WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

WEEK FOUR: 27 September-1 October 2010

Ocean in the News

• Eye on the tropics ---
Some active weather was reported across the tropical North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans this past week:
• Tropical Storm Lisa formed early last week over the waters west of the Cape Verde Islands. During the week, this tropical storm intensified as it moved initially eastward and then northward, becoming the seventh hurricane of the 2010 hurricane season in the Atlantic basin. After reaching a category 1 hurricane status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, Lisa weakened and was downgraded to a tropical storm, becoming a tropical depression late this past weekend. Additional information and satellite images on Lisa are available on the NASA Hurricane Page
  Late last week, a tropical wave traveling across the Caribbean organized into Tropical Storm Matthew, the thirteenth named tropical cyclone of the 2010 hurricane season off the Central American coast. This minimal tropical storm made landfall along the coast of Honduras early Saturday morning and then continued to the west-northwest across interior sections of Central America, weakening to a tropical depression over this past weekend. See the NASA Hurricane Page for additional information on Matthew.
• In eastern North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Georgette, the seventh named tropical cyclone of the 2010 hurricane season in that basin formed early last week over the waters south of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. This minimal tropical storm traveled northward, to pass over Baja California and then the Gulf of California before making a second landfall along the western coast of mainland Mexico. A remnant low moved north and spread rain across Arizona and New Mexico. The NASA Hurricane Page had additional information and satellite images on Georgette.
• In the western North Pacific basin, Typhoon Fanapi made landfall along the coast of mainland China at the start of last week after crossing Taiwan over last weekend. This typhoon was responsible for at least 54 deaths in China. [USA Today] See additional information and satellite images on Fanapi on NASA Hurricane Page.
  Typhoon Malakas formed early last week over the waters near Saipan. This system, which became a category two typhoon (on the Saffir-Simpson scale), traveled initially to the northwest and then to the north, before dissipating to the south-southeast of Japan's Honshu Island late in the week. Additional information and satellite images are found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
• New storm surge page unveiled --
Officials with NOAA's National Hurricane Center recently unveiled a new web page for that provides information on Storm Surge. In addition to basic information on hurricane generated storm surge, this site contains reviews of ten notable storm surge events, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. A link to NOAA's Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH)Model is provided. [National Hurricane Center]
• Coral bleaching in Caribbean may be imminent --
Citing above-average sea surface temperatures through this year to date, the NOAA Coral Reef Watch monitoring system recently warned that severe coral bleaching appears likely in the southern and southeastern Caribbean before the end of 2010. The NOAA Coral Reef Watch uses satellite coral bleaching monitoring. [NOAA News]
• Gulf recreational red snapper season is reopened --
Last week, NOAA’s Fisheries Service announced that recreational red snapper fishing in the northern Gulf of Mexico would be reopened for fishing on weekends from October through late November to allow fishermen to catch the quota they did not reach because a portion of the Gulf was closed due to the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. [NOAA News]
• More Gulf waters reopened to fishing --
At the start of last week, NOAA officials, following consultation with their counterparts from the US Food and Drug Administration and the individual Gulf Coast states, reopened nearly 8000 square miles of Gulf of Mexico waters south of Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle to fishing, as no oil or sheen was reported in the last two months. With this reopening, 87 percent of federal waters were open to commercial and recreational fishing. [NOAA News]
• Impacts of shallow water hypoxia in Chesapeake Bay investigated --
NOAA officials recently awarded a team of researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center money for the first year of a planned five-year project designed to study and predict the in oxygen depletion on finfish and oyster habitat. [NOAA News]
• Eight years of sea surface temperatures monitored from space --
NASA scientists have assembled an animation that shows the global distribution of sea surface temperatures over an eight year span beginning in July 2002 and running through July 2010 as obtained from the MODIS instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite. Seasonal variations in the sea-surface temperature patterns can be detected, along with some variations of the years associated with the El Niño and La Niña events. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Emissions by UK shipping industry are unexpectedly high --
A recent study conducted by the United Kingdom's University of Manchester indicates that the UK shipping industry was producing approximately six times more carbon dioxide emissions than previously determined. [University of Manchester]
• Wind may have parted the Red Sea in biblical account --
In a computer modeling study conducted at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, researchers have shown that winds, as noted in the Bible's book of Exodus, could have been capable of pushed the waters of the Red Sea in such a way as to permit a land bridge to appear and serve an escape route for Moses and the fleeing Israelites. Biblical accounts identify this event, that would have taken place at least 3000 years ago as a "parting the waters of the Red Sea. [UCAR/NCAR]
• 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.

Report from the Field -- Steve LaDochy, a professor at Cal State, Los Angeles and a long-time member of the AMS Education Program reported that the waters off "southern California have been invaded by large pod of blue whales who are enjoying the unusually cool waters and abundance of krill. Reports of up to 30 of the largest mammals on Earth is quite unusual." Steve also noted that his daughter got relatively close to the whales in a kayak, but came back a little bruised and beaten by the experience.

Concept of the Week: Variations in Marine Sediment Thickness

Sediments are particles of organic or inorganic origin that accumulate in loose form in depositional environments such as lake or ocean bottoms. Marine sediments, the central focus of this week's investigations, have a variety of sources and exhibit a wide range of composition, size, and shape. Marine sediments settle to the ocean floor as unconsolidated accumulations but ultimately may be converted to solid sedimentary rock via compaction and cementation. The pattern of variations in marine sediment thickness on the ocean floor confirms some basic understandings regarding marine geological processes.

Go to the DataStreme Ocean Website and under "Geological," click on "Sediment Thickness." This map of marine sediment thickness in the ocean basins was compiled by the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), Marine Geology and Geophysics Division primarily based on existing maps, ocean drilling, and seismic reflection profiles. Sediment thickness is color-coded in meters from violet (thinnest) to red (thickest). Many factors account for the variation in the thickness of marine sediment deposits including type and location of sediment sources, sediment transport mechanisms, and the age of the underlying crust.

According to the map, sediment thickness generally increases with distance from near the central portion of an ocean basin to the continental margin. This pattern may be explained by the principal sediment source and/or the age of the underlying crust. Rivers and streams that empty into the ocean slow and diverge, releasing the bulk of their suspended sediment load in coastal environments (e.g., bays, estuaries, deltas) and onto the continental shelf. Ocean currents transport sediment along the coast. In some areas of the continental shelf, massive amounts of sediment accumulate, become unstable, and flow down the continental slope to the base of the continental rise and beyond. However, only the finer fraction of river-borne sediment is swept into the deep ocean waters. Thickening of marine sediments in the direction of the continental margin may also reflect the aging of oceanic crust with distance away from divergent (spreading) plate boundaries where new oceanic crust forms. The older the crust the longer is the period that sediment rains down on the ocean bottom and the thicker is the blanket of accumulated sediment.

The map indicates that the thickness of marine sediment deposits is greater in the continental margin along the Atlantic coast of North America than along the Pacific coast. The Atlantic coast of North America is a passive margin; that is, the continental margin is not affected significantly by tectonic processes (no plate boundary) and the principal geological processes consist of sedimentation along with erosion by ocean waves and currents. In fact, passive margins and relatively thick marine sediment deposits occur on both sides of the Atlantic. (Passive margins also occur around the Arctic Ocean and surrounding Antarctica.) On the other hand, the Pacific coast of North America is an active margin; that is, the continental margin is associated with plate boundaries and is subject to deformation by tectonic stresses. Active continental margins are relatively narrow so that sediment delivered to the coast by rivers and streams flows directly into deeper water or trenches—preventing thick accumulations of marine sediments from building in the continental margin.

Concept of the Week: Questions

1. The thickness of marine sediment deposits is greater in the [(continental margins)(deep-ocean basins)].
2. The thickness of marine sediment deposits generally is greater in [(active)(passive)] continental margins.

Historical Events

• 27 September 1854...After colliding with the French ship SS Vesta in dense fog, the American Collins Line steamship Arctic sank with more than 300 people on board near Cape Race, Newfoundland, marking the first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean. (Wikipedia)
• 27 September 1922...Report on observations of experiments with short wave radio at the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory in Anacostia, DC started US Navy development of radar. (Navy Historical Center)
• 27 September 1958...A typhoon caused the death of nearly 5000 people on Honshu, the main Japanese island. (Wikipedia)
• 28 September 1542...Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed into present-day San Diego (CA) Bay during the course of his explorations of the northwest shores of Mexico on behalf of Spain. His landing at Point Loma Head apparently was the first known European encounter with California. Before dying on the Channel Islands off the Santa Barbara coast in January 1543, he had explored much of the California coast. (The History Channel)
• 28 September 1850...An Act of Congress (9 Stat. L., 500, 504) provided for the systematic coloring and numbering of all buoys for, prior to this time, they had been painted red, white, or black, without any special system. The act "prescribed that buoys should be colored and numbered so that in entering from seaward red buoys with even numbers should be on the starboard or right hand side; black buoys with odd numbers on the port or left hand side; buoys with red and black horizontal stripes should indicate shoals with channel on either side; and buoys in channel ways should be colored with black and white perpendicular stripes." (US Coast Guard Historians Office)
• 29 September 1959...Hurricane Gracie made landfall near Beaufort, SC with sustained winds of 97 mph and a peak gust of 138 mph. Ten people were killed in South Carolina and Georgia. As the weakening storm moved through Virginia on the 30th, the storm spawned an F3 tornado at Ivy, VA, which killed 11 people. On the same day, a storm produced 28 inches of snow in Colorado Springs, CO. (David Ludlum)
• 30 September 1932...Tropical cyclone rainfall of 4.38 inches at Tehachapi in southern California over 7 hours caused flash floods on Agua Caliente and Tehachapi Creeks resulting in 15 deaths. (The Weather Doctor)
• 30 September 1954...The USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy. In addition to breaking numerous submarine travel records to that time, the Nautilus made the first voyage under the Arctic sea ice at the geographic North Pole in August 1958, passing from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean basins. The Nautilus was decommissioned on 3 March 1980 and is currently on display at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, CT. (The History Channel)
• 30 September 1997...Omega Navigation Station Hawaii ceased operation, coinciding with the end of worldwide Omega transmissions. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 1 October 1844...U.S. Naval Observatory headed by LT Matthew Fontaine Maury occupied its first permanent quarters. (Naval Historical Center)
• 1 October 1846...The British naturalist Charles Darwin, ten years after his voyage on the Beagle, began his study of barnacles, which was to appear in four volumes on living and fossil Cirripedes (barnacles). For his observations, he had a single lens microscope made to his own design. (Today in Science History)
• 1 October 1976...Hurricane Liza brought heavy rains and winds to Brazos Santiago, Mexico, causing a dam to break on the Cajoncito River, which killed 630 people as a wall of water crashed into the town of La Paz. (The Weather Doctor)
• 1 October 1893...The second great hurricane of the 1893 season hit the Mississippi Delta Region drowning more than 1000 people. (David Ludlum)
• 2 October 1836...The British naturalist Charles Darwin returned to Falmouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle, ending a five-year surveying expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, that included visits to Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand. The information and experience obtained from this voyage led Darwin to develop his historic work on the theory of evolution and the 1859 publication entitled, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. (The History Channel)
• 2 October 1867...A hurricane struck Galveston, TX with a storm tide that caused $1 million damage. (Intellicast)
• 2 October 1882...A major hurricane struck the Louisiana Delta with 100-mph winds and 12-ft storm tide which inundated the bayous resulting in 1500 deaths. (Intellicast)
• 2 October 1898...A hurricane struck the Weather Bureau (now National Weather Service) hurricane observation post at Carolina Beach, North Carolina and swept away the office's outhouse. The storm became known as the "Privy Hurricane". (Northern Indiana NWSFO)
• 3 October 1841...The "October Gale," the worst of record for Nantucket, MA, caught the Cape Cod fishing fleet at sea. Forty ships were driven ashore on Cape Cod, and 57 men perished from the town of Truro alone. Heavy snow fell inland, with 18 inches reported near Middletown, CT and 3 inches at Concord, MA. (David Ludlum)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2009, The American Meteorological Society.