Weekly Ocean News

WEEK ELEVEN: 17-21 November 2014

Items of Interest

A Long Polar Night -- After being above the horizon for only 66 minutes this Tuesday, the sun set at 1:45 PM Alaska Standard Time (18 November 2014) at Barrow, the northernmost city in Alaska, for the last time this year. The next time the sun will rise above the local horizon in Barrow will be at 1:05 PM AST on 23 January 2015. On that date, the sun will remain above the horizon for 69 minutes. While the sun will be below the horizon for the next 66 days, residents of this city will have roughly three hours of some diffuse sunlight each day that is equivalent to civil twilight, provided the cloud cover is not too thick. To check the sunrise and sunset times of Barrow or any location in the United States go to the US Naval Observatory's on-line, interactive service for the entire year.
Celebrate Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day -- This upcoming week (16-22 November 2014) has been identified as Geography Awareness Week. National Geography Awareness Week, launched by presidential proclamation in 1987, is designed to draw attention to geo-literacy and "the importance of geographic understanding in ensuring our nation's economic competitiveness, national security, environmental sustainability, and the livability of our communities in the 21st century." Since the National Geographic Society is focusing on food throughout 2014. this year's Geography Awareness Week theme is "The Future of Food."
In conjunction with Geography Awareness Week, this coming Wednesday (19 November 2014) has been designated GIS Day that commenced in 1999 "provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems (GIS) technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society." This year's theme "Discovering the World Through GIS." [ GIS Day]
Species dominance and ocean properties -- Discover how variations in both the physical and chemical properties of ocean waters can be accompanied by changes in the dominance of the various species of marine life in this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity across the world's tropical ocean basins was essentially nonexistent last week as no organized tropical cyclones were detected. However, remnants of the former Super Typhoon Nuri moved across the western North Pacific basin during the previous week and into the western Bering Sea as an extratropical cyclone or midlatitude storm. Images were obtained from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite and from the agency's CloudSat satellite when these spacecraft passed over this storm as it moved across the western Bering Sea over the previous weekend. Within a few hours, this storm had "deepened" with the minimum central pressure falling to 924 millibars (or 27.29 inches of mercury). [CLOUDSAT News Colorado State University] See the NASA Hurricane Page for additional information on former Super Typhoon Nuri.
East Coast hurricanes can flood the Midwest -- Researchers from the University of Iowa and other research institutions have found that tropical cyclones (tropical storms and hurricanes) originating in the North Atlantic Ocean basin are capable of producing flooding rains across sections of the Midwest that include Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. They based their analysis upon the river discharge records from 3090 US Geological Survey stream gauge stations between 1981 and 2011, finding that the rains from North Atlantic tropical cyclones impact large areas of the United States. [University of Iowa NOW]
New panel established to guide ocean exploration -- Late last week NOAA announced the appointment of 13 members from government, industry and academia to a new federal Ocean Exploration Advisory Board designed to provide guidance to NOAA and the nation on the exploration of the oceans. [NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research News]
New "wind watcher" satellite declared ready for weather/climate forecasters -- Following nearly month of testing, the International Space Station-Rapid Scatterometer (ISS-RapidScat) has been recently cleared to provide surface wind data over the world's oceans on an operational basis to weather forecasters at the NOAA's Ocean Prediction Center along with the US Navy, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). This scatterometer instrument had been launched in late September and then was installed on the International Space Station for a two-year mission designed to boost global monitoring of ocean winds for improved weather forecasting and climate studies. [NASA Global Change News]
World's oceans have reached record warmth for instrumental period -- A climate scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa reports that the global mean sea surface temperatures during this past meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere (June through August 2014) were the highest temperatures ever recorded since systematic measuring commenced. These summer 2014 temperatures even exceeded those observed during the record-breaking 1998 El Niño year. According to this researched, most of the global ocean warming in 2014 has occurred in the North Pacific, which warmed far beyond any previously recorded value. The higher temperatures appear to have shifted hurricane tracks and weakened trade winds. He also notes that these current record-breaking temperatures indicate that the 14-year-long pause in ocean warming has ended. [Nature World News]
Rhode Island's salt marshes affected by sea-level rise -- The Rhode Island Sea Grant Program working with several state and local agencies has developed the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM) that is being used to identify existing salt marsh conditions an vulnerable areas along the coast of Rhode Island. They have found that rises in sea level have caused a drowning of the state's salt marshes. This model, which utilizes topographic and salt marsh vegetation survey data, is also being used to predict how possible future changes in sea level would affect the remaining salt marshes. [NOAA Sea Grant News]
New global maps show human-caused ocean acidification -- A team of scientists led by a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has published detailed monthly global maps of acidity levels across the world's oceans that show seasonal variations in these acidity levels. Their study also shows how changes in these levels have been caused by the large quantities of atmospheric carbon absorbed by the oceans due to human-caused carbon emissions. [NOAA News]
Explaining the assessment for the Western stock of Atlantic bluefin tuna -- NOAA Fisheries biologist Dr. Clay Porch, who chaired the assessment of the Western stock of Atlantic bluefin tuna and contributed to the assessment of the Eastern stock at the recent meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, was recently interviewed. In that interview he discussed the results of the assessments and what they mean for the future of this fish species. [NOAA Fisheries Service News]
An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Living Coral and El Niño

El Niño episodes of 1982-83 and 1997-1998, the most intense of the century, confirmed the connection between higher than average ocean temperatures and bleaching of hermatypic corals. (Hermatypic corals live in warm shallow water and build large reefs.) Water temperatures higher than 29°C (the normal maximum sea surface temperature in the equatorial eastern Pacific) can trigger expulsion of zooxanthellae, microscopic dinoflagellates whose symbiotic relationship with coral polyps is essential for the long-term survival of coral. Without zooxanthellae, coral polyps have little pigmentation and appear nearly transparent on the coral's white skeleton, a condition known as coral bleaching. If maximum temperatures are not too high for too long, corals can recover, but prolonged warming associated with an intense El Niño (that may persist for 12 to 18 months) can be lethal to coral. Most hermatypic corals thrive when the water temperature is 27 °C, but do not grow when the water becomes too cold. Although the ideal temperature varies with species and from one location to another, the temperature range for optimal growth is quite narrow--only a few Celsius degrees. This sensitivity to relatively small changes in water temperature is an important source of information on past climates as fossil coral is a significant component of many limestones. Evidence of bleaching episodes in fossil corals may yield important clues to past changes in the world's tropical ocean.

Coral, sometimes referred to as "the rainforests of the ocean," provides a base for local ecosystems and have many benefits (e.g., fisheries, tourism) that are important in many parts of the globe. Hence, vulnerability to El Niño-associated warming is an object of considerable scientific interest. During the 1997-98 Niño, NOAA charted significant coral bleaching from portions of the Great Barrier Reef near Australia, French Polynesia in the south Pacific, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya, and around the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Closer to home, coral bleaching was reported in the Florida Keys, the Cayman Islands, and off the Pacific coast of Panama and Baja California. Fortunately damage from the 1997-98 El Niño warming was less drastic than the 1983-84 El Niño when up to 95% of the corals in some locations died. Many of the corals damaged in the late 1990s have at least partially recovered including important reefs in the Florida Keys. For additional information on coral status, go to the NOAA website http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Most hermatypic corals thrive at an ocean water temperature of [(10) (27)] °C.
Corals [(can) (cannot)] recover from bleaching if high ocean water temperatures are not long lasting.

Historical Events:

17 November 1820...Captain Nathaniel Palmer, USN, became the first American to see Antarctica. He saw the Palmer Peninsula, which was later named after him. (Wikipedia)
17 November 1869...The Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas, was officially inaugurated in Egypt with an elaborate ceremony. (Wikipedia)
17 November 1973...The "Largest Icebreaker in the Western World," USCGC Polar Star, was launched. (USCG Historians Office)
18 November 1421...Wind-driven waves from an intense storm breached Dutch dikes on the Zuider Zee, sweeping away 72 villages. At least 10,000 people died in "St. Elizabeth's flood." (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
18 November 1929...A magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake centered on the Grand Banks off the south coast of Newfoundland broke 12 transatlantic telegraph cables and triggered a tsunami that destroyed many south coast communities on Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula. (Wikipedia)
19 November 1493...The explorer Christopher Columbus became the first European to go ashore on modern day Puerto Rico one day after seeing it for the first time. At the time, he named the island San Juan Bautista. (Wikipedia)
19 November 1978...A waterspout came onshore to become a tornado near Muhio Wharf in Hilo Harbor on Hawaii's Big Island. Some industrial buildings lost their roofs. The proximity of the waterspout-tornado caused an airliner to change its landing approach to Hilo's airport. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
19 November 1996...The last component of the Confederation Bridge was placed that crosses the Northumberland Strait between Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island and Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. This two-lane eight mile long bridge, which was opened in May 1997, is the longest bridge over ice covered salt waters in the world. Ice covers the strait for five months per year. (Today in Science History)
20 November 1820...The 238-ton American whaler Essex from Nantucket, MA was attacked by an 80-ton bull sperm whale approximately 2000 miles off the western coast of South America. Of the 20 crew members that escaped in three open boats, only five survived the 83-day journey to the coastal waters of South America. The classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851) was inspired in part by the story of the Essex. (The History Channel)
21 November 1987...Truk Island (Federated States of Micronesia at 7.4 degrees N, 151.7 degrees E) was struck by the rapidly intensifying Tropical Storm Nina, as winds gusted to 95 mph. Five died, and most buildings were destroyed. A storm of such intensity so close to the equator is somewhat unusual. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
22 November 1992...Supertyphoon Gay generated gusts up to 120 mph on Guam in the western Pacific. Only one injury was sustained. Earlier, when at its peak approximately 1000 miles southeast of Guam, Supertyphoon Gay had sustained surface winds estimated to 185 mph with gusts to 225 mph. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
23 November 1869...The clipper ship, the Cutty Sark, was launched at Dumbarton, Scotland. This three-masted and 212-foot long ship was one of the last clipper ships to be built and is the only one surviving to the present day, residing in a dry dock at Greenwich, England. (Wikipedia)
23-24 November 1981...Typhoon Irma, the worst in 10 years, struck north central Philippines (mostly Luzon) with winds to 139 mph and a storm surge of 16 feet. More than 236 people died, while 600,000 were made homeless. Entire provinces were left without power or communication. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)