WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

8-12 December 2008

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2009 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 19 January 2009. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics -- The only tropical cyclone activity last week was in the North Indian Ocean basin, where Tropical Storm 7B developed east of India late last week. By Sunday (local time) this system was approaching Sri Lanka, spreading rain across the same region of southeastern India that was recovering from Tropical Cyclone Nisha, which made landfall during the previous week. For more information and satellite imagery, see the NASA Hurricane Page.
New hurricane research tool put online -- NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center has developed the NASA Goddard Hurricane Data Portal for the Internet that allows scientists, students, and other users access to hurricane-related visualizations and data sets from satellites and numerical models. [NASA GSFC]
Gaining more information from future satellites -- During this upcoming week, various users of NOAA satellite information, including weather and climate forecasters and emergency managers from more than 20 Western Hemisphere countries, will meet with high-level NOAA officials in Miami, FL to learn about the new equipment and software needed to retrieve data from the next generation of polar orbiting and geosynchronous environmental satellites that NOAA will operate in the next seven to eight years. [NOAA News]
Aircraft support tropical cyclone studies over western Pacific -- The Naval Research Laboratory has been providing support including the use of its P-3 aircraft in the multi-national Tropical Cyclone Struture-2008 project designed to observe, understand and predict the potential impacts of tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific basin. [EurekAlert!]
New laboratory facilities for fragile marine ecosystem research -- US Department of Commerce recently announced that it will provide $12 million to Scripps Institution of Oceanography/University of California San Diego for the construction of a new state-of-the-art ocean science research building. [Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
Clams used to record human impact upon coastal waters -- A researcher at the Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Lab and her colleagues report that stable isotope analysis techniques of the shells of certain species of clams can be used to identify and trace wastewater entering estuaries and coastal food webs. [EurekAlert!]
Illegal spearfishing charters are charged -- NOAA’s Fisheries Service Office of Law Enforcement has charged two dive business owners in Pensacola, FL with illegally operating charters for spearfishing in federal waters off the Florida Panhandle. [NOAA News]
Monitoring Antarctic ice shelf cracks -- An image generated in late November from data collected by the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar on the European Space Agency’s Envisat satellite shows more cracks on Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Sheet, which could signal a collage of the fragile ice bridge connecting several islands off the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. [NASA Earth Observatory]
European satellites focus on Arctic basin's environment -- Satellite data collected by the European Space Agency over a 17-year span from its ERS and Envisat satellites is now being used to study the rapid changes in the Arctic basin associated with changes in climate, pollution and human activity. [ESA]
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:

8 December 1777...Captain James Cook left the Society Islands (French Polynesia).
8 December 1866...The first transpacific side-wheeler steamship launched in the U.S. was the Celestial Empire (later named China) with capacity for 1,300 passengers. The builder, William H. Webb of New York, introduced many features of naval architecture in this liner, since in common use. (Today in Science History)
8 December 1993...The U.S. Secretary of Defense declared that the Global Positioning System (GPS), accurate within 100 meters, had 24 GPS satellites operating in their assigned orbits, available for navigation use at Standard Positioning Service (SPS) levels for civil users. This worldwide satellite-based radionavigation system used as the Defense Department's primary radionavigation system provided authorized users encrypted Precise Positioning Service accurate to at least 22 meters. (Today in Science History)
8 December 2002...Super-typhoon Pongsona hit Guam with sustained winds of 144 mph and gusts to 173 mph, along with a storm surge to 20 feet. The 40-mile wide diameter eye was over Anderson AFB for 2 hours. One indirect death and 193 injuries were attributed to the typhoon. Some bridge pavement was "scrapped off" by wind and wave action. Damage was estimated at $700 million. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
9 December1938...A prototype shipboard radar designed and built by the Naval Research Laboratory was installed on the battleship, USS New York (BB-34). (Naval Historian Center)
9 December 2003…A subtropical storm became Tropical Storm Peter approximately 700 miles west-northwest of the Cape Verde Islands. With Tropical Storm Odette having formed in the Caribbean on the 4th, the development of Peter marked the first time since 1887 that two tropical storms formed in the Atlantic Basin in December. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
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.