WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

17-21 December 2007

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2008 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 14 January 2008. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Applications for a prestigious scholarship invited -- NOAA is accepting applications from qualified college undergraduate students interested in pursuing degrees in ocean and atmospheric sciences and education to the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. As many as 100 undergraduates could each receive up to $29,050 for their academic studies related to NOAA science, research, technology, policy, management, and education activities. Applications will be accepted through 8 February 2008. [NOAA News]

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the Tropics -- Tropical cyclone activity was reported last week in the North Atlantic and South Indian Ocean basins:
  • In the North Atlantic basin, Tropical Storm Olga, the fifteenth named tropical cyclone of the 2007 hurricane season, developed early last week near Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and intensified by midweek as it moved westward across Hispaniola. By late in the week, it had weakened to a tropical depression, with remnants found across the Caribbean between Cuba and Jamaica. As many as 25 people had died across the Caribbean basin because of the floods produced by torrential rain accompanying Olga. [USA Today] An image obtained from NOAA's GOES-10 satellite early last week shows the clouds associated with Tropical Storm Olga as it was approaching Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. [NOAA OSEI]
  • In the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Storm 06S formed late last week near Diego Garcia. As of late Sunday, this marginal tropical storm was moving to the southwest. An image generated from data collected by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the temperature of the tops of the clouds surrounding Tropical Storm 06S. [NASA Hurricane Page]
• Animations help improve tropical cyclone damage prediction -- A student intern science team from around the country helped developed new computer graphics that enabled imagery from NASA's QuikSCAT (Quick Scatterometer), Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, Jason-1 and Aqua satellites to be used in a new hurricane animation designed to help forecasters predict storm damage more accurately. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Coral reefs are threatened by carbon emissions -- A group of international coral scientists including the NOAA Coral Reef Watch coordinator warn that corals could start disappearing during the second half of this century because of increasing temperatures and increasing ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide emissions. [NOAA News] Researchers at the Carnegie Institution have found that the ocean waters could become too acidic and could doom nearly all the current reef habitats by 2050 if current carbon dioxide emission trends continue. [EurekAlert!]
• Report released on state of national deep coral ecosystems -- A report was recently released by NOAA entitled "The State of Deep Coral Ecosystems of the United States" that highlights the progress on conserving these unique and vulnerable deep sea ecosystems and provides a baseline for future research and management. [NOAA News]
• Monitoring of marine debris commences in a marine sanctuary -- NOAA has established a new monitoring program in Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary offshore of the Georgia coast to collect data on the location and types of marine debris in the sanctuary in order to support cleanup efforts. [NOAA News]
• Oil spills off Korean coast -- An image from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar on the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite shows a large crude oil spill in the Yellow Sea offshore of South Korea from the tanker Hebei Spirit following a collision with another ship a week ago [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Sea ice on the move -- MODIS images obtained from NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites of the seasonal ice in Antarctica's Ross Sea on two consecutive days last week show that the seasonal sea ice had broken up and was beginning to flow away from the continent as summer returns to the Southern Hemisphere. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Arctic surface waters could warm without insulating ice cap -- An oceanographer at the University of Washington claims that the large expanse of ice-free Arctic Ocean during 2007 was accompanied by sea surface temperatures that increased by 5 Celsius degrees above century-long average temperatures across the region, because of the record low summer sea ice cover and the loss of its insulating capabilities. [EurekAlert!]
• Mysteries on the Arctic sea floor are explored -- Expeditions to the Arctic by researchers including those from Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center are investigating the origin of "mud waves", which are 100-foot wide accumulations of mud on the floor of the Arctic Ocean that appear to have been produced by ocean currents. Parallel groves and boulders also found in the sea floor point to formation from scraping by sufficiently massive arctic ice. [Ohio State University Research]
• Melting of Greenland ice sheet appears to be accelerating -- A study conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder based on data from an extensive climate monitoring network on the Greenland ice sheet along with satellite data beginning in 1979 indicates that the melt of the ice sheet during the summer of 2007 has been the largest observed during the satellite era and represents an accelerated melting rate. [EurekAlert!]
• Satellites provide help investigate clouds and climate change -- Researchers have been using data collected from NASA's "A-Train" constellation of five Earth observing satellites, especially the CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation satellites, to determine the role that clouds have upon Arctic sea ice and global rainfall patterns, which ultimately would result in changes in climate. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Role of climate on hurricanes considered -- Scientists at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science have determined that increases in air temperature and atmospheric humidity appear to be more important than increased local sea surface temperature in increasing the tropical cyclone "potential intensity", a measure of the upper limit on hurricane intensity. [EurekAlert!]
• Wetter storms in Northern Hemisphere foreseen -- Two studies conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder predict that wetter storms could occur across the Arctic and the Northern Hemisphere because of projected increases in global temperatures. One of the studies also indicates an increase in storm frequency across the Arctic. The increased precipitation could affect seasonal snow cover, ice sheet growth and even the thermohaline circulation of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. The other study points to increased greenhouse gas emission as the cause of the precipitation changes. [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:

• 17-18 December 1832...The HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin onboard rounded Cape San Diego at Tierra del Fuego (the southern tip of South America) then sailed through the Strait of Le Maire, to anchor at Good Success Bay and visit Vurland.
• 17-18 December 1944...A typhoon with wind gusts to 142 mph in the Philippine Sea devastated Task Force 38 of Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet northeast of Samar. Approximately 800 men were lost, the destroyers USS Hull, USS Monaghan and USS Spence sank, while 21 other ships were damaged, along with loss of 147 aircraft. The wind and sea tore life vests from the backs of some survivors. (Naval Historical Center) (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 19 December 1551...The Dutch west coast was hit by a hurricane.
• 19 December 1741...Vitus J Bering, Dutch navigator/explorer, died on this date.
• 19-21 December 1835...The HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin approached New Zealand and sailed into the Bay of Islands.
• 20 December 1987...Worst peacetime shipping disaster occurred as the Dona Paz, a Philippine ferry, sank after collision with oil tanker Vector off Mindoro island, setting off a double explosion. As many as 1749 confirmed deaths, but the death toll was probably closer to 3000.
• 21 December 1163...A hurricane hit villages in Holland/Friesland, causing floods.
• 21 December 1872...The HMS Challenger set sail from Portsmouth, England on the 4-year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography. (Wikipedia)
• 21 December 1936...Ice breaking operations in channels and harbors by the US Coast Guard was authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Executive Order No. 7521. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 22 December 1832...The HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin reached the Barnevelts Islands
• 22 December 1837...Congress authorized the President "to cause any suitable number of public vessels, adapted to the purpose, to cruise upon the coast, in the severe portion of the season, and to afford aid to distressed navigators." This statute was the first authorizing activities in the field of maritime safety, thereby interjecting the national government into the field of lifesaving for the first time. Although revenue cutters were specifically mentioned, the performance of this duty was imposed primarily upon the Revenue Marine Service and quickly became one of its major activities. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 22 December 1894...The Dutch coast was hit by a hurricane.
• 23 December 1811...A cold storm hit Long Island Sound with a foot of snow, gale force winds, and temperatures near zero. During the storm, many ships were wrecked, and in some cases, entire crews perished. (David Ludlum)
• 23 December 1854...A tsunami struck the coast of Japan, with water in the harbor of Simoda changing depth between 8 and 40 feet. Twelve hours later this giant wave reached the Pacific coast of the U.S. The newly installed self-registering tide gauges noted these waves. The information derived from this event enabled Alexander D. Bache, Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, to apply a newly derived law relating ocean depth to wave speed and provide the first relatively accurate scientific estimate of the depth of an ocean between Japan and the Pacific coast of the U.S. The velocity of the sea wave from Simoda to San Francisco was 369 mph. (Today in Science History)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2007, The American Meteorological Society.