WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

26-30 December 2005

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2006 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 16 January 2006. All the current online homepage products will continue to be available throughout the break period.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sincerely,

Ed Hopkins and the AMS DS Ocean Central Staff

Ocean in the News:

• Sailors can get help from satellites -- Sailors competing in the worldwide Volvo Ocean Race can rely on the life-saving and alert capabilities of the international Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System (COSPAS-SARSAT), which uses NOAA's fleet of polar-orbiting and geosynchronous satellites [NOAA News]
• Prompting ocean etiquette -- Various groups within the NOAA Fisheries Service and National Ocean Service have been developing ocean etiquette programs for more than a decade that is intended to educate the public on responsible marine wildlife viewing and improve behavior so as to minimize human disturbance of the marine environment. [NOAA Magazine]
• Dangerous surf in California -- Large waves generated by a storm over the eastern North Pacific crashed into the Southern California coast late last week, producing high surf that may have responsible for the death of a surfer near Carlsbad. The surf also caused some damage to beach facilities near Los Angeles. [USA Today]
• Katrina was voted the top story -- The Associated Press recently reported that the disaster along the Gulf Coast wrought by Hurricane Katrina, along with Hurricanes Rita and Wilma, was the top news story of 2005, based upon its survey of nearly 300 US editors and news directors. [USA Today]
• Downgrading Katrina -- Based upon more detailed analysis of wind and pressure data collected from deployed instruments, hurricane experts at the National Hurricane Center have downgraded the strength of Hurricane Katrina at the time it made landfall along the Louisiana coast from a Category 4 to Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale. [USA Today]
• Satellites assist in tsunami rebuilding efforts -- The Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union is using data collected from ESA satellites and from other sources to help in the damage assessment in those areas devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami one year ago. [ESA]
• Tsunami survivors remain fearful -- Many of the survivors of last year's tsunami that reportedly killed 300,000 people around the rim of the Indian Ocean still live in fear and suffer from post traumatic stress. [The New Scientist]
• Asian rivers give clue to past mountains -- Scientists at the University of Aberdeen and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have studied ocean cores and used laboratory techniques to decipher changes in the erosional sediments from major rivers in south Asia over the last 30 million years caused by the rerouting of rivers during the building of mountain ranges where crustal plates collided. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Hurricanes and runoff tax efforts to manage estuaries -- Scientists at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the University of Maryland contend that the increased hurricane activity and runoff along the Eastern Seaboard has had an impact upon the phytoplankton populations and the water quality management efforts in some of the major estuaries, such as Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina's Pamlico Sound. [University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill]
• Wild salmon appears better than tame ones -- Scientists at Cornell University and their colleagues at other universities claim that the net health-benefits from wild Pacific salmon outweigh those provided by eating farm-raised Atlantic salmon. [Cornell University]
• Bartering made amid dwindling fish stocks -- Fisheries ministers from the European Union met last week in their annual session to barter for their shares of the catch quotas for 2006 as the fish stock rapidly dwindles in most waters surrounding member nations. [ENN]
• Pilot whales stranded -- Rescue efforts were made last week as more than 100 pilot whales were found beached on New Zealand's South Island. At least 19 whales died despite rescue attempts. [ENN]
• Coral reefs to be studied -- Scientists from NOAA and NASA are planning to make a detailed assessment of the coral reefs of the Caribbean Sea off Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands using aerial photographs and underwater surveys in order to study the disease that results in coral bleaching. [ENN]
• 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.

Historical Events:

• 26-31 December 1993...The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race off Australia was plagued by hurricane-force wind gusts in excess of 74 mph and 33 foot high seas. Of 104 starters, only 37 yachts finished the race. On the 28^th, one yacht owner spent five hours in the water after being swept overboard. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 26 December 2004…A massive earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale approximately 100 miles off the western coast of Sumatra created a tsunami that caused devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean. The death toll is currently estimated at more than 300,000. Officials say the true toll may never be known, due to rapid burials. Indonesia was worst affected with as many as 219,000 people killed. (Wikipedia)
• 27 December 1831...The HMS Beagle, along with the 22-year old British naturalist Charles Darwin, set sail from Plymouth, England on a five-year expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Based upon his study of the flora and fauna of such places as the Galapagos Islands, he developed his famous theory of evolution that was described in his 1859 work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. (The History Channel)
• 27 December 1965...The BP oil rig Sea Gem capsized in the North Sea, with the loss of 13 lives.
• 28 December 1857...The light was first illuminated in the Cape Flattery Lighthouse, located on Washington State's Tatoosh Island at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. "Because of Indian trouble it was necessary to build a blockhouse on Tatoosh Island before even commencing the construction of the lighthouse. Twenty muskets were stored in the blockhouse, and then the lighthouse work began." (USCG Historian's Office)
• 28 December 1903...An Executive Order extended the jurisdiction of the Lighthouse Service to the non-contiguous territory of the Hawaiian Islands. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 28 December 1908...An early morning earthquake under the Straits of Messina leveled cities in Sicily and southern mainland Italy, as well as producing a tsunami with 40-foot waves that inundated coastal communities. This earthquake, estimated to by a magnitude 7.5 on the Richter scale, and the resulting tsunami killed an estimated 100,000 people. This earthquake is Long stretches of coastline sunk into the Messina Straits and disappeared from view. A steady rain also added to the woes of the survivors. (The History Channel)
• 29 December 1897...Congress prohibited the killing of fur seals in the waters of the North Pacific Ocean. (US Coast Guard Historian's Office)
• 30 December 1972...The 86-foot high wave measured by the ship Weather Reporter was the world's highest measured wave. The wave was measured in the North Atlantic Ocean at 59 degrees North latitude and 19 degrees West longitude. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 1 January1850...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)
• 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)
• 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 kilocycles. Although the countries of the world had agreed at the Atlantic City Convention of the International Telecommunication Union in 1947 to use 2182 kilocycles 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)

Return to DataStreme Ocean Website

Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2005, The American Meteorological Society.