Weekly Ocean News

WEEK TEN: 11-9 November 2013

For Your Information

Opportunity for Teachers: The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Teacher at Sea 2014 Field Season program is now accepting applications until the end of business on 18 November 2013. Gain your "sea legs" and first-hand experience in one-week to one-month voyages. For more information, or to apply, see http://teacheratsea.noaa.gov
Unique access to environmental data provided by new "NOAA View" website -- During the past week, NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) unveiled a new data visualization tool called "NOAA View" for examining archived or recent environmental data such as precipitation, wind data, ice cover, vegetation. [NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service]
Shadow from solar eclipse passes across western Africa -- An image made by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite on Sunday (3 November 2013) shows a shadow cast by the Moon on sections of western Africa and adjacent sections of the equatorial Atlantic Ocean during a hybrid solar eclipse. This eclipse, which commenced as an annular eclipse and then became a total eclipse, occurred when the new Moon passed between the Sun and Earth. The Moon's shadow, which had a width of no more than 36 miles traveled, traveled for approximately 8500 miles from the western North Atlantic to eastern Africa. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Hydrothermal vent organisms -- You are invited to read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth that describes how geoscientists have investigated the deep-sea environment in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents that form along the oceanic ridges nearly 3000 meters below the ocean surface. Interestingly, a diverse and abundant community of marine organisms has been found to live in these extreme oceanic conditions.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Several named tropical cyclones were found across the world's ocean basins during the last week, with most of the activity occurring over the western sections of the North Pacific basin:

No named tropical cyclones developed last week over the North Atlantic basin that includes the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
In the eastern North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Sonia weakened to a tropical depression as it traveled to the north-northeast before making landfall as a tropical depression along the coast of western Mexico at the start of last week. Additional information and satellite imagery on former Tropical Storm Sonia is available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
No additional tropical cyclone activity was reported across this basin for the remainder of the week.
In the western North Pacific basin, the island nation of the Philippines took hits from three significant tropical weather systems during the past week.
The first of these systems was Typhoon Krosa, which had intensified to a major category 3 typhoon (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) over the previous weekend as it moved away from the island of Luzon after bringing heavy rain and strong winds to this main island in the northern Philippines. Typhoon Krosa weakened and dissipated over the waters of the South China Sea just to the southeast of China's Hainan Island at the start of last week. The NASA Hurricane Page has satellite images and additional information on Typhoon Krosa.
The second tropical weather system to affect the Philippines was Tropical Depression 30W moved westward across Visayas and neighboring islands in the central Philippines at the start of last week. After bringing locally heavy rains to the central Philippines, this tropical depression intensified to become Tropical Storm 30W over the South China Sea briefly early last week as it traveled westward. The tropical storm weakened to a tropical depression before reaching the central coast of Vietnam by late in the week as a remnant low. Eventually, this remnant low moved across Southeast Asia before moving out in the Andaman Sea, a part of the North Indian Ocean, to the southwest of Bangkok, Thailand at the end of last week. For additional information and satellite images on Tropical Storm 30W, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
The third, and most potent of the tropical weather systems to strike the Philippines last week was Super Typhoon Haiyan, which had developed from Tropical Depression 31W. This tropical depression had formed over the previous weekend near Micronesia. Strengthening into a typhoon early in the week, Haiyan traveled to the west-northwest across the waters of the western North Pacific toward the central Philippines. By midweek, this typhoon had intensified into Super Typhoon Haiyan, which was rated as a category 5 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as maximum sustained surface winds reached at least 195 mph and wind gusts to over 200 mph. This massive typhoon made landfall in the Philippines on Friday as possibly the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded at landfall. Strong winds, a storm surge and flooding rains, which continued into Saturday, were responsible for causing over 10,000 fatalities in the Philippines. On Sunday, Haiyan had weakened to a category 1 typhoon as it was heading toward the Gulf of Tonkin with a possible landfall along the northern coast of Vietnam or southern coast of China. The CIMSS Blog at the University of Wisconsin's Space Science and Engineering Center has satellite animations of Super Typhoon Haiyan. The NASA Hurricane Page also has additional information and satellite imagery on this super typhoon.
In the North Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Storm 3A formed at the end of last week several hundred miles off the coast of Somalia in eastern Africa. Over the weekend, this third tropical cyclone of the year in the Arabian Sea sector of the North Indian Ocean basin continued toward the west and could make landfall along the coast of Somalia by early Monday (local time).

Plan to address hypoxia in Gulf of Mexico proposed -- Scientists at the University of Illinois have identified some of the biophysical and social barriers involved with attempts to reduce the hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico over the last 12 years and they have proposed a means for proceeding forward to reduce the nutrient loading to the Gulf from the Midwest. They noted that a large hypoxic zone has developed annually in Gulf has been due to a combination of expanded and patterned tile drainage, increased fertilizer use due to more corn production, and more frequent high-intensity precipitation events. They propose having farmers actively participate with researchers to develop realistic suites of practices could find widespread regional acceptance. [University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences]
Turbine arrangement and wind seasonality important for increased wind energy efficiency -- Researchers at the University of Delaware and Stanford University claim that the arrangement of wind turbines in an offshore wind farm can increase performance by approximately 33 percent. Their research involved changes in the arrangement involved staggering every other row and increasing the spacing of the turbines in a wind farm off the coast of Sweden. [University of Delaware Daily]
Young salmon are tracked as they head for the ocean -- Ecologists at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have been tracking young salmon as they make their first attempts at heading for the ocean along the Columbia River and its tributaries in Washington and Oregon. Apparently, conditions in the oceans such as water temperature and ocean current directions play a large role in determining the behavior of young migrating salmon as they leave the rivers and enter ocean waters for the first time, where the environment is quite different from where they were spawned. This research should help in the development of restoration policies and practices needed to boost the endangered salmon species in the Pacific Northwest. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory News Center]
Water quality in Chesapeake Bay watershed improved in part by Clean Air Act -- Researchers at the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science report that reductions of pollution emissions from power plants across the Middle Atlantic States have resulted in declines in atmospheric nitrogen pollution and ultimately to improved quality of the water entering the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The declines in the emissions of nitrogen oxide from coal-fired power plants, which resulted in reduced amounts of nitrogen pollution in streams along the Appalachians, have been in response to the Clean Air Act of 1990, the amount of nitrogen pollution found in the waterways of forested areas in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia fell as well. [University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science]
Climate link to atmospheric river storms found -- A team of scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of California, Los Angeles and NOAA have been conducting research on atmospheric-river storms that move across the North Pacific Ocean and bring major winter snows and rain to California's Sierra Nevada Mountains and other mountain ranges along the West Coast. Studying the phases of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the Pacific/North American teleconnections (PNA), which represent atmospheric circulation patterns in the Northern Hemisphere, the researchers found that when those patterns align in a particular way, the atmospheric rivers aim a plume of high humidity tropical air straight to the Sierras. Data were used from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite, along with NOAA satellite data and snowpack data from the California Department of Water Resources. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
New records reached in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations -- The recently released World Meteorological Organization's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin indicates that the amount of greenhouse gases that are in the atmosphere reached a new record high in 2012. These gases include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. The increase in these gases represents a 32 percent increase in radiative forcing, which causes a warming effect on planetary climate. Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide accounted for most of the increases in radiative forcing. As of 2012, the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide was 41 percent higher than in the pre-Industrial Era. [World Meteorological Organization Media Centre]
"Tiger stripes" show where flow slows in Antarctic glaciers -- Researchers from Princeton University and the British Antarctic Survey have found that a "tiger stripe" or narrow rib pattern of dirt and rock beneath massive Antarctic glaciers create friction zones that slow the flow of ice toward the sea. The researchers used mathematical modeling and data from satellites and ground-penetrating radar to infer the existence of these stripes indicating areas of high friction between the glacier and the underlying bedrock. [News at Princeton]
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, drought, floods, marine weather, tsunamis, rip currents, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and coral bleaching. [NOAAWatch]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Solving the Mystery of Seamount Ecosystems

The United States Commission on Ocean Policy reports that less than 5% of the ocean floor has been explored. This is beginning to change as scientists and engineers develop and apply new technologies to investigate deep ocean waters and the sea bottom (refer to Chapter 13 in your DataStreme Ocean textbook). Consider, for example, the effort to obtain a better understanding of seamount ecosystems.

A seamount is a submarine mountain of volcanic origin (now extinct) that rises more than 1000 m (3300 ft) above the ocean floor. Usually a seamount summit is 1000 to 2000 m (3300 to 6600 ft) below sea level. They occur as isolated peaks, chains (e.g., Emperor Seamounts in the North Pacific; New England chain in the North Atlantic), or clusters. The term "seamount" was first applied in 1936 to the Davidson Seamount located off the coast of Southern California. Scientists estimate that perhaps 30,000 dot the ocean floor with as many as two-thirds located on the Pacific Ocean bottom. However, fewer than one thousand seamounts have been named and only a handful of seamounts has received detailed scientific study.

In recent years, discovery of unique life forms on seamounts has spurred scientific interest in seamount ecosystems. Many nations, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, are supporting scientific cruises to observe and collect specimens from seamount ecosystems. Seamount ecosystems are unusually productive and are home to unique species. Some seamount surveys have found that certain seamount species are endemic, that is, they live on only one seamount or a few nearby peaks. For example, up to one-third of all species living on some seamounts off New Caledonia are endemic while up to half of the invertebrates and fish on the Nazca seamount off Chile are endemic. In the northeast Pacific, large-scale eddies may transport larval fish from coastal environments to isolated seamounts located out at sea. Furthermore, some scientists argue that seamounts may function as stepping stones that allow for migration of species over lengthy periods--perhaps over millions of years. In addition, some seamounts may serve as aids to navigation for fish that migrate over long distances. For example, hammerhead sharks may use the magnetic field surrounding seamounts to find their way.

The recent effort to survey and explore seamount ecosystems has reached new urgency with the realization of the devastating impact of commercial fish trawlers on those ecosystems. In some cases, trawling has striped off most marine life (e.g., coral gardens) from the surface of seamounts leaving behind mostly bare rock. Typically, trawled seamounts have only half the biomass and considerably fewer species than undisturbed seamounts. Scientists anticipate that a better understanding of seamount ecosystems will help make the case for their conservation and inform the most effective strategies for their protection. Australia is one of the first nations to protect seamount ecosystems, establishing the Tasmanian Seamount Marine Reserve in 1999. The reserve covers 370 square km (140 square mi) and includes more than a dozen seamounts.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Seamounts are extinct submarine volcanoes that occur primarily in the [(Atlantic) (Pacific)(Southern)] Ocean.
Commercial fish trawling has [(little if any)(a devastating)] impact on seamount ecosystems.

Historical Events:

11 November 1099...Violent storm in the North Sea killed 100,000 people in England and The Netherlands. (The Weather Doctor)
12 November 1956...(date approximate) The crew on the icebreaker USCGC Glacier saw what may have been the world's largest iceberg. Observed about 150 mi west of Antarctica's Scott Island, the iceberg was about 60 mi wide by 208 mi long, or roughly the size of Maryland. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
12 November 1974...A salmon was caught in the River Thames, England - the first in more than 130 years. (Today in Science History)
13 November 1970...A cyclone swept over Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, pushing a 49-ft storm surge against the coast at high tide. Flooding killed 500,000. Over 50 million people were affected by the storm rain, wind and surge. (The Weather Doctor)
13 November 2002...The single-hulled oil tanker Prestige sank off Spain's Galician coast, causing a huge oil spill. (Wikipedia)
14 November 1825...The Codorus, the first ship made in the U.S. with sheet iron, was tested on the Susquehanna River at York, PA. The ship weighted five tons, of which two tons was for the coal- and wood- fueled boiler which provided power for an 8-hp engine. With a keel length of 60-ft and a 9-ft beam, the ship drew about seven inches of water. (Today in Science History)
14-21 November 1991...Tropical Cyclone Tia spent most of its life near the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. However, it completely destroyed 90 percent of all dwellings on Tikopia Island. The remaining 10 percent of the buildings sustained collapsed walls or roofs that had been blown off. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
15 November 1860...The light in the massive stone Minots Ledge Lighthouse at the entrance to Boston Harbor, which was built on the original site of the one lost in 1851, was exhibited. Work on the new lighthouse commenced in 1855 and was finished in 1860. "It ranks, by the engineering difficulties surrounding its erection and by the skill and science shown in the details of its construction, among the chief of the great sea-rock lighthouses of the world." (USCG Historians Office)
15 November 1888...The Norwegian oceanographer and meteorologist Harald Ulrik Sverdrup was born on this date. He was known for his studies of the physics, chemistry, and biology of the ocean. He died in August 1957. (Today in Science History)
15 November 1854...In Egypt, a royal concession from Said was made that ultimately permitted construction of the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. (Wikipedia)
17 November 1820...Captain Nathaniel Palmer, USN, became the first American to see Antarctica. He saw the Palmer Peninsula, which was later named after him. (Wikipedia)
17 November 1869...The Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas, was officially inaugurated in Egypt with an elaborate ceremony. (Wikipedia)
17 November 1973...The "Largest Icebreaker in the Western World," USCGC Polar Star, was launched. (USCG Historians Office)