Weekly Ocean News

WEEK ELEVEN: 12-16 November 2012

Items of Interest

Celebrate Geography Awareness Week -- This upcoming week (11-17 November 2012) has been identified as Geography Awareness Week. 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 Geography Awareness Week theme, "Declare Your Interdependence," explores the idea that all peoples are connected to the rest of the world through decisions that are made on a daily basis, such as what foods are eaten or what things are bought.
Species dominance and ocean properties -- Discover how variations in both the physical and chemical properties of ocean waters can be accompanied by changes in the dominance of the various species of marine life in this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics -- During the last week, no organized tropical cyclones were found across the tropical ocean basins of either the Northern or Southern Hemispheres.
Assessing sea level changes with Sandy and changing climate -- Cynthia Rosenzweig, a climate impacts expert at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, and director of the NOAA-sponsored Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast, was recently interviewed following the landfall upon the New Jersey coast of the hybrid monster storm that was once Hurricane Sandy. See described the impact of the coastal flooding wrought by the storm surge this storm on the infrastructure of the New York City metropolitan area and coastal sections of New Jersey. She also considered how projected sea level rises accompanying increased global temperatures associated with changing climate would have upon the Northeast. Changes in sea level in New York Harbor along with other of the nation's ports over the last century were also addressed. [NOAA Climate Watch]
Coastal impacts of Hurricane Sandy displayed --The US Geological Survey has assembled a series of aerial photographs of the New Jersey and New York's Long Island coast before and after the landfall of Hurricane Sandy near Atlantic City, NJ last month. These images reveal the impact the hurricane had on the coast and structures along the coast. [USGS Newsroom] Additional "before and after" aerial photographs of the coastal damage created by Hurricane Sandy have been made available from NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey. [National Ocean Service]
Making a comparison of the wind fields around Sandy and Katrina -- Satellite derived surface winds surrounding last month's Hurricane Sandy that caused damage along the Middle Atlantic coast and the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina that damaged the central Gulf of Mexico coast are compared. The wind map of Sandy was created from a radar scatterometer on the Indian Space Research Organization's Oceansat-2 satellite, while the corresponding wind map for Katrina was from a similar scatterometer on NASA's retired QuickSCAT satellite. While certain similarities in the wind fields around the two hurricanes are apparent, the strong hurricane-force winds accompanying Sandy extended outward nearly three times the distance than those surrounding Katrina. Furthermore, some of the strongest winds in Sandy were to the west of the system's center as it was interacting with a midlatitude storm system, while the strongest winds around Katrina were to the east. [NASA Earth Observatory]
European water mission satellite tracks Sandy -- The European Space Agency's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite made unique measurements of the salinity of the surface waters of the western North Atlantic as Hurricane Sandy moved northward late last month. Wind speeds on the ocean surface were also determined from the sensors aboard the satellite. These wind data derived from SMOS compared quite well with those data collected by a NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft. [ESA]
Public input requested on next round of Gulf restoration following oil spill -- The Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment trustees have called for public review and comment on $9 million in new projects focused on bird and turtle nesting habitat that had been damaged or destroyed along the Gulf of Mexico due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Natural Resource Trustees for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill include federal trustees from NOAA, the US Department of Interior and the US Department of Defense and state trustees from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.: [NOAA News]
Would a "La Nada" situation be unfolding? -- During the last week, forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center have discontinued the El Niño Watch that had been in effect since the beginning of last summer as the equatorial Pacific Ocean continues to indicate borderline ENSO-neutral/ weak El Niño conditions (where ENSO refers to El Niño/Southern Oscillation). The forecasters foresee ENSO-neutral is favored through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2012-13. These conditions, which some have somewhat factitiously labeled "La Nada," would be between a warm-phase El Niño and a cold-phase La Niña event. Bob Henson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research describes what such an ENSO-neutral event could have upon the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]
Paleotempestology helps place current weather "tempests" in context....-- During the recent annual meeting of The Geological Society of America several geoscientists who study geological proxy records of ancient hurricanes and other severe tropical weather events described their research into "paleotempestology," comparing their finds of past hurricanes with current events, such as Hurricane Sandy. [Geological Society of America]
Historical coral collapse on Great Barrier Reef is documented -- Marine scientists from Australia's ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the University of Queensland have found evidence of a rapid collapse of a healthy coral community in Queensland's Palm Islands between the 1920s and the 1950s following European settlement and development on the nearby mainland. [ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies]
A warmer climate could result in more frequent Indian monsoon failure -- Researchers at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Potsdam University claim that projected increased global temperatures could cause more frequent and severe failures of the Indian summer monsoon regime over the next two centuries. The Walker circulation in tropical latitudes of the Indian and Pacific Ocean basins could shift eastward, resulting in higher pressure over India during spring and failures of the monsoonal circulation over India associates with a 40 to 70 percent reduction in rainfall. [Institute of Physics]
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, drought, floods, 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, to include 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 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

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

Historical Events:

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)
14 November 1825...The Codorus, the first ship made in the U.S. with sheet iron, was tested on the Susquehanna River at York, PA. The ship weighted five tons, of which two tons was for the coal- and wood- fueled boiler which provided power for an 8-hp engine. With a keel length of 60-ft and a 9-ft beam, the ship drew about seven inches of water. (Today in Science History)
14-21 November 1991...Tropical Cyclone Tia spent most of its life near the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. However, it completely destroyed 90 percent of all dwellings on Tikopia Island. The remaining 10 percent of the buildings sustained collapsed walls or roofs that had been blown off. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
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)