Weekly Ocean News

Weekly Ocean News

PREVIEW WEEK: 30 August-3 September 2010

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- The weather across the tropical waters of the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans were active during the past week, with the development of several named tropical cyclones (low pressure systems that form over tropical ocean waters, with near surface maximum sustained winds that intensify to tropical storm or hurricane force status):

In the North Atlantic basin, a tropical depression (a disorganized area of low pressure over tropical waters) traveling to the northwest over the central equatorial waters intensified early last week to become Tropical Storm Danielle, the fourth named tropical cyclone of the season. Within a day, Danielle became the year's second Atlantic hurricane. By the end of the week, Danielle had increased to become a major category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, as it moved to the northwest toward the vicinity of Bermuda. As of this past Sunday, Hurricane Danielle was weakening as it continued to travel northeastward over the North Atlantic. While the projected path of Hurricane Danielle would not bring it close to the eastern coast of North America, ocean swell generated by this hurricane were propagating westward and producing high surf and dangerous rip current conditions along some of the East Coast beaches. (Rip currents are strong and potentially dangerous water currents that are directed out to sea when wind-driven ocean waves pile up against an exposed coastline.) [USA Today] For additional information, along with satellite imagery, see the NASA Hurricane Page or NASA Earth Observatory.
Another tropical depression formed over the equatorial Atlantic southwest of the Cape Verde Islands last week and intensified to become Tropical Storm Earl as it took a route to the west-northwest. By Sunday, Earl continued to intensify as it traveled west toward the northern Leeward Islands and had become a hurricane. Several Caribbean islands were placed under hurricane warnings. [USA Today]. Additional information and satellite imagery for Tropical Storm Earl can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
The eighth tropical depression of 2010 developed off the western coast of Africa last Friday. See the NASA Hurricane Page for additional information on Tropical Depression 8.

In the eastern North Pacific basin, a tropical depression off the southwestern coast of Mexico became Tropical Storm Frank by the start of last week. By midweek, Frank had intensified to become the third hurricane in the eastern North Pacific this season. Hurricane Frank continued in a west-northwest direction before turning toward the north and weakening south of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula at the end of the week. Over the weekend, Frank had dissipated. A satellite image and additional information on Frank can be found in the NASA Hurricane Page.
At the start of last week, a tropical depression formed off the western coast of Mexico. This depression, identified as Tropical Depression 8E, moved to the west-northwest and dissipated south of Cabo San Lucas at the southern tip of Baja California after only two days. More information on this short-lived system can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.

In the Western North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Mindulle developed over the South China Sea at the start of last week and traveled initially to the west. Mindulle curved to the northwest and made landfall along the coast of Viet Nam by early Wednesday (local time). Additional information on Tropical Storm Mindulle, together with satellite imagery, appears on the NASA Hurricane Page.
Another tropical depression, identified as Tropical Depression 7W, formed at midweek over the South China Sea off the western coast of Luzon in the northern Philippines. By late Saturday, TD 7W had intensified as it traveled northward and was designated as Tropical Storm Lionrock. By late Sunday, Lionrock was approaching the southeastern coast of China near Hong Kong. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information, along with a satellite image of TD-7W.
Tropical Storm Kompasu developed on Sunday (local time) southeast of Okinawa, Japan and began traveling to the northwest.

Another look at Katrina five years later -- This past weekend marked the 5th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, resulting in the loss of more than 1800 lives and $125 billion in damages. NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center has produced a video of this landfalling major hurricane from data collected from sensors onboard NASA satellites. In addition to the sequence of traditional satellite imagery that provides an animation showing the track of Katrina, other images provided from the satellites show the sea-surface temperatures of the North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico that fostered the intensification of Katrina, the satellite-estimated precipitation displaying the region that experienced excessive rainfall rates and the areas of New Orleans, LA that were flooded. [NASA GSFC]

Hurricane history lies in core samples -- An oceans scientist at the US Army Corps of Engineers' Duck Research Pier in North Carolina has been researching past hurricanes using sand and mud core samples collected from the Caribbean islands of Antigua and St. Croix. The goal of her research is to make predictions concerning the impact that changes in the hurricane seasons could have upon residents along the Atlantic Coast. [Outer Banks Sentinel] [Editor's note: Special thanks are extended to Terri Kirby Hathaway, an Oceans LIT Leader and Marine Education Specialist for the North Carolina Sea Grant. EJH]

New offshore wind farm is proposed -- A wind energy company has submitted a formal application to the federal government requesting leasing rights to 213 square miles of ocean approximately 20 miles of the North Carolina coast to explore the feasibility for constructing a wind farm. [Star News Online] [Editor's note: Special thanks are extended to Terri Kirby Hathaway, an Oceans LIT Leader and Marine Education Specialist for the North Carolina Sea Grant. EJH]

History making swim across Monterey Bay -- Last week, a man battled cold water and jellyfish to complete a 23-mile swim from California's Santa Cruz to Monterey, becoming only the second person known to swim across Monterey Bay. He claimed that his swim was to bring attention to the state of the oceans, as well as to highlight the work of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the National Marine Sanctuaries. [KION Central Coast Right Now] [Editor's note: A special thanks is extended to Frieda Blink, a former Oceans LIT Leader for forwarding this article. EJH]

Regulations issued governing naval activities in the Marianas -- Officials with NOAA's Fisheries Service recently issued regulations and a letter of authorization to the US Navy requiring measures to be taken by the Navy designed to minimize impacts upon marine mammals during training exercises that the Navy will conduct in the South Pacific waters surrounding the Mariana Islands. [NOAA News]

Communicating the value of coral reefs gets a boost --Officials with NOAA and SeaWeb, an international nonprofit communications organization dedicated to ocean conservation, recently announced that their two agencies have entered into a three-year collaborative partnership designed to enhance understanding of the nation’s valuable and vulnerable coral reef ecosystems in the Caribbean Islands of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Florida, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands of Hawaii, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. [NOAA News]

El Niño events appear to be strengthening -- Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory report that their analysis of Pacific Ocean temperatures using data collected by buoys, ships and NOAA satellites since at least 1982 indicate a change in the intensity and the location of the region of anomalously warm equatorial Pacific waters associated with an El Niño event. These El Niño events, which represent anomalous changes in both atmospheric and oceanic circulation regimes over several months to more than one year, are typically noticed with a significant warming in the waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific. However, the researchers have found that recently, the region of abnormally warm waters occur more frequently and with greater strength over the central equatorial Pacific. These changes may be related to changes in climate and could have significant implications for long-range weather forecasting. [NOAA News] [NASA JPL]

Life emerges on Alaskan island after volcanic eruption -- Scientists from the US Geological Survey, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Alaska have been studying how terrestrial and marine ecosystems have returned and recovered on and in the waters around Kasatochi Island, a remote island in Alaska's Aleutian Island chain, following a catastrophic volcanic eruption in August 2008. [USGS Newsroom]

Large release of carbon dioxide from deep ocean may have accelerated end of last Ice Age -- A scientist at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and colleagues from other research institutions in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Spain have used radiocarbon dating techniques on several deep ocean cores from the South Pacific to determine that large amounts of deep-ocean carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere between approximately 19,000 and 13,000 years ago, near the end of the last Ice Age. They conclude that this release of carbon dioxide may have helped accelerate the end of this Ice Age, which ended approximately 10,000 years ago. [Lawrence Livermore National News Public Affairs]

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, drought, floods, 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, to include drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]

Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Touring the DataStreme Ocean website

Welcome to DataStreme Ocean! You are embarking on a study of the world ocean and the role of the ocean in the Earth system. This unique teacher enhancement course focuses on the flow and transformations of energy and water into and out of the ocean, the internal properties and circulation of the ocean, interactions between the ocean and the other components of the Earth system, and the human/societal impacts on and responses to those interactions. Throughout this learning experience, you will be using the DataStreme Ocean website to access and interpret a variety of environmental information, including recent observational data. The objective of this initial Concept of the Week is to explore features of the DS Ocean website.

On Monday of each week of the course, we will post the current Weekly Ocean News that includes Ocean in the News (a summary listing of recent events related to the ocean), Concept of the Week (an in-depth analysis of some topic related to the ocean in the Earth system), and Historical Events (a list of past events such as tsunamis or specific advances in the understanding of oceanography). When appropriate, a feature called Supplemental Information-In Greater Depth will be provided on some topic related to the principal theme of the week.

You will use the DS Ocean website to access and download the weekly "Current Ocean Studies" (plus supporting images) that complement Investigations found in your Ocean Studies Investigations Manual. These materials should be available Monday morning. Click the appropriate links to download and print these electronic Current Ocean Studies and answer forms as well as your Chapter Progress and Investigations Response forms.

The body of the DS Ocean website provides links to the Earth System, information on Physical & Chemical, Geological, and Biological aspects of the ocean, Atmosphere/Ocean Interaction, the Great Lakes, and extras–a glossary of terms, maps, educational links, and DataStreme Ocean information. Following each section is a link to other sites that examine the various subsystems of the Earth system. Let's take a quick tour to become more familiar with the DS Ocean website.

Under Physical & Chemical, click on Sea Surface Temperatures. This image uses a color scale to depict the global pattern of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) (in degrees Celsius) averaged over a recent 7-day period and based on measurements by infrared sensors onboard Earth-orbiting satellites. (Depending on your browser, you may have to place your mouse cursor on the slide bar to the right and scroll down to view the entire image.) Compare SSTs in the Northern Hemisphere with those in the Southern Hemisphere. Return to the DS Ocean website.

Under Geological, click on Current Earthquake Activity. The USGS Current World Seismicity page provides a global map of the locations of seismic (earthquake) events color-coded for the past seven days. The size of the squares represents the magnitude of an earthquake. Note how earthquakes are concentrated along the margin of the Pacific Ocean. Details of recent earthquakes can be found by clicking on their map squares. Return to the DS Ocean website.

The ocean is home to a wide variety of habitats and organisms. Under Biological, click on Ocean "Color" (Productivity). This is a satellite-derived (SeaWiFS) color-coded map of biological productivity in the surface waters of the world ocean averaged from the year 1978 to date. Orange and red indicates the highest productivity and dark blue and violet indicate the lowest productivity. Note the vast areas of relatively low productivity over the central regions of the subtropical ocean basins. Individual months within this period may be chosen for viewing. Now return to the DS Ocean website.

Under Atmosphere/Ocean Interaction, click on TRMM Tropical Rainfall. The TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) page includes color-coded maps of the Monthly Mean Rainrate (in mm per day) across the tropics for the last 30 days ending on the present date. Changes in rainfall are linked to large-scale shifts in the atmosphere/ocean circulation in the tropics. Now return to the DS Ocean website.

Take a few minutes when you have time to browse the other data and information sources available via the DS Ocean website. You should "bookmark" ("favorites") this page on your computer. Return frequently to learn more about the many resources on the ocean in the Earth system. Bon voyage!

Concept of the Week: Questions

The latest global sea surface temperature map indicates that SSTs are generally higher over the [(western)(eastern)] tropical Pacific Ocean.
The USGS map of Current Earthquake Activity indicates that earthquakes appear to be more common along the [(east)(west)] coast of North America.

Historical Events

30 August 1913...The US Navy tested the Sperry gyroscopic stabilizer (automatic pilot). (Naval Historical Center)
30 August 1942...A hurricane weakened in moving 160 miles across south Texas from landfall at Matagorda to San Antonio, winds still gusting from 50 to 70 mph at San Antonio for more than five hours. Seventy of 75 planes were damaged at the city airport. Many trees were destroyed, but the famed Alamo's walls withstood the storm. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
31 August 1842...The U.S. Naval Observatory was authorized by an act of Congress. (Today in Science History)
1 September 1858...The first transatlantic cable failed after less than one month of service. (Today in Science History)
1-2 September 1935...Perhaps the most intense hurricane ever to hit the U.S. struck the Florida Keys with sustained winds of over 155 mph with gusts exceeding 200 mph. On the 1^st, the "Labor Day Hurricane" formed rapidly over the Bahama Islands and intensified into a Category 5 hurricane (on the Saffir Simpson Scale) with sustained winds of over 155 mph and gusts exceeding 200 mph. On the next day, this hurricane generated a 15-foot tide and waves 30-ft high, as it became the first known Category 5 hurricane to hit the U.S. Mainland. More than 400 persons perished in the storm on that Labor Day, including many World War I veterans building a bridge from the Keys to the mainland. The barometric pressure at Matecumbe Bay, FL hit a record low for the U.S. at 26.35 inches of mercury (or 892 millibars). (David Ludlum) (The Weather Doctor)
1 September 1974...Navy Lieutenant Judy Neuffer became the first woman to pilot a plane through the eye of a hurricane. (Northern Indiana NWSFO)
1 September 1985...A joint French-American expedition headed by the American explorer, Robert D. Ballard, located the wreck of the sunken liner RMS Titanic on the floor of the North Atlantic using an experimental and unmanned submersible craft Argo. The wreckage of the Titanic, which sank in April 1912 on its maiden voyage after colliding with an iceberg, was found at a depth of about 13,000 feet and approximately 400 miles west of Newfoundland. (The History Channel)
2 September 1752...The British Empire adopted the Gregorian Calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of western Europe (primarily 1582). To correct the imprecise leap year correction in the Julian Calendar, 11 days were dropped making the following day 14 September. (Wikipedia) (Today in Science History)
3 September 1821...A hurricane made landfall at Long Island, near the current J.F. Kennedy Airport and then moved through western Connecticut. The hurricane produced a record high tide at New York City. (David Ludlum)
4 September 1954...Icebreakers, USS Burton Island (AGB-1) and USCG Northwind, completed first transit of the Northwest Passage through McClure Strait. (Naval Historical Center)
4-6 September 1970...Moisture from Pacific Tropical Storm Norma led to heavy rain and severe flooding over a three-day span. Unprecedented rains caused rivers in central Arizona to rise five to ten feet per hour, sweeping cars and buildings as far as 30 to 40 mi downstream, leading to the greatest natural disaster of record for Arizona. Flooding claimed the lives of 23 persons, mainly campers, and caused millions of dollars in property damage. Water crested 36 feet above normal near Sunflower. Workman's Creek was deluged with 11.40 inches of rain in 24 hours to establish a 24-hour precipitation record for the Grand Canyon State. An estimated six inches of rain fell at Bug Point, UT, setting a 24-hour precipitation record for the Beehive State. (The Weather Channel) (NCDC)
5 September 1987...A tropical storm, which formed off the South Atlantic coast, was responsible for torrential rains over coastal regions of South Carolina. Between 30 August and 8 September, Charleston, SC received 18.44 in. of rain. The heavy rains caused extensive flooding around the city of Charleston, seriously damaged cotton crops in the eastern part of the state, and resulted in an unusually high number of mosquitoes. (Storm Data)
5 September 1946...The U.S. Air-Rescue Agency, an inter-departmental group headed by the Commandant of the Coast Guard and engaged on the study of improved and standardized rescue and search methods, was renamed the Search and Rescue Agency. "Search and Rescue Units" of the Coast Guard were at the same time integrated into the peace time organization and the whole developed into a system of constantly alerted communications, coastal lookout, and patrols of institute instant and systematic search and rescue procedure in case of disasters." (USCG Historian's Office)
5 September 1950...Hurricane Easy produced the greatest 24-hour rainfall in U.S. weather records up to that time. The hurricane deluged Yankeetown, on the upper west coast of Florida, with 38.70 in. of rain. This record has since been replaced by 43 in. of rain at Alvin, TX on 25-26 July 1979. (David Ludlum)