WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

15-19 June 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.

• HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE! The summer solstice will occur early Sunday morning or late Saturday night (officially, 21 June 2009 at 0545 Z, or 1:45 AM EDT, 12:45 AM CDT, etc.) as the earth's spin axis is oriented such that the sun appears to be the farthest north in the local sky of most earth-bound observers. While most of us consider this event to be the start of astronomical summer, the British call the day the "Midsummer Day", as the apparent sun will begin its southward descent again. For essentially all locations in the northern hemisphere, daylight today will be the longest and the night will be the shortest of the year. Starting Monday, the length of darkness will begin to increase as we head toward the winter solstice on 21 December 2009 at 1747 Z. However, because the sun is not as perfect a time-keeper as a clock, the latest sunsets of the year at many mid-latitude locations will continue through about the first week of July -- a consequence of the earth being near aphelion (on 3 July 2009) and the apparent sun moving across the sky well to the north of the celestial equator.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the Tropics -- Although sea surface temperatures are beginning to rise across the tropical oceans in the Northern Hemisphere, no organized tropical cyclone activity was reported last week. An area of low pressure in the eastern North Pacific formed at the beginning of last week, but failed to organize into the basin's first tropical cyclone of the 2009 season. For more information concerning this low pressure area along with satellite imagery, consult the Pacific NASA Hurricane Page.
• Gulf Coast meteorology is studied -- This week, scientists from NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN and students from Mississippi's Jackson State University are beginning a two-week field experiment across southern Mississippi designed to monitor how the sea breeze off the Gulf of Mexico develops and distributes pollutants. Six monitoring stations will be used along with a Doppler sodar unit. [NOAA News]
• A youth educational summit to be hosted by a marine sanctuary -- Next week, NOAA’s Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary, headquartered in Savannah, GA, will host the National Association of Black Scuba Divers’ (NABS) Youth Educational Summit, in which 40 middle and high school students from underserved and underrepresented communities across the nation will receive leadership training through marine science. [NOAA News]
• Climate change education funding opportunity announced -- NASA officials recently announced that a new funding opportunity was being made available to qualified applicants in the form of cooperative agreements for projects designed to educate students, teachers and lifelong learners about global climate change. The applications could be from higher education institutions, state agencies, local agencies, or federally recognized tribal government agencies; public school districts; and nonprofit organizations. Notices of intent for the Proposals for Global Climate Change Education: Research Experiences, Teaching and Learning are due by 2 July 2009. [NASA Headquarters]
• An upcoming El Niño event is foreseen -- Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography indicate that an El Niño event, or an anomalous atmospheric and oceanic circulation regime, appeared to be forming and could result in locally heavy precipitation across California and neighboring states across the Southwest. This outlook was also echoed by those at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center and the University of Washington's Climate Impacts group. [NBC Los Angeles]
• Algae bloom swirl seen in Pacific off Japan -- An image obtained from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite in late May shows a swirl of variously colored waters in the western North Pacific associated with algae blooms and sediments being brought together by the warm northward flowing Kuroshio Current and the cold southward flowing Oyashio Current. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• New wave model unveiled -- Researchers at Louisiana State University and its Coastal Studies Institute have developed an updated and improved version of their Wave-Current-Surge Information System for Coastal Louisiana (WAVCIS), an easy to use model that can be used by emergency management officials with information on wave heights that could occur along the Gulf Coast due to an approaching hurricane or tropical storm. [EurekAlert!]
• Public comments are invited on the governing of Atlantic swordfish and bluefin tuna fisheries -- NOAA’s Fisheries Service has scheduled a series of five public meetings in June and July at selected sites along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts in which the public is invited to make comments on potential changes in the way commercial and recreational fishermen fish the US quotas for swordfish and bluefin tuna in the Atlantic. [NOAA News]
• Flattening of Caribbean coral reefs-- A new study from the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia and Canada's Simon Fraser University reports that coral reefs across the Caribbean Sea have become "flattened" and more uniform over the last four decades, resulting in reduced diversity in the fragile marine ecosystems. [EurekAlert!]
• Greenland could be a bigger player in sea level rise -- A researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks warns that the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than previously thought and that this ice sheet may have been responsible for approximately one-fourth of the global rise in sea level that has been observed during the last 13 years. [University of Alaska, Fairbanks]
• Increased global temperatures could shift monsoon patterns with disastrous consequences -- Researchers from Oregon State University, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Nevada's Desert Research Institute report that their analysis of oxygen isotopes from ice cores and ancient stalagmites indicates higher global temperatures could cause an abrupt change in the climate due to an equatorward shift of seasonal monsoon circulation regimes that would move much of the rain offshore leading to a dramatic drop in global vegetation growth, including agricultural crops. [EurekAlert!]
• Global mass extinction was caused by ancient volcanic eruptions-- Scientists at the United Kingdom's University of Leeds claim that a heretofore unknown giant volcanic eruption in what is now southwestern China approximately 260 million years ago appears to have initiated a large lava flow into the ocean along with large explosions propelling sulfur dioxide into atmosphere, ultimately causing a mass extinction of marine life around the world. [EurekAlert!]
• 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.

Historical Events:

• 15 June 1744...British Admiral George Anson returned to England after circumnavigating the globe in an expedition that lasted nearly four years.
• 15 June 1990...The first use of bioremediation in open waters was to treat an oil slick from the supertanker Mega Borg following an explosion and fire on 8 June 1990 approximately 70 miles south-southeast of Galveston, TX. The 3-day bioremediation tests were conducted using oil-metabolizing bacteria and nutrients. The results of the tests were inconclusive. (Today in Science History)
• Month of June...According to a 1969 US Army technical report, the average dewpoint temperature at Ras Andahglie and Assab, Eritrea (Ethiopia) average slightly more than 84 ºF. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 16 June 1903...The famous Norwegian explorer, Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, began the first east-west navigation of the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by leaving Oslo, Norway on the ship Gjøa. Amundsen and six others spent two winters exploring over land and ice from the place currently called Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Canada. (Wikipedia)
• 17 June 1579...During his "Famous Voyage," Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, claimed San Francisco Bay for England, calling the region along the northern California coast "Nova Albion" (meaning, New England). (Wikipedia)
• 16-18 June 1972...The greatest three-day rainfall in Hong Kong since 1889 produced 25.68 inches and resulted in disastrous landslides and building collapses. More than 100 people died, while thousands were made homeless. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 18 June 1903...Alaska's first coastal lighthouse, Scotch Cap Lighthouse, was lit. This light, which was also the first major lighthouse built by the U.S. outside the 48 coterminous states, was located near the west end of Unimak Island on the Pacific side of Unimak Pass, the main passage through the Aleutian Islands into the Bering Sea. This light in an octagonal wooden tower was replaced by a concrete lighthouse in 1940, which was destroyed by a tsunami in 1946, with the loss of the five crewmen stationed there. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 18 June 1875...A severe coastal storm (or possible hurricane) struck the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. Eastport, ME reported wind gusts to 57 mph. (David Ludlum)
• 19 June 240 BC...On the summer solstice, Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth using two sticks.
• 19-26 June 1972...Hurricane Agnes (a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale) moved onshore along the Florida Panhandle near Cape San Blas and Apalachicola with wind gusts to 80 mph, and eventually exited Maine on the 26^th. This hurricane moved northeast and joined with an upper level disturbance, producing from 10 to 20 inches of rain along its path along the Eastern Seaboard. In the Middle Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania, 24 hour rainfall amounts were generally 8 to 12 inches, with up to 19 inches in extreme southwestern Schuylkill County. At Wilkes-Barre, PA the dike was breached destroying much of the town. Agnes was responsible for 125 deaths, mainly due to flooding from North Carolina to New York State, and total damage was estimated at more than $3 billion. Torrential rains from Hurricane Agnes resulted in one of the greatest natural disasters in U.S. history. Agnes caused more damage than all other tropical cyclones in the previous six years combined (which included Celia and Camille). (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 20 June 1597...Willem Barents, the Dutch explorer who tried to search for the Northeast Passage, died in the Arctic off the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya when his ship became trapped in ice. (Wikipedia)
• 20 June 1819...The 320-ton paddle-wheel SS Savannah arrived in Liverpool, England to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, having left the port of Savannah, GA on 22 May. (InfoPlease Daily Almanac)
• 20 June 1940...The first successful west to east navigation of the Northwest Passage began at Vancouver, BC. (Wikipedia)
• 21 June 1791...A hurricane, called El Temporal de Barreto - the storm of Barreto, generated a monster ocean wave that carried off the coffin of a rich, but hated, count as he lay in state in his mansion near Havana, Cuba. (The Weather Doctor)
• 21 June 1886...A destructive hurricane hit the Apalachicola-Tallahassee area of Florida on the summer solstice. Extensive damage was done in Florida and throughout the southeast by this storm, which was the first hurricane of the year. Damage was due mainly to extremely high tides. (Intellicast)
• 21 June 1961...The first practical plant for the conversion of seawater to drinking water at Freeport, TX was dedicated when President John Kennedy pressed a switch installed in his Washington, DC office. The plant was capable of producing about a million gallons of water a day, supplying fresh water to Freeport at a cost of about $1.25 per thousand gallons. The large-scale evaporation method used then has now been replaced by reverse osmosis as special polymers are now used as filtering membranes. (Today in Science History)

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