WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

31 December 2007-4 January 2008

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.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sincerely,

Ed Hopkins and the AMS DS Ocean Central Staff

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics -- In the South Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Cyclone Melanie formed late last week off the northwest coast of Australia north of Port Hedland. As of Sunday, this tropical storm was continuing to move to the southwest offshore of Australia.
       In the eastern North Atlantic basin, the National Hurricane Center has been monitoring a surface low-pressure system that that could become a subtropical storm. This low had developed earlier in the week and has remained nearly stationary south of the Azores. As of Sunday, this system appears to become less organized due to interaction with a midlatitude front.
• Algal bloom off Argentina -- The MODIS image obtained early last week from NASA's Terra satellite shows an area of the South Atlantic Ocean offshore of Argentina that has iridescent blue and green colors that indicate a bloom of phytoplankton in the surface waters. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Future of the oceans depends on deep-sea species -- A team of European researchers recently released a report that indicates a loss of deep-sea species could pose a major threat to the future of the world's oceans because of the loss of biodiversity. [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:

• 1 January 1850...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 History)
• 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 History)
• 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)
• 2 January 1955...Hurricane Alice battered the Leeward Islands with sustained winds of 85 mph on this day. Alice was upgraded as a full tropical system on 31 December 1954, making Alice the latest and earliest hurricane on record in the Atlantic Ocean. (Intellicast)
• 2 January 1993...Cyclone Kina battered Fiji with wind gusts to 130 mph and heavy rain. Up to 21.65 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, resulting in the worst flooding in 60 years. Twenty-three people were killed and damage was estimated to be in excess of 547 million US dollars. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 2 January 1998...Tropical Cyclone Ron (the Southwest Pacific's counterpart of a hurricane) destroyed most of the structures on Swains Island in American Samoa. The island's 49 residents sought safety in a concrete structure, which withstood the cyclone's 90-mph sustained winds. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 3 January 2006…The record 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season extended into the new year, as Tropical Storm Zeta reached its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph for the second time; the previous occurrence was on 1 January 2006. Never a threat to land as it traveled across the central North Atlantic, Tropical Storm Zeta was the 27th named tropical cyclone (including both tropical storms and hurricanes) of the season. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4 January 1493...The explorer, Christopher Columbus, began his return to Spain and completed his first journey to the New World. (Wikipedia)
• 5 January 1841...The British explorer, James Clark Ross, was the first to enter pack ice near Ross Ice Shelf off Antarctica.
• 5 January 1875...CDR Edward Lull, USN, began an expedition to locate the best ship canal route across Panama. This route was followed 30 years later. (Naval Historical Center)
• 5 January 1903...The general public could use the San Francisco-Hawaii telegraph cable across the Pacific cable for the very first time.
• 6 January 1839...A two-day storm off the Irish and English coasts was immortalized as "The Big Wind".
• 6 January 1898...The first telephone message from a submerged submarine was transmitted by Simon Lake, the father of the modern submarine.
• 6 January 1928...An intense low pressure system over the North Sea created a storm surge that moved upstream along the Thames River to London in England. Water rose over embankments. The rapid rise of the river resulted in 14 deaths in basements. As many as 40,000 people were left homeless. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 7 January 1904...The international Morse code distress signal "CQD" was established. Two years later, the 1906 International Conference on Wireless Communication at Sea, resolved that the radio distress signal should become "SOS" because it was quicker to send by wireless radio. (Wikipedia)
• 7 January 1927...Transatlantic telephone service began between New York and London, with 31 calls made on this first day.

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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.