Weekly Ocean News

6 - 10 November 2017

For Your Information

Webinar series to focus on educating on climate literacy and energy issues -- The Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) recently announced that they are launching a series of webinars intended to showcase their work at building a community more educated on climate change and energy issues. The first seminar will be on Thursday afternoon (9 November 2017) when they will cover educational resources available for the study of climate and energy. This topic may be very useful for school science teachers. The CLEAN network was launched in November 2010 as a new National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Pathways project. [NOAA Climate.gov Teaching Climate]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2017 Campaign commences -- The eleventh in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2017 will commence this Friday (10 November) and continue through Sunday, 19 November. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation (Pegasus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus in the Southern Hemisphere) with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The next and final series in the 2017 campaign is scheduled for 9-18 December 2017. [GLOBE at Night]
Free admission into the National Parks -- The National Park Service has been designated Veterans Day (Saturday, 11 November 2017) as being a part of its fee-free days program, which in this case is to honor the nation's veterans. This fee waiver will cover entrance and commercial tour fees in many of the national parks and monuments administered by the Park Service. [National Park Service Fee Free Days] Special observances for veterans will be held at several military parks, battlefields and historic sites. [National Park Service Military Honor]
Hydrothermal vent organisms -- You are invited to read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth that describes how geoscientists have investigated the deep-sea environment in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents that form along the oceanic ridges nearly 3000 meters below the ocean surface. Interestingly, a diverse and abundant community of marine organisms has been found to live in these extreme oceanic conditions.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity was limited to the western North Pacific basin during the past week. The 28th tropical depression of 2017 in that basin formed last Thursday over the waters of the South China Sea approximately 270 miles west-southwest of Manila, Philippines. Moving generally to the west toward the central coast of Vietnam, this tropical depression intensified to become a tropical storm and then on Friday, Typhoon Damrey, a category 1 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Over this past weekend, Typhoon Damrey made landfall along the coast of Vietnam approximately 200 miles to the northeast of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly, Saigon). Torrential rains and strong winds accompanied this typhoon as it made landfall on Saturday, resulting in the deaths of at least 27 Vietnamese [ BBC News]. Damrey appears to be the strongest typhoon to hit Vietnam in at least 16 years [NASA Earth Observatory]. Satellite images and additional information on Typhoon Damrey are available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
Weather radar coverage returns to Puerto Rico -- NOAA officials announced during the last week a collaboration with the US Marine Corps that will enable the installation of two short-range Doppler radar systems in Puerto Rico to replace the two Federal Aviation Administration's Doppler radar units damaged nearly six weeks ago by Hurricane Maria. NOAA personnel along with Marine Corps meteorologists and radar technicians were also deployed to operate the equipment. As a consequence, weather forecasting operations in Puerto Rico have returned to near normal conditions for the first time since late September. [NOAA News]
Annual national fisheries report for 2016 is released -- NOAA Fisheries recently released their annual Fisheries of the United States 2016 (FUS2016) report indicating commercial and recreational fisheries remain a strong contributor to the entire national economy. US seafood landings at the nation's fishing ports in the calendar year 2016 were slightly lower than in 2015, but the value of these landings were slightly higher. US fishers landed 9.6 billion pounds of fish and shellfish in 2016 that were valued at $5.3 billion. In addition, 9.6 million recreational saltwater anglers took 63 million marine fishing trips during the year. The report reveals that Dutch Harbor, AK and New Bedford, MA remained the top fishing ports for another year, running their dominance to at least 19 years. Americans consumed 4.5 billion pounds of seafood. The report also revealed that the average American consumed 14.9 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2016, which marked a decrease of 0.6 pounds of fish than in 2015. [NOAA News]
Additional FUS 2016 outreach materials are available [NOAA Fisheries Feature] or [NOAA Office of Science and Technology]
Funding is awarded to support aquaculture research around the nation -- Early last week NOAA officials announced that 32 research grants were being awarded a total of $9.3 million to support projects designed to develop and advance the development of a sustainable marine and coastal aquaculture industry across the nation. These projects include public-private partnerships and will be led by university-based Sea Grant programs in 14 states. [NOAA News] or [NOAA Sea Grant]
Satellite detecting life in Benguela Current -- A natural-color image generated from data collected in early September by the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Aqua satellite show chlorophyll-rich water that is upwelling along the coast of southwestern Africa due to the northward flowing Benguela Current. A map of the region has been generated using MODIS data showing the amount of chlorophyll that can be found along the coasts of South Africa, Namibia and Angola due to the upwelling. [NASA Earth Observatory]
New maps of Greenland reveal more glaciers are at risk -- A team of researchers from NASA and numerous research institutions in academia recently published new high-resolution relief maps of Greenland's coastal seafloor and bedrock revealing that two to four times as many coastal glaciers are at risk of accelerated melting as previously thought. The maps were produced from data collected by NASA's Ocean Melting Greenland (OMG) campaign and NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne surveys, [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]
Stronger winds could increase contribution of East Antarctica glacier to sea level rise -- Researchers from the University of Texas and their colleagues from Australia claim that when winds over the Southern Ocean are strong, the Totten Glacier, the largest glacier in East Antarctica, is melted from below by relatively warm deep ocean water displacing the surface waters carried away by the winds. This upwelling warm water is pulled up onto the continental shelf and flows under the ice where the melting takes place. The glacier holds more than 11 feet of sea level rise and acts as a plug to help lock in the ice of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. They also warm that a changing climate is expected to cause an increase in wind intensity over the Southern Ocean through at least the end of the century. [University of Texas News]
New database "atlas" reveals vast planetary microscopic communities -- Scientists with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological have taken part in a massive global research collaboration known as the Earth Microbiome Project (EMP) that recently released the first reference database, or atlas, of microbes covering the seven continents and surrounding oceans. EMP is a massive international collaborative effort designed to characterize the taxonomy and functional diversity of microbial life on planet Earth. [NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]
Summer program has scientists and youngsters working together on a coastal watershed -- During this past summer a group of 50 young student scientists from the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Gulf Coast–Hancock County Unit in Mississippi joined with scientists from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information to investigate water quality on the Magnolia Bayou, an important urban waterway located in Bay St. Louis, MS. This hands-on science program was a part of a NOAA-21st Century Community Learning Center Watershed (CCLC) STEM Education Partnership Grant that was awarded to the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio, an outreach program of Mississippi State University. [NOAA NCEI News]
Improving public safety during extreme weather events and other disasters -- Two reports were recently issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that propose steps to improve public safety and resilience in the face of extreme weather and other disasters. One of the reports, entitled "Emergency Alert and Warning Systems: Current Knowledge and Future Research Directions" examines how government systems such as Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) and Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) will need to evolve as technology advances. The other report, "Integrating Social and Behavioral Sciences Within the Weather Enterprise" emphasizes the need for government agencies, industry, and academic institutions involved in the weather enterprise to work together to more actively engage social and behavioral scientists, to make greater progress in protecting life and enhancing prosperity. [The National Academies News]
Findings of the US Global Change Research Program Climate Science Special Reports highlighted -- Late last week, the U.S. Global Change Research Program announced major milestones for three reports. The first report is the "Climate Science Special Report, Volume I of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4)" that is an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States. [Climate Science Special Report]
The second report is a call for public comment on NCA4 Vol. II. The "Climate Change Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States – Third Draft Order." The third report involves a call for public comment on the "2nd State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR-2)." [GlobalChange.gov]
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: 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 stripped 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.

Historical Events:

6 November 1528...Shipwrecked Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first known European to set foot on Texas soil, near present-day Galveston Island. (Wikipedia)
7 November 1837...One of the most intense hurricanes ever to strike Hawaii brought winds of 115 mph to Hilo, killing 730 people. (National Weather Service files)
8 November 1870...The first storm warning was issued by Professor Increase A. Lapham of the U.S. Signal Corps Weather Service as a cautionary forecast for the Great Lakes. Lapham believed that warnings of deadly storms on the Great Lakes could be derived from telegraphed weather observations. A bill was introduced and signed into law to establish a national telegraphic weather service. The Signal Corps began taking observations one week early on 1 November 1870. (National Weather Service files)
8 November 1994...The twelfth and final tropical cyclone of the Atlantic hurricane season formed on this day in the southwestern Caribbean. While Hurricane Gordon was only a Category 1, it still killed 1,149 individuals, including 1,122 in Haiti. (National Weather Service files)
8 November 2013...Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the central Philippines with 16-foot waves, a foot of rain, and winds on land of 147 mph gusting to 170 mph (winds of 195 mph with gusts to 235 mph were estimated when the system had been over open water). Five to six thousand people were estimated to have perished. (National Weather Service files)
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)
9-12 November 1970...One of the worst cyclones in recent history hit the coast of Bangladesh. Storm surges of 13 to 16 feet combined with high tides and more than 10 inches of rain caused incredible flooding and killed more than 300,000 people. (National Weather Service files)
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)
Editor's 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)