WEEK ELEVEN: 15-19 November 2010

Items of Interest:

• Celebrate Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day --
This upcoming week has been identified as Geography Awareness Week 2010: Freshwater. National Geography Awareness Week, launched by presidential proclamation in 1987, is designed to draw attention to geo-literacy and " the importance of geographic understanding in ensuring our nation's economic competitiveness, national security, environmental sustainability, and the livability of our communities in the 21st century." This year's theme is Freshwater, which appears to be one of the defining issues of the 21st century.
This coming Wednesday, 17 November 2010, has been declared GIS Day, an event designed to create geographic awareness around the world using geographic information systems (GIS). This event, with the theme "Discovering the World through GIS", is principally sponsored by the National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers, University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, the United States Geological Survey, The Library of Congress, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and ESRI. [GIS Day] [Note: The Central Illinois Forecast Office of the National Weather Service Forecast Office at Lincoln, IL has provided a portal describing examples of GIS being employed by the National Weather Service.]
• Opportunity for Teachers:
The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Teacher at Sea 2011 Field Season program is now accepting applications until 30 November 2010. Gain your "sea legs" and first-hand experience in one-week to one-month voyages. For more information, or to apply, see http://teacheratsea.noaa.gov.

Ocean in the News

• Eye on the tropics --
Tropical cyclone activity across the tropical and subtropical ocean basins was nearly nonexistent last week:
• In the North Atlantic basin, the remnants of former Hurricane Tomas, which had become an extratropical low pressure system, contributed to heavy rainfall across several of the Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. For updated information and satellite imagery on former Hurricane Tomas, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
• In the western North Pacific basin, an area of low pressure with thunderstorms had developed over the waters of the South China Sea off the Viet Nam coast late last week. This system, identified originally as Low Pressure Area 1, became Tropical Depression 18W before reaching the coast near Hue on Sunday (local time). This coastal region was experiencing heavy rainfall and flooding due to Tropical Depression 18W. (AccuWeather) For more information and satellite imagery on this system, check the NASA Hurricane Page.
• In the North Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Jal, a category 1 tropical cyclone (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) made landfall along the southeastern coast of India at the start of last week. After crossing southern India, the low pressure system containing the remnants of Jal appeared to begin reforming into a tropical cyclone when it reached the Arabian Sea. However, this system never developed during last week. Additional information on Tropical Cyclone Jal, appears on the NASA Hurricane Page.
• New US-India "monsoon agreement" designed to improve global seasonal climate forecasts –
As part of a series of food security agreements made last week, US President Obama and India’s Prime Minister Singh entered into a new collaborative agreement between NOAA and the India Ministry of Earth Sciences designed to improve India’s monsoon forecasts. Under the agreement, NOAA will create a monsoon forecast desk at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Camp Springs, MD, with visiting atmospheric scientists from India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences collaborating with NOAA scientists to share knowledge and skills to improve the Climate Forecast System (CFS) for long-range forecasts of the monsoon. [NOAA News]
• NOAA scientists receive prestigious awards --
• In a ceremony held last week in Paris, Susan Solomon, Ph.D., senior scientist at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, became a knight 'chevalier' of the Legion of Honor by the French Republic in honor of her scientific achievements, including pioneering research that helped explain the cause of the "ozone hole" and her leadership as co-chair of Working Group 1 for the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. [NOAA News]
• Three NOAA scientists will receive the 2009 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which represents the highest honor bestowed by the US government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers. The recipients are:
  J. Christopher Taylor, an ecologist at the National Center for Coastal Ocean Science’s Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research in Beaufort, NC, for leading research in the development and use of new underwater sonar technologies that make coastal ecosystem assessments more efficient, safe and cost effective;
  Matthew Menne, a physical scientist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC, for using innovative methods to develop high-quality climate data sets, including identifying and correcting inaccuracies in U.S. temperature records; and
  Charles Stock, an oceanographer at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ, for the use of computer models to better understand a range of climate and ecosystem dynamics, such as predicting harmful algal blooms and how food webs vary from region to region. [NOAA News]
• Regulations issued to govern naval activities off Northwest coast –
During the last week NOAA’s Fisheries Service issued regulations and a letter of authorization to the US Navy that includes measures to protect marine mammals while conducting training exercises off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. [NOAA News]
• Life in San Francisco Bay influenced by offshore factors --
A new US Geological Survey study reports that marine life in California’s San Francisco Bay has thrived over the past decade in association with two climatic patterns known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and North Pacific Gyre Oscillation originating far out in the Pacific Ocean. Apparently, these two atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns strongly influences the coastal ocean, which in turn influences biological communities, which ultimately affects water quality in the San Francisco Bay. [USGS Newsroom]
• Role of melt in monitored in Arctic sea ice loss --
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who analyzed data collected by NASA and European Space Agency satellites of Arctic sea ice claim that the amount of older and thicker "multiyear" sea ice lost from the Arctic Ocean between 1993 and 2009 is due primarily to melting, rather than to export. [NASA JPL]
• Iron stimulates toxin-producing algae blooms in open ocean waters –
Marine scientists the University of California, Santa Cruz, Louisiana State University and the University of South Carolina have found that toxin-producing algae are not only found in the coastal waters, but in the near surface waters of the open ocean, where the addition of iron from natural or artificial sources stimulates rapid growth of the harmful algae. [EurekAlert!]
• Ocean acidification endangers struggling coral reefs –
Scientists at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science warn that future ocean acidification due to increased carbon dioxide levels could compromise the successful fertilization, larval settlement and survivorship of the already threatened Caribbean and Florida reef Elkhorn corals. [EurekAlert!]
• Threshold sea surface temperatures for tropical convection and tropical cyclones rise –
Researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa report that as the tropical oceans have warmed over the last 30 years, the threshold sea surface temperature required to initiate tropical convection and tropical cyclones (e.g., hurricanes) has been rising at the same rate. [EurekAlert!]
• Exploring ancient extreme global warming --
Scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, along with at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and the United Kingdom's University of Southampton have reconstructed variations in carbon dioxide levels from sediment cores extracted by the Ocean Drilling Program from the seafloor near Tasmania, Australia. They determined that variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide at approximately 40 million years ago were highly correlated with changes in global temperature, during a time known as the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum. [EurekAlert!]
• An 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.

Concept of the Week: Living Coral and El Niño

El Niño episodes of 1982-83 and 1997-1998, the most intense of the century, confirmed the connection between higher than average ocean temperatures and bleaching of hermatypic corals. (Hermatypic corals live in warm shallow water and build large reefs.) Water temperatures higher than 29 °C (the normal maximum sea surface temperature in the equatorial eastern Pacific) can trigger expulsion of zooxanthellae, microscopic dinoflagellates whose symbiotic relationship with coral polyps is essential for the long-term survival of coral. Without zooxanthellae, coral polyps have little pigmentation and appear nearly transparent on the coral's white skeleton, a condition known as coral bleaching. If maximum temperatures are not too high for too long, corals can recover, but prolonged warming associated with an intense El Niño (that may persist for 12 to 18 months) can be lethal to coral. Most hermatypic corals thrive when the water temperature is 27 °C, but do not grow when the water becomes too cold. Although the ideal temperature varies with species and from one location to another, the temperature range for optimal growth is quite narrow--only a few Celsius degrees. This sensitivity to relatively small changes in water temperature is an important source of information on past climates as fossil coral is a significant component of many limestones. Evidence of bleaching episodes in fossil corals may yield important clues to past changes in the world's tropical ocean.

Coral, sometimes referred to as "the rainforests of the ocean," provides a base for local ecosystems and have many benefits (e.g., fisheries, tourism) that are important in many parts of the globe. Hence, vulnerability to El Niño-associated warming is an object of considerable scientific interest. During the 1997-98 El Niño, NOAA charted significant coral bleaching from portions of the Great Barrier Reef near Australia, French Polynesia in the south Pacific, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya, and around the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Closer to home, coral bleaching was reported in the Florida Keys, the Cayman Islands, and off the Pacific coast of Panama and Baja California. Fortunately damage from the 1997-98 El Niño warming was less drastic than the 1983-84 El Niño when up to 95% of the corals in some locations died. Many of the corals damaged in the late 1990s have at least partially recovered including important reefs in the Florida Keys. For additional information on coral status, go to the NOAA website http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/.

Concept of the Week: Questions

1. Most hermatypic corals thrive at an ocean water temperature of [(10) (27)] °C.
2. Corals [(can) (cannot)] recover from bleaching if high ocean water temperatures are not long lasting.

Historical Events:

• 15 November 1860...The light in the massive stone Minots Ledge Lighthouse at the entrance to Boston Harbor, which was built on the original site of the one lost in 1851, was exhibited. Work on the new lighthouse commenced in 1855 and was finished in 1860. "It ranks, by the engineering difficulties surrounding its erection and by the skill and science shown in the details of its construction, among the chief of the great sea-rock lighthouses of the world." (USCG Historians Office)
• 15 November 1888...The Norwegian oceanographer and meteorologist Harald Ulrik Sverdrup was born on this date. He was known for his studies of the physics, chemistry, and biology of the ocean. He died in August 1957. (Today in Science History)
• 15 November 1854...In Egypt, a royal concession from Said was made that ultimately permitted construction of the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. (Wikipedia)
• 17 November 1820...Captain Nathaniel Palmer, USN, became the first American to see Antarctica. He saw the Palmer Peninsula, which was later named after him. (Wikipedia)
• 17 November 1869...The Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas, was officially inaugurated in Egypt with an elaborate ceremony. (Wikipedia)
• 17 November 1973...The "Largest Icebreaker in the Western World," USCGC Polar Star, was launched. (USCG Historians Office)
• 18 November 1421...Wind-driven waves from an intense storm breached Dutch dikes on the Zuider Zee, sweeping away 72 villages. At least 10,000 people died in "St. Elizabeth's flood." (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 18 November 1929...A magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake centered on the Grand Banks off the south coast of Newfoundland broke 12 transatlantic telegraph cables and triggered a tsunami that destroyed many south coast communities on Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula. (Wikipedia)
• 19 November 1493...The explorer Christopher Columbus became the first European to go ashore on modern day Puerto Rico one day after seeing it for the first time. At the time, he named the island San Juan Bautista. (Wikipedia)
• 19 November 1978...A waterspout came onshore to become a tornado near Muhio Wharf in Hilo Harbor on Hawaii's Big Island. Some industrial buildings lost their roofs. The proximity of the waterspout-tornado caused an airliner to change its landing approach to Hilo's airport. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 19 November 1996...The last component of the Confederation Bridge was placed that crosses the Northumberland Strait between Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island and Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. This two-lane eight mile long bridge, which was opened in May 1997, is the longest bridge over ice covered salt waters in the world. Ice covers the strait for five months per year. (Today in Science History)
• 20 November 1820...The 238-ton American whaler Essex from Nantucket, MA was attacked by an 80-ton bull sperm whale approximately 2000 miles off the western coast of South America. Of the 20 crew members that escaped in three open boats, only five survived the 83-day journey to the coastal waters of South America. The classic novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851) was inspired in part by the story of the Essex. (The History Channel)
• 21 November 1987...Truk Island (Federated States of Micronesia at 7.4 degrees N, 151.7 degrees E) was struck by the rapidly intensifying Tropical Storm Nina, as winds gusted to 95 mph. Five died, and most buildings were destroyed. A storm of such intensity so close to the equator is somewhat unusual. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.