Weekly Ocean News

25-29 November 2019

Items of Interest:

Happy Thanksgiving -- The first official observance of Thanksgiving Day as a federal holiday across the United States was on 26 November 1863, due to a presidential proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln. In honor of this first observance, the NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information has posted a feature that shows a photocopy of the original "Meteorological Register" for November 1863 containing the daily weather observations taken each day of that month by U.S. Army personnel at Fort Warren, Massachusetts. This army post outside Boston was selected because it is near Plymouth, MA -- the site of the first Thanksgiving celebration made by the Pilgrims in 1620. [NOAA NCEI News]
All of the staff at the American Meteorological Society’s Education Program Office extend best wishes to you and your loved ones for a safe and Happy Thanksgiving EJH
NOAA Education is providing students and educators with a variety of opportunities in 2020 -- During the last week, NOAA's Office of Education posted an invitation to students and educators to review the various opportunities that NOAA, one of the nation's premiere scientific agencies, will be making available to them in 2020. Some of the programs may have application deadlines as early as the end of this week. [NOAA Education News]
Watch for high ocean tides along nation's coasts during this week -- According to the NOAA National Ocean Service's High Tide Bulletin for Fall 2019, higher than average astronomical tides are expected to continue through Thursday (28 November) along sections of the nation's coasts. The high tides that began over this past weekend can be found along the entire U.S. Atlantic Coast, running from Florida's Atlantic coast northward to Maine, the West Coast running from California northward to Washington, the coasts of Alaska and around the Hawaiian Islands. Lunar perigee (when the Moon is closest to Earth) occurred early last Saturday morning (23 November), followed more than three days later by the new moon (when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun) late this Tuesday morning (26 November). These two astronomical events will be responsible for the perigean spring tide that creates higher than normal high tides. Furthermore, mean sea level is generally higher in the fall months along the Atlantic Coast due to warmer, expanding ocean water and changes in weather patterns. [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2019 Campaign for mid to late November is underway -- The twelfth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2019 will continue through Thursday, 28 November. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of constellations with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. These constellations are Perseus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus in the Southern Hemisphere. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The thirteenth series in the 2019 campaign is scheduled for 18-27 December 2019. [GLOBE at Night]
Beginning of meteorological winter season -- The winter meteorological season in the Northern Hemisphere starts on Saturday (1 December). Recall that climatologists and meteorologists have elected to use a standard three-month grouping to identify each meteorological season. Hence, the months of December, January and February are considered the winter meteorological season. You will note that the winter solstice, marking the day where the length of daylight is least in the Northern Hemisphere is still more than three weeks away, falling on Saturday, 21 December 2019. Since the lowest temperatures typically fall in mid to late January, the meteorological winter tends to be centered on the coldest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
In addition, Saturday (30 November) marks the end of the official 2019 hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, along with the eastern and central North Pacific basins.
The 2019 hurricane seasons reviewed -- With the end of the official 2019 hurricane season in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific on Saturday (30 November 2019), a quick review of this year's tropical cyclone statistics for the official 2019 hurricane season has been made for both basins. [AMS DataStreme Atmosphere]
For those who are interested in obtaining historic hurricane (and tropical storm) track information, the "Historical Hurricane Tracks" developed by NOAA Office of Coastal Management allows the search and display of detailed data for more than 6000 tropical cyclones in seven of the planet's major ocean basins based upon a data set that runs from 1842 to 2018. Coastal population trends are also available for the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States.
Tropical cyclone climatologies of North Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific -- The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has an updated and revised edition of its "Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean, 1851-2006." While a paper copy of this book is available for a cost from NHC, a 243-pg pdf file of this edition can be downloaded for free. NHC also released the first edition of "Tropical Cyclones of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean, 1949-2006." In addition to a paper copy is available for sale, a free 164-page pdf file is available. Both of these climatologies have numerous graphics that show long-term changes in tropical cyclone frequency in the two basins.
A climatology of tropical cyclones in the central North Pacific from the 1950s to 2013 is available from the CPHC climatology website maintained by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) in Honolulu, HI.
It's Sure Dark! -- Have you noticed that the sun is setting early these days? During the first ten days of December, many locations throughout the country will experience their earliest sunset times of the year. The exact day for the earliest sunset depends upon the latitude, so you may want to check the date in your locale from the sunrise tables appearing in an on-line, interactive service available for many cities in the United States at https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa while the US Naval Observatory's on-line, service entire year is being upgraded. The reason for the earliest sunsets occurring in early December rather than on the winter solstice (during the evening hours of Saturday, 21 December 2019) is that the sun is not as precise a timekeeper as our watches. Because of a combination of factors involved with Earth's elliptical orbit about the sun and the tilt of Earth's spin axis with respect to the plane of the ecliptic, the sun appears to "run fast" by as much as 15 minutes as compared with clock time in November. However, with the approach of the winter solstice and perihelion (the smallest earth-sun distance during early morning hours of 5 January 2020), the apparent sun slows during December and finally lags the clock by 12 minutes in February. Consequently, a noticeable and welcome trend toward later sunsets can be detected by the end of December, especially by those residents in the northern part of the country. However, the latest sunrises occur at most locales in early January, meaning that early risers will continue seeing dark and dreary mornings for another month.
Accessing and interpreting climate data -- If you would like to obtain a variety of climate data for your home town or state that are available from the National Weather Service, please read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth. This Supplemental not only identifies some of the sites to find the data, but also provides you with a brief explanation of the terminology used to identify the climate data.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics -- Several tropical cyclones were reported during the last week over the tropical waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres:
- In the North Atlantic
- In the western North Pacific basin (extending from the International Dateline westward to the Asian continent) --
- In the western South Pacific basin (located off eastern coast of Australia, running from a longitude of 160 degrees East eastward to the 120-degrees West meridian) --
Australian tropical cyclone season outlook issued -- Forecasters at the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology recently released an outlook for the upcoming 2019-20 Australian tropical cyclone season that typically begins on 1 November and runs through 30 April. These forecasters foresee a fewer number of tropical cyclones than average within each of the five regions that surround the continent. They base their outlook upon the status of ENSO over the preceding July to September, the sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean and a survey of the suite of international outlook models. Therefore, their outlook for a lower than average tropical cyclone season is based upon the forecasts indicating a continuation of ENSO-neutral conditions through at least southern meteorological summer (February 2020). A strong positive Indian Ocean Dipole along with below average ocean temperatures to the north of Australia could also be factors pointing to less tropical cyclone activity around Australia. [Australian Bureau of Meteorology]
New grants are funded through the National Coastal Resilience Fund -- Officials from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, NOAA and their partners recently announced that $30 million were being made available in new grants designed to protect the nation's coastal communities and enhance habitat. These grants go to 44 projects in 23 states and U.S. territories are for the restoration or expansion of natural features such as coastal marshes and wetlands, dune and beach systems, oyster and coral reefs, mangroves, forests, coastal rivers, and barrier islands that help minimize the impacts of storms, rising sea levels and other extreme events on nearby communities and infrastructure. [NOAA News]
Review of October 2019 global temperatures, sea ice extent and hemispheric snow cover -- Preliminary data analyzed by scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) indicated that the global combined land and ocean average surface temperature for October 2019 was 1.76 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average (1901-2000) for the month. Therefore, last month's global combined temperature was the second highest October temperature since global temperature records began in 1880, trailing the record highest October global combined temperature that was set in 2015 by 0.11 Fahrenheit degrees. When considered separately, the monthly average temperature over the global oceans for October 2019 was 1.44 Fahrenheit degrees above average. The monthly average October temperature of only the land surface was 2.63 Fahrenheit degrees above average. Thus, the October 2019 temperatures over both the ocean and land surfaces even when treated separately ranked second in their respective records behind the record warm October 2015.
When considering the combined land-ocean global temperature for the year to date (January-October 2018), this ten-month temperature was the fourth highest global temperature for the first ten months of any year since 1880.
A summary article on the October global climate highlights is available, while more a detailed analysis with tables and maps can be viewed. [NOAA/NCEI State of the Climate]
A global map of Selected Significant Climate Anomalies and Events for October 2017 is available from NCEI.
According to satellite data collected by National Snow and Ice Data Center, the sea ice over the Arctic Ocean during October 2018 was the smallest areal extent for any October since satellite-derived ice records began in 1979. The sea ice around Antarctica was the tenth smallest October ice extent in the last 40 years.
The snow cover extent across North America in October 2019 was the third largest extent for October in 52 years of record. [NOAA/NCEI Global Snow & Ice]
Tracing 40 years of trends in sea ice extent around Antarctica -- A staff member at NOAA’s National Snow and Ice Data Center wrote an “Understanding Climate” blog for the ClimateWatch Magazine in which she investigates the seasonal and annual changes in the extent of sea ice on the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica since 1979 when routine satellite surveillance began. She notes that the ice cover around Antarctica undergoes a larger change between the late winter maximum extent and the late summer minimum extent than the corresponding changes in the Arctic sea ice of the Northern Hemisphere. In addition, the year-to-year (interannual) variability in the minimum ice extent around Antarctica is relatively large. Unlike the Arctic sea ice time series that exhibits a decreasing trend, any trend in the Antarctic time series is less apparent. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Tracking global sea level changes since 1880 -- A contractor at NOAA's Climate Program Office wrote an "Understanding Climate" blog for the ClimateWatch Magazine considers several questions concerning global sea level rise over the last 140 years. Global sea level has risen by about 8–9 inches since 1880, with the largest increases having occurred since the start of satellite surveillance in 1993. She describes how sea levels are measured, identifies what is causing sea level to rise, and what to expect in the future. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
The Climate Explorer tool is available to help envision climate projections for climate adaptation -- An expanded and enhanced version of the research application tool entitled The Climate Explorer has been made available to the public that allows users to envision a range of potential future weather and tidal conditions, so they can consider and implement climate-smart adaptation strategies. The Climate Explorer, which is a powerful research application and integral part of the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, provides historical observations and projections for climate variables for any county in the contiguous United States through 2100 in interactive graphical and map formats. [U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit]
An example of one of the variables tracked by The Climate Explorer is a graph of the number of annual days with high tide flooding at Key West, FL under two emissions scenarios. [U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit]
A toolkit is available to visualize sea level rise in Hawaii -- The interagency U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit has a website created by the Coastal Geology Group of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa that discusses projected sea level rise impacts in the Hawaiian Islands and offers visualizations of projected sea level rise, coastal erosion, and flooding impacts. [U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit]
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].

Concept of the Week: Climate Feedback Processes

Earth's climate system includes many interacting variables. Some variables are external to the Earth-atmosphere system and some are internal. External variables include solar energy output and Earth-sun geometry (i.e., the Milankovitch cycles). Internal variables include properties of the Earth's surface (e.g., albedo, moisture), the concentration of key atmospheric components (e.g., greenhouse gases, sulfurous aerosols), and cloud cover and thickness.

An important consideration in understanding how Earth's climate system responds to some perturbation is feedback. Feedback is defined as a sequence of interactions among variables in a system that determines how the system responds to some initial perturbation in one or more of the variables. Variables in Earth's climate system may interact in such a way as to either amplify (positive feedback) or lessen (negative feedback) a change in climate. An example of positive feedback is the ice-albedo effect described in Chapter 12 of the AMS Ocean Studies textbook. Less ice cover in the Arctic greatly reduces the albedo of the Arctic Ocean causing higher sea surface temperatures and accelerated melting of the multiyear pack ice.

Consider an example of negative feedback. Increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide enhances the greenhouse effect causing global warming. Global warming in turn raises sea surface temperatures and increases the rate of evaporation. A more humid atmosphere means more persistent and thicker cloud cover, but clouds have both a cooling and warming effect on the lower atmosphere. The relatively high albedo of cloud tops causes cooling whereas absorption and emission of infrared radiation by clouds causes warming by contributing to the greenhouse effect. Satellite measurements and numerical models indicate that cooling would dominate.

In general, negative feedback tends to dominate over positive feedback in Earth's climate system, limiting the magnitude of climate change. The great thermal inertia of the ocean is the principal reason for dampening the planetary temperature response.

Historical Events:

26 November 1703...Bristol England was damaged by a hurricane. The Royal Navy lost 15 warships.
26 November 1778...Captain James Cook of the British Royal Navy became the first European to discover Maui in the Sandwich Islands (later renamed the Hawaiian Islands). (Wikipedia)
26 November 1847...LT William Lynch, USN, sailed from New York to Haifa on USS Supply for an expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. His group charted the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and compiled reports of the flora and fauna of the area. (Naval Historical Center)
26 November 1888...A late season hurricane brushed the East Coast with heavy rain and gale force winds. The hurricane passed inside Nantucket and over Cape Cod, then crossed Nova Scotia. (David Ludlum)
26 November 1966...The world's first tidal power station was opened at Rance estuary in the French province of Brittany. This power plant, fitted with reversible turbines, generates 500 million kilowatt-hours annually. (Today in Science History)
26-28 November 1898...The "Portland" storm raged across New England producing gale force winds along the coast and heavy snow inland. A foot of snow blanketed Boston, MA, and 27 inches fell at New London, CT. Winds at Boston gusted to 72 mph, and wind gusts to 98 mph were estimated at Block Island, RI. A passenger ship, the S.S. Portland, sank off Cape Cod with the loss of all 191 persons aboard, and Boston Harbor was filled with wrecked ships. The storm wrecked 56 vessels resulting in a total of 456 casualties. (26^th- 28^th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
27 November 1701...Anders Celsius, the astronomer who invented the Celsius thermometer scale, was born in Uppsala, Sweden. (National Weather Service files)
27 November 1703...The first Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of Devon, England (approximately 14 miles southwest of Plymouth) was destroyed in the "Great Storm," and killed its builder Henry Winstanley. This first light was in an octagonal wooden structure built in 1698. The "Great Storm" is reported to have killed more than 8000 people. (Wikipedia) (Today in Science History)
27-28 November 1905...Heavy snow and wind blasted the western Great Lakes with as much as seven inches of snow in northwestern Wisconsin and sustained winds of 42 mph recorded at Duluth, MN for 29 straight hours and 65 mph winds for 13 continuous hours. Severe drifting resulted. Eighteen ships were destroyed or disabled on Lake Superior. The ship Mataafa was grounded and broke in two in Duluth harbor. Nine of the fifteen crew of the Mataafa froze to death despite running aground within 100 yards of the shore. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
28 November 1520...Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the treacherous South American strait that now bears his name in a 38-day passage. He was the first European to sail into the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic to the east. (The History Channel)
28 November 1960...A severe storm produced waves 20 to 40 feet high on Lake Superior. Duluth, MN was buried under a foot of snow, and clocked wind gusts to 73 mph. The northern shore of Lake Superior was flooded, and property along the shore was battered. Thousands of cords of pulpwood were washed into Lake Superior, and up to three feet of water flooded the main street of Grand Marais. Thunder accompanied the "nor'easter". (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
30 November 1925...An extremely rare late November hurricane began to affect the west coast of Florida as it strengthened during the day. The storm made landfall very early on 1 December south of Tampa Bay, weakened to a tropical storm as it crossed central Florida, and exited around St. Augustine. The storm regained Hurricane strength off Jacksonville late on the 1st. Heavy rain continued over northeast Florida on the 2nd. Gale force winds were reported from the Keys to Jacksonville and over 50 people lost their lives, mostly on ships at sea. Damage along the coast south of Jacksonville was heavy and excessive rain and wind seriously damaged citrus and truck crops. (National Weather Service files)
1 December 1969...Ocean swells generated by a storm more than 1000 miles to the north-northwest of the French Frigate Shoals produced 50-foot high surf along the outer shoals of Tern Island, submerging the 300-foot wide island under two to three feet of water. The 19-member Coast Guard contingent was evacuated, but considerable damage was done to buildings. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
1 December 1990...Workers from the United Kingdom and France on the Channel Tunnel construction project met approximately 120 feet beneath the English Channel seabed, to establish the first ground connection between the British Isles and mainland Europe since the last Ice Age. (Wikipedia)