Weekly Ocean News

DATASTREME OCEAN WEEK TWELVE: 26-30 November 2012

Items of Interest:

End of a season -- With the end of November on Friday, 30 November 2012, the autumn meteorological season in the Northern Hemisphere will end with the start of the meteorological winter season on Saturday (1 December). Recall that meteorologists have elected to use a standard three-month grouping to identify each meteorological season. Hence, September, October and November are considered the autumn or fall meteorological season, while the months of December, January and February are the winter season. You will note that the winter solstice, marking the day where the length of daylight is least in the Northern Hemisphere is still three weeks away, falling on Friday, 21 December 2012. Since the lowest temperatures typically fall in mid to late January, the meteorological winter tends to be centered on the coldest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
In addition, the end of November also marks the end of the official hurricane seasons in the North Atlantic, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, along with the eastern and central North Pacific basins.
The 2012 hurricane seasons reviewed -- With the end of the official 2012 hurricane season in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific on Friday (30 November 2012), a quick review of this year's tropical cyclone statistics for the official 2012 hurricane season has been made for both basins. [AMS DataStreme Atmosphere]
For those who are interested in obtaining historic hurricane information, the "Historical Hurricanes Mapping & Analysis Tool" developed by NOAA allows the search and display of detailed data for more than 6000 tropical cyclones in seven of the planet's major ocean basins based upon a data set that runs from 1842 to 2011. Coastal population trends are also available for the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States.
Tropical cyclone climatologies of North Atlantic and the eastern North Pacific -- The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has an updated and revised edition of its "Tropical Cyclones of the North Atlantic Ocean, 1851-2006." While a paper copy of this book is available for a cost from NHC, a 243-pg pdf file of this edition can be downloaded for free. NHC also released the first edition of "Tropical Cyclones of the Eastern North Pacific Ocean, 1949-2006." In addition to a paper copy is available for sale, a free 164-page pdf file is available. Both of these climatologies have numerous graphics that show long-term changes in tropical cyclone frequency in the two basins.
A climatology of tropical cyclones in the central North Pacific from the 1950s to 2008 is available from the CPHC climatology website maintained by the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) in Honolulu, HI.
NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP Satellite turns one year old -- During the last month, the nation's newest environmental satellite, the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP Satellite, completed its first year of collecting and transmitting weather and climate data for planet Earth that could be used either to produce images or as input to numerical weather and climate models. Some of the information collected by the five state of the art onboard sensors includes data on storms, ozone and vegetation. Editor's note: This polar-orbiting satellite was named for the late Verner Suomi, a meteorology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was a pioneer in using satellites to monitor the Earth's weather and climate. NPP stands for National Polar-orbiting Partnership. EJH [NASA GSFC]
Accessing and interpreting climate data -- If you would like to obtain a variety of climate data for your home town or state that are available from the National Weather Service, please read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth. This Supplemental not only identifies some of the sites to find the data, but also provides you with a brief explanation of the terminology used to identify the climate data.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- As the official hurricane seasons in both the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins draw to a close during this upcoming week, no tropical cyclone activity was reported across either basin during the last week. However, a weak tropical storm formed over the previous weekend over the waters of the Bay of Bengal in the North Indian Ocean basin. This system, identified as Tropical Storm 3B, was relatively short-lived, surviving for less than 48 hours as it traveled to the southwest. The NASA Hurricane Page has more information and satellite imagery on this system when it was designated as Tropical Depression 3B.
In the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Storm Boldwin developed to the south of Diego Garcia during the just concluded weekend. This tropical storm was traveling toward the west-southwest and should dissipate by early this week.
New federal fisheries observer program to start in Alaska -- NOAA Fisheries recently announced that it will implement a new fisheries observer program for Alaska's commercial groundfish and halibut fisheries at the start of 2013. The observers, who will be onboard fishing vessels or at shore processing plants, are trained biologists who will collect detailed biological and operation information that will be used by fisheries managers, scientists and policy makers in making decisions for the sustainable management of Alaska's billion dollar fisheries industry. [NOAA Fisheries Service]
Monitoring in global sea level fluctuations from space -- Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Colorado, Boulder recently reported that their analysis of nearly 20 years of global sea-level data collected by NASA and European orbiting satellites indicates a resumption of the long-term increase in global sea level of approximately 3.2 mm per year has occurred following a sharp 5-mm dip in 2010-11 due to a strong La Niña event. The satellites collecting data for the last two centuries include the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft, the NASA and European Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites. [NASA JPL]
Lower water levels on Great Lakes due to lack of rain and warming lakes -- Lake levels on North America's Great Lakes were well below the long-term averages during this past fall. Most noticeable were Lakes Michigan and Huron, where near-record low water levels were reported at the end of October. Scientists claim that the near-record low lake levels are due to a combination of short-term lack of summer rain and long-term warming of the lakes that have increased evaporation rates and reduced winter ice cover. [National Geographic] The National Weather Service Forecast Office for Milwaukee, WI recently posted a comparison of the record water levels of Lakes Michigan and Huron. [NWSFO Milwaukee/Sullivan]
Storm surge defense alternatives offered -- In the wake of the recent massive coastal flooding in the New York City metropolitan area due to Hurricane Sandy, a landscape architecture professor at The City College of New York (CCNY) has offered several alternatives that could be employed to protect New York Harbor from storm surges and rising sea level. She believes that these alternatives would involve environmentally friendly "soft infrastructure" involving archipelagoes of artificial islands and reefs that would mitigate flood damage without diverting the harm elsewhere. [CCNY News]
Comprehensive storm surge database and climatology developed -- Researchers at Louisiana State University, including the Louisiana State Climatologist, have produced SURGEDAT, the first comprehensive and documented surge database for the US Gulf Coast that identifies the location and height of peak storm surge for 195 surge events between 1880 and 2011. Most of these events were associated with tropical cyclones. This database was constructed from data collected from various federal agencies, academic publications and newspaper articles. SURGEDAT will be valuable to coastal stakeholders. Recently, the project has been expanded beyond the US Gulf Coast to include a global dataset and user-friendly online map. [LSU Gold]
Indo-Pacific climate change explained -- Researchers at the University of University of Hawaii at Manoa report that they can explain changes in the climate over the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean basin during the last 60 years through a subtle change in the sea-surface temperature that resulted in a weakening of the prevailing trade winds across the region and a shift in the rainfall to the east toward the central tropical Pacific. The results were based upon analysis of a reconstructed surface temperature data set across the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean in four widely used atmospheric models. [University of Hawaii News]
Ocean currents help in predicting Arctic sea ice extent -- researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a synthesis method for combining observations and numerical models to simulate the seasonal extent of Arctic sea ice and the underlying oceanic circulation pattern. The improved Arctic ice extent forecast is based upon discovery of the feedback between sea ice and ocean currents. [MIT Media Relations]
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 --

earthweek.com

Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Climate Feedback Processes

Earth's climate system includes many interacting variables. Some variables are external to the Earth-atmosphere system and some are internal. External variables include solar energy output and Earth-sun geometry (i.e., the Milankovitch cycles). Internal variables include properties of the Earth's surface (e.g., albedo, moisture), the concentration of key atmospheric components (e.g., greenhouse gases, sulfurous aerosols), and cloud cover and thickness.

An important consideration in understanding how Earth's climate system responds to some perturbation is feedback. Feedback is defined as a sequence of interactions among variables in a system that determines how the system responds to some initial perturbation in one or more of the variables. Variables in Earth's climate system may interact in such a way as to either amplify (positive feedback) or lessen (negative feedback) a change in climate. An example of positive feedback is the ice-albedo effect described in Chapter 12 of the DataStreme Ocean textbook. Less ice cover in the Arctic greatly reduces the albedo of the Arctic Ocean causing higher sea surface temperatures and accelerated melting of the multiyear pack ice.

Consider an example of negative feedback. Increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide enhances the greenhouse effect causing global warming. Global warming in turn raises sea surface temperatures and increases the rate of evaporation. A more humid atmosphere means more persistent and thicker cloud cover but clouds have both a cooling and warming effect on the lower atmosphere. The relatively high albedo of cloud tops causes cooling whereas absorption and emission of infrared radiation by clouds causes warming by contributing to the greenhouse effect. Satellite measurements and numerical models indicate that cooling would dominate.

In general, negative feedback tends to dominate over positive feedback in Earth's climate system, limiting the magnitude of climate change. The great thermal inertia of the ocean is the principal reason for dampening the planetary temperature response.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Feedback in Earth's climate system that amplifies climate change is described as [(positive)(negative)] feedback.
In general, [(negative)(positive)] feedback tends to prevail in Earth's climate system.

Historical Events:

26 November 1703...Bristol England was damaged by a hurricane. The Royal Navy lost 15 warships.
26 November 1778...Captain James Cook of the British Royal Navy became the first European to discover Maui in the Sandwich Islands (later renamed the Hawaiian Islands). (Wikipedia)
26 November 1847...LT William Lynch, USN, sailed from New York to Haifa on USS Supply for an expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. His group charted the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and compiled reports of the flora and fauna of the area. (Naval Historical Center)
26 November 1888...A late season hurricane brushed the East Coast with heavy rain and gale force winds. The hurricane passed inside Nantucket and over Cape Cod, then crossed Nova Scotia. (David Ludlum)
26 November 1966...The world's first tidal power station was opened at Rance estuary in the French province of Brittany. This power plant, fitted with reversible turbines, generates 500 million kilowatt-hours annually. (Today in Science History)
26-28 November 1898...The "Portland" storm raged across New England producing gale force winds along the coast and heavy snow inland. A foot of snow blanketed Boston, MA, and 27 inches fell at New London, CT. Winds at Boston gusted to 72 mph, and wind gusts to 98 mph were estimated at Block Island, RI. A passenger ship, the S.S. Portland, sank off Cape Cod with the loss of all 191 persons aboard, and Boston Harbor was filled with wrecked ships. The storm wrecked 56 vessels resulting in a total of 456 casualties. (26^th- 28^th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
27 November 1703...The first Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of Devon, England (approximately 14 miles southwest of Plymouth) was destroyed in the "Great Storm," and killed its builder Henry Winstanley. This first light was in an octagonal wooden structure built in 1698. The "Great Storm" is reported to have killed more than 8000 people. (Wikipedia) (Today in Science History)
27-28 November 1905...Heavy snow and wind blasted the western Great Lakes with as much as seven inches of snow in northwestern Wisconsin and sustained winds of 42 mph recorded at Duluth, MN for 29 straight hours and 65 mph winds for 13 continuous hours. Severe drifting resulted. Eighteen ships were destroyed or disabled on Lake Superior. The ship Mataafa was grounded and broke in two in Duluth harbor. Nine of the fifteen crew of the Mataafa froze to death despite running aground within 100 yards of the shore. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
28 November 1520...Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean after passing through the treacherous South American strait that now bears his name in a 38-day passage. He was the first European to sail into the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic to the east. (The History Channel)
28 November 1960...A severe storm produced waves 20 to 40 feet high on Lake Superior. Duluth, MN was buried under a foot of snow, and clocked wind gusts to 73 mph. The northern shore of Lake Superior was flooded, and property along the shore was battered. Thousands of cords of pulpwood were washed into Lake Superior, and up to three feet of water flooded the main street of Grand Marais. Thunder accompanied the "nor'easter". (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
1 December 1969...Ocean swells generated by a storm more than 1000 miles to the north-northwest of the French Frigate Shoals produced 50-foot high surf along the outer shoals of Tern Island, submerging the 300-foot wide island under two to three feet of water. The 19-member Coast Guard contingent was evacuated, but considerable damage was done to buildings. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
1 December 1990...Workers from the United Kingdom and France on the Channel Tunnel construction project met approximately 120 feet beneath the English Channel seabed, to establish the first ground connection between the British Isles and mainland Europe since the last Ice Age. (Wikipedia)
2 December 1755...The second Eddystone Lighthouse near Plymouth, England was destroyed by fire. This light had replaced an earlier light that had been destroyed in the "Great 1703 Storm." The current structure is the fourth light to be constructed at that site. (Wikipedia)