone Edzani had become a major category 4 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Additional information on this tropical cyclone, along with satellite images, is available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Satellites provide a unique perspective of Haitian earthquake site -- Data collected from sensors onboard the international fleet of environmental satellites operated by the US, the European Space Agency, Canada, Japan and China have been used to produce a variety of maps and other images that can be used not only by geoscientists, but by disaster management specialists in damage assessment and recovery. operations in Haiti following the 12 January devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake.
  NASA has used data from ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) instrument onboard its Terra satellite, by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) flown aboard Space Shuttle and sensors on the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite to provide a wide array of maps and other visuals in support of the disaster recovery efforts. [NASA] [NASA JPL] As an example, a NASA Earth Observatory image shows the location of the epicenter of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake and its aftershocks were plotted along with he Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden Fault on a map depicting the topography of Hispaniola near Port-au-Prince Haiti [NASA Earth Observatory]
  The "International Charter on 'Space and Major Disasters'" is an international initiative designed to provide satellite data free of charge to those affected by disasters anyplace around the world. [ESA]
  Scientists with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have noted that this magnitude 7.0 Haitian earthquake occurred along a 500-mile long complex and active strike-slip fault called the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault . However, this devastating earthquake did not produce a significant tsunami because of the type of fault. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Satellites help rescue nearly 200 people last year -- During last year (2009), 195 people were rescued from life-threatening situations throughout the US and surrounding waters in part because of the role that NOAA’s fleet of satellites played in pinpointing the location of these people and relaying this information to first responders who perform the actual rescue. NOAA's geosynchronous and polar-orbiting satellites, together with Russia’s Cospas spacecraft, are part of the international COSPAS-SARSAT (COSPAS a Russian abbreviation for "Space System for the Search of Vessels in Distress" and SARSAT "Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking") system. [NOAA News]
• Port entry to be denied to illegal fishing vessels -- NOAA Fisheries Service is soliciting public comment on a proposed rule that would permit the NOAA assistant administrator for fisheries to deny a vessel listed for engaging in illegal or unregulated fishing to enter any US port or access port services. This action is hoped to curb illegal fishing that would be damaging to the fisheries. [NOAA News]
• "Fishery failure" determination announced for Alaska Chinook salmon -- At the end of last week, the US Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke, announced that NOAA has determined that the commercial fishery failure has occurred for Alaska's Yukon River Chinook salmon because a low salmon returns. [NOAA Office of Public Affairs]
• San Francisco Bay wetlands restoration commences -- Federal, state and local groups joined with NOAA officials to breach an earthen level along the shore of California's San Francisco Bay as part of a multimillion dollar American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project designed to restore 2000 acres of wetlands, ultimately providing increased habitat for threatened and endangered species along this estuary. [NOAA News]
• California dam to be removed for safety and fishery restoration -- Officials from NOAA's Fisheries Service have joined California state and local officials in a pledge to remove the 106-foot high San Clemente Dam along California’s lower Carmel River so as to eliminate a potential threat to the lives and property of those living downstream of the 89-year old dam and to help restore the watershed for federally protected steelhead trout. [NOAA News]
• New ocean science education building to be built in California -- The NOAA Administrator and the Chancellor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) recently broke ground for a new Ocean Science Education Building on the UCSB campus that will house the university's Marine Science Institute and the offices for NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. [NOAA News]
• First national marine debris action plan in to be implemented in Hawaii -- Staff from NOAA’s Marine Debris Program have collaborated with numerous partners from other governmental agencies at local, state and federal levels, industry and academia to develop the Hawaii Marine Debris Action Plan, which will be the first comprehensive plan in the nation designed to actively assess and remove plastics, derelict fishing gear, and other human sources of marine debris from the Aloha State's coastal waters and coral reefs. [NOAA News]
• Algal bloom form in waters off Patagonia -- Two images obtained from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite during last November shows the location of algal bloom where numerous phytoplankton can be found in the coastal waters off South America as part of the Patagonia Large Marine Ecosystem that stretches from the Rio de le Plata southward to Cape Horn. One of the images shows the chlorophyll concentration, a direct indicator of the number of phytoplankton, while the other image is of sea surface temperature, which provides an indication of near surface ocean currents. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Research aircraft switches from hurricanes to winter storms -- Recently, NOAA dispatched its high-altitude Gulfstream IV aircraft, which normally investigates Atlantic hurricanes, to the North Pacific Ocean to make atmospheric observations as part of an effort by the National Weather Service's National Centers for Environmental Prediction to improve winter storm forecasts over the entire North American continent. [NOAA News]
• Satellites capture icebergs calving off an Antarctic ice shelf -- Three images obtained over a two-day span last week from the MODIS sensors on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites show icebergs breaking (or calving) off Antarctica's Filchner Ice Shelf. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• New environmental satellite run through pre-launch tests -- During this current month, scientists and engineers were conducting pre-launch tests on the instruments that will be placed on GOES-P, the newest satellite that will be launched in March 2010 as part of the NASA/NOAA fleet of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites. [EurekAlert!]
• New European "ice satellite" reaches launch site -- The European Space Agency's new CryoSat-2 Earth Explorer satellite has recently reached the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan for its launch in late February. This satellite will monitor changes in the thickness of polar marine ice and the thickness of the vast that overlay Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. [ESA]
• Gulf of California's health is threatened -- Based upon the results of their marine life survey program over a ten-year span, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography warn that destructive fishing methods are endangering the health of the Gulf of California. researchers launch program to monitor the health of the Gulf of California, a region endangered by destructive new fishing methods [Scripps Explorations]
• Hawaii's deep hotspot -- Data collected by scientists from a network of seafloor seismometers in the Pacific Ocean off the Hawaiian Islands as part of the Plume-Lithosphere Undersea Melt Experiment (PLUME), indicates that a deep-rooted hot plume forming the Hawaiian Islands extends upward from the lower mantle. [Scripps Explorations]
• Determining if Antarctica is melting -- Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Goddard Space Flight Center have used gravity data collected using NASA's Grace satellite to show that Antarctica has been losing at one hundred cubic kilometers of ice each year since 2002, with the annual rate of ice loss increasing over the years. However, they have found that less surface melting has occurred recently. [NASA JPL]
• Bering Strait may have influenced global climate patterns during Pleistocene Ice Age -- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and their colleagues report that their climate simulations run on the Community Climate System Model indicate the opening and closing of the narrow Bering Strait due to fluctuating sea levels during the last 116,000 years could have affected ocean currents in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans transporting heat and salinity. Consequently, summer temperatures oscillated across parts of North America and Greenland, causing ice sheets to expand and retreat, which affected worldwide sea levels. [UCAR/NCAR]
• An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, drought, floods, marine weather, tsunamis, rip currents, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and coral bleaching. [NOAAWatch]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, to include drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

• 18 January 1778...The English explorer Captain James Cook sailed past the island of Oahu, thereby becoming the first European to see the Hawaiian Islands, which he called the "Sandwich Islands." (The History Channel)
• 18-22 January 1978...The Atlantic's first-ever January subtropical storm with tropical characteristics since records began in 1871 organized 1500 miles east-northeast of Puerto Rico. The storm finally dissipated on the 22nd approximately 200 miles north of Puerto Rico. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 19 January 1840...LT Charles Wilkes, USN was the first American to sight the eastern Antarctic coast, claiming this portion of the continent for the United States. The group that he led explored a 1500-mile stretch of the coast of eastern Antarctica, which later became known as Wilkes Land. (Naval Historical Center)
• 19 January 1946...Staged jointly by the USCG and USN, the first public demonstration of LORAN was held at Floyd Bennett Field in New York. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 19 January 1996...The tug Scandia and its barge, the North Cape, ran aground on the shore of Rhode Island, spilling 828,000 gallons of oil, the worst spill in that state's history. The Coast Guard rescued the entire crew, pumped off 1.5 million gallons of oil and conducted skimming operations. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 20 January 1606...As many as 2000 people died around the Severn Estuary in England as the result of severe flooding. (The Weather Doctor)
• 20 January 1850...The Investigator, which was the first ship to effect a Northwest Passage, left England.
• 20 January 1914...The International Ice Patrol Convention was signed. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 20 January 1986...The United Kingdom and France announced plans to construct the Channel Tunnel, a railway tunnel underneath the English Channel, also known as the "Chunnel." (Wikipedia)
• 21 January 1881...The light was first shown at Tillamook Lighthouse, located 19 miles south of the Columbia River entrance on the Oregon coast. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 21 January 1941...The first commercial extraction of magnesium from seawater was made at Freeport, TX.
• 21 January 1954...The first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched on the Thames River in Groton, CT, representing a landmark in the history of naval engineering and submersible craft. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower christened the vessel, which sailed beneath the Arctic icepack to the North Pole in 1958. (Today in Science History)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.