27 April-1 May 2009

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2009 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 31 August 2009. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• Eye on the tropics -- Weather across the tropical ocean basins was relatively quiet last week as no tropical cyclones formed. However, additional information and satellite images were posted on the NASA Hurricane Page for Tropical Cyclone Bijli in North Indian Ocean. This system had made landfall along the coast of Bangladesh during the previous week.
• Great Lakes data loaded into Google Earth -- NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in collaboration with the National Geophysical Data Center has provided data and expertise to Google Earth that will allow the public to obtain information for all five Great Lakes on a three-dimensional visualization scheme. [NOAA News]
• Federal protection proposed for threatened fish in Pacific Northwest -- NOAA’s Fisheries Service recently proposed that three species of rockfish found in the waters of Puget Sound and the adjoining Strait of Georgia off the coast of Washington State be listed as "threatened" or "endangered" and placed under protection as part of the Endangered Species Act. [NOAA News]
• An innovative approach taken to restore Chesapeake Bay -- Officials with NOAA and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources visited Jug Bay a reserve in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System located on Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay on this past week's Earth Day to celebrate the partnerships between federal and state agencies designed to restore the habitat along the nation's largest estuary. [NOAA News]
• Marine protected areas system is launched -- The US Departments of Commerce and Interior have formed a partnership in the formation of a National System of Marine Protected Areas designed to conserve the nation's critical natural and cultural marine resources. [NOAA News]
• May is National Wetlands Month -- The US Environmental Protection Agency, along with other federal agencies and environmental groups, has announced that May has been designated as American Wetlands Month in an effort to increase public awareness of the importance of protecting and preserving the nation's wetlands. This year's observance is the 19th annual National Wetlands Month. [EPA-Wetlands]
• Levees will not eliminate flooding risk in Big Easy -- A report recently prepared by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council states that regardless of the size or the sturdiness, levees and floodwalls that surround New Orleans cannot provide absolute protection against overtopping or failure in extreme events, such as hurricanes and 100-year flood events. [National Academies]
• Some major rivers are experiencing dropping water levels -- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) who have studied the streamflow of 925 of the world's major river systems for the last half century report that approximately one third of these rivers have experienced decreased flow, which appear to be related to climate change. The reduced river flow could potentially threaten future supplies of food and water especially in many developing nations. Changes in runoff can also affect the flow into the oceans. [UCAR/NCAR]
  In a related study, climate researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography warn that changes in climate could reduce the flow of the Colorado River in the American Southwest by 40 percent in the next two decades, with serious reductions by the middle of this century. [EurekAlert!]

• Monitoring sea ice in both hemispheres -- A series of maps generated from data collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite during the last seven months provides a contrast in the maximum and minimum extents of the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. [NASA Earth Observatory] The Sea Ice Factsheet was prepared by the team at the NASA Earth Observatory to describe the importance of the sea ice cover on the polar oceans in each hemisphere. Graphs showing the interannual variations over Antarctic and Arctic sea ice during the satellite era are provided. [NASA Earth Observatory] /

• An explanation provided for increased Antarctic sea ice -- With the aid of satellite imagery and computer models, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey and NASA suggest that the observed increase in the extent of Antarctic sea ice since the 1970s appears to have been caused by changes in Southern Hemisphere weather patterns associated with the development of the "ozone hole", the marked reduction in stratospheric ozone levels over Antarctica during that same time interval. [British Antarctic Survey]
• Tropical cyclones could send water vapor into the stratosphere -- Researchers at Harvard University claim that their analysis of infrared satellite data indicates observed increases in the clouds and water vapor in the stratosphere during the last 50 years appear to have been caused by tropical cyclones. [EurekAlert!]
• Sediments seen entering Gulf of Mexico -- An image obtained during the first week of April from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite shows a large plume of sediment entering into the Gulf of Mexico from Louisiana's Atchafalaya River, a distributary of the Mississippi River. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• "Super reefs" found in Indian Ocean -- An international team of scientists have found that coral reefs in a triangular section of the Indian Ocean between Madagascar, Mozambique and Kenya have shown an exceptional recovery from a bleaching event approximately ten years ago because of management measures taken to limit commercial fishing. [EurekAlert!]
• 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.

• 27 April 1521...The Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives during a tribal skirmish on Mactan Island in the Philippines after completing nearly three-quarters of a trip around the world. One of his ships, the Victoria, under the command of the Basque navigator Juan Sebastiýn de Elcano, continued west to arrive at Seville, Spain on 9 September 1522, the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. (The History Channel)

• 28 April 1947...Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl and five others set out in a balsa wood craft known as Kon Tiki to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia. The trip took 101 days.
• 29 April 1770...The British explorer, Captain James Cook, arrived at and named Botany Bay, Australia. (Wikipedia)
• 30 April 1492...Spain gave Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration. (Wikipedia)
• 30 April 1894...An Antarctic iceberg fragment was sighted at a latitude comparable to Rio de Janeiro. Reported by the ship Dochra, this sighting remains the nearest to the equator that an iceberg has been seen. (Today in Science History)
• 30 April 1991...Southeast Bangladesh was devastated by a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of approximately 150 mph during the early morning. A 20-foot storm surge inundated offshore islands south of Chittagong, taking water from the Bay of Bengal inland for miles. This cyclone resulted in up to 200,000 deaths and $1.4 billion damage. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 1 May 1683...A patent was awarded in England for the extraction of salt from seawater. (Today in Science History)
• 1 May 1883...At Cape Lookout, NC, a storm tide swept over the island drowning sheep and cattle. (Intellicast)
• 1 May 1921...The first radio fog signals in the United States were placed in commission on Ambrose Lightship, Fire Island Lightship, and Sea Girt Light Station, NJ. These signals installed by the US Lighthouse Service were meant to guide ships approaching New York Harbor. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 1 May 1936...The Whaling Treaty Act outlawed the taking of right whales or calves of any whale. This law was enforced by the Coast Guard. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 2 May 1775...Benjamin Franklin completed the first scientific study of the Gulf Stream. His observations began in 1769 when as deputy postmaster of the British Colonies he found ships took two weeks longer to bring mail from England than was required in the opposite direction. Thus, Franklin became the first to chart the Gulf Stream. (Today in Science History)
• 2 May 1880...The first U.S. steamboat to successfully employ electric lights was the Columbia, a 309-ft long vessel which operated between San Francisco, CA and Portland, OR. An "A" type dynamo was placed in operation to illuminate the passenger rooms and main salons. (Today in Science History)
• 2 May 1932...After a Convention with Canada, the Northern Pacific Halibut Act re-enacted the Act of 7 June 1924 and made it unlawful to catch halibut between 1 November and 15 February of each year in territorial waters of United States and Canada, as well as on the high seas, extending westerly from there, including the Bering Sea. The Coast Guard enforced this act. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 2-3 May 1998...Ocean swells from storms in the South Pacific caused surf heights of 7 to 9 feet, with sets to 12 feet along the southern California coast. A man fishing on rocks at Rancho Palos Verdes, CA was swept away. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 3 May 1494...The explorer Christopher Columbus sighted the island of Jamaica in the West Indies. He named the island Santa Gloria. On the following day, he landed on Jamaica. (Library of Congress)
• 3 May 1761...Large tornadoes swept the Charleston, SC harbor when a British Fleet of 40 sails was at anchor. It raised a wave 12 feet high, leaving many vessels on their beam-ends. Four people drowned. (Intellicast)

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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.