Weekly Water News

DATASTREME WES WEEK TWO: 28 January-1 February 2008

Water in the News

(Thurs.) Interesting "ship tracks" seen from space -- An image made early last week by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite shows numerous "ship tracks", or contrail type exhaust clouds that were made by and then trail ships traversing the eastern North Pacific Ocean off British Columbia. [NASA Earth Observatory]
(Thurs.) Crew-less aircraft to be tested for weather and climate monitoring -- NOAA has invested $3 million in its Unmanned Aircraft Systems program in an attempt to determine the feasibility of using unmanned aircraft containing automatic sensors to collect environmental data from the atmosphere, land surface and oceans for use in improving hurricane and West Coast storm forecasts as well as monitoring Arctic climate, such as the seasonal variations in Arctic sea ice. [NOAA News]
(Thurs.) A Great Lakes ecosystem study is funded -- The director of NOAA's Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research recently announced that the agency has awarded funding to a consortium of universities and research organizations from Michigan and Ohio for the first year of a five-year project that will study and manage the variety of environmental stress agents upon the ecosystem of Michigan's Saginaw Bay and the surrounding land area and Lake Huron. [NOAA News]
(Thurs.) California farmers ponder selling water -- Some farmers in California are considering selling water they would normally use for irrigation of crops to thirsty communities across southern California as water becomes increasingly scarce across the Golden State. [APNews/Myway]
(Thurs.) Fisheries need to be counted in a global nitrogen budget -- Researchers at Canada's Université de Montréal and New York's Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies warn that an accurate global nitrogen budget requires better accounting of the role that commercial fisheries have upon the withdrawal of nitrogen from oceans. [Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies]
(Thurs.) Agricultural impact on Mississippi River studied -- Researchers at Louisiana State University and Yale University report that agricultural practices have significantly changed the hydrology and chemistry of the Mississippi River watershed, resulting in increased river discharge and higher dissolved carbon dioxide in river water during the last 50 years. [EurekAlert!]
(Thurs.) Dating sedimentary rocks with hot springs microbes -- Scientists from the University of Illinois who have been studying the microbial communities at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park have discovered that these hot springs microbes appear to have changed the rate of calcium carbonate precipitation out of aqueous solution to form sedimentary rock, meaning that these microbes could be used to help date sedimentary rocks. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Flooding across northeastern Australia -- A comparison of MODIS images taken in early and mid January from NASA's Terra satellite reveals the extent of the flooding across Queensland in northeastern Australia due to heavy austral summer rains. [NASA Earth Observatory]
(Tues.) A new active fault found in the Old World -- Geologists from the University of Arizona and the Croatian Geodetic Institute have recently discovered that a thrust fault on the floor of the Adriatic Sea offshore of Croatia and the Dalmatian Islands, a region steeped with ancient history. This newly discovered active fault appears to be adding new islands to the Dalmatians. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Expedition to Caribbean reefs helps launch International Year of the Reef -- NOAA is helping sponsor one of the first scientific expedition of the International Year of the Reef 2008, which will investigate shallow and deep coral ecosystems in the waters around Bonaire, one of the Caribbean islands in the Netherlands Antilles. This expedition, which has scientists from Virginia, Delaware and California, will use Autonomous Underwater Vehicles. [NOAA News]
(Tues.) A major scientific society revises its climate change position -- The American Geophysical Union, the largest earth and space science society in the world, recently issued a statement that updates the organization's position on climate change from a previous position statement issued in 2003. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) A warmer ocean could lead to fewer Atlantic hurricane landfalls -- NOAA climate scientists claim that increases in the sea surface temperature of the global ocean could affect the vertical wind structure in the lower atmosphere across the tropical North Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, creating too much wind shear for hurricanes and ultimately resulting in a possible reduction in the number of Atlantic hurricanes that would make landfall along the coast of the continental United States. [NOAA News]
(Tues.) A detailed 100,000-year climate record is extracted from an Antarctic ice core -- A team of scientists and engineers from several universities participating in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS Divide) Ice Core Project has extracted and analyzed a 1900-foot ice core that reveals a detailed record of atmospheric greenhouse gases over the last 100,000 years that can be used to determine the earth's climate history for this time span. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Volcanic eruption found under Antarctic ice sheet -- The British Antarctic Survey has discovered an ash layer from a "subglacial" volcano that appears to have first erupted 2000 years ago from under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and has remained active. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Matching ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland -- Research conducted by scientists at the University of California, Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory using 15-years of satellite radar data indicates that the accelerated loss of ice in Antarctica annually is approaching the annual loss from Greenland's ice cap. The researchers are concerned about the contribution of this increased Antarctic ice melt to increases in global sea level. [University of California, Irvine] An image of Antarctic ice loss is available from NASA. [NASA JPL]
Winter's grip across the Northern Hemisphere -- Snow, freezing rain and the invasion of unseasonably cold air masses have not been limited to the United States, as Asia has also experienced winter storms during the last several weeks. Recent images from a variety of satellites document the snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere:
- Northern and central Plains, where an image obtained from NOAA's GOES-12 geosynchronous satellite shows the extensive snow cover. An arctic air mass with a few scattered clouds permitted a view of the snow cover that also included the dendritic pattern of streams that form the Missouri and upper Mississippi watersheds along with the forested regions of the Black Hills in western South Dakota and the central Rockies in Wyoming and Colorado. [NOAA OSEI]
- Southeastern States, where an image from the NOAA-17 polar orbiting satellite shows snow cover from a winter storm last weekend across sections of Mississippi and Alabama, the southern Appalachian Mountains, the Piedmont of North Carolina and coastal sections of Tidewater Virginia. [NOAA OSEI]
- Central and southern Asia, where a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image from NASA's Aqua satellite shows a large section of Afghanistan and neighboring sections of northern Pakistan and Iran covered with snow. [NASA Earth Observatory]
- Northeastern China, where multiple images obtained from the MODIS sensors on NASA's Aqua satellite depict the heavy snow, along with cities, the Huang River and reservoirs. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Season's avalanche fatalities are increasing -- Federal and state officials from across the Western states have voiced concern about the increased number of people that have been killed by avalanches so far this season. They have concerned that many people are not heeding the warnings and the dangers caused by snowslides following the passage of numerous winter storms. [USA Today]
Fires across Southeast Asia seen from space -- An image obtained early last week from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite identified the locations of numerous active fires that had been initially set as part of the routine agricultural burning procedure in Cambodia during the dry monsoon season. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Eye on the tropics --Late last week, a new tropical low-pressure system developed over the waters of the Mozambique Channel off Madagascar. This system was identified as Tropical Cyclone Fame, based on the annual list of names maintained for 2008 in the South Indian Ocean basin. As of late Sunday (local time), this tropical cyclone (the Indian Ocean counterpart of a hurricane) reached a category 1 status on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale and was heading south for the coast of Madagascar.
Another tropical weather system, Tropical Storm Gula, formed on Sunday in the South Indian Ocean between Diego Garcia and Madagascar. This system was traveling to the southwest.
In the western South Pacific basin, Tropical Cyclone 15P formed to the northeast of Fiji on Sunday and was moving to the southwest.
At the start of last week, Tropical Cyclone Funa weakened over the western South Pacific near New Zealand. However, this system brought locally heavy rain and winds to New Zealand. An image obtained from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the distribution of cloud-top temperatures in the clouds bands surrounding Funa. [NASA Hurricane Page]
Satellite delay raises concern -- NOAA's top administrator, retired Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., recently voiced concern that the slow development of a critical new radiation sensor for a new polar orbiting satellite could delay the scheduled 2013 launch of this satellite, which marks the precursor mission for the National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). [NOAA News]
New radar satellite technique used to study ocean currents -- French and Norwegian scientists working with the European Space Agency have been employing a new technique that involves measuring the Doppler shift from radar data collected from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument onboard the Agency's Envisat satellite to determine the speed of the moving ocean surface and, ultimately, to determine the strength and variability of surface ocean currents. [ESA]
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]
Global Water News Watch -- Other water news sources can be obtained through the SAHRA Project at the University of Arizona [SAHRA Project]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

REPORTS FROM THE FIELD --

A request: If you have some water-related experience that you would like to share with other DataStreme WES participants, please send them to the email address appearing at the bottom of this document for possible inclusion in a News file. Thank you. EJH

Concept of the Week: Water Chill

The Titanic disaster of April 1912 dramatically portrayed how immersion in cold water can be deadly. After abandoning ship, passengers and crew who were floating in relatively calm seas perished within a short time. Residents of cold climates are warned of the dangers posed by a combination of low air temperature and strong winds (the wind-chill). Because of the special thermal properties of water, immersion in cold water can be even more hazardous. A boating accident or a plunge through thin ice on a lake can have deadly consequences.

One of the principal hazards of cold water immersion is a lowering of body temperature due to excess heat loss. (Perhaps half of all drowning victims actually die from this effect of cold water rather than water-filled lungs.) Heat is energy that is transferred between two objects at different temperatures, always flowing from the warmer to the colder object. The human body can regulate its core temperature so that it normally varies by no more than about 2 Celsius degrees (3.6 Fahrenheit degrees) above or below 37 °C (98.6 °F). Hence, heat usually flows from the human body to its cooler surroundings. Core temperature refers to the temperature of vital organs such as the heart, lungs, and kidneys.

When immersed in cold water, a body may lose heat at such a high rate that natural thermoregulatory processes cannot prevent a steady drop in core temperature and the victim may exhibit symptoms of hypothermia. These symptoms set in when a person's core temperature falls below 36 °C (96.8 °F). Shivering (a thermoregulatory process) becomes violent and uncontrollable and the victim has difficulty speaking and becomes lethargic. If the core temperature drops below 32 °C (90 °F), shivering ceases, muscles become rigid, and coordination deteriorates. At a core temperature of 30 °C (86 °F), a person may drift into unconsciousness and death may ensue at a core temperature below 24 °C (75 °F).

A person runs a greater risk of developing hypothermia when immersed in water than air at the same temperature. Water conducts heat at a rate that is more than 20 times greater than still air and water's specific heat is almost six times that of dry air. Whereas the risk of hypothermia due to low air temperature primarily occurs in winter, cold water immersion is possible any time of year in many locations. Ocean or lake temperatures may remain relatively low throughout the summer months because of water's relatively great thermal inertia.

For more information on hypothermia, including expected survival time for various water temperatures, got to: http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/tourism/hypothermia.html.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Water is a [(much better)(poorer)] conductor of heat than still air.
Hypothermia is a potentially lethal [(rise)(fall)] in the temperature of the human body's vital organs.

Historical Events

28 January 1883...Snowflakes "larger than milkpans" reportedly fell at Fort Keogh near Miles City, MT. The snowflakes, measuring 15 inches across and 8 inches in thickness, made patches of white on the fields within an area of several square miles. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
28 January 1969...A series of storms that battered Southern California from the 18^th to the 28^th led to $125 million damage in the Los Angeles Basin, along with approximately 9 storm and traffic-related deaths in California. Twenty feet of water covered Sherman Island, a region that contains more than 10,000 dike-protected agricultural acres, when a dike failed. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
28 January 1971...A waterspout swept into Hawaii's Kailua Bay, then into the business and hotel district of Kailua-Kona, destroying or severely damaging a number of buildings including 40 apartment units and collapsing a 6-story hotel under construction. Amazingly, only four people were injured. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
29-30 January 1966...A hurricane that struck Samoa was responsible for 50 deaths, destroyed more than one-third of the homes and damaged the remainder. As many as 50,000 people were left homeless. Swains Island was leveled by the hurricane. Winds gusted to 100 mph at Pago Pago. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
29 January 1983...A series of Pacific coast storms finally came to an end. The storms, attributed in part to the anomalous ocean-atmosphere phenomenon, "El Niño," produced ocean swells 15 to 20 feet high that ravaged the beaches of southern California. Much of the damage was to homes of movie stars in the exclusive Malibu Colony. (The Weather Channel)
29 January 1993...Africa's worst weather-related disaster during 1993 occurred as rains produced floods across the southeast lowlands of Kenya. A railroad bridge across the swollen Ngai Nedithya River collapsed as a train crossed, causing 104 deaths. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) 30 January 1996...A snowfall of 6.4 inches on this day pushed the seasonal snowfall to 180 inches at Sault Ste Marie, MI. This set a new seasonal snowfall record for the city. The old record was 178.6 inches set in 1976-77. (Intellicast)
30 January 1997...Surf up to 12 feet, with sets to 15 feet, pounded the north and west shores of Hawaii. A wave swept eight people into the ocean at Keane Point on Maui. Four tourists who were taking pictures of the waves drowned. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
31 January to 4 February 1814...Floes of ice in England's Thames River backed ice up behind the London Bridge, then froze together. The ice was sufficiently strong to support refreshment and entertainment stands for 5 days. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
31 January 1911...Tamarack, CA was without snow the first eight days of the month, but by the end of January had been buried under 390 inches of snow, a record monthly snowfall total for the U.S. (The Weather Channel)
31 January to 9 February 1947...A memorable blizzard crippled Saskatchewan. All highways into Regina were blocked. Railway officials declared this blizzard as producing the worst conditions in Canadian rail history. A train was buried in a snowdrift 0.6 mile long and 37 feet deep. (The Weather Doctor)
31 January 1963...Heavy rains fell across the Sierra. The Mt. Rose Highway Station near Reno, NV reported 7.13 inches of precipitation, which set a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for Nevada. This rain, combined with snowmelt, produced 3 to 4 feet of water that covered 30 blocks of downtown Reno. (NCDC) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
1 February 1936...A rainfall of three inches in several minutes was followed by a hailstorm of jagged pieces of ice that killed 19 people in the Northern Transvaal area of South Africa. Hail was reported to accumulate to a depth of 3 feet. Some of those killed had to be dug out of the hail. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
1 February 1953...An intense low-pressure system of 966 millibars (29.52 inches of mercury) swept across the North Sea. Wind speeds at Aberdeen, Scotland exceeded 125 mph. A storm surge of 13 feet, aided by a high spring tide, breached the dams in as many as 100 places along the Zuider Zee in The Netherlands, flooding 3.95 million acres or one-sixth of the country. More than 1800 deaths were attributed to drowning and 50,000 people were evacuated. In addition, this storm was responsible for the loss of 100,000 poultry, 25,00 pigs and 35,000 cattle. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
2 February 1952...The only tropical storm of record to hit the U.S. in February moved out of the Gulf of Mexico and across southern Florida. It produced 60-mph winds, and two to four inches of rain. (2nd-3rd) (The Weather Channel)
2 February 1976...Groundhog Day Storm, one of the fiercest Maritimes storms ever battered Bay of Fundy region around Saint John, New Brunswick with winds clocked at 118 mph, generating 39 foot waves with swells of 32.5 feet. (The Weather Doctor)
3 February 1997...Portions of the Thames River in England froze over for the first time since World War II. (The Weather Doctor)