WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

21-25 May 2007

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2007 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 27 August 2007. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Ocean in the News:

• Hurricane Preparedness Week -- With the beginning of the official 2007 hurricane season for the North Atlantic Basin beginning on 1 June, this upcoming week (20-26 May) has been declared National Hurricane Awareness Week. The National Hurricane Center maintains a hurricane preparedness website that provides information and educational material for the various hurricane hazards to include storm surge, high winds, tornadoes and flooding. (A Spanish version of this website is also available.) The 2007 hurricane season has begun in the eastern North Pacific basin last Tuesday (15 May). A similar hurricane preparedness website is also maintained by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, HI with some information specific for the central Pacific basin.
  To kickoff National Hurricane Preparedness Week, NOAA officials will release their 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook at a news conference scheduled for today, Tuesday, 22 May 2007. [NOAA Media Advisory]
• Eye on the tropics -- As sea surface temperatures increase across the Northern Hemisphere several tropical cyclones (low-pressure systems over tropical waters) have developed during the last week.
  • In the western North Pacific Typhoon Yutu developed east of the Philippines and moved westward before curving to the northeast, passing near Iwo Jima on Sunday. As a western North Pacific counterpart of a hurricane, Typhoon Yutu was classified as a Category 4 typhoon on the Saffir Simpson Scale on Sunday as maximum sustained surface winds reached 140 mph. An image from the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT-1 satellite shows Typhoon Yutu after it reached typhoon status near Guam. [NOAA OSEI] An earlier image shows Tropical Storm Yutu late last week near Palau. This image also shows Tropical Cyclone Pierre in the tropical South Pacific Ocean east of Papua New Guinea. [NOAA OSEI]
  • In the Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Cyclone Akash moved to the north across the Bay of Bengal toward Bangladesh early last week. A MODIS image shows Akash. [NOAA OSEI]
• North American Safe Boating Week -- This week of 19-25 May has been declared 2007 National Safe Boating Week, to help launch the 2007 North American Safe Boating Campaign. Check the Safe Boating Week site maintained by the Safe Boating Council.
• NOAA's 200th National Water Level Observation Station installed -- Officials from NOAA, along with other federal, state and local agencies recently marked the installation of NOAA's 200th National Water Level Observation Network station at the Port of Alabama State Docks in Mobile, AL. This network station helps provide NOAA, mariners, first responders and the public with real-time water level data. [NOAA News]
• Approaching hurricanes to be seen in 3-D -- Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Naval Research Laboratory have developed a technique called VORTRAC (Vortex Objective Radar Tracking and Circulation) that utilizes data obtained from the existing network of National Weather Service Doppler radar units along the Southeast coast to produce detailed three-dimensional visualizations of an approaching hurricane every six minutes. Forecasters will test these detailed three-dimensional visualizations with rapid updates during the upcoming hurricane season. [UCAR/NCAR]
• Looking into a hurricane's eye -- Meteorologists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the US Naval Postgraduate School have used data collected from a landfalling hurricane during the NASA Convection and Moisture Experiment (CAMEX) and computer simulations to study the detailed structure of the atmospheric circulation in the eye and the surrounding eyewall. They have found that this circulation provides the energy needed to maintain the hurricane. [NASA Earth Observatory] Images and graphics are found on the NASA Hurricanes page [NASA]
• Fewer hurricane hunter flights planned -- The commander of NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center in Tampa, FL recently reported that fewer hurricane hunter aircraft flights will be dispatched from MacDill Air Force Base in an attempt to make the remaining missions more efficient. [USA Today]
• A final dive into the earth's deepest sinkhole for a robotic sub -- During this week, scientists from the University of Texas and Carnegie Mellon University, the Colorado School of Mines and several Mexican universities conclude the final segment of a five-year mission that involved the use of a robotic submarine called DEPTHX (Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer) to explore the bottom of Cenote Zacatón, the world’s deepest known water-filled sinkhole, located near the northeast Mexican coast. [Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas]
• A major haul of coin from ship wreck -- At the end of last week, deep-sea explorers disclosed that they had retrieved gold and silver coins worth an estimated $500 million from a sunken 17th-century ship that was wrecked in the North Atlantic Ocean. [ABC News]
• An important vitamin is essential for marine life -- Based upon their analysis of Ross Sea algae obtained from the CORSACS (Controls on Ross Sea Algal Community Structure) project, biogeochemists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have found that vitamin B12, an important nutrient required by humans for essential metabolic processes, is also essential for marine life, thereby playing a critical role in the ocean food web and planetary climate. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Maritime oases created by oceanic storms -- A research team led by an oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has determined that swirling ocean current systems called "oceanic storms" that may develop in the mid-ocean appear to serve as oases with vast blooms of phytoplankton in waters that are relatively barren of life by pumping nutrients upward from the deep ocean. [EurekAlert!]
• New marine species discovered in seas around Antarctica -- Research scientists participating in the ANDEEP project (Antarctic benthic deep-sea biodiversity) onboard the German research ship Polarstern in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctic have discovered new species of marine plant and animals in these deep waters during three research expeditions between 2002 and 2005. [EurekAlert!]
• West Antarctic snow has melted -- Using data collected from the scatterometer onboard NASA QuickScat satellite, scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder have demonstrated that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 due to relatively high temperatures. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Deep-sea mining may pose threat to marine ecosystems -- From results based on a study he led, a geologist from the University of Toronto Mississauga recently warned that the scheduled seafloor mining of the massive sulfide deposits near "black smoker" hydrothermal vent systems could threaten fragile marine ecosystems. [EurekAlert!]
• Weakening in Southern Ocean carbon sink found -- An international research team, including scientists from the US, Europe, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), has uncovered evidence that the capability of the Southern Ocean to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide has decreased by approximately 15 percent by decade since 1981, the result of increased winds over this ocean basin attributed to human-induced climate change that has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and depleted stratospheric ozone. [CSIRO]
• Changes seen over 400 years of American history -- In honor of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, VA, NASA produced an image of the site from the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite. This image shows that the effects that humans have had upon the landscape of the region since the original settlement. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• A space-age portrait of the Emerald Isle -- A recent image made from the MODIS instrument onboard NASA's Terra satellite shows the lush green vegetation that covers much of Ireland, due in part to the mild maritime climate of this island. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Korean estuary changes noted from space -- A pair of images from the from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite made six years apart document the changes that have occurred along South Korea's Saemangeum estuary as a result of that nation's effort at draining and filling in the estuary. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• 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:

• 22 May 1819...The steamship SS Savannah left Savannah, GA on a voyage to Liverpool, England and became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It reached Liverpool on 20 June. (Wikipedia)
• 22 May 1849...The future President, Abraham Lincoln, received a patent for the floating dry dock described as for "buoying boats over shoals" (No. 6,469). He was the first American president to receive a patent. His idea utilized inflated cylinders to float grounded vessels through shallow water. (Today in Science History)
• 22-24 May 1948...A rare early season hurricane struck the island of Hispaniola, killing an estimated 80 people. (The Weather Doctor)
• 22 May 1960...A 8.6 magnitude earthquake off the coast of south central Chile triggered a tsunami that moved across the Pacific Ocean. Between 490 and 2290 people were estimated to have been killed by the earthquake and tsunami, and damage estimates were over one half billion dollars. Hilo, HI was devastated by the tsunami. (The University of Washington)
• 23 May 1850...The US Navy sent USS Advance and USS Rescue to attempt rescue of Sir John Franklin's expedition, lost in Arctic. (Naval Historical Center)
• 23 May 1946...Commodore Edward M. Webster, USCG, headed the U.S. Delegation to the International Meeting on Radio Aids to Marine Navigation, which was held in London, England. As a result of this meeting, the principal maritime nations of the world would make an intensive study of the World War II-developed devices of radar, LORAN, radar beacons, and other navigational aids with a view to adapt them to peacetime use. This meeting was the first time that the wartime technical secrets of radar and LORAN were generally disclosed to the public. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 23 May 1960...Tsunami waves from Chilean earthquakes began to affect the Alaska's coast along the Gulf of Alaska from Prince of Wales Island to Montague Island for as long as one week. The tsunami waves on the 23rd were up to 14 feet high near Yakutat. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 May 1500...The 13 ships in the fleet of Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral were hit by a huge ice storm that sank four ships. The rest of the ships were separated as they sailed south of the Cape of Good Hope and continued their journey to India.
• 24 May 1901...The relative humidity at Parkstone, Dorset in England at 4 PM was reported to be 9.5 percent. This low relative humidity is not typical of the British Islands, which are surrounded by ocean water and have no large high mountain barriers or plateaus. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 May 1951...Northeast gales generated waves to 15 feet high in the harbor of Newport, RI. A 50-ft. Navy launch with about 142 men on board capsized. Nineteen of the men drowned in the incident. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24 May 1992...Winds up to 40 knots and seas to 18 feet in the northern Gulf of Alaska, approximately 30 miles southwest of Alaska's Cape Cleare, sent three waves crashing over the Cajun Mama. The 80-ft fishing boat sank, but the crew of five was rescued. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 25 May 1985...The Meghna River delta in Bangladesh was hit with a tropical cyclone with winds of over 100 mph that created a 15-to 20-foot high storm surge that flooded a 400-square-mile area, mainly islands located in the mouth of the river. More than 11,000 people and 500,000 head of cattle died and hundreds of thousands were left homeless because of this cyclone.
• 26 May 1967...A slow moving nor'easter battered New England with high winds, heavy rain, and record late season snow on this day and into the 26^th. Winds 70 to 90 mph in gusts occurred along the coast. Over 7 inches of rain fell at Nantucket, MA with 6.57 inches falling in 24 hours to set a new 24-hour rainfall record. Severe damage occurred along the coast from very high tides. The 24.9 inches of snow that fell at Mount Washington, NH set a new May snowfall record. Other locations in New Hampshire received 10 inches of snow near Keene and 6 inches at Dublin. (Intellicast)

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Prepared by AMS DS-Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2007, The American Meteorological Society.