WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

10-14 December 2007

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2008 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 14 January 2008. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

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]

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics -- Tropical cyclone activity last week was limited to the South Pacific basin. Tropical Cyclone Daman formed east of the Solomon Islands late last week, moved initially westward before turning to the south. It then recurved to the southeast to develop into a category-3 to 4 cyclone (on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale) as it brushed the northern Fiji Islands, where some residents were evacuated. [USA Today] By late Sunday (local time) this cyclone had weakened to tropical-storm strength as it moved southward east of the Fiji Islands. Satellite images of the clouds circulating around Tropical Cyclone Daman late last week were made by the sensors on the Japanese MTSAT satellite [NOAA OSEI] and NASA's Terra satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory] Note the defined eye and the clockwise swirl in the clouds, as this cyclone is in the Southern Hemisphere.
• First Atlantic hurricane forecast for next season -- Philip J. Klotzbach, his mentor Professor Bill Gray, and other colleagues at Colorado State University released their first forecast for the 2008 North Atlantic hurricane season late last week. They predict that 13 named tropical cyclones (tropical storms and hurricanes) will form next season, seven of which could develop into hurricanes. Three hurricanes could become intense (Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity scale). They also anticipate an above-average probability that at least one major hurricane would make landfall along the coast of the continental US. Subsequent forecast updates will be issued beginning in April 2007. [USA Today] Details of their forecast appear in the report issued by the Tropical Meteorology Project. [Colo. State Report] (Note this document is in a 28-page pdf file.)
• Smaller tropical storms better than large hurricanes as rain-producers -- A meteorologist at the University of Georgia and colleagues analyzed daily rainfall data from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to study tropical weather systems have found that smaller tropical storms appear to produce greater cumulative rainfall totals that alleviate droughts than the bigger hurricanes. [NASA Hurricane Page]
• Ingredients for powerful Atlantic hurricanes studied -- Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who have been studying the air-sea interaction across sections of the North Atlantic caution that increases in sea surface temperatures are only one ingredient in generating more powerful hurricanes. They suggest that other ingredients of wind characteristics and atmospheric humidity are necessary including a distinct, favorable atmospheric circulation regime that can be described by what is known as the "Atlantic Meridional Mode." [University of Wisconsin-Madison News]
• Tsunami warning capability is advanced -- NOAA has been at the forefront for the development of a modern and highly sophisticated tsunami warning network in the wake of the catastrophic tsunami that propagated across the Indian Ocean following a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra Island three years ago. [NOAA]
• Update on Arctic sea ice -- Comparison of images of the Arctic sea ice made by Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite in mid-September and mid-November 2007 shows that the ice cover has begun to recover from a record low areal coverage with a growth rate of more than 58,000 square miles per day for approximately 10 days in late October, the fastest rate in nearly 25 years of satellite record. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• New climate models developed -- A group of 150 scientists from 40 university in nine countries has started a coordinated program that is designed to improve their modeling of the planetary climate as a complex, interconnected system that includes the atmosphere, oceans and land. One of the regions that they are studying is the southeastern Pacific Ocean offshore of South America. [EurekAlert!]
• Extracting hydroelectricity from the Red Sea -- A group of researchers at Utrecht University in The Netherlands has proposed ambitious engineering project that would involve damming the Red Sea to produce hydroelectric power for the Middle East; however, this project could present ecological and social issues. [EurekAlert!]
• Extent of zebra mussel invasion is mapped -- Researchers at Oregon State University have produced a map that documents the spread of the zebra mussel and the quagga mussel, two invasive alien freshwater mussel species, across the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. [EurekAlert!]
• Reducing fish catch could result in bigger net profits -- Economists at Australian National University and the University of Washington have authored a paper titled "Economics of Over-exploitation Revisited" that indicates a reduction in the fish catch now could result in larger net profits at a later time. [EurekAlert!]
• Viability of ocean fertilization questioned -- Research conducted at Stanford and Oregon State Universities raises doubt concerning the usefulness of a $100-billion project that would fertilize the ocean with iron or other nutrients to create large algal blooms as a way of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide. [EurekAlert!]
• Report on regional climate impacts issued -- The Pew Center on Global Climate Change recently issued a report entitled Regional Impacts of Climate Change: Four Case Studies in the United States that describes the potential impact that the projected changes in global climate would have upon the populace and the environment of four regions of the country due to heat waves in the Midwest, wildfires across the West, wetland sustainability along the Gulf Coast and hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay. Note that this report is available online as a set of pdf documents. [Pew Report]
• 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:

• 10 December 1582...France began use of the Gregorian calendar.
• 10 December 1799...The metric system was made compulsory by law in France. (Today in Science History)
• 10 December 1922...Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian oceanographer explorer, author, athlete and statesman in recognition of his work for refugees and the famine-stricken. Other prizewinners that year were Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein.
• 10 December 1978 (date approximate)…A 90-foot research ship chartered by the University of Hawaii left Honolulu on the 9th, but failed to arrive in Kawaihae on the 11th. Except for an empty box, no trace of the ship, crew or scientists was found by an extensive air and sea search operation. Gusty trade winds prevailed over the area. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 11 December 1901...Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, covering over 2000 miles from Cornwall in England to Newfoundland, Canada. (The History Channel)
• 12 December 1966...A Greek passenger ferry foundered in heavy seas near Heraklion, Crete with the loss of 241 lives.
• 13 December 1577...Five ships and 164 men under the command of English seaman Francis Drake (later knighted) set sail from Plymouth, England, to embark on Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, the first by a British explorer. The journey took almost three years. (The History Channel)
• 13 December 1642...Dutch navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman became the first European explorer to sight the South Pacific island group now known as New Zealand. (The History Channel)
• 13 December 1816...The first US patent for a dry dock was issued to John Adamson of Boston, MA. (Today in Science History)
• 13 December 1879...The first federal fish-hatching steamer was launched at Wilmington, DE.
• 14 December 1287...Zuider Zee seawall in the Netherlands collapsed with the loss of over 50,000 lives. (Wikipedia)
• 14 December 1902...The British Cable Ship Silverton set sail from the San Francisco Bay Area to lay the first telephone cable between San Francisco and Honolulu. The project, which involved laying a cable across 2277 nautical miles, was completed by 1 January 1903 as the ship landed and the first test message sent the same day. (Today in Science History)
• 14 December 1988...The first transatlantic underwater fiber-optic cable went into service.
• 14 December 1991...A ferry, the Salem Express, carrying 569 passengers sank in the Red Sea off the coast of Safaga, Egypt, after hitting a coral reef. Over 460 people were believed drowned.
• 15 December 1488...Bartholomeus Diaz returned to Portugal after sailing round Cape of Good Hope.
• 15 December 1582...The Spanish Netherlands, Denmark and Norway adopted the Gregorian calendar.
• 15 December 1965...The third cyclone of the year killed another 10,000 people at the mouth of the Ganges River, Bangladesh.
• 15 December 1987...High seas to 12-foot heights caused in part by 30-mph winds associated with an arctic cold front capsized a fishing boat in the coastal waters near California's Channel Islands. The ship's cargo shifted in the high seas and strong winds. Three of the nine people onboard drowned. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 16 December 1897...The Argonaut, the first US submarine with an internal combustion engine, was demonstrated on the Patapsco River. Simon Lake invented and patented the engine. (Today in Science History)
• 16-17 December 1997...Torrential rain from Super Typhoon Paka fell on Guam with nearly 21 inches of rain observed at Tiyan before instrumentation failed two hours before Paka's eye passed to the south. Winds gusted to 171 mph before wind instruments failed. However, unofficial sources at Andersen Air Force Base believed that wind gusts may have reached 236.7 mph during the height of the storm. This super typhoon left major damage to 60 percent of the homes on Guam and caused 500 million dollars in damage. Fortunately, no one was killed and only two injuries were reported. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 16 December 2000...NASA announced that an ocean was most likely located beneath the icy surface of the Jovian moon Ganymede. (Wikipedia)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2007, The American Meteorological Society.