WEEKLY WATER NEWS

DataStreme WES Week Twelve: 26-30 November 2007

Water in the News:

Applications for a prestigious scholarship invited -- NOAA is accepting applications from qualified college undergraduate students interested in pursuing degrees in ocean and atmospheric sciences and education to the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. As many as 100 undergraduates could each receive up to $29,050 for their academic studies related to NOAA science, research, technology, policy, management, and education activities. Applications will be accepted through 8 February 2008. [NOAA News]
(Thurs.) A view of an inland delta -- An image obtained earlier this month from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows the Inland Niger Delta in the middle of Mali following the recent monsoonal rains that swelled the various rivers that reach the delta, such as the Niger and Bani. [NASA Earth Observatory]
(Thurs.) Ocean swells and an oil slick along the Mexican coast --A photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station shows the Mexican port city of Mazatlán along with ocean swells in the coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean and an offshore oil slick. [NASA Earth Observatory]
(Thurs.) A tsunami early-warning system developed -- Researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research are field testing a pressure-based acoustically coupled tsunami detector system that they developed, which will become part of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System. [EurekAlert!]
(Thurs.) Harnessing tiny bubbles -- Scientists at Columbia University and colleagues at other institutions have been creating vibrating tiny bubbles with diameters of approximately 40 micrometers that were used to spin microturbines. [New Scientist]
(Thurs.) Tidal link to earthquakes revealed -- Researchers at the University of Washington believe that they have identified the rise and fall of ocean tides as being responsible for moving tectonic plates and causing the ultra-slow-motion magnitude 6.5 earthquakes with a 14-month periodicity detected across western Washington and British Columbia. [EurekAlert!]
(Thurs.) "Noah's flood" may have aided the start of European farming -- Researchers at the United Kingdom's University of Exeter and Australia's University of Wollongong report that the rises in sea level approximately 8000 years ago following the collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in North American that contributed to flooding of the Black Sea and the development of the biblical legend of "Noah's flood" appear to have caused dramatic social change across Europe, including a start of agriculture. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) TRMM marks a decade -- NASA is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the launch and operation of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) that it built in cooperation with the Japanese Space agency JAXA. This sensor has provided scientists with improved data on the distribution of rainfall across the tropics, including more detailed analyses of the anatomy of hurricanes. [NASA Earth Observatory] More images are available.
(Tues.) Monitoring US precipitation patterns from space -- An image of the rainfall anomaly for the eight-month span of January-August 2007 across the continental United States was produced from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis scheme that utilizes data collected by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. This image, which compares the precipitation that fell during the first eight months of 2007 with the average precipitation for the same eight months from 1992 through 2006, shows the severe drought conditions across the Southeast and, to a lesser extent, the Southwest; above average precipitation was seen across the southern Plains and the western Gulf Coast. [NASA Earth Observatory]
(Tues.) No quick relief foreseen for the Everglades -- The author of the book "The Swamp", Michael Grunwald, claims that the $23 billion Water Resources Development Act passed by Congress over President Bush's veto probably would not guarantee a quick start to the Everglades restoration projects. [US Water News Online]
(Tues.) Rivers do not act as barriers to groundwater flow -- Researchers at the University of Granada and the Spanish Institute of Geology and Mining who are studying the hydrogeology of the karst aquifers in the Mediterranean climate claim that rivers do not act as insurmountable barriers for groundwater flow. [University of Granada]
(Tues.) Smart sprinklers tested -- Officials at New Mexico State University, along with the assistance of the New Mexico State Climatologist, are testing smart sprinklers that could be used to save water and money in commercial irrigation systems. [US Water News Online]
(Tues.) Color of stream water can be deceptive -- Researchers from University College London and the US Environmental Protection Agency report that the color of lakes and streams across the United Kingdom, southern Scandinavia and eastern North America has turned brown due to dissolved organic matter, indicating that the watersheds are returning to a more natural state following declines because of acid precipitation. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Desalination using nuclear power -- Researchers who attended the recent Trombay Symposium on Desalination and Water Reuse reported that a solution to the developing worldwide fresh water supply crisis could lie in the use of nuclear power to desalinate ocean water. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Andean water supply could be affected by climate change -- Government officials and local residents in communities that rely on fresh water from the Andes Mountains in South America have been voicing increasing concern that glaciers in the tropical Andes appear to be disappearing because of increased air temperatures, causing a uncertain future for their communities as water supplies begin dwindling. [USA Today]
Eye on the tropics --- While the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins did not experience tropical cyclone activity during the last week, the western North Pacific and the Indian Oceans were active.
- In the western North Pacific, Typhoon Hagibis formed near the Philippines at the mid point of last week and moved westward. By Sunday (local time) this typhoon, which had become a category 2 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, had weakened to a tropical storm in the South China Sea off the coast of Viet Nam. Another typhoon, named Mitag, formed farther to the east of where Typhoon Hagibis had formed and traveled westward before curving to the northwest offshore of Luzon in the Philippines, where it was expected to make landfall late Sunday. [USA Today] An image from the Japanese MTSAT satellite shows the clouds surrounding Tropical Storm Hagibis in the South China Sea and Tropical Storm Mitag in the Philippine Sea last week. [NOAA OSEI]
- In the South Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclone Bongwe formed early last week near the Chagos Archipelago and moved southwest, dissipating at the end of the week. An image from the MET-7 satellite shows the clouds surrounding Tropical Cyclone Bongwe; since this tropical cyclone is in the Southern Hemisphere, the spiral bands were in a clockwise direction surrounding the central eye. [NOAA OSEI]
The 2007 hurricane seasons reviewed -- Although tropical storms and hurricanes could continue to form, the official 2007 hurricane season in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific will end this coming Friday, 30 November 2007. [AMS DataStreme Atmosphere]
Effects of Bangladesh tropical cyclone seen -- Two MODIS images obtained a week apart from NASA's Terra satellite shows the flooding from the recent landfall of Tropical Cyclone Sidr on the coastal sections of Bangladesh. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Storm surge model helped save lives -- Scientists at the Louisiana State University using their storm surge model were able to supply detailed storm surge forecast maps to Bangladesh emergency officials that provided 24-hour advance warning of the impending landfall of Cyclone Sidr, which helped save countless lives. [EurekAlert!]
Co-creator of hurricane intensity scale dies -- Herbert Saffir, a Florida engineer who along with Robert Simpson of the National Hurricane Center designed the popular Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale for rating hurricanes in the 1970s, died last week in Miami at the age of 90. [USA Today]
Excursion ship sinks off Antarctica --An excursion ship, The Explorer, reportedly hit a submerged portion of an iceberg in waters off Antarctica's South Shetland Islands and sank last Friday. All of the roughly 150 passengers and crew abandoned ship and were rescued without injury. [CNN]
A variety of Antarctic ice forms detected from space -- An image obtained from data collected in mid-November by the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite shows several types of ice along East Antarctica’s Prince Olav Coast, including glacial ice from a continental glacier, fast ice along the coast and sea ice. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Monitoring Antarctic temperature changes over three decades -- Using infra-red satellite data from several orbiting NOAA satellites, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center have produced an updated map of the changes in the annual average surface temperatures across Antarctic between 2001 and 2007. [NASA Earth Observatory]
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]
Global Water News Watch -- Other water news sources can be obtained through the SAHRA Project at the University of Arizona [SAHRA Project]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Change in the Earth System

In 1881, Henri Louis Le Chátelier (1850-1936) formulated a general law of chemistry: "If a system at equilibrium is subjected to a stress, the equilibrium will shift in an attempt to reduce the stress." This reasoning provides insight into the behavior of systems. The interaction of subsystems within the Earth system involves the transfer of mass and energy. A stress or disturbance of a subsystem will thus affect the other subsystems to varying degrees.

The final week of the course is an appropriate occasion for us to revisit and reflect on the paradigm that guided our investigation of water in the Earth system and to consider how this system will react to stresses resulting from both natural and human disturbances.

The global water cycle encompasses the flow of water, energy, and water-borne materials, as well as their interactions with organisms in the Earth system. Water's unique combination of physical and chemical properties, its co-existence as vapor, liquid, and solid within the temperature and pressure ranges found on Earth, and its role as an essential ingredient of life, places it center stage in the interactive functioning of the planet's sub-systems. As the principal atmospheric greenhouse gas, water vapor brings temperatures into the range required for life on Earth. Powered by the sun, the water cycle couples the living and non-living components of Earth into an evolving system. Human activity is an integral and inseparable part of the water cycle, impacting and impacted by both the quantity and quality of water.

The burning of fossil fuels appears to be a major contributor to the increased amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Le Chátelier would describe this anthropogenic increase as a stress on the system. By altering the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, human activity may be modifying climate on a global scale. The Earth system and its various interdependent subsystems may respond to this disturbance by shifting to a new climate state. The interdependency of Earth's various subsystems and biogeochemical cycles implies that such a shift will have implications for the distribution of water within the global water cycle and for fresh water resources (e.g., changes in glacial ice cover, sea level, drought frequency).

Concept of the Week: Questions

After completing DataStreme WES, I now understand the global water cycle as a flow of [(mass) (energy) (both mass and energy)].
After completing DataStreme WES, I now understand that human activity [(may) (may not)] impact the Earth system with implications for the water cycle and water resources.

Historical Events:

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)
26-28 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)
27-28 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)
27-28 November 1912...Snowfall is a rare event for Florida. The record earliest snowfall for Florida, and the only November snowfall fell during the night across part of the interior counties in the far northwest (Madison to Gadsden) bordering Georgia. Up to 0.5 inches of snow was reported at Mt. Pleasant. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
27 November 1930...A terrific sandstorm in Morocco supplied the dust for the "mud rain" on the following day that fell from northern France to southern England. In Belgium a number of people were asphyxiated near Liege due to poor air quality. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
28 November 1921...New England was in the midst of a four day icestorm, their worst of record. Ice was more than three inches thick in many places following the storm, and property damage was in the millions of dollars. Northern New England received heavy snow with more than two feet reported in some areas. Overnight freezing rains continued through the day at Worcester, MA while the wind increased to a gale. Streets become impassable even on foot, and whole towns were plunged into darkness without communication. The storm caused $20 million damage to power lines, telephone lines and trees. (David Ludlum)
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)
28-29 November 1995...Rivers in western Washington State experienced near-record flooding. In Snohomish County, 2000 students could not reach school because of flooded roads. In Duvall and Carnation, flooded roads stranded 15,000 people. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
2 December 1959...Malpasset Dam collapsed destroying the French Riviera town of Fréjus, killing 412 people. (Infoplease.com)
2 December 1972...The largest sinkhole in the US, "December Giant," formed in Alabama.