WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

18-22 December 2017

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sincerely,

Ed Hopkins and the AMS Ocean Central Staff

Items of Interest:

Happy Winter Solstice! The winter solstice will occur this Thursday morning (officially, at 1628 Z on 21 December 2017, or 11:28 AM EST, 10:28 AM CST, etc.). At that time, the earth's spin axis will be oriented such that the sun appears to be the farthest south in the local sky of most earth-bound observers. While most of us consider this event to be the start of astronomical winter, the British call that day the "Midwinter Day", as the apparent sun will begin its northward climb again across the sky. For essentially all locations in the Northern Hemisphere, Wednesday night will be the longest and the daylight on Thursday will be the shortest of the year. Starting Thursday night, the length of darkness will begin to shrink as we head toward the summer solstice on 21 June 2018 at 1007 Z.
Dreaming of a White Christmas -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) produced an interactive national map showing the climatological probability (in percent) that a snow depth of at least one inch would be observed on the morning of 25 December based upon the 1981-2010 standard 30-year climatological reference interval. This Interactive Version of the Historical Probability of a White Christmas Map shows the ratio of the number of times that a particular station experienced a white Christmas during the interval as a probability. For example, Des Moines, IA had only 12 Christmases between 1981 and 2010 when an inch or more snow cover was observed, so the probability that residents of Iowa's capital city would have a white Christmas is 40%. Some locations across the nation are almost certain to have a white Christmas, generally along the Canadian border surrounding the Great Lakes, such as Marquette, MI (with 96%) and in New England, such as at Caribou, ME (87%). Stations at higher elevations in the Rockies also have a higher probability, such as at Flagstaff, AZ with a 65%. Sites close to the oceans typically have a lower probability, as the oceans tend to be relatively warm at this time of year. Santa typically finds tough sledding on his journey to that half of the country south of latitude 40 degrees that is not mountainous, where chances of a white Christmas fall from 50% to 20% or less. You can monitor the current snow cover across North America using a snow chart that is based upon satellite data. [NOAA NCEI News]
Environment Canada has also produced a tabulation of the Chances of a White Christmas for 45 major population centers across Canada based on data collected between 1955 and 2015.
Interesting weather data for the college football fan -- With the start of the college football bowl games, the Southeast Regional Climate Center has provided a listing of the weather history for sixteen NCAA college football bowl games that are to be played within the next two weeks across the Southeastern States. This climatology includes the warmest, coldest, wettest and snowiest days in the particular bowl's history.
New online digital portal to accessing NOAA's environmental data is launched -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) recently unveiled its "NOAA OneStop" online digital portal that provides improved access to NOAA's collections of environmental data. The goal of this NOAA OneStop portal is to provide easier data discovery, greater access and visually appealing online services that are designed to meet the expectations of a wide variety of users. OneStop will provide access to the weather, climate, satellite, fisheries, coastal, and ocean data archived by NOAA. [NOAA NCEI News]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Only one tropical cyclone was found across the world's tropical ocean basins last week. In the western North Pacific Ocean basin an area of low pressure intensified to become a tropical depression last Thursday over the Philippine Sea, nearly 500 miles to the east-southeast of the capital city of Manila in the Philippines. This tropical depression quickly became Tropical Storm Kai-Tak as it tracked to the west-northwest toward the Philippine Islands. However, as it traveled generally westward across the islands over the weekend, Kai-Tak weakened to tropical depression status. The slow movement of this system meant that the torrential rainfall accompanying Kai-Tak resulted in rainfall totals in excess of 30 inches in some locations. These rains produced flooding and landslides, which resulted in the loss of more than 30 fatalities. [The Weather Channel] As of late Sunday night (local time), Tropical Depression Kai-Tak was located approximately 220 miles to the south-southeast of Manila. Current forecasts indicate that this tropical depression will move out over the South China Sea and head in a direction toward the west-southwest during the early part of this week. Dissipation over the South China Sea to the southeast of Vietnam was anticipated by midweek. Additional information and satellite imagery of Tropical Storm Kai-Tak can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
Initial outlook for 2018 Atlantic hurricane season issued -- Last week Dr. Philip J. Klotzbach and colleagues at Colorado State University issued a qualitative discussion of what they foresee as factors that should determine next year's Atlantic basin hurricane activity. The forecasters are using two primary physical parameters in their outlooks: (1.) the strength of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation or the AMO and (2.) the phase of ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation). They noted that two areas of uncertainty surround their forecast for the 2018 Atlantic basin hurricane season. These uncertainties involve what will transpire with the status of the current weak La Niña conditions over the next several months and what trends would occur with the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO). The team plans on issuing their first quantitative forecast in mid-April 2018. They offer five possible scenarios for the upcoming season, involving probabilities of occurrence of a given level of seasonal average Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) activity. Details of their initial qualitative assessment appear in the report issued by the Tropical Meteorology Project. [Colorado State University Report]
Conserving vulnerable coral reef habits gets assistance from NOAA's satellites and Coral Reef Watch program -- Sea surface temperature data obtained from NOAA's fleet of polar orbiting and geosynchronous environmental satellites are being used by NOAA Coral Reef Watch program to provide current reef environmental conditions to quickly identify areas at risk from coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is associated with increased ocean temperatures. NOAA Coral Reef Watch program is part of the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). [NOAA NESDIS News]
Sea level rise impacts along Gulf Coast highlighted by visual story maps -- A team of scientists from Louisiana State University and the University of South Carolina have collaborated with colleagues from NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) and the Northern Gulf of Mexico Sentinel Site Cooperative to develop two story maps that detail the NCCOS Ecological Effects of Sea Level Rise (EESLR) project in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, identifying future coastal wetlands and storm surge under various scenarios of sea level rise. These maps are designed to target local stakeholders to communicate project results and provide access to data. Both story maps feature key findings through an interactive viewer and provide examples of potential data uses to address local management issues. [NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science News]
Swordfish retention limits in waters off East Coast are adjusted -- NOAA Fisheries recently announced that it was adjusting the Swordfish General Commercial permit retention limits in the waters of the Northwest Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and U.S. Caribbean regions, effective beginning on 1 January 2018 and running through the end of June. [NOAA Fisheries Bulletin]
El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion & La Niña advisory outlook updates released -- Forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) released their monthly "El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion" late last week. They showed La Niña conditions appeared to be strengthening through November as a distinct pattern of below-average sea surface temperatures (SST) were found across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. SST values across many of these regions ranged from between one and two Celsius degrees below normal across this region. In addition, the atmospheric circulation regime across the tropics resembled La Niña conditions. Consequently, the CPC forecasters still maintained their La Niña advisory, as they envision the likelihood (with a probability exceeding 80 percent) of the continuation of the present weak La Niña conditions through the remainder of the 2017-18 Northern Hemisphere winter (December through February) with a transition to a ENSO-neutral conditions beginning during the mid to late spring in the Northern Hemisphere (March through May 2018); ENSO-neutral means that neither El Niño or La Niña conditions would be anticipated. A technical description of the forecasters' reasoning is provided by the "El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion" [NOAA Climate Prediction Center] An ENSO blog written by a contractor for CPC provides a non-technical description of how the CPC forecasters arrived at their forecast of the next several months where a La Niña event would run through the boreal winter of 2017-18 before beginning a transition to ENSO-neutral conditions in spring. She noted that this will be the second consecutive winter to have La Niña conditions, a "double-dip" La Niña that is not all that uncommon. The blog also contains a discussion as to how La Niña conditions could affect the winter temperature and precipitation patterns across North America, primarily the United States. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Annual Arctic Report Card released -- Last week, NOAA's Climate Program Office released its twelfth annual update of the agency's "Arctic Report Card" for 2017, a peer-reviewed report of the state of the air, ocean and ice in the Arctic basin prepared by an international team of 85 experts from 12 countries, including those from NOAA. These experts have found: i.) as of the end of September, the year 2017 was the second warmest year across the Arctic basin since 1900, with surface temperatures near record levels and the rate of increase in the Arctic is double the rate of the temperature increase for the entire globe; ii.) warm summers are creating a challenge for young Alaska walleye pollack, a groundfish that represents the nation's largest commercial fishery; iii.) declines in Arctic sea ice extent are unprecedented for the last 1500 years; iv.) summer ocean temperatures are rising rapidly in most of the Arctic, especially in the Chukchi Sea to the northwest of Alaska; v.) very old sea ice, considered to be more than seven years old, has nearly vanished from the Arctic Ocean. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
More detailed information along with a three and a half-minute video (with audio) is available on this report. [Arctic Report Card]
Extreme weather events in 2016 are tied to human influence on climate change -- A report produced by 116 scientists from 18 countries around the world claims that specific extreme weather and climate events in 2016 can be associated with long-term climate change as manifest by increasing global temperatures, to a new record-high global temperature in 2016. These scientists investigated individual extreme events of 2016 that included in addition to the record global temperature, an extreme heat wave in Asia, extreme heat in the Arctic, development of marine heat waves off Alaska and Australia, the severity of the 2015–16 El Niño and the duration of coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef. Several of the reports indicated that some extreme events were not possible in a preindustrial climate. No conclusive link to climate change was found with severe drought in Brazil, record rains in Australia, or stagnant conditions creating poor air quality in Europe. The report, which is the sixth annual, is entitled "Explaining Extreme Events of 2016 From a Climate Perspective," and is published as a supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. [NOAA NCEI News] or [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Increased lightning activity found along busy oceanic shipping lanes -- In research headed by an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, a connection was made between human activity and the frequency of lightning. Using data collected on the emissions of particles from ship exhaust along the ocean shipping lanes over the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, along with the average density of lightning per year detected by the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) for this region, the researchers found an increase in the lightning activity along the busy shipping lanes. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Next-Generation GRACE satellites being readied for launch -- During the last week, a pair of advanced U.S./German satellites were brought to California's Vandenberg Air Force Base to begin preparations for a scheduled launch during this upcoming spring. These twin satellites are considered the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellites, as they will follow the highly successful GRACE satellites that were providing scientists with much-welcomed data for approximately 15 years before they ceased operations in mid-2017. Like their predecessors, the GRACE-FO satellites will be measuring changes in Earth's gravity field from a polar orbit of approximately 500 km above the Earth's surface. These changes in the gravity field will permit scientists to calculate how masses of water, ice, air and the solid Earth are redistributed each month and monitor these changes over time. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]
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]

Historical Events:

19 December 1551...The Dutch west coast was hit by a hurricane.
19 December 1741...Vitus J Bering, Dutch navigator/explorer, died on this date.
19-21 December 1835...The HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin approached New Zealand and sailed into the Bay of Islands.
20 December 1984...Lili, a rare December hurricane, was officially declared a tropical system in the central Atlantic as a well-defined eye type feature was apparent on satellite imagery. The hurricane peaked at sustained 80 mph winds and a pressure of 980 millibars or 28.94 inches of mercury, very respectable Category 1 Hurricane in December. (National Weather Service files)
20 December 1987...Worst peacetime shipping disaster occurred as the Dona Paz, a Philippine ferry, sank after collision with oil tanker Vector off Mindoro island, setting off a double explosion. As many as 1749 confirmed deaths, but the death toll was probably closer to 3000.
21 December 1163...A hurricane hit villages in Holland/Friesland, causing floods.
21 December 1872...The HMS Challenger set sail from Portsmouth, England on the 4-year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography. (Wikipedia)
21 December 1936...Ice breaking operations in channels and harbors by the US Coast Guard was authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Executive Order No. 7521. (USCG Historian's Office)
22 December 1832...The HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin reached the Barnevelts Islands
22 December 1837...Congress authorized the President "to cause any suitable number of public vessels, adapted to the purpose, to cruise upon the coast, in the severe portion of the season, and to afford aid to distressed navigators." This statute was the first authorizing activities in the field of maritime safety, thereby interjecting the national government into the field of lifesaving for the first time. Although revenue cutters were specifically mentioned, the performance of this duty was imposed primarily upon the Revenue Marine Service and quickly became one of its major activities. (USCG Historian's Office)
22 December 1894...The Dutch coast was hit by a hurricane.
23 December 1811...A cold storm hit Long Island Sound with a foot of snow, gale force winds, and temperatures near zero. During the storm, many ships were wrecked, and in some cases, entire crews perished. (David Ludlum)
23 December 1854...A tsunami struck the coast of Japan, with water in the harbor of Simoda changing depth between 8 and 40 feet. Twelve hours later this giant wave reached the Pacific coast of the U.S. The newly installed self-registering tide gauges noted these waves. The information derived from this event enabled Alexander D. Bache, Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, to apply a newly derived law relating ocean depth to wave speed and provide the first relatively accurate scientific estimate of the depth of an ocean between Japan and the Pacific coast of the U.S. The velocity of the sea wave from Simoda to San Francisco was 369 mph. (Today in Science History)