WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

9-13 January 2006

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.

Ocean in the News:

• Zeta finally dissipates -- The 27th named tropical cyclone (tropical storm or hurricane) of the 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Zeta, finally dissipated over the Atlantic last Friday. In addition to increasing the already record number of systems, Zeta has the distinction of tying Hurricane Alice (the second such named hurricane in 1954) as being the latest tropical storm to form in December. However, Zeta became the longest-lived tropical storm to develop in December and continue into the following January, extending the record setting hurricane season. It also marks the longest-lasting January tropical cyclone on record. [USA Today] The MODIS sensor onboard NASA's polar-orbiting Aqua satellite captured a historic image of this record setting tropical system. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Navigational charts available on line -- A NOAA official reported that mariners can now download free electronic versions of the NOAA Raster Navigational Charts and weekly updates to "Notice to Mariners" from the Internet as a means of helping make navigation safer in US waters. [NOAA News]
• PORTS^® program shown to provide economic benefits -- NOAA officials recently announced that a study has demonstrated that Florida's Tampa Bay area has benefited from the operation of NOAA's Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS^®), with more than $7 million per year realized in savings and direct income. [NOAA News]
• TOPEX/Poseidon Mission finally ends -- After making almost 62,000 orbits of planet Earth, the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite that was used to continuously monitor the topography of the world's oceans finally lost its ability to maneuver last week, bringing to a close 13-year mission, well beyond the anticipated 5-year lifetime. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Increased numbers of manatees killed -- Preliminary statistics released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission indicate that more than 360 manatees died in waters of the Sunshine State during the first eleven months of 2005, nearly 100 more than during 2004. The toxic "red tide" and collisions with boats appear to be the leading cause of the deaths of the endangered manatees. [ENN]
• Seagrass damaged by boaters -- A study by the National Parks Conservation Association notes that negligent boaters on Florida Bay have been destroying the fragile seagrass that grows in the Bay's shallow waters that also include a large portion of the Everglades National Park. The seagrass represents an important habitat for the Sunshine State's fishing industry. [ENN]
• Protection of northwestern Hawaiian Islands considered -- While some of the islands along the western section of the Hawaiian Island archipelago have been designated as a National Wildlife Refuge for nearly 100 years, efforts have been made to expand the refuge status to include the surrounding coral reefs as a wildlife sanctuary, with NOAA scheduled to prepare rules for managing the waters in this expanded sanctuary. [ENN]
• Ocean warming detected by marine organisms -- Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute have discovered that populations of foraminifera, small marine organisms, have increased dramatically during the last century, at rates that have not been reached during the previous 1400 years. These scientists attribute the rapid growth to recent ocean warming. [Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
• Global climate change could trigger extreme changes in ocean processes -- Researchers with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who have been studying deep-sea sediment cores retrieved from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program point to abrupt large-scale ocean circulation changes, including directional reversals, during the late Paleocene and the beginning of the Eocene eras (approximately 55 million years ago) as being a part of the warming of the planetary climate during the so-called Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum. They contend that similar changes in the ocean circulation could result from current global warming. [Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
• Tracking whales by sound -- Researchers at Oregon State University have been using autonomous hydrophones to identify and track several different species of whales in the Pacific Ocean. [EurekAlert!]
• 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:

• 12 January 1836...Charles Darwin onboard the HMS Beagle reached Sydney, Australia.
• 12 January 1937...A plow for laying submarine cable was issued a U.S. patent. Designed to feed a cable at the same time that it would dig a trench in the ocean bed, the device could be used at depths up to a half mile. The first transatlantic cable of high-speed permalloy was buried on 14 June 1938. The inventors were Chester S. Lawton of Ridgewood, NJ and Capt. Melville H. Bloomer of Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Today in Science History).
• 12 January 1991...A major Atlantic storm intensified over the ocean waters off Newfoundland. Winds reached 105 mph at coastal Bonavista and ocean waves reached heights of 66 feet. A cargo ship sank 250 miles off the southeast Newfoundland coast. This storm was responsible for 33 deaths. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 13 January 1840…The 207-ft long side-wheel steamship Lexington burned and sank in Long Island Sound four miles off the northern coast of New York State's Long Island with the loss of 139 lives. Only four people survived. (Wikipedia)
• 15 January 1833...HMS Beagle anchored at Goeree Tierra del Fuego.

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2006, The American Meteorological Society.