WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

DATASTREME OCEAN WEEK TEN: 7-11 November 2005

Ocean in the News:

(Thurs.) Love them fishy things -- NOAA reported that seafood consumption in the United States reached a record high in 2004 of 16.6 pounds per person. This is the third consecutive year of increase. Shrimp tops the list of favorites. [NOAA News]
(Thurs.) Abalone lovers, thank your sea otters -- Red abalone along the Pacific coast has grown to almost 12-inch diameters, apparently thanks to sea otters. Abalone live off kelp which has developed toxic ways to ward off predators such as sea urchins and snails in tropical waters. Off the U.S. Pacific coast however, sea otters keep these predators at bay, allowing kelp to grow without these toxic protections, making better food for the abalone. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Farm the windmills out to sea -- A Norwegian energy group has proposed that windmill parks could be established sufficiently far offshore so as not to be an eyesore. [ENN]
(Tues.) Alarming changes in polar ice caps and ocean levels foreseen -- Using a coupled climate and carbon cycle model to assess the future global climate, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have found that the planetary temperature could rise 8 Celsius degrees by the year 2300, with a possible 20 Celsius degree increase in polar temperatures, that would result in a melting of the ice caps, an increase in sea level by 7 meters and a change in the ocean's carbon chemistry. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Japan's whaling fleet sails -- Japan's whaling fleet set sail for the Antarctic to catch nearly 1000 whales (935 minke and 10 fin whales) for scientific purposes. Critics charge these numbers are too high for science reasons and makes them commercial whaling in disguise which is internationally banned. Japan also has North Pacific operations. Besides Japan, Iceland also has "scientific" whaling and Norway hunts in opposition to the treaties. [BBC News]
And now there are 3 (icebergs) -- Using satellite imagery from polar orbiting satellites, scientists at the National Ice Center have discovered that the large B-15A iceberg in the waters off Antarctica has split into three icebergs, identified as Icebergs B-15M, B-15N and B-15P. [NOAA News]
Katrina could be downgraded -- Based upon analysis of a variety of data, hurricane specialists at the National Hurricane Center are considering downgrading the strength of Hurricane Katrina from a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity Scale to a category 3 system when it made landfall on the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts in late August 2005. [USA Today]
Chesapeake Bay is in warm water -- The MODIS sensor onboard the polar orbiting NASA Aqua satellite indicates that surface waters of Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest estuary, were warmer during August 2005 than the previous three summers. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Donation made for protection of the Baltic Sea -- The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that a Swedish investor has donated $63 million to help protect the Baltic Sea from pollution. [ENN]
Could deep ocean injections combat the "greenhouse effect"? -- A researcher at the University of Michigan has been developing a theoretical model that can be used to determine the environmental consequences if liquefied carbon dioxide were injected into the ocean at depths of at least 1000 m at a variety of temperatures and pressures. [University of Michigan]
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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

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 A 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 striped 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.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Seamounts are extinct submarine volcanoes that occur primarily in the [(Atlantic) (Pacific)(Southern)] Ocean.
Commercial fish trawling has [(little if any)(a devastating)] impact on seamount ecosystems.

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)
9 November 1913...The "Freshwater Fury," a rapidly deepening midlatitude 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 Calendar)
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)
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 Calendar)
Editors note: The 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
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 Calendar)
12 November 1974...A salmon was caught in the River Thames, England - the first in more than 130 years. (Today in Science)
13 November 1970...A cyclone swept over Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, pushing a 49-ft storm surge against the coast at high tide. Flooding killed 500,000. Over 50 million people were affected by the storm rain, wind and surge. (The Weather Doctor)
13 November 2002...The single-hulled oil tanker Prestige sank off Spain's Galician coast, causing a huge oil spill. (Wikipedia)

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