WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

3-7 August 2009

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2009 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 31 August 2009. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Item of Interest:

• National Lighthouse Day is celebrated -- Friday, 7 August 2009, is designated National Lighthouse Day, which marks the anniversary of the signing of the Act of Congress on 7 August 1789 when the Federal Government assumed responsibility for building and operating the nation's lighthouses. [American Lighthouse Foundation]

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics --- The tropical ocean basins of the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively quiet during the last week.
  After forming as a Tropical Depression 6E in the eastern North Pacific basin just east of its western boundary (140 degrees West longitude) late last week, this system intensified into Tropical Storm Lana as it moved westward across the central North Pacific basin. As Sunday, this tropical storm was passing approximately 400 miles to the south of the Hawaiian Islands, providing the Aloha State with some high surf, high clouds and windy weather. For more information and satellite images on Tropical Storm Lana, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
  In the western North Pacific, Tropical Depression 8 formed on Sunday (local time) over the waters of the South China Sea west of the Philippines. Movement was to the north toward the southeast coast of China.
• Satellite shows beginning signs of an El Niño event -- An image of the sea surface temperature anomaly (arithmetic difference between observed and long-term average temperatures) across the Pacific Ocean as obtained from data collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite early last week shows anomalously warm surface waters spreading eastward across the eastern equatorial Pacific. This sea-surface temperature pattern indicates the development of an El Niño event, an anomalous large-scale atmospheric and oceanic circulation regime that has been predicted by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. However, the head of the Ocean Sciences Branch at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cautions that these conditions do not necessarily indicate a major ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) event for this upcoming boreal winter. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Safeguarding Puget Sound's killer whales -- The NOAA's Fisheries Service recently proposed new rules that would limit the approach of vessels to Southern Resident killer whales in Washington’s Puget Sound as a means of protecting these endangered marine mammals. [NOAA News]
• This year's NOAA Fisheries/Sea Grant Fellowships are awarded -- Last week, officials with NOAA's Fisheries Service announced the names of nine doctoral fellows who were awarded Fisheries Service/Sea Grant fellowships to continue their studies on fish population dynamics and marine resource economics. [NOAA News]
• A small, but severe, "dead zone" forecast for the Gulf of Mexico -- Scientists from the NOAA-sponsored Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium have found the size of this year's area of hypoxia or "dead zone" in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico was smaller than forecasted earlier this summer. However, this zone was considered severe, extending from the sea floor to near the water's surface, covering a greater vertical dimension than usual. [NOAA News]
• Many marine ecosystems can recover with proper management -- An international team of scientists led by a member of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center of NOAA's Fisheries Service has found that efforts to reduce overfishing in five of ten large marine ecosystems appear to be working to rebuild many of the world’s fisheries, with some of the greatest successes being in U.S. fisheries. [NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center]
• Restoration-based environmental markets may not improve ecosystem health -- Scientists with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological Laboratory warn that because of insufficient scientific understanding of the restoration process, methods for restoring ecosystems may not deliver the desired environmental improvements as marketed. [EurekAlert!]
• Iron isotopes used as an oceanographic tool -- Oceanographers with the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Centre, Southampton have been using pore-fluid iron isotope measurements as a unique tracer of sediment respiration by dissimilatory iron-reducing bacteria and in reconstructing past iron cycling in the ancient ocean. [EurekAlert!]
• Drilling operations conducted in seismogenic zone -- The CHIKYU, a deep-sea drilling vessel operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, has been conducting riser-drilling operations in the 2000-meter deep waters off the southeast Japanese coast, drilling to a depth of approximately one mile (1600 m) beneath the sea floor depth in the great Nankai Trough earthquake zone. [EurekAlert!]
• New sea level rise predictions are made -- Researchers from the United Kingdom, the United States and Switzerland made predictions on the amount of sea level rise by the end of the 21st century based upon their reconstruction of sea-level fluctuations over the past 22,000 years from analysis of fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements. Their predictions indicate a rise in sea level ranging between 7 and 82 cm, corresponding to the projections of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of 2007. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation]
• Tiny sea creatures linked to large-scale ocean mixing -- Researchers at the California Institute of Technology claim that their modeling efforts along with field observations have allowed them to discover a mechanism involving drag and water viscosity that can explain how swimming can affect the large-scale ocean environment. [EurekAlert!]
• 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, 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, including drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

• 2 August 1880...Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted officially by the British Parliament, selected because Greenwich had been the national center for time since 1675. GMT was originally set-up to aid naval navigation, but was not used on land until transportation improved. GMT was adopted by the U.S. at noon on 18 Nov 1883 when the telegraph lines transmitted time signals to all major cities. Subsequently, GMT was adopted worldwide on 1 Nov 1884 when the International Meridian Conference met in Washington, DC, USA and 24 time zones were created. (Today in Science History)
• 3 August 1492...The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, in command of three ships, embarked from the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera on a journey westward in search of a sea route to Asia. This expedition, which reached the Bahamas near North America on 12 October, was the first of four expeditions that Columbus made to the "New World". (The History Channel)
• 3 August 1958...At 11:15 EDT, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the first ship to reach the geographic North Pole submerged, traveling at a depth of approximately 500 feet from the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow, AK on 1 August to the Greenland Sea near Spitzbergen on 5 August. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
• 3 August 1970...Hurricane Celia made landfall near Port Aransas on the Texas coast, producing wind gusts to 161 mph at Corpus Christi, and estimated wind gusts of 180 mph at Arkansas Pass. Even at Del Rio, 250 miles inland, Celia produced wind gusts to 89 mph. The hurricane was the most destructive of record along the Texas coast causing 454 million dollars damage as 8950 homes were destroyed on the Coastal Bend. Celia also claimed eleven lives and injured 466 people. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
• 3-4 August 1978...The remnants of Tropical Storm Amelia produced up to 32 inches of rain on Schackelford County in Texas, an incredible amount of rain for a far-inland and non-mountainous area. A twenty-foot wall of water killed six during the evening of the 4^th in Albany, resulting in 89 percent of the city being covered by water. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4(?) August 1609...A tempest struck the western Atlantic Ocean scattering small British convoy headed to Virginia. Two vessels sank; another, the Sea Venture was presumed lost. However, a ship made landfall on Bermuda, shipwrecking the crew. After a ten-month stay to build two small rescue boats, they sailed to Jamestown (Virginia) Colony. Incident accounts may have provided William Shakespeare with background material for The Tempest. (The Weather Doctor)
• 4 August 1666...A violent hurricane raked the island of Guadeloupe, destroying all boats along its coast, including a 17-ship fleet with 2000 troops. The island's batteries, with 6-foot thick walls, were destroyed and the 16-pounders (large cannons) were washed away. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4 August 1858...After several unsuccessful attempts, the first trans-Atlantic cable, a 2000-mile submerged telegraph line conceived by Cyrus W. Field, was completed by USS Niagara and British ship Agamemnon. While the first messages were exchanged between President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria on 16 August, the cable ceased functioning in early September. The first permanent trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1866. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
• 5-6 August 1959...Hurricane Dot crossed Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands producing sustained winds of 103 mph and gusts to 125 mph. Over 6 inches of rain fell there and over 9 inches on the island of Hawaii. The sugar cane crop on Kauai sustained $2.7 million in damages. (Intellicast)
• 5-7 August 1997...Although far to the southwest, Hurricane Guillermo generated surf to 12-foot heights along the beaches of southern California. In Newport Beach, lifeguards made almost 300 rescues on the 5^th and 6^th. Rip currents were responsible for one death and three injuries. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 6 August 1986...A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast of Australia dumped a record 12.91 inches of rain in one day on Sydney. (Wikipedia)
• 7 August 1679...The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was towed to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes. The ship disappeared on the return leg of its maiden voyage from Lake Michigan. (Wikipedia)
• 8 August 1585...The British navigator and polar explorer, John Davis, entered Cumberland Sound in quest for the North-West Passage. (Wikipedia)
• 8 August 2000...The Confederate submarine CSS H.L. Hunley was raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor. This submarine sank in the Charleston (SC) Harbor after sinking the USS Housatonic on 17 February 1864. (Wikipedia)
• 9 August 1988...Tropical Storm Beryl deluged Biloxi with 6.32 inches of rain in 24 hours, and in three days drenched Pascagoula, MS with 15.85 inches of rain. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2009, The American Meteorological Society.