WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

29 December 2008-2 January 2009

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2009 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 19 January 2009. 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 -- Tropical cyclone activity was reported last week in the South Indian Ocean basin as Cyclone Billy moved out over the waters west of Australia. This system intensified to a category 3 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it traveled to the west-southwest and then curved to the west-northwest by the end of the week. Cyclone Billy finally weakened and dissipated over the weekend. An image from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite shows the clouds surrounding Cyclone Billy as it traveled along the coast of western Australia early last week. [NASA Earth Observatory] Additional satellite images and a more detailed discussion on Cyclone Billy appear on the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Increases in severe storms linked to increased temperatures -- A researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently reported that his research using 5 years of data collected by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) sensor onboard NASA's Aqua satellite indicates an increase in the frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics that are associated with severe storms and torrential rainfall. He claims that the increase in these clouds can be correlated with the seasonal variations in the sea surface temperatures of the tropical oceans. [NASA JPL]
• A "leap second" lengthens 2008 -- Being a leap year, the calendar year 2008 is longer by one day because an extra day was inserted at the end of February so as to adjust the calendar that has integer days to remain relatively synchronous with the length of time that the Earth travels around the sun (365.244 mean solar days). Recently, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service announced that it will insert a "leap second" as it orders its atomic clocks to be stopped for one second at 2359Z (6:59 PM EST, 5:59 PM CST) on 31 December 2008 to readjust the time scale based on the atomic clock to the time scale based upon the rotation of the Earth with respect to the sun. Tidal friction and other natural phenomena have slowed the Earth's rotation rate by approximately 2 milliseconds per day. [US Naval Observatory]
• Ribbon seals are no longer endangered -- Officials with NOAA's Fisheries Service announced that ribbon seals should not be listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act, as this seal species found in the Bering and Chukchi Seas appears not to be in current danger of extinction or is likely to become endangered in the near future. [NOAA News]
• Saltwater angler registry to be created -- NOAA’s Fisheries Service recently ruled that it was creating a national saltwater angler registry of all marine recreational fishermen designed to help protect the nation's shared marine resources. This registry was included in a congressional statute approved in 2007. [NOAA News]
• Reduction in halibut catch from charters proposed -- Last week, NOAA’s Fisheries Service announced that it proposed cutting the number of halibut that charter vessel anglers in southeast Alaska can keep from two to one per day in an attempt to protect the halibut resource that has been decreasing in recent years. [NOAA News]
• Management plan prepared for a marine monument -- NOAA, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the state of Hawaii recently released a completed management plan and associated environmental assessments covering the next 15 years for Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument, the nation’s largest marine protected area along the northwestern section of the Aloha State. [NOAA News]
• An All-Hazards Monitor --This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, marine weather, tsunamis, rip currents, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and coral bleaching. [NOAAWatch]
• 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:

• 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 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 kilohertz. Although the countries of the world had agreed at the Atlantic City Convention of the International Telecommunication Union in 1947 to use 2182 kilohertz 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)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2008, The American Meteorological Society.