WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

23-27 July 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:

• Eye on the tropics ---
  • In the Eastern North Pacific, the third named tropical cyclone of the 2007 hurricane season, Tropical Storm Cosme, became the season's first hurricane of the 2007 at the beginning of last week. This minimal Category 1 (on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale) weakened in less than a day. At that time, an image from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite at the start of the week showed the distinct spiral-shaped cloud patterns circulating around the eye of Hurricane Cosme. [NASA Earth Observatory] The hurricane weakened and was reclassified as a tropical storm and then by this past weekend, a tropical depression, as the system moved across 140 degrees West longitude, passing from the eastern North Pacific to the central North Pacific basin, becoming that basin's first tropical cyclone. Remnants of Tropical Depression Cosme continued to move west, passing to the south of the Hawaiian Islands over this past weekend, producing some locally heavy rainfall, but little significant winds . [USA Today] A visible image from the sensor on NOAA's GOES-11 satellite near the end of last week shows some of the clouds associated with the feeder bands surrounding Tropical Depression Cosme approaching Hawaii's Big Island. [NOAA OSEI]
    Farther to the east, the seventh tropical depression of the season formed in the eastern North Pacific and was moving westward away from the southwestern Mexican coast as Tropical Depression 7-E.
• New Fisheries Survey vessel was commissioned --The new NOAA Fisheries survey vessel Henry B. Bigelow was recently commissioned in Norfolk, VA and will be stationed along the East Coast, to help manage the marine resources in the western North Atlantic, including Georges Bank. [NOAA News]
• A large "dead zone" detected in the Gulf -- Scientists from NOAA, Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium report that they have detected a "dead zone" in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana and Texas coasts that have low amounts of dissolved oxygen, which would threaten most marine life. This area has the potential for becoming the largest since records along the Gulf Coast began in 1985. [NOAA News]
• Wind insurance is at a premium along Gulf Coast -- A RAND Corporation study reports that since the major hurricanes of 2005, wind insurance has become costly and scarce for businesses along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. [EurekAlert!]
• Algae and bacteria color Great Salt Lake -- A photograph made in April by an astronaut on the International Space Station of Utah's Great Salt Lake shows algae and bacteria in the lake giving the water red coloration in the northern sections and a green tinge in the south. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Drifting to the North Pole -- An international team of scientists, including a German from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, will be participating with the Russians in research on sea ice and arctic meteorology and oceanography associated with the International Polar Year on the North Pole drifting station, NP-35, which will drift through the ice in the Arctic Ocean and reach the North Pole in eight months. [EurekAlert!]
• Melt from glaciers and ice caps could dominate sea level rise this century-- Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder claim that ice lost from glaciers and ice caps could contribute more to the projected rise in global sea level than melt from the massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. [EurekAlert!]
• A mega-flood changed European history -- Inspecting chalk bedrock deposits on the floor of the English Channel has led researchers at Imperial College London to conclude that a large and catastrophic flood between 450,000 and 250,000 years ago resulted in the separation of the British Isles from France in western Europe. [EurekAlert!]
• More than two dozen Great Lakes cities agree to conserve water -- A coalition of twenty Canadian and nine US municipalities along the Great Lakes have adopted a goal of reducing water consumption by 15 percent by 2015. [US Water News Online]
• 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:

• 23 July 1715...Boston Light, the first lighthouse in America was authorized by the Boston Light Bill for construction at Little Brewster Island, MA. This light, located on Little Brewster Island to mark the entrance to Boston harbor, has guided ships since its lantern was first lighted just before sunset, on 14 Sep 1716. In the 1600s, treacherous rocks caused countless loss of lives. False signal fires lit in the wrong places by "wreckers" lured ships aground to plunder. Boston Light was blown up by the British in 1776, but rebuilt in 1783 by Governor John Hancock. The lighthouse was also the last remaining staffed station in the U.S. (Today in Science History)
• 23 July 1788...A weather diary kept by George Washington recorded that the center of a hurricane passed directly over his Mount Vernon home. The hurricane crossed eastern North Carolina and Virginia before moving into the Central Appalachians. Norfolk, VA reported houses destroyed, trees uprooted, and crops leveled to the ground. (David Ludlum)
• 23 July 1958...USS Nautilus (SSN-571) departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for the first submerged transit of the North Pole. (Naval Historical Center)
• 23 July 1982...The International Whaling Commission decided to end commercial whaling by 1985-86. (Wikipedia)
• 24 July 1609...A fleet of ships carrying colonists to the New World met with a hurricane near Bermuda, resulting in much loss of property but little loss of life. (Northern Indiana NWSFO)
• 24-25 July 1979...Claudette, a weak tropical storm, deluged southeastern Texas with torrential rains. The Houston suburb of Alvin received 43.00 inches, a 24-hour precipitation record for not only the Lone Star State, but for the U.S. Freeport reported a total of 30 inches. Total damage from flooding was over $400 million. On the 27^th, a van loaded with people on their way to a church camp stopped on Texas Highway 7 due to a flooded bridge just west of Centerville. A truck rammed the van, pushing it into the flooded creek, resulting in five people drowning. (Intellicast) (David Ludlum) (NCDC) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 24-26 July 1996...Although thousands of miles from southern California, an intense South Pacific storm south of Tahiti produced seven to ten foot surf with some sets up to 12 feet along the southern California coast. Lifeguards participated in more than 500 rescues along the beaches. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 25 July 1956...The Italian ship Andrea Doria sank in dense fog near Nantucket Lightship, MA. Ten hours earlier, the ship was rammed by the Swedish-American liner, Stockholm, forty-five miles off the coast of Massachusetts. Fifty-two persons drowned, or were killed by the impact. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 25 July 1994...Hurricane Gilma, like Emilia a week earlier, reached Category 5 strength in the Central Pacific. (Intellicast)
• 27 July 1866...The 1686-mile long Atlantic Cable was successfully completed between Newfoundland and Ireland by the American businessman Cyrus W. Field, allowing transatlantic telegraph communication for the first time. Two previous attempts at laying a cable ended in failure. (Wikipedia) (Today in Science History)
• 27 July 1926...A hurricane came inland near Daytona Beach, FL. The hurricane caused 2.5 million dollars damage in eastern Florida, including the Jacksonville area. (David Ludlum)
• 27 July 1943...On a whim, and flying a single engine AT-6, Lieutenant Ralph O' Hair and Colonel Duckworth were the first to fly into a hurricane. It started regular Air Force flights into hurricanes. (The Weather Channel)
• 28 July 1819...A small but intense hurricane passed over Bay Saint Louis, MS. The hurricane was considered the worst in fifty years. Few houses were left standing either at Bay Saint Louis or at Pass Christian and much of the Mississippi coast was desolate following the storm. An U.S. cutter was lost along with its thirty-nine crewmembers. The storm struck the same area that was hit 150 years later by Hurricane Camille. (David Ludlum)

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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.