WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

10-14 December 2012

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2013 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 14 January 2013. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- No organized areas of disturbed tropical weather were found across the North Atlantic or the eastern North Pacific basins during the last week.
In the western North Pacific Ocean basin, Super Typhoon Bopha had strengthened to become a category 5 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale early last week as it approached the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines as maximum sustained surface winds reached approximately 160 mph. More than 300 people were killed and hundreds missing in the Philippines as the typhoon moved across the Philippines. After weakening to a tropical storm after traveling across the Philippines, Bopha intensified again to a typhoon as it moved to the northwest across the South China Sea during last week. However, over this past weekend, Typhoon Bopha weakened to a tropical storm and then a tropical depression as it curved toward the northeast and approached the northwest coast of Luzon in the northern Philippines. Consult the NASA Hurricane Page for additional information and satellite images on former Super typhoon Bopha,
In the South Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Cyclone Claudia formed south of Diego Garcia late last week. Claudia became a major category 3 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it traveled toward the south. Additional information and satellite images on Claudia are available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
First Atlantic hurricane forecast for next season -- During the first week of December, Philip J. Klotzbach, his mentor Professor Bill Gray, and other colleagues at Colorado State University usually released their initial quantitative forecast of the tropical cyclone activity for the forthcoming hurricane season in the North Atlantic Basin. However, they have elected to discontinue this quantitative forecast and provide a qualitative discussion as to what they perceive as the factors that would determine the hurricane activity across the basin in 2013. They are using a new way of assessing next year's activity in terms of two primary physical parameters involving: 1.) the strength of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) and 2.)
the phase of ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation). They will make their first quantitative forecast in early April 2013. Details of their assessment appear in the report issued by the Tropical Meteorology Project. [Colorado State University Report]
At the end of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Philip Klotzbach and Professor Bill Gray issued a summary report of the just-concluded season in which they provided a verification of their seasonal and two-week forecasts. They noted that with 19 named tropical cyclones, the season was more active than they had anticipated in their seasonal forecasts (10 tropical cyclones in their initial April forecast), as a large number of weak tropical cyclones developed in the northeast section of the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic. [Colorado State University Report]
Professor Bill Gray and Phil Klotzbach have written a discussion on their views of Hurricane Sandy and its potential relationship to climate change caused by increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. [The Tropical Meteorology Project]
Annual Arctic Report Card released -- Last week, NOAA's Climate Program Office released its 2012 annual update of the "Arctic Report Card," a peer-reviewed report of the state of the air, ocean and ice in the Arctic basin prepared by an international team of 141 scientists from 15 countries, including those from NOAA. These experts have found above-average air and water temperatures in this region in 2012, but nothing that was "remarkable" when compared with those over the last decade. However, record low amounts of Arctic snow cover were reported last June and the smallest areal coverage was found in summer Arctic sea ice in early September. [NOAA News]
Great Lakes water level data available to public on new website -- Early last week NOAA officials officially unveiled their new "NOAA Great Lakes Water Level Dashboard," which is a single interactive website that permits the public, students, educators and environmental researchers the ability to compare decades of historic and current water level data on the North American Great Lakes. These data are from both operational and experimental datasets and reflect the long-term variations in Lake levels associated with climate variability and climate change. Future Lake levels are available from forecasting models, especially the Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System operated by NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. [NOAA News]
More "lessons learned" from Deepwater Horizon oil spill -- Researchers from academia and the government have produced two overview papers and 13 specialty papers for a special section of the prestigious "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science" that deals with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the spring of 2010. This collection of articles provides a comprehensive scientific and engineering analysis of the response effort undertaken by the government, industry and academia following the oil spill in an effort to contain the spill, protect ecosystems and clean up the waters of the Gulf and the Gulf Coast. The valuable lessons that were learned from the response and research efforts were also considered. [NOAA News]
Opportunities to Northeast groundfish industry are being advanced -- NOAA's Fisheries Service recently announced that partnerships were being formed between the agency, researchers and Northeast ground fish industry that would help maintain and increase opportunities in the Northeast Region. [Northeast Regional Office NOAA Fisheries Service]
Winds in southern New England have weakened, but not along coast -- Oceanographers at the University of Rhode Island report that their analysis of nearly 40 years of wind speed data collected from airports in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and an offshore buoy indicates a decline in average wind speeds by approximately 15 percent at inland sites, while wind speeds have remained steady at an offshore site. The researchers suggest that the decline in wind speeds could be due to increased urbanization and changing weather patterns due to changing climate. [University of Rhode Island]
Elevated mercury levels in coastal fog linked to deep ocean water upwelling -- In research conducted by an environmental toxicologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz and his colleagues, elevated mercury levels in coastal fog in California suggests that upwelling of deep ocean water along the coast brings mercury to the sea surface, where it enters the atmosphere and is absorbed by fog droplets. The mercury levels in fog, which are in parts-per-trillion, are not considered to be a health concern. [University of California, Santa Cruz]
Ancient microbes found in remote Antarctic lake -- An international team of scientists that included those from NASA have discovered a community of bacteria in Lake Vida, a remote and unique lake in one of Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys. These bacteria were discovered approximately 65 feet beneath the icy surface in one of Earth's darkest, saltiest and coldest habitats. This discovery of like in a lake that has essentially no oxygen and has high nitrous oxide levels is significant because it helps increase understanding of how life can sustain itself in these extreme environments. [NASA JPL]
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.

Historical Events:

10 December 1582...France began use of the Gregorian calendar.
10 December 1799...The metric system was made compulsory by law in France. (Today in Science History)
10 December 1922...Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian oceanographer explorer, author, athlete and statesman in recognition of his work for refugees and the famine-stricken. Other prize winners that year were Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein.
10 December 1978 (date approximate)...A 90-foot research ship chartered by the University of Hawaii left Honolulu on the 9th, but failed to arrive in Kawaihae on the 11th. Except for an empty box, no trace of the ship, crew or scientists was found by an extensive air and sea search operation. Gusty trade winds prevailed over the area. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
11 December 1901...Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, covering over 2000 miles from Cornwall in England to Newfoundland, Canada. (The History Channel)
12 December 1966...A Greek passenger ferry foundered in heavy seas near Heraklion, Crete with the loss of 241 lives.
13 December 1577...Five ships and 164 men under the command of English seaman Francis Drake (later knighted) set sail from Plymouth, England, to embark on Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, the first by a British explorer. The journey took almost three years. (The History Channel)
13 December 1642...Dutch navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman became the first European explorer to sight the South Pacific island group now known as New Zealand. (The History Channel)
13 December 1816...The first US patent for a dry dock was issued to John Adamson of Boston, MA. (Today in Science History)
13 December 1879...The first federal fish-hatching steamer was launched at Wilmington, DE.
14 December 1287...Zuider Zee seawall in the Netherlands collapsed with the loss of over 50,000 lives. (Wikipedia)
14 December 1902...The British Cable Ship Silverton set sail from the San Francisco Bay Area to lay the first telephone cable between San Francisco and Honolulu. The project, which involved laying a cable across 2277 nautical miles, was completed by 1 January 1903 as the ship landed and the first test message sent the same day. (Today in Science History)
14 December 1988...The first transatlantic underwater fiber-optic cable went into service.
14 December 1991...A ferry, the Salem Express, carrying 569 passengers sank in the Red Sea off the coast of Safaga, Egypt, after hitting a coral reef. Over 460 people were believed drowned.
15 December 1488...Bartholomeus Diaz returned to Portugal after sailing round Cape of Good Hope.
15 December 1582...The Spanish Netherlands, Denmark and Norway adopted the Gregorian calendar.
15 December 1965...The third cyclone of the year killed another 10,000 people at the mouth of the Ganges River, Bangladesh.
15 December 1987...High seas to 12-foot heights caused in part by 30-mph winds associated with an arctic cold front capsized a fishing boat in the coastal waters near California's Channel Islands. The ship's cargo shifted in the high seas and strong winds. Three of the nine people onboard drowned. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
16 December 1897...The Argonaut, the first US submarine with an internal combustion engine, was demonstrated on the Patapsco River. Simon Lake invented and patented the engine. (Today in Science History)
16-17 December 1997...Torrential rain from Super Typhoon Paka fell on Guam with nearly 21 inches of rain observed at Tiyan before instrumentation failed two hours before Paka's eye passed to the south. Winds gusted to 171 mph before wind instruments failed. However, unofficial sources at Andersen Air Force Base believed that wind gusts may have reached 236.7 mph during the height of the storm. This super typhoon left major damage to 60 percent of the homes on Guam and caused 500 million dollars in damage. Fortunately, no one was killed and only two injuries were reported. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Calendar)
16 December 2000...NASA announced that an ocean was most likely located beneath the icy surface of the Jovian moon Ganymede. (Wikipedia)