WEEK TEN: 7-11 November 2011

• Opportunity for Teachers: The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Teacher at Sea 2012 Field Season program is now accepting applications until 30 November 2011. 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.

• Eye on the tropics -- During the last week no tropical cyclone activity was found across the tropical Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. However, Tropical Storm Keila formed over the waters of the Arabian Sea in Indian Ocean basin at the midpoint of last week. However, this tropical storm was short-lived as it traveled north and moved onshore along the coast of Oman and weakened to a tropical depression within 30 hours after formation. Additional information and satellite images on Tropical Storm Keila can be obtained from the NASA Hurricane Page.
• New England seal deaths declared an unusual mortality event -- Officials at NOAA's Fisheries Service recently declared the relatively high number of sea deaths that have occurred along the New England coast since this past September to be an "Unusual Mortality Event," which enables the agency to direct additional resources to further investigate the cause of these seal deaths. These officials also reminded the public not to venture too close to seals along the shore and to report any sightings of stranded seals. [NOAA News]
• Research funded for early warning of "red tide" effects on Maine shellfish -- NOAA recently awarded funding to the University of Maine for a three-year project intended to investigate methods that would provide early warning detection of toxic Alexandrium blooms, also known as "red tides," in the Gulf of Maine. [NOAA News]
• Civil penalties for alleged turtle excluder device violators considered -- NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement has begun assessing civil penalties to the owners and operators of 18 shrimp trawlers along the Gulf of Mexico coast for allegedly altering or not having turtle excluder devices on their vessels that are required by the Endangered Species Act. [NOAA News]
• Management plans for a national marine sanctuary released -- NOAA recently released the final management plan and environmental assessment for the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off Washington state's coast. This document represents a collaborative effort involving the public, the Sanctuary Advisory Council and the Intergovernmental Policy Council consisting of four Native American tribes designed to address five priority goals. These goals involve management of the sanctuary; conduct collaborative monitoring and research; improve ocean literacy; conserve natural resources; and to understand the sanctuary’s cultural, historical and socioeconomic significance. [NOAA News]
• North Sea sports multiple shades of green -- A recent image obtained from data collected by the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows multiple shades of green in the surface waters of the North Sea off Denmark. These different shades of green were due to a combination of factors that included sediment loading of the waters from coastal estuaries as well as dissolved organic matter. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Debris from Japanese tsunami predicted to head toward US West Coast -- Scientists at Oregon State University are predicting that the debris generated by the devastating tsunami that slammed Japan in March 2011 should slowly cross the North Pacific Ocean and reach the Oregon and Washington coasts within the next two to three years. They base their forecast of the movement of the massive trail of debris on models that incorporate winds and ocean currents. [Oregon State University]
• More frequent stalled winter weather patterns with a warmer North Atlantic -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center report that atmospheric weather patterns known as "blocking events" resulting in slow-moving winter weather systems and more frequent massive snowfalls appear to be more frequent during decades when the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean are warmer than usual. The researchers also feel that these stalled patterns can also trigger changes in the ocean circulation. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
• Changes foreseen in California’s Bay-Delta due to climate changes -- A team of USGS scientists and their academic colleagues have produced an assessment of how California's interconnected San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Bay-Delta system) would change by 2009 in response to several climate scenarios ranging from slow to rapid warming trends. The results of their investigations indicate that this area will experience shifts in its biological communities, rising sea level and modified water supplies of the remainder of the 21st century due to the impacts of global climate change. [USGS Newsroom]
• Air pollution and Arabian Sea cyclone intensity link detected -- Researchers from the University of Virginia, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies and South Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology have found that air pollution appears to be making cyclones over the Arabian Sea more intense. Increased concentrations of atmospheric aerosols appear to diminish the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of India, which would weaken the regional wind patterns, creating a more favorable environment for the development of stronger Arabian Sea cyclones due to less vertical wind shear (change in wind speed and/or direction over altitude). [NSF News]
• Gradual Chesapeake Bay recovery seen -- Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland claim that their analysis of water-quality measurements taken from Chesapeake Bay over the last 60 years suggests clear signs of progress in the costly 27-year-old campaign to clean up the Bay. They point to the general shrinking of late-summer "dead zone" areas in the Bay, the nation's largest estuary, during recent years. [The Baltimore Sun]
• Contaminants in the environment seen by multi-color sensors -- A "hyperspectral" (HSR) camera, or a light sensor with the ability to detect more than 1000 colors from reflected sunlight, has been developed at Israel's Tel Aviv University. These small and easy to use sensors can be used by researchers to monitor harbors, urban areas, forests and agricultural lands to "diagnose" contaminants and other environmental hazards in real time. [American Friends of Tel Aviv University]
• Rates of fauna and flora escape from climate change similar on both land and sea -- In research conducted at the University of California at Santa Barbara, rates at which land-based animal and plant populations would move in response to changes in climate appear to be similar to corresponding populations in the oceans. [NSF News]
• 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: Solving the Mystery of Seamount Ecosystems

The United States Commission on Ocean Policy reports that less than 5% of the ocean floor has been explored. This is beginning to change as scientists and engineers develop and apply new technologies to investigate deep ocean waters and the sea bottom (refer to Chapter 13 in your DataStreme Ocean textbook). Consider, for example, the effort to obtain a better understanding of seamount ecosystems.

A seamount is a submarine mountain of volcanic origin (now extinct) that rises more than 1000 m (3300 ft) above the ocean floor. Usually a seamount summit is 1000 to 2000 m (3300 to 6600 ft) below sea level. They occur as isolated peaks, chains (e.g., Emperor Seamounts in the North Pacific; New England chain in the North Atlantic), or clusters. The term "seamount" was first applied in 1936 to the Davidson Seamount located off the coast of Southern California. Scientists estimate that perhaps 30,000 dot the ocean floor with as many as two-thirds located on the Pacific Ocean bottom. However, fewer than one thousand seamounts have been named and only a handful of seamounts has received detailed scientific study.

In recent years, discovery of unique life forms on seamounts has spurred scientific interest in seamount ecosystems. Many nations, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, are supporting scientific cruises to observe and collect specimens from seamount ecosystems. Seamount ecosystems are unusually productive and are home to unique species. Some seamount surveys have found that certain seamount species are endemic, that is, they live on only one seamount or a few nearby peaks. For example, up to one-third of all species living on some seamounts off New Caledonia are endemic while up to half of the invertebrates and fish on the Nazca seamount off Chile are endemic. In the northeast Pacific, large-scale eddies may transport larval fish from coastal environments to isolated seamounts located out at sea. Furthermore, some scientists argue that seamounts may function as stepping stones that allow for migration of species over lengthy periods--perhaps over millions of years. In addition, some seamounts may serve as aids to navigation for fish that migrate over long distances. For example, hammerhead sharks may use the magnetic field surrounding seamounts to find their way.

The recent effort to survey and explore seamount ecosystems has reached new urgency with the realization of the devastating impact of commercial fish trawlers on those ecosystems. In some cases, trawling has striped off most marine life (e.g., coral gardens) from the surface of seamounts leaving behind mostly bare rock. Typically, trawled seamounts have only half the biomass and considerably fewer species than undisturbed seamounts. Scientists anticipate that a better understanding of seamount ecosystems will help make the case for their conservation and inform the most effective strategies for their protection. Australia is one of the first nations to protect seamount ecosystems, establishing the Tasmanian Seamount Marine Reserve in 1999. The reserve covers 370 square km (140 square mi) and includes more than a dozen seamounts.

1. Seamounts are extinct submarine volcanoes that occur primarily in the [(Atlantic) (Pacific)(Southern)] Ocean.
2. Commercial fish trawling has [(little if any)(a devastating)] impact on seamount ecosystems.

Historical Events:

• 9 November 1913...The "Freshwater Fury," a rapidly deepening extratropical cyclone, caused unpredicted gales on the Great Lakes. Seventeen ships, including eight large ore carriers on Lake Erie sank drowning 270 sailors. Cleveland, OH reported 17.4 in. of snow in 24 hrs, and a storm total of 22.2 in., both all-time records for that location. During the storm, winds at Cleveland averaged 50 mph, with gusts to 79 mph. The storm produced sustained winds of 62 mph at Port Huron, MI, wind gusts to 80 mph at Buffalo, NY. (9^th-11^th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 9 November 1932...An unnamed hurricane struck Cuba, with winds reaching approximately 210 mph at Nuvitas. However, a storm surge was the main killer of 2500 of the 4000 residents of Santa Cruiz del Sur. Essentially no storm records exist, as the observer drowned, with records and instruments washed away. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 10 November 1835...A severe storm crossed the Great Lakes and "swept the lakes clear of sail" as 19 ships were lost and 254 sailors killed on Lakes Erie, Ontario and Michigan. (Intellicast)
• 10 November 1975...Another "freshwater fury" hit the Great Lakes. A large ore carrier on Lake Superior, the Edmund Fitzgerald, sank near Crisp Point with the loss of its crew of 29 men. Eastern Upper Michigan and coastal Lower Michigan were hardest hit by the storm, which produced wind gusts to 71 mph at Sault Ste Marie, MI and gusts to 78 mph at Grand Rapids, MI. Severe land and road erosion occurred along the Lake Michigan shoreline. A popular song by Gordon Lightfoot was inspired by the storm. (David Ludlum) (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
  Editors note: In 2000, the NOAA National Weather Service Forecast Office at Marquette, MI created a web page commemorating the 25^th anniversary of the sinking and describing the advances in marine weather forecasting over the last quarter century. EJH
• 10 November 1993...Violent storm over the Black Sea closed the Russian oil terminal port of Novorossisk for 20 days. "Bora" winds reported as high as 112 mph sank at least seven ships. (The Weather Doctor)
• 11 November 1099...Violent storm in the North Sea killed 100,000 people in England and The Netherlands. (The Weather Doctor)
• 12 November 1956...(date approximate) The crew on the icebreaker USCGC Glacier saw what may have been the world's largest iceberg. Observed about 150 mi west of Antarctica's Scott Island, the iceberg was about 60 mi wide by 208 mi long, or roughly the size of Maryland. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 12 November 1974...A salmon was caught in the River Thames, England - the first in more than 130 years. (Today in Science History)
• 13 November 1970...A cyclone swept over Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, pushing a 49-ft storm surge against the coast at high tide. Flooding killed 500,000. Over 50 million people were affected by the storm rain, wind and surge. (The Weather Doctor)
• 13 November 2002...The single-hulled oil tanker Prestige sank off Spain's Galician coast, causing a huge oil spill. (Wikipedia)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2011, The American Meteorological Society.