WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

5-9 January 2015

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2015 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 19 January 2015. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Items of Interest:

Welcome ocean science educators to the annual AMS meeting -- The 95th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) is being held this week (4 - 9 January) in Phoenix, AZ. The theme for this year's AMS meeting is "Fulfilling the Vision of Weather, Water, and Climate Information for Every Need, Time, and Place." One of the numerous symposia and conferences that will be conducted at the meeting is the 24th Symposium on Education, where educators from kindergarten through university levels will be attending workshops or giving presentations on weather, ocean, climate and space science education issues.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity was relatively limited across the global ocean basins during the last week. In the Southern Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Cyclone Kate had become a category 3 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale at the start of the week. This tropical cyclone traveled to the southwest through the early part of the week and finally weakened approximately 950 miles to the southwest of Cocos Island, Australia. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite images on Cyclone Kate.
In the western North Pacific basin, Tropical Depression 23-W strengthened to become Tropical Storm Jangmi at the start of last week made landfall along the northern coast of Mindanao. This tropical storm traveled westward across the southern Philippines before weakening to a a tropical depression over the Sulu Sea to the west of the Philippines by midweek. Additional information and satellite images on this system can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
Whale sharks get international protection -- Efforts are being made by the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) and NOAA Fisheries to protect whale sharks, the largest fish in the oceans, from being injured or killed by those fishing for tuna using purse seine nets. IATTC adopted a resolution in 2013 prohibiting the placement of a purse seine net around whale sharks, while NOAA Fisheries issued regulations last September prohibiting the practice by the US fishing fleet. [NOAA News]
Eruption of undersea volcano monitored from space -- Two images made early last week from data collected by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite show the development of a plume of volcanic ash from the eruption of an underwater volcano off Hunga Ha'apai, an island in the Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc in the western South Pacific Ocean. [NASA Earth Observatory]
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.

Historical Events:

5 January 1841...The British explorer, James Clark Ross, was the first to enter pack ice near Ross Ice Shelf off Antarctica.
5 January 1875...CDR Edward Lull, USN, began an expedition to locate the best ship canal route across Panama. This route was followed 30 years later. (Naval Historical Center)
5 January 1903...The general public could use the San Francisco-Hawaii telegraph cable across the Pacific cable for the very first time.
6 January 1839...A two-day storm off the Irish and English coasts was immortalized as "The Big Wind".
6 January 1898...The first telephone message from a submerged submarine was transmitted by Simon Lake, the father of the modern submarine.
6 January 1928...An intense low pressure system over the North Sea created a storm surge that moved upstream along the Thames River to London in England. Water rose over embankments. The rapid rise of the river resulted in 14 deaths in basements. As many as 40,000 people were left homeless. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
7 January 1904...The international Morse code distress signal "CQD" was established. Two years later, the 1906 International Conference on Wireless Communication at Sea, resolved that the radio distress signal should become "SOS" because it was quicker to send by wireless radio. (Wikipedia)
7 January 1927...Transatlantic telephone service began between New York and London, with 31 calls made on this first day.
8 January 1958...The Coast Guard LORAN Station at Johnston Island began transmitting on a 24-hour basis, thus establishing a new LORAN rate in the Central Pacific. The new rate between Johnston Island and French Frigate Shoal gave a higher order of accuracy for fixing positions in the steamship lanes from Oahu, Hawaii, to Midway Island. In the past, this was impossible in some areas along this important shipping route. (USCG Historian's Office)
8 January 1971...Twenty-nine pilot whales beached themselves and died at San Clemente Island, CA.
8-11 January 1980...Winds, waves and rain pounded Hawaii, resulting in 27.5 million dollars in storm damage, which was the greatest amount to that date in the Aloha State's history. Four houses were destroyed and 40 others damaged by a possible tornado in Honolulu's Pacific Palisades area on the 8^th. Ocean waves with heights to 20 feet entered beachfront hotels along the Kona Coast of the Big Island. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)