WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

30 July-3 August 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, Tropical Storm Dalila, the fourth named tropical cyclone of the 2007 hurricane season in that basin, formed off the southwestern Mexican coast at the beginning of last week. It moved to the northwest and finally dissipated near the end of the week. [USA Today] An analyzed map of the near surface wind speed and direction was generated from data obtained remotely from a scatterometer instrument onboard NASA's QuickSCAT satellite just after the storm had reached peak intensity, showing the characteristic counterclockwise spiral in toward a central eye. [NASA Earth Observatory] An image of the clouds from NOAA's GOES-11 satellite made one day earlier also shows the characteristic spiral banded structure of this tropical storm. [NOAA OSEI]
  • In the western North Pacific, Tropical Storm Usagi (meaning "rabbit" in Japanese) formed on Sunday near the Northern Mariana Islands and moved westward, becoming the fifth typhoon (the western North Pacific's equivalent of a hurricane) of 2007 for that basin on Monday. [USA Today]
  • In the tropical Southern Indian Ocean. Tropical Cyclone 01-S formed early Monday (local time) and was moving to the south-southeast, well away from any landmasses.
• Ocean waters in hurricane-breeding areas warm -- An image of the sea surface temperatures recently obtained from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite shows that waters across the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea were sufficiently warm to support development of tropical cyclones, or low pressure systems that include tropical storms and hurricanes. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Increased protection of RMS Titanic wreck site proposed -- The US Department of State has requested the US Congress to propose legislation designed to implement an international agreement with the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada and France that would increase protection of the wreck and surrounding site of the RMS Titanic that sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg in the North Atlantic. [NOAA News]
• A new children's book from NOAA's Teacher at Sea Program -- The third book in a series of four children's books, entitled "Teacher at Sea: Mrs. Armwood's Hydrographic Adventure on the NOAA Ship Fairweather" was recently published that describes the experiences of a science teacher from Richmond, VA who worked onboard the NOAA hydrographic survey ship Fairweather in Alaskan waters as a participant in NOAA's Teacher at Sea Program. [NOAA News]
• Another Chesapeake Bay interpretive buoy deployed -- The third "smart" buoy was deployed recently at the mouth of the Patapsco River near Baltimore, MD by the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office as part of its Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail. This buoy, along with a buoy on the James River off Jamestown, VA and another at the mouth of the Potomac River have sensors that collect meteorological and water-quality data along with wave and current information, which are then transmitted by high-speed data network and ultimately placed on the Internet where the data can be accessed by the public. [NOAA News]
• NOAA's role in coastal zone management highlighted -- The NOAA Administrator and Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, retired Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, recently addressed the Coastal Zone 07 Conference in Portland Oregon and outlined NOAA's collaborative role in helping state and local agencies address coastal issues, such as marine and coastal protection. The theme of the conference was "Brewing Local Solutions to Coastal Issues." [NOAA News]
• Contaminated water reaching the offshore reefs of the Florida Keys -- A study by an University of Georgia public health professor and colleagues indicates that groundwater contaminated with sewage is reaching the offshore reefs of the Upper Florida Keys. [University of Georgia News Service]
• Seawater intrusion is an early sign of coastal aquifer contamination -- In an attempt to address sustainable water management in Mediterranean coastal aquifers, an international team of scientists from France, Italy, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Spain, Switzerland and Tunisia have confirmed that seawater intrusion appears to be the first cause of the contamination of coastal aquifers in a majority of cases. [Science News Universidad de Granada]
• San Francisco Bay is recipient of harmful chemicals -- A report released by the Environmental Working Group's Oakland (CA) office and the East Bay Municipal Utility District claims that sewage water containing dangerous chemicals found in a variety of household products is being dumped into San Francisco Bay, since current municipal sewage plants do not treat these chemicals currently. [US Water News Online]
• Salty clues found to explain ozone depletion -- Researchers from the University of Leeds, the University of East Anglia, and the British Antarctic Survey claim that they have discovered large quantities of halogens - bromine and iodine oxides, ozone-depleting chemicals in the polar atmosphere above Antarctica. The source of several of these chemicals appears to be sea salt, which would explain the stratospheric ozone depletion. [EurekAlert!]
• Nutrient loading issues studied -- Scientists at Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Lab recently provided evidence that the eutrophication of coastal and estuarine waters may be caused by the depletion of top-level consumers in these ecosystems, rather than by elevated nutrient loading by marine life near the bottom of the food chain as previously thought. [EurekAlert!]
• 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:

• 31 July 1498...On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, the explorer Christopher Columbus became the first European to reach the island of Trinidad. (Wikipedia)
• 31 July 1978...A 50-yard wide waterspout came onshore at Kill Devil Hills, NC and destroyed a small house. One person died and four were hurt. Waterspouts are typically considered relatively benign. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 1 August 1498...Christopher Columbus reached Venezuela, the first known European to visit that country. (Wikipedia)
• 1-3 August 1989...Hurricane Chantal made landfall along the Upper Texas coast about sunrise on the 1^st. Chantal deluged parts of Galveston Island and southeastern Texas with 8 to 12 inches of rain. Unofficial totals ranged up to twenty inches. Winds gusted to 82 mph at Galveston, and reached 76 mph in the Houston area. Tides were 5 to 7 feet high. The hurricane claimed two lives, and caused 100 million dollars damage. The remains of Hurricane Chantal also deluged north central Texas with heavy rain. Up to 6.50 inches drenched Stephens County, and Wichita Falls reported 2.22 inches of rain in just one hour on the 2^nd. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 1 August 2002...At the Delaware Bay buoy located 26 miles southeast of Cape May, NJ, an ocean water temperature of 83.1 degrees Fahrenheit was measured--marking the highest ocean temperature recorded at that buoy since observations began there in 1984. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 2 August 1880...Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted officially by the British Parliament, selected because Greenwich had been the national center for time since 1675. GMT was originally set-up to aid naval navigation, but was not was used on land until transportation improved. GMT was adopted by the U.S. at noon on 18 Nov 1883 when the telegraph lines transmitted time signals to all major cities. Subsequently, GMT was adopted worldwide on 1 Nov 1884 when the International Meridian Conference met in Washington, DC, USA and 24 time zones were created. (Today in Science History)
• 2-3 August 1922...A typhoon hit the China Coast at Swatow on the night of the 2^nd. The wind and the storm surge killed as many as 50,000 of the city's 65,000 residents. Barometric pressure at landfall had dropped to at least 932.3 millibars (27.53 inches). (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 3 August 1492...The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, in command of three ships, embarked from the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera on a journey westward in search of a sea route to Asia. This expedition, which reached the Bahamas near North America on 12 October, was the first of four expeditions that Columbus made to the "New World". (The History Channel)
• 3 August 1958...At 11:15 EDT, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the first ship to reach the geographic North Pole submerged, traveling at a depth of approximately 500 feet from the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow, AK on 1 August to the Greenland Sea near Spitzbergen on 5 August. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
• 3 August 1970...Hurricane Celia made landfall near Port Aransas on the Texas coast, producing wind gusts to 161 mph at Corpus Christi, and estimated wind gusts of 180 mph at Arkansas Pass. Even at Del Rio, 250 miles inland, Celia produced wind gusts to 89 mph. The hurricane was the most destructive of record along the Texas coast causing 454 million dollars damage as 8950 homes were destroyed on the Coastal Bend. Celia also claimed eleven lives and injured 466 people. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
• 3-4 August 1978...The remnants of Tropical Storm Amelia produced up to 32 inches of rain on Schackelford County in Texas, an incredible amount of rain for a far-inland and non-mountainous area. A twenty-foot wall of water killed six during the evening of the 4^th in Albany, resulting in 89 percent of the city being covered by water. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4(?) August 1609...A tempest struck the western Atlantic Ocean scattering small British convoy headed to Virginia. Two vessels sank; another, the Sea Venture was presumed lost. However, a ship made landfall on Bermuda, shipwrecking the crew. After a ten-month stay to build two small rescue boats, they sailed to Jamestown (Virginia) Colony. Incident accounts may have provided William Shakespeare with background material for The Tempest. (The Weather Doctor)
• 4 August 1666...A violent hurricane raked the island of Guadeloupe, destroying all boats along its coast, including a 17-ship fleet with 2000 troops. The island's batteries, with 6-foot thick walls, were destroyed and the 16-pounders (large cannons) were washed away. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4 August 1858...After several unsuccessful attempts, the first trans-Atlantic cable, a 2000-mile submerged telegraph line conceived by Cyrus W. Field, was completed by USS Niagara and British ship Agamemnon. While the first messages were exchanged between President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria on 16 August, the cable ceased functioning in early September. The first permanent trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1866. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
• 5-7 August 1997...Although far to the southwest, Hurricane Guillermo generated surf to 12-foot heights along the beaches of southern California. In Newport Beach, lifeguards made almost 300 rescues on the 5^th and 6^th. Rip currents were responsible for one death and three injuries. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 5-6 August 1959...Hurricane Dot crossed Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands producing sustained winds of 103 mph and gusts to 125 mph. Over 6 inches of rain fell there and over 9 inches on the island of Hawaii. The sugar cane crop on Kauai sustained $2.7 million in damages. (Intellicast)

Return to DataStreme Ocean website

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.