WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

22-26 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.

Welcome to the weather and ocean educators attending the 2009 DataStreme LIT Leader Workshop that is being held at Gulfport/Biloxi, MS from 24 June to 27 June 2009.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the Tropics -- In the eastern North Pacific, the first tropical depression of the 2009 hurricane season in that basin formed late last week to the southeast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. This depression moved northward and made landfall along the western coast of mainland Mexico at week's end, spreading locally heavy rainfall. See the NASA Hurricane Page for several satellite images and additional information on Tropical Depression 1-E. A second tropical depression, identified as Tropical Depression 2-E formed off the southwest coast of Mexico on Sunday. This system was expected to travel to the northwest and then to the west, moving away from the Mexican coast.
  In the Western North Pacific, Typhoon Linfa formed over the waters of the South China Sea northwest of the Philippine Island of Luzon during the middle of last week. This minimal (category one typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale) moved to the north-northeast toward the southeast coast of mainland China. It was expected to make landfall on Monday (local time). For more information and satellite imagery on Linfa, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Global Climate Change Report Released --The Federal government released a new report entitled "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" on 16 June 2009, More information including with access to the executive summary, regional results, and the full report can be obtained from the U.S. Global Change Research Program. [NOAA News]
• A warm May across the globe -- Scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reported that their analysis of preliminary data indicates that the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for May 2009 was the fourth highest May since sufficiently dense worldwide records began in 1880. The sea surface temperature average from around the globe was the third highest, while the land surface temperature for May was the eighth highest. Sea surface temperatures across the equatorial Pacific continued to increase, suggesting the presence of an ENSO neutral state.
  In addition, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that the extent of the Arctic sea ice was slightly less than the 1979-2000 average, while the Antarctic sea ice cover was approximately six percent higher than the 1979-2000 average. [NOAA News]
• New GOES satellite scheduled for launch -- NASA has scheduled the liftoff of a geosynchronous weather satellite, GOES-O, from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Forces Station this coming Friday evening, 26 June 2009 between 6:14 to 7:14 p.m. EDT. This satellite would be the second of three in the current GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) series. Check the NASA website for the pre-launch news conference scheduled for 1 PM EDT on 25 June. [NASA]
• QuickSCAT reaches tenth anniversary -- NASA's Quick Scatterometer mission, known as QuickSCAT was launched ten years ago this past week carrying the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's SeaWinds instrument that provided high resolution measurements of near surface winds over the planet's large water bodies using backscatter of radar signals sent to the surface by the satellite's radar. [NASA JPL]
• New "Sea Level Viewer" website permits monitoring of ocean trends -- NASA’s Global Climate Change website out of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently unveiled the "Sea Level Viewer" an interactive visualization tool as part of its NASA’s Global Climate Change website that will allow the public access to the precise height of the Earth's oceans as obtained by the TOPEX/Poseidon and Ocean Surface Topography Mission onboard the agency's Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites. [NASA JPL/GSFC]
• Raising children's ocean health awareness -- NASA Langley Research Center's Students Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) program is teaming with the Pacific Science Center and Sailors for the Sea to participate in a 25,000 mile sailing journey around the Americas on the vessel Ocean Watch designed to raise the awareness of the health of the world's ocean by the youth. A variety of observations will be made from onboard this vessel and these data will be compared with data collected by sensors on NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) satellite. [NASA LaRC]
• A large summertime "dead zone" in Gulf of Mexico foreseen -- Scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University and the University of Michigan operating on a NOAA-funded program are forecasting that the "dead zone" in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana and Texas coast could develop into one of the largest on record this summer. This dead zone is a region where seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. [NOAA News] [University of Michigan News Service]
• Emerging threats to a California marine sanctuary are identified -- NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries recently released a peer-reviewed report entitled "Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary Condition Report" indicating that while water quality in this sanctuary located off the central California is generally good, the seafloor habit quality has a low rating and the populations of some species of fish, seabirds and turtles are depleted. [NOAA News]
• Imperiled stocks of Atlantic salmon protected -- Invoking the Endangered Species Act, NOAA’s Fisheries Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service have added fish in several rivers in Maine that flow into the Gulf of Maine onto the endangered list so as to protect the dwindling numbers of these species that reside in the Gulf of Maine, especially the Atlantic salmon. [NOAA News]
• Sanctions to be taken for illegal cod transactions -- NOAA has recently notified the Gloucester (MA) Seafood Display Auction that will face a 10-day sanction to be served within the next month for purchasing illegally caught cod in during the summer of 2000 and falsifying records to cover these purchases. [NOAA News]
• New cooperative institute established to study climate and North Atlantic ecosystems -- Officials with NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and National Marine Fisheries Service recently announced the establishment of the new Cooperative Institute for North Atlantic Region (CINAR) that includes collaboration with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Rutgers University, the University of Maryland, the University of Maine and Gulf of Maine Research Institute. This cooperative institute will conduct ocean and climate research designed to better understand the correlation between climate change and variability, fishing practices and fish populations, as well as develop an integrated capability to research emerging issues from an ecosystem perspective. [NOAA News]
• Reduced river flow could hurt fisheries in Gulf of Mexico -- Researchers at Florida State University warn that reductions in the flow of Florida's Apalachicola River could be detrimental to reef fish populations in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico because of the reduced population of phytoplankton on the continental shelf, which forms an integral part of the food chain for the fish. [EurekAlert!]
• Ocean acidification could cause economic decline in shellfish fisheries -- Research conducted at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution indicates increases in ocean acidity due to changes in ocean chemistry caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide associated with anthropogenic activity could result in a significant drop in shellfish revenues in the US during the next 50 years. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Geoengineering scheme unlikely to save corals -- Researchers at the Carnegie Institution and Canada's Concordia University caution that the geoengineering scheme to counteract rising global temperatures by artificially shading the earth with a sunscreen would do little to stop ocean acidification of the world oceans that threaten coral reefs. They claim that increased carbon dioxide levels will result in acidic conditions, even with lower global temperatures. [EurekAlert!]
• Half-million year climate record constructed from sediment core -- Using a oxygen isotope proxy method, researchers at the Ohio State University, the University of South Florida, Germany's University of Bremen and Portugal's Laboratorio Nacional de Energia e Geologia have reconstructed a record of ancient climate over the last half-million years from the upper portion of an sediment core retrieved from the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. [Ohio State University Research News]
• A two million-year carbon dioxide record constructed -- Using a technique that measures the ration of boron isotopes, scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the University of Chicago and the United Kingdom's University of Bristol have analyzed shells of plankton buried under Atlantic Ocean waters off the African coast to determine the variations in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the last 2.1 million years. They have found that while carbon dioxide has varied over the last two million years, the current carbon dioxide concentrations are at the highest levels of the entire period. [EurekAlert!]
• Extent of an ancient ice age is determined -- Geologists at the United Kingdom's University of Leicester have shown that an ancient ice age at approximately 440 million years ago, named "the Early Paleozoic Icehouse", lasted for 30 million years in the Ordovician and Silurian Periods, representing a significantly longer time span than earlier thought. They also showed that widespread ice formation associated with continental glaciation resulted in rapid changes in sea level around the planet. [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:

• 22 June 1675...The Royal Greenwich Observatory was created by Royal Warrant in England by Charles II, with its practical astronomy serving as its primary mission, including navigation, timekeeping and the determination of star positions. In 1767 the observatory began publishing The Nautical Almanac, which established the longitude of Greenwich as a baseline for time calculations. The almanac's popularity among navigators led in part to the adoption (1884) of the Greenwich meridian as the Earth's prime meridian (0° longitude) and the international time zones. (Today in Science History)
• 22 June 1948...Congress enacted Public Law 738, which authorized the operation of floating ocean stations for the purpose of providing search and rescue communication and air-navigation facilities, and meteorological services in such ocean areas as are regularly traversed by aircraft of the United States. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 23 June 1501...The Portuguese navigator, Pedro Alvares Cabral, returned to Portugal after a voyage during which he claimed Brazil for Portugal and then journeyed to India in search of pepper and spices. (Wikipedia)
• 23 June 1611...English navigator Henry Hudson was set adrift along with his son and seven loyal crew members in an open boat in Hudson Bay by mutineers on his ship Discovery; they were never seen again. He was on his fourth voyage and he had become famous for attempting to find a route from Europe to Asia via the Arctic Ocean. (Wikipedia)
• 23 June 1716...The Province of Massachusetts authorized erection of first lighthouse in America on Great Brewster Island, Boston Harbor. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 23 June 1938...The first "oceanarium" opened at Marineland in St. Augustine, FL. (Today in Science History)
• 24 June 1497...The Italian navigator and explorer Giovanni (John) Cabot, sailing in the service of England, landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland, claiming the continent for England. (Wikipedia)
• 26 June 1954...Eight fishermen were swept off the breakwater of the Montrose Harbor in Chicago, IL by a seiche on Lake Michigan. At the time, this killer wave rose suddenly from a serene Lake Michigan; sunny skies and calm wind conditions were reported. The seiche, produced by an earlier squall on the lake, caused the lake water to rise ten feet. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 26 June 1959...Following an opening ceremony attended by President Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, 28 naval vessels sailed from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes, marking the formal opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway to seagoing ships. The Seaway consists of a navigational channel system of canals, locks, and dredged waterways, permitting travel from the Gulf of St. Lawrence nearly 2500 miles inland to Duluth, MN on Lake Superior. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
• 26 June 1986...Hurricane Bonnie made landfall on the upper Texas coast. A wind gust to 98 mph occurred at Sea Rim State Park. The town of Ace recorded 13 inches of rain. (Intellicast)
• 26 June-7 July 1989...Tropical Storm Allison formed in the Gulf of Mexico from remnants of Hurricane Cosme in the eastern North Pacific. Periods of heavy rain caused flooding across parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Winnfield, LA reported a six-day total of 29.52 inches of rain. This system was responsible for eleven deaths and approximately $500 million in damage. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 27 June 1898...The first solo circumnavigation of the globe was completed in slightly more than three years by the Canadian seaman and adventurer Joshua Slocum of Briar Island, NS when he returned to Newport, RI after sailing the 37-foot Spray a distance of 46,000 miles. After completing this voyage Slocum wrote the classic book, Sailing Alone Around the World describing his adventure. (Wikipedia)
• 27-29 June 1954...Excessive rains from remnants of Hurricane Alice led to the Rio Grande River's worst flood. Up to 27.1 inches of rain fell at Pandale, TX. As many as 55 people died from the flooding. The river crest at Laredo, TX broke the previous highest record by 12.6 feet. The roadway on the US. 90 bridge over the Pecos River was covered by 30 feet of water on the 27^th. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (David Ludlum)
• 27 June 1957...Hurricane Audrey smashed ashore at Cameron, LA drowning 381 persons in the storm tide, and causing 150 million dollars damage in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Audrey left only a brick courthouse and a cement-block icehouse standing at Cameron, and when the waters settled in the town of Crede, only four buildings remained. The powerful winds of Audrey tossed a fishing trawler weighing 78 tons onto an offshore drilling platform. Winds along the coast gusted to 105 mph, and oilrigs off the Louisiana coast reported wind gusts to 180 mph. A storm surge greater than twelve feet inundated the Louisiana coast as much as 25 miles inland. It was the deadliest June hurricane of record for the U.S. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 27 June 1978...SEASAT, an experimental U.S. ocean surveillance satellite was launched. Each day, SEASAT made 14 orbits of the Earth, and in a period of 36 hours was able to monitor nearly 96% of the oceanic surface. The measurement equipment on board was able to penetrate cloud cover and report measurements such as wave height, water temperature, currents, winds, icebergs, and coastal characteristics. Although it operated for only 99 days before a power failure, it had already shown the viability of the use of a satellite for collecting oceanic data. The information collected was shared with scientists and was used to aid transoceanic travel by ships and aircraft. (Today in Science History)
• 27-29 June 1997...Although thousands of miles away, a strong low pressure system southeast of New Zealand produced surf up to seven feet, with occasional sets to ten feet, along Hawaii's south-facing coasts. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 28 June 1983...A waterspout was sighted over Hazin Bay on the Yukon-Kuskokwim coast of Alaska. Satellites detected thunderstorms in the area. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 28 June 1992...A slow moving tropical depression produced excessive rains across southwest Florida. Four-day totals ending on the 28^th, ranged up to 25 inches in the Venice area, with a general 8 to 14 inches over Sarasota and Manatee counties. Two deaths resulted from the flooding. (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, 2009, The American Meteorological Society.