WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

1-5 January 2018

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sincerely,

Ed Hopkins and the AMS Ocean Central Staff

Items of Interest:

Perigean spring tide to occur early this week with a "supermoon" -- The moon will reach its full moon phase on Monday evening at 9:24 PM EST, 8:24 PM CST (or officially 0224Z on 2 January 2018). This full moon will occur four hours after perigee, when the moon is closest to Earth in its elliptical orbit. Since the moon will come within 221,070 miles of Earth, it is called a "supermoon," as its closeness would make the moon appear larger than usual. This early January full moon will be the closest and largest appearing full supermoon of 2018. [EarthSky] The closeness of the moon and increased gravitational pull will cause an increase in the height of ocean tides, resulting in what is called a "perigean spring tide" (or King Tide) during the first several days of this week. [NOAA National Ocean Service Facts]
Higher than normal tides will be found during the first several days of this week along the Pacific Coast from California north to Alaska; around Hawaii and the Pacific Islands; and along the Atlantic Coast, from Maine southward to the eastern coast of Florida. The Gulf Coast will not be affected by these higher than average tides. [NOAA High Tide Bulletin for Winter 2017]
In close -- Earth reaches perihelion, the point in its orbit that is closest to the sun (147.1 million kilometers or 91.2 million miles), on Wednesday, 3 January 2018 at 0535Z (12:35 AM EST, 11:35 PM CST on the 2nd, etc.).
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2018 Campaign commences -- The first in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2018 will commence this Saturday (6 January) and continue through Monday, 15 January. 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 (in the Northern Hemisphere Orion for latitudes less than 30 degrees and Tarus for latitudes greater than 40 degrees; in the Southern Hemisphere Orion for latitudes less than 30 degrees and Canis Major for latitudes greater than 40 degrees) 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 second series in the 2018 campaign is scheduled for 5-15 February 2018.
[GLOBE at Night]
Nine of "The Best Moments of 2017" as seen by the NOAA Satellite and Information Service -- Nine events during 2017 were selected by a team at the NOAA Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS) that are considered to be some of the agency's proudest moments. These moments included the launches of NOAA's newest geosynchronous and polar orbiting satellites; the monitoring of severe weather and the tracking of wildfires by the NOAA fleet of satellites; the protecting of coral reefs; the monitoring of climate change; the mapping of lightning by a satellite-based sensor; and the viewing of "the Great American total solar eclipse". [NOAA NESDIS News]
Top 17 images of Earth obtained from the Space Station in 2017 are selected -- A video slide show contains 17 digital photographs of Earth made by astronauts onboard the International Space Station during 2017 that have been selected by a team of scientists at the NASA Johnson Space Center. These images show a variety of interesting features of the planet's atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. [Space.com]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- During the last week, tropical cyclones were reported across the western North Pacific and South Indian Ocean basins.

After producing deadly flooding and landslides across Mindanao in the southern Philippine Islands over the previous weekend, Typhoon Tembin traveled generally westward across the South China Sea at the beginning of last week. By Tuesday, Tembin had weakened to a tropical depression, eventually dissipating over the Gulf of Thailand to the east of the Malay Peninsula. Torrential rains accompanying Tembin spread across southern sections of the Indochina Peninsula, causing the evacuation of nearly 150,000 Vietnamese. According to the Vietnamese National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, Typhoon Tembin was the 16th tropical storm to enter the South China Sea in 2017, which represents a single-year record. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite imagery on Typhoon Tembin.
In the South Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Storm Hilda formed during the second half of last week off the northwestern coast of Western Australia. Traveling southward, Hilda made landfall along the within 24 hours of formation and dissipated. However, heavy rainfall and strong gusty accompanying the remnants of Hilda swept over the Kimberley region of Western Australia and spread inland. Some structural and vegetation damage was reported at Bidyadanga, located south of the coastal community of Broome. Additional information and satellite images for Tropical Storm Hilda can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.

New space-based system used for better hurricane forecasts celebrates its first anniversary -- On 15 December 2016, the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) was launched into a low Earth orbit at an altitude of 500 km. CYGNSS was developed by the University of Michigan and the nonprofit applied research and development organization, Southwest Research Institute, with the goal of improving hurricane forecasting by better understanding the interactions between the sea and the air near the center of a tropical cyclone. During the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, surface wind speed data obtained by CYGNSS as the spacecraft passed over Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria compared favorably with wind data collected by NOAA's P-3 "hurricane hunter" aircraft that penetrated the central cores of these hurricanes. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Reflecting on the importance of the USS Monitor and the first national marine sanctuary -- An article was written by an intern at NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries describing the story behind the famous USS Monitor, the US Navy's first iron clad vessel that sank 155 years ago this past Sunday (31 December 1862) in a storm off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with the loss of 16 crewmembers. Earlier in 1862, the Monitor classed with another ironclad, the CSS Virginia, in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The site where the Monitor sank was designated the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, the first national marine sanctuary in 1975. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
Six-month survey of marine life around Hawaiian Islands concludes -- A team of 46 scientists and crew recently concluded a 179-day scientific survey onboard the NOAA ships Oscar Elton Sette and Reuben Lasker as part of the Hawaiian Islands Cetacean and Ecosystem Assessment Survey (or HICEAS). This survey was of 23 species of whale and dolphins in the waters around the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. [NOAA Stories]
Three seals are rescued, rehabilitated and returned to the wild -- Three young and malnourished monk seals that were found along the beaches of Hawaii during this past spring and summer were rescued by NOAA Fisheries in partnership with the Marine Mammal Center and the U.S. Coast Guard. The seals were taken to Ke Kai Ola: The Hawaiian Monk Sea Hospital at Kona, where they were rehabilitated for malnourishment. Recently, they were released back into the wild to make a fresh and healthy start to the new year. [NOAA Photo Story]
Cold air from the Northeastern States spills out over North Atlantic -- A natural-color image obtained late last week from the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite shows cloud streets extending out over the waters of the western North Atlantic offshore of New York State and New England as a cold arctic air mass spread toward the southeast across the region on northwesterly winds. These cloud streets are cumuliform clouds that develop as cold air travels over warmer water, resulting in unstable atmospheric conditions. [NASA Earth Observatory]
A mariner's nightmare seen from a satellite perspective -- An image of Cape Horn and several islands at the southern tip of Chile's Tierra del Fuego Peninsula was created from data collected seven years ago by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard NASA's Landsat 8 satellite. This image shows the rocky terrain that rises upward sharply from the ocean floor in the vicinity of Cape Horn, where hundreds of ships have sunk since the early 17th century due to strong westerly winds, stray icebergs and rocky coastal shoals. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Pine Island iceberg seen under the "midnight sun" -- A natural-color image of the region around Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier was made from data collected on 15 December 2017 by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard NASA's Landsat-8 satellite. This image was taken six days before the Southern Hemisphere's summer solstice, at a time when the polar cap region is bathed in 24-hour sunlight. A new iceberg, identified as B-44, had calved from the Pine Island Glacier last September and is visible in this image after becoming fragmented. An animation produced from five images obtained from the Landsat-8 over the last four months is also available and shows B-44 breaking into fragments. [NASA Earth Observatory]
World Meteorological Organization expects 2017 to be among three hottest years on record -- As of late December, scientists with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) claimed that the calendar year of 2017 appears to be on track to be among the three warmest years on record since reliable temperatures were obtained worldwide in 1880. As of the end of November 2017, the average global temperature for 2017 was running behind the temperatures for the first eleven months of 2016 and 2015. The lack of an El Niño event during 2017 appears to have kept global temperatures for this year below those of the previous two years. The scientists base their outlook upon projected global temperatures obtained from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast's Copernicus Climate Change Service. [World Meteorological Organization 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:

1 January 1850...The lamp was lit at the first iron pile lighthouse in the U.S. built on Minot's Ledge, just outside the Boston (MA) Harbor. The Minot's Ledge Light, the first lighthouse in the U.S. to be exposed to the ocean's full fury, was swept away in a great gale on 16 April 1851. (Today in Science History)
1 January 1903...The first message telegraphed on the transpacific cable was sent from Honolulu, Hawaii to President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, DC. The Cable Ship Silvertown began laying the 2620-mile long cable on 14 December 1902 when it left San Francisco, CA and it completed the project following its arrival at Oahu's Waikiki on 26 December. The cable now lies abandoned on the bottom of the Pacific after being abandoned in November 1951. (Today in Science History)
1 January 1954...The "Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, 1948" commonly known as the "Revised International Rules of the Road" became law. These were a result of the International Conference on the Safety of Life at Sea, 1948. (US Coast Guard Historian's Office)
1 January 1958...The U.S. Coast Guard ceased listening continuously for distress calls on 2670 kilohertz. Although the countries of the world had agreed at the Atlantic City Convention of the International Telecommunication Union in 1947 to use 2182 kilohertz for international maritime mobile radiotelephone calling and distress, the U.S. Coast Guard had continued listening on the old frequency until the public had had sufficient time to change to the new one. (US Coast Guard Historian's Office)
1 January 1959...The U.S. Naval Observatory introduced the system of uniform atomic time using cesium beam atomic oscillators. This measurement has been adopted as standard by the International Committee on Weights and Measures. (Naval Historical Center)
1 January 1987...A winter storm brought rain, snow and high winds to the Southern and Middle Atlantic Coast Region. The storm, which occurred in a period of unusually high astronomical tides, produced a tide of 9.4 feet at Myrtle Beach, SC (their highest since Hurricane Hazel in 1954) which caused a total of 25 million dollars damage in South Carolina. (National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
1 January 1997...Two 12-foot waves generated by an intense Pacific storm swept 27 people into the Pacific Ocean from the King Harbor Breakwater at Redondo Beach, CA. All survived the ordeal. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
2 January 1955...Hurricane Alice passed through the Islands of Saint Martin and Saba, battering the Leeward Islands with sustained winds of 85 mph on this day. Alice was upgraded to a hurricane on 30 December 1954, making Alice the latest and earliest hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean, as it spanned two calendar years. (National Weather Service files)
2 January 1993...Cyclone Kina battered Fiji with wind gusts to 130 mph and heavy rain. Up to 21.65 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, resulting in the worst flooding in 60 years. Twenty-three people were killed and damage was estimated to be in excess of 547 million US dollars. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
2 January 1998...Tropical Cyclone Ron (the Southwest Pacific's counterpart of a hurricane) destroyed most of the structures on Swains Island in American Samoa. The island's 49 residents sought safety in a concrete structure, which withstood the cyclone's 90-mph sustained winds. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
3 January 2006...The record 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season extended into the new year, as Tropical Storm Zeta reached its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph for the second time; the previous occurrence was on 1 January 2006. Never a threat to land as it traveled across the central North Atlantic, Tropical Storm Zeta was the 27th named tropical cyclone (including both tropical storms and hurricanes) of the season. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
4 January 1493...The explorer, Christopher Columbus, began his return to Spain and completed his first journey to the New World. (Wikipedia)
5 January 1841...The British explorer, James Clark Ross, was the first to enter pack ice near Ross Ice Shelf off Antarctica.
5 January 1875...CDR Edward Lull, USN, began an expedition to locate the best ship canal route across Panama. This route was followed 30 years later. (Naval Historical Center)
5 January 1903...The general public could use the San Francisco-Hawaii telegraph cable across the Pacific cable for the very first time.
6 January 1839...A two-day storm off the Irish and English coasts was immortalized as "The Big Wind".
6 January 1898...The first telephone message from a submerged submarine was transmitted by Simon Lake, the father of the modern submarine.
6 January 1928...An intense low pressure system over the North Sea created a storm surge that moved upstream along the Thames River to London in England. Water rose over embankments. The rapid rise of the river resulted in 14 deaths in basements. As many as 40,000 people were left homeless. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
6 January 2006...Tropical Storm Zeta dissipated after having formed on 29 December, marking an end to the 2005 hurricane season. It was the 30th named tropical cyclone of the record-breaking season, and one of only two tropical storms on record to span two calendar years (with Hurricane Alice in 1954-55) (National Weather Service files).
7 January 1904...The international Morse code distress signal "CQD" was established. Two years later, the 1906 International Conference on Wireless Communication at Sea, resolved that the radio distress signal should become "SOS" because it was quicker to send by wireless radio. (Wikipedia)
7 January 1927...Transatlantic telephone service began between New York and London, with 31 calls made on this first day.
7 January 1966...Tropical Cyclone Denise dropped 45 inches of rain on La Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean in 12 hours, and 71.80 inches of rain in 48 hours through the 8th. (National Weather Service files)