Weekly Ocean News

30 October - 3 November 2017

For Your Information

High tides expected along the Atlantic and Alaskan coasts -- NOAA's National Ocean Service has recently released its High Tide Bulletin for the Fall of 2017. Ocean tides are expected to be higher than normal between 3 and 8 October along the US Atlantic Coast extending from Maine southward to the eastern coast of Florida because expanded warm ocean water, changes in weather patterns and the occurrence of a perigean spring tide due to Saturday's full moon followed a day and a half later by lunar perigee on Monday, 6 November. Higher than normal tides are also anticipated for early November along the coast of Alaska due to the perigean spring tide. [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
World Tsunami Awareness Day -- The United Nations General Assembly has designated Sunday, 5 November 2017, as World Tsunami Awareness Day in recognitoin of the hazards that tsunamis pose around the globe. The theme of this day is "Protecting Lives! Ensuring Sustainability." [United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction]
"Falling back" next weekend -- Early next Sunday morning (5 November) most of the nation will revert back to Standard Time after nearly 8 months of observing Daylight Saving Time. Since Arizona, Hawaii and Puerto Rico do not observe Daylight Saving Time, no time change will be needed in those parts of the country. The U.S. Congress has mandated time changes. Following the old adage of "spring ahead, fall behind", you will need to turn your clocks back by one hour to conform with the local time observance. Note: A recent Energy Policy Act has extended Daylight Saving Time, with the start on the second Sunday in March (12 March 2017) and end on the first Sunday in November (5 November 2017). Next spring, Daylight Saving Time will start on Sunday morning, 11 March 2018.
Most of Canada also observes changes to Daylight Saving Time at the same time. [National Research Council Canada].
A change from Daylight Saving to Standard Time does not deduct an extra hour of daylight from the day nor does it affect weather and climate patterns. The daily climate data collected at those automatic weather stations operated by the National Weather Service and the Federal Aviation Administration, together with all the cooperative weather observing stations around the nation are always made according to local standard time. NOTE: You may check the correct current official time at http://www.time.gov/
Asteroids, climate change and mass extinctions -- You are invited to read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth that describes how geoscientists have gathered evidence of five major mass extinctions over the last 550 million years from fossil records. These records also help in reconstructing past climates and help in the understanding of climate change.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity continued across the North Atlantic and western North Pacific basins: :

In the North Atlantic Basin, a tropical depression formed last Saturday morning from an area of low pressure over the northwestern Caribbean Sea to the south of Cuba. Within six hours, this tropical depression had become Tropical Storm Philippe, the sixteenth named Atlantic tropical cyclone of 2017, as the center of Philippe was located approximately 20 miles to the southwest of Havana, Cuba. Locally heavy rains were dumped on central Cuba as this tropical storm moved across the island nation during the overnight hours of Saturday night and Sunday morning. The somewhat disorganized center of Tropical Storm Philippe passed over the Florida Straits and the southeastern sections of Florida's Miami-Dade County early Sunday morning, accompanied by torrential rains that resulted in rainfall totals ranging from 5 to 10 inches on south Florida, along with gusty winds. Racing to the northeast, Philippe was passing to the northeast of Freeport on Grand Bahama Island by late morning.
As of late Sunday afternoon, Tropical Storm Philippe merged with a midlatitude frontal system and then dissipated over the western North Atlantic, approximately 290 miles to the south of Cape Hatteras, NC.
In the eastern North Pacific basin, the 18th named tropical cyclone of 2017 for this basin, which was named Tropical Storm Selma, formed during the predawn hours of last Friday. At that time, Selma was located approximately 210 miles south of San Salvador, El Salvador. Over the next day, Tropical Storm Selma traveled generally to the north toward the coast of Central America, making landfall approximately 20 miles to the east of the capital city of San Salvador by sunrise on Saturday. Tropical storm-force winds and torrential rains capable of producing flash floods accompanied Selma as it made landfall. By late Saturday afternoon, Selma had weakened to become a remnant low pressure area as it moved to a position approximately 50 miles to the north-north east of San Salvador. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information on Tropical Storm Selma, along with a satellite image.
In the western North Pacific basin, the former Super Typhoon Lan was making landfall along the coast of the southern main Japanese islands at the start of this past week. Accompanied by strong winds of up to 120 mph and torrential rains producing as much as 31 inches of rain on south central Honshu, this typhoon was responsible for at least two fatalities due to the flooding as of Monday morning. Satellite images and additional information for Super-Typhoo Lan are available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
The 27th tropical depression of 2017 formed in the western Pacific south of Guam early last week. This system, initially called Tropical Depression 27W (TD27W), became Tropical Storm Saola by midweek as it traveled toward the northwest and then north. Approaching the southern Japanese islands, Saola became a category 1 typhoon (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) over this past weekend. Locally heavy rains associated with Saola fell across the southern sections of the main Japanese islands, hardly one week following the heavy rains that accompanied Typhoon Lan. As of early Monday, Saola had lost its tropical characteristics and had become an extratropical cyclone as it continued its travels toward the northeast, approximately 75 miles to the south-southeast of Yokosuka, located on the Japanese island of Honshu.

Reflecting on the battering that Ireland received from former Hurricane Ophelia -- A meteorologist with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center wrote an article for the Event Tracker feature of the ClimateWatch Magazine that provides an analysis of how Hurricane Ophelia and its post-tropical low recently battered Ireland with winds to at least 78 mph at Cork and torrential rains. Over 300,000 residents of Ireland lost power. Unusually warm North Atlantic waters contributed to the strength of Hurricane Ophelia, which had reached a major category 3 status on the Saffir-Simpson Scale earlier in its life. and brought heavy rains and high winds to portions of Ireland. The long-term frequency of the occurrence of a tropical cyclone in Ireland was also addressed, along with the possibility that such an occurrence could be associated with a changing climate. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
On fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, the New York City metropolitan area still feeling its effects -- Some areas of the New York City metropolitan area that were damaged or destroyed five years ago this past weekend when former Hurricane Sandy (also known as "Superstorm Sandy") made landfall along the New Jersey coast have not been completely rebuilt, especially in those communities with less well-to-do residents. [Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory News]
Exploring the explosion of population of pyrosomes off Alaska -- Researchers from NOAA Fisheries' Alaska Fisheries Science Center are attempting to explain this year's influx of large numbers of jelly-like organisms called "pyrosomes" into the waters of the Gulf of Alaska off the coast of southern Alaska. These pyrosomes are typically found in warm tropical and subtropical ocean waters. [NOAA Fisheries News]
Data atlas helps discover the Gulf of Mexico -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information has developed a Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas that contains a collection of 288 maps arranged under 90 topics. The maps within the atlas cover information on the physical, biotic, living marine resources, socioeconomic conditions, environmental quality, and jurisdictions around the Gulf of Mexico, extending from the coastal counties of the United States and the coastal Mexican municipal districts extending eastward to the Yucatan Channel and the Straits of Florida. [NOAA NCEI News]
Actions recommended to help North Atlantic Right Whales -- A North Atlantic Right Whale Five-Year Review was recently completed by the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office that provides updates on the right whale population in US waters and recommends several actions that should be taken to help the species recover, including continuation of the current endangered species designation. [NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region News]
GRACE Mission comes to an end -- Late last week NASA reported that scientific operations of the 15-year old U.S./German GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite mission were being terminated as the battery onboard one of the twin GRACE satellites had limited power and this satellite was being decommissioned. This mission, living 10 years beyond its planned five-year lifetime, provided scientists with insights into the interactions of planet Earth's ocean, atmosphere and geosphere components by tracking the continuous movement of liquid water, ice. [NASA Press Release]
Viewing the end of an iceberg lifecycle from a satellite -- An image obtained from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite approximately ten days ago shows four icebergs floating in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica. These four icebergs were of varying sizes and ages. One of the icebergs was a remnant of an iceberg that had calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in 1987, while another iceberg had been formed from a collision of an iceberg with the floating tongue of the Mertz Glacier in 2010. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Satellite catches rapid breakup of a new iceberg -- A natural-color image obtained from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA's Landsat 8 satellite last week shows the breakup of the new iceberg called B-44 that had formed when it calved off Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier during the last week of September. [NASA Earth Observatory]
An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com

Concept of the Week: Controlling Nutrient Input into Chesapeake Bay

Chesapeake Bay is the nation's largest estuary; it is more than 300 km (185 mi) long, 65 km (40 mi) at its broadest, and averages about 20 m (66 ft) deep. The estuary was formed by the post-glacial rise in sea level that flooded the valley of the ancient Susquehanna River. The Bay receives about half its water from the Atlantic Ocean and the other half from the more than 150 rivers and streams draining a 166,000-square kilometer land area encompassing parts of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Major rivers that empty into Chesapeake Bay include the Potomac, Susquehanna, York, and James.

As described in more detail in your AMS Ocean Studies textbook, an estuary is a complex and highly productive ecosystem where seawater and freshwater runoff meet and mix to some degree. In Chesapeake Bay, more-dense seawater creeps northward along the bottom of the estuary, moving under the less-dense fresh water flowing in the opposite direction. This circulation combined with wind-driven and tidal water motions causes salinity to decrease upstream in the Bay, from values typical of the open ocean at its mouth to freshwater values at its northern margin.

As in all ecosystems, organisms living in estuaries depend on one another and their physical environment for food energy and habitat. Phytoplankton and submerged aquatic vegetation (e.g., marsh grass) are the primary producers (autotrophs) in estuarine food chains. Chesapeake Bay consumers (heterotrophs) include zooplankton, finfish, shellfish, birds, and humans.

Human activity has greatly modified Chesapeake Bay with consequences for the functioning of the ecosystem. Much of the original forests that covered its drainage basin were cleared and converted to farmland, roads, cities, and suburban developments. These modifications accelerated the influx of nutrients (i.e., compounds of phosphorus and nitrogen), sediment, pesticides, and other pollutants into the Bay. More nutrients spur growth of algal populations and when these organisms die (in mid-summer), their remains sink to the bottom. Decomposition of their remains reduces dissolved oxygen levels in the Chesapeake's bottom water. More sediment increases the turbidity of the water, reducing sunlight penetration for photosynthesis. Presently Chesapeake Bay is on the Federal list of "impaired waters" and in need of pollution abatement and remediation. States in the drainage basin have agreed to work together to clean up the Bay but there are significant obstacles including cost.

One casualty of human modification of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem was marsh grass-reduced by 90% from historical levels. Marsh grass anchors sediment and dampens wave action thereby controlling shoreline erosion and turbidity. Marsh grass is a food source for many organisms including waterfowl and small mammals and serves as a primary nursery for crabs and many species of fish. Reduction of this habitat along with over-fishing has been implicated in the decline of populations of blue crabs, a mainstay of the Bay fishery for more than a century. Over the past decade, the number of adult female blue crabs plunged by 80%. Without adequate protection by marsh grass, blue crabs are more vulnerable to predation by striped bass (i.e., rockfish). Striped bass turned to blue crabs as a food source when fishing reduced the numbers of menhaden, their preferred food. Menhaden is a marine fish in the herring family and the Bay's top fishery by weight.

Human modification of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin converted it from an essentially closed system to an open system. In the original climax forests, nutrients primarily cycled within the system with relatively little input to the Bay. Modification of the land for agriculture increased the area of the soil exposed to the elements and runoff from rain and snowmelt accelerated nutrient input into the Bay. In addition to such non-point (area) sources of nutrients are point sources including the effluent of wastewater treatment plants that discharge treated water into rivers and streams that drain into the Bay.

For decades, agriculture has successfully employed various cultivation practices that limit the runoff from cropland (e.g., contour plowing, strip cropping, and retention ponds.) However, less than one-third of the 300-wastewater treatment facilities located in the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin have the technology to remove high levels of nutrients from their effluent. Under current environmental regulations, states are not required to regulate the nutrient content of this discharge. But in late October 2003, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a private, not-for-profit environmental advocacy organization called on Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia to specify nutrient limits on permits they grant to all wastewater treatment facilities. In support of their recommendations, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation cited the many water quality problems stemming from excessive nutrient load in the Bay waters (e.g., algal blooms, spread of "dead zones.") According to the U. S. EPA, under the federal Clean Water Act, a state can control nitrogen pollution if it determines that environmental harm is taking place. However, the EPA estimates that as much as $4.4 billion would be required to install state-of-the-art nutrient removal technologies at all major plants (those treating more than 500,000 gallons of wastewater per day).

Historical Events:

30 October-1 November 1991...After absorbing Hurricane Grace on the 29^th, an intense ocean storm took an unusual course and moved westward along 40 degrees north latitude and battered eastern New England with high winds and tides. Winds had already been gusting over 50 mph along the coast 2 days before, so seas and tides were very high. Major coastal flooding and beach erosion occurred all along the New England, New York, and New Jersey coasts. Over 1000 homes were damaged or destroyed with tides 4 to 7 ft above normal. Wind gusts reached 78 mph at Chatham, MA and 74 mph at Gloucester, MA. A ship east of New England reported a 63-ft wave. Total damage from the storm was $200 million. On 1 November this ocean storm underwent a remarkable transformation. Convection developed and rapidly wound around the storm center and an eye became visible on satellite imagery. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft found a small but intense circulation with maximum winds of 75 mph. This evolution from a large extratropical low to a small hurricane is rare but not unprecedented. (Intellicast)
31 October 1874...A waterspout (a tornado-like vortex that travels over water) formed over Lake Erie and reached the lakeshore approximately 0.5 mi west of Buffalo, NY. Upon reaching the shore, it dissipated, scattering sand in all directions. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
31 October 1876...The Great Backerganj, also known as the Bengal cyclone of 1876 struck Bangladesh, then part of the province of Bengal in British India on this day. A maximum wind speed of 137 mph along with a storm surge of 10 to 45 feet inundated the coastal region. This storm likely caused 200,000 casualties along with displacing thousands of other individuals. (National Weather Service files)
1 November 1521...Four ships in the fleet commanded by the explorer Ferdinand Magellan began sailing through the passage immediately south of mainland South America connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, now known as the Strait of Magellan. Because this passage began on All Saints Day, Magellan initially called the 373-mile long passage, the Estreito (Canal) de Todos los Santos, or "All Saints' Channel". (Wikipedia)
1 November 1755...Lisbon, Portugal was destroyed by a massive earthquake and tsunami, killing between 60,000 and 90,000 people. (Wikipedia)
1 November 1859...The current Cape Lookout, NC lighthouse was lit for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for nineteen miles. (Wikipedia)
1 November 1861...A hurricane near Cape Hatteras, NC battered a Union fleet of ships attacking Carolina ports, and produced high tides and high winds in New York State and New England. (David Ludlum)
1 November 1884...Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was nearly unanimously adopted at a meeting of 25 nations at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC. This time is also called Greenwich Meridian Time because it is measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. At that time, the International Date Line was also drawn and 24 time zones created. (Today in Science History)
2 November 1493...Explorer Christopher Columbus first sighted the island of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea.
2 November 1743...A hurricane off the eastern coast of the United States proved Ben Franklin's hypothesis that storms off the coast move in a northeasterly direction. The storm hit Franklin's residence in Philadelphia before striking a friend's house in Boston, despite winds at Philadelphia coming from the northeast. Franklin then correctly surmised that storms do not necessarily follow winds that are felt at the surface. (National Weather Service files)
3 November 1975...The North Sea pipeline, Firth of Forth, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. The first oil was piped ashore from the North Sea at Peterhead, Scotland in a pipe that ran from British Petroleum's "Forties Field" for 110 miles along the seabed and then 130 miles to the oil refinery at Grangemouth. The field was discovered by the drilling rig Sea Quest in October 1970. (Today in Science History)
4 November 1935...Called the "Yankee Hurricane", a Category 2 hurricane that affected the Bahamas and South Florida remains the only tropical cyclone to hit Miami from the northeast in November. (National Weather Service files)
4 November 2001...Hurricane Michelle became the strongest hurricane to strike Cuba since 1952 when it made landfall with top winds of 140 mph. (National Weather Service files)
5 November 1991...Typhoon Thelma was one of the most devastating tropical systems to affect the Philippines in the 20th Century. Reports indicated that 6000 people died by catastrophic events including dam failure, landslides, and extensive flash flooding. The highest casualties occurred on Leyte Island where widespread logging in recent years had stripped the hills above the port city bare of vegetation. (National Weather Service files)