3-7 January 2005

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2005 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 17 January 2005. All the current online homepage products will continue to be available throughout the break period.

• A whale of an entanglement -- A rescue team from NOAA Fisheries, the US Coast Guard and a variety of university and state agencies are searching waters off the South Carolina coast for a young rare and endangered right whale that had become entangled in ropes and buoys in an effort to remove the ropes. [NOAA News]
• NOAA studying the Indonesian tsunami-- A recent NOAA press release describes how various groups within NOAA, such as the Pacific Tsunami Center and the Pacific Region of the National Weather Service responded to the devastating tsunami that traveled across the Indian Ocean at the beginning of last week. [NOAA News]
• Tsunami could pose threat to marine biodiversity -- Thai fishers have expressed concern that the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean has caused damage to coral reefs, changed sand layers and decreased nutrients for marine life, resulting in reduced biodiversity. [ENN]
• Pacific Northwest is no stranger to strong tsunamis -- A geoscientist at the University of Oregon cautioned that the Pacific Northwest is not immune from tsunamis of the magnitude that traveled across the Indian Ocean last week, since a tsunami generated by a magnitude 9 earthquake in 1700 appears to have destroyed tribal villages in Oregon. [EurekAlert!] Scientists at Oregon State University claim that major tsunami-generating earthquakes could develop along the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Northwest Coast, a region that has experienced as many as five clusters of earthquakes in the last 10,000 years, with major earthquakes in 1500 and 1700. [EurekAlert!] While major tsunamis could hit coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest, experts at Oregon State University believe that the loss of life would be less because of better warning systems that have been in place. [EurekAlert!]
• Antarctic glaciation theory challenged -- Scientists at Purdue University are challenging a long-standing theory that the Antarctic ice sheet developed because of a change in ocean currents, suggesting that changes in the concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide were responsible for the glaciation. [Purdue University]
• Alaskan fisheries closed due to grounded freighter -- Officials with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game have banned commercial fishing in the Bering Sea because of the fuel oil that has spilled from a freighter that grounded along the Aleutian Islands earlier this month. [ENN]
• 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.

• 4 January 1493...The explorer, Christopher Columbus began his return to Spain and complete his first journey to the New World. (Wikipedia)
• 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 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 Calendar)

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URL: DSOcean/news.html

Prepared by AMS DSOcean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2005, The American Meteorological Society.