WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

25-29 December 2006

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2007 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 15 January 2007. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sincerely,

Ed Hopkins and the AMS DS Ocean Central Staff

Ocean in the News:

• Passage of fisheries bill hailed -- NOAA officials were hailing the recent passage by the US Congress of a bill that would reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which is designed to protect marine ecosystems, as well as helping maintain the national fishing industry. [NOAA News]
• Nutrient pollution increasing along the coast of the Northeastern States -- A research project report titled "Improving Methods and Indicators for Evaluating Coastal Water Eutrophication: A Pilot Study in the Gulf of Maine" was recently released by NOAA that shows increased nutrient pollution in the coastal waters from the Middle Atlantic States northward through New England, including the region's estuaries, bays and harbors. [NOAA News]
• National tsunami warning capability is increased -- Last week, NOAA officials announced that six new DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami) stations have been deployed in the southwest Pacific Ocean, which are meant to help detect tsunamis that could develop in the western Pacific and propagate toward the coasts of Hawaii, Alaska and the US mainland. [NOAA News]
• Live coral reefs offer better tsunami protection -- Based upon a computer model of a tsunami strike upon a coast, scientists at Princeton University report that healthy living coral reefs appear to offer the coastal regions better protection from destructive tsunami wavers than unhealthy or dead reefs. [Princeton University News]
• Eye on the tropics -- In the Southern Indian Ocean, a tropical cyclone (the counterpart of a hurricane in the North Atlantic basin) developed early last week and intensified as it moved westward. A visible satellite image made by the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows Tropical Cyclone Bondo to the northeast of Madagascar as the system reached Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale. By this past weekend, Tropical Cyclone Bondo was moving to the southwest into the Mozambique Channel. [NOAA OSEI]
• International cooperation leads to new satellite receiving station in India -- NOAA officials and their counterparts in the Indian Space Research Organisation recently announced plans that the SafetyNet™ satellite receiving station would be built in India, designed to collect data obtained from sensors onboard NOAA's planned National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). [NOAA News]
• International Polar Year commences -- The Swedish icebreaker Oden recently departed from Punta Arenas, Chile with an international team of scientists and teachers for a two-week research cruise of the Southern Ocean and the coast of Antarctica as the first activity associated with the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008. [EurekAlert!]
• Glaciers would produce a greater impact than ice sheets to global sea rise -- Scientists at the University of Colorado-Boulder report that meltwater from glaciers and ice caps would contribute more to rises in global sea level than would shrinking Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Currently, worldwide sea level is rise at approximately three millimeters per year. [EurekAlert!]
• Oceanic tides affect ice flow in West Antarctica -- Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey report that the astronomical tides in the Southern Ocean influence the rate of flow of the Rutford Ice Stream that drains into the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, thereby modulating the size of the ice sheet and ultimately affecting global sea level. [EurekAlert!]
• Agreement on EU fish quota reached -- European Union (EU) ministers recently reached a deal on fishing quotas for 2007, with the aim at helping depleted fish stocks recover. [BBC News]
• Offshore wind farms to be built -- Permission was given to build two offshore wind farms in the Thames Estuary off the coast of England that would produce enough electricity to power approximately one million households. [BBC News]
• 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:

• 25 December 1492...The Santa Maria, one of the ships that Christopher Columbus used in his historic trans-Atlantic voyage, landed at the Dominican Republic.
• 25 December 1974...Tropical Cyclone Tracy (a hurricane in the waters surrounding Australia) made landfall near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Excellent warnings kept the death toll to between 50 and 60, with more than 20,000 people evacuated in the week following the storm. Some areas were totally devastated. Peak wind speeds reached exceeded 174 mph. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 26-31 December 1993...The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race off Australia was plagued by hurricane-force wind gusts in excess of 74 mph and 33 foot high seas. Of 104 starters, only 37 yachts finished the race. On the 28^th, one yacht owner spent five hours in the water after being swept overboard. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 26 December 2004…A massive earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale approximately 100 miles off the western coast of Sumatra created a tsunami that caused devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean. The death toll is currently estimated at more than 300,000. Officials say the true toll may never be known, due to rapid burials. Indonesia was worst affected with as many as 219,000 people killed. (Wikipedia)
• 27 December 1831...The HMS Beagle, along with the 22-year old British naturalist Charles Darwin, set sail from Plymouth, England on a five-year expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Based upon his study of the flora and fauna of such places as the Galapagos Islands, he developed his famous theory of evolution that was described in his 1859 work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. (The History Channel)
• 27 December 1965...The BP oil rig Sea Gem capsized in the North Sea, with the loss of 13 lives.
• 28 December 1857...The light was first illuminated in the Cape Flattery Lighthouse, located on Washington State's Tatoosh Island at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. "Because of Indian trouble it was necessary to build a blockhouse on Tatoosh Island before even commencing the construction of the lighthouse. Twenty muskets were stored in the blockhouse, and then the lighthouse work began." (USCG Historian's Office)
• 28 December 1903...An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the non-contiguous territory of the Hawaiian Islands. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 28 December 1908...An early morning earthquake under the Straits of Messina leveled cities in Sicily and southern mainland Italy, as well as producing a tsunami with 40-foot waves that inundated coastal communities. This earthquake, estimated to by a magnitude 7.5 on the Richter scale, and the resulting tsunami killed an estimated 100,000 people. This earthquake is Long stretches of coastline sunk into the Messina Straits and disappeared from view. A steady rain also added to the woes of the survivors. (The History Channel)
• 29 December 1897...Congress prohibited the killing of fur seals in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean. (US Coast Guard Historian's Office)
• 30 December 1972...The 86-foot high wave measured by the ship Weather Reporter was the world's highest measured wave. The wave was measured in the North Atlantic Ocean at 59 degrees North latitude and 19 degrees West longitude. (Accord's Weather Calendar)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2006, The American Meteorological Society.