WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

9-13 December 2013

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2014 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 20 January 2014. All the current online website products, including updated issues of Weekly Ocean News, will continue to be available throughout the winter break period.

Items of Interest:

"ClimateChangeLive" distance learning adventure webinar scheduled for this week -- The fifth in a series of seven webinars will be available between 7:30 and 9:00 PM this coming Wednesday, 11 December 2013. The series of webinars is designed to raise awareness and understanding of climate change science and is aligned to national science education standards. The collection of science-based, climate education resources and programs have been gathered from at least 19 federal agency and NGO partners that include the US Forest Service, NOAA, the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The fifth webinar scheduled for this Wednesday is "ClimateChangeLIVE Education Resources Highlights – Part 2." Check http://climatechangelive.org/ for registration details.
Student scholarships announced -- The NOAA Office of Education recently announced that scholarships are available to undergraduate and graduate students who are majoring in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences, along with several of the other scientific and technical disciplines that support NOAA's mission and programs. [NOAA Office of Education] These scholarships include:

Educational Partnership Program (EPP) Undergraduate Scholarship: http://www.epp.noaa.gov/ssp_undergrad_page.html. This program provides an opportunity for rising junior students to study disciplines relating to the NOAA's mission. Students attending Minority Serving Institutions are encouraged to apply. The application deadline for the 2014 EPP Undergraduate Scholarship Program is 31 January 2014.
Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Program: http://www.oesd.noaa.gov/Hollings_info.html. This program is designed to: (1). increase undergraduate training in oceanic and atmospheric science, research, technology, and education and foster multidisciplinary training opportunities; (2) increase public understanding and support for stewardship of the ocean and atmosphere and improve environmental literacy; (3.) recruit and prepare students for public service careers with NOAA and other natural resource and science agencies at the federal, state and local levels of government; and (4.) recruit and prepare students for careers as teachers and educators in oceanic and atmospheric science and to improve scientific and environmental education in the United States. The application deadline for the 2014 Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship Program is 31 January 2014.
Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship Program: http://fosterscholars.noaa.gov/aboutscholarship.html. This program recognizes outstanding scholarship and encourages independent graduate level research -- particularly by female and minority students -- in oceanography, marine biology and maritime archaeology. The application deadline for the 2014 Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship Program is 12 December 2013.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- No organized tropical cyclone activity was reported across either the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins during the last week following the end of the official hurricane seasons. However, some tropical cyclone activity was detected last week across the tropical ocean basins of the Eastern Hemisphere:

In the western North Pacific basin, Tropical Depression 33W formed last week approximately 400 miles to the west-northwest of Guam. However, this tropical depression was short-lived as it dissipated within 24 hours of formation. Satellite imagery and additional information are available on the NASA Hurricane Page for Tropical Depression 33W.
In the North Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Storm Madi formed late last week from a low pressure system over the southern Bay of Bengal approximately 300 miles to the southeast of Chennai, India. Over the weekend Madi traveled toward the north across the Bay of Bengal and intensified to become a category 1 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Madi could turn toward the west or west-southwest at the beginning of this week and head toward the eastern coast of India. The NASA Hurricane Page has more information and satellite images for Cyclone Madi, which was originally labeled System 92B and then Tropical Cyclone 6B.

Satellites reveal massive rainfall totals across Philippines in 2013 from tropical cyclones ....-- Data collected by NASA's TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) satellite shows rainfall totals across the Philippines between January and early November 2013 that ranged from 16 to 44 inches produced by tropical cyclones that either passed over or came close to this island nation. The data were analyzed and made into an animation by the Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) at the NOAA Goddard Space Flight Center. Super Typhoon Haiyan, Tropical Depression 30W and Typhoon Rumbia crossed the central Philippines resulting in estimated rainfall totals in excess of 43 inches over the island of Leyte. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
Comparing and contrasting Atlantic and Pacific tropical cyclone seasons -- A comparison that included maps of storm tracks was made between the 2013 tropical cyclone seasons in the North Atlantic and the western North Pacific. While the Atlantic hurricane season was relatively quiet, the western Pacific's typhoon seas was active, with several intense typhoons. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Public comment sought on proposed Deepwater Horizon oil spill restoration projects -- Early last week NOAA along with its federal and state trustee partners issued a request for public comment on a draft plan designed to restore the ecosystems along coastal sections along the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. This plan outlines and describes 44 proposed restoration projects, totaling approximately $627 million intended to restore barrier islands, shorelines, dunes, underwater grasses, oysters, and lost recreation in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. [NOAA News]
Post-Sandy updates included in new edition of New York Harbor's nautical chart -- NOAA's Office of Coast Survey recently released its newest edition of the nautical chart for New York Harbor that includes new depth measurements and shoreline depiction obtained from the data collected in the multi-agency navigational response to the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. [NOAA News]
New ship strike reduction rule issued to protect North Atlantic right whales -- During the last week, NOAA Fisheries officials issued a final rule to indefinitely extend protections designed to reduce lethal vessel collisions with the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale. This extension of the 2008 ship strike reduction rule requires large ships to travel at speeds of 10 knots or less seasonally in areas where right whales feed and reproduce, including the migratory routes between these areas. [NOAA Fisheries News]
Flooding from tropical cyclones mainly due to sea level rise and shoreline changes -- Scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Virginia Tech University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory claim that sea level rise and shoreline retreat are the two more certain factors expected to drive an increase in future flood risk from tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms). The researchers considered three physical factors: Tropical cyclone climatology, relative sea level rise and shoreline change. [University of Massachusetts Amherst News]
New Jersey shore could face unprecedented flooding by 2050 -- Geoscientists from Rutgers and Tufts Universities foresee a rise in sea level of approximately 1.5 feet along the New Jersey coast by 2050 and of nearly 3.5 feet by 2100, which would be greater than the projected global average. They warn that by the mid-century, the one-in-10 year flood level at Atlantic City would exceed any flood on record, including that associated with last year's Hurricane Sandy. [Rutgers University Today]
Humans threaten wetland's ability to cope with sea-level rise -- Scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center warn that coastal wetlands may not be able to keep pace with projected sea level rises because humans are building structures in these wetlands that are disrupting the natural mechanisms available to allow these marshes to survive sea level change since the end of the last Ice Age. Dams and seawalls are some of the structures that cause disruption. [Virginia Institute of Marine Science]
Deep-sea drilling finds slippery fault that caused the 2011 tsunami -- An international team of scientists that included those from the University of California Santa Cruz and Canada's McGill University have discovered the cause of the major earthquake off the coast of Japan in 2011 that triggered the devastating tsunami as being a relatively thin fault zone on the ocean floor consisting of extremely fine clay sediments that were extremely slippery. They made their discovery following the collection of ocean cores taken from depths nearly 7000 meters below the surface in the Japan Trench. [University of California Santa Cruz Newscenter ] [McGill University News]
Algae bloom seen in South Atlantic -- A natural color image obtained from the MODIS sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite late last month shows large patches of blooming phytoplankton floating in the waters of the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Reducing brine could increase thinning of glaciers -- Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and colleagues at other academic institutions in California and the Netherlands hypothesize that decreases in the volume of cold brine, or extra salty water within the openings of sea ice could increase the thinning and melting of glaciers that discharge their ice into the ocean. They based their hypothesis on observations of a glacier in East Antarctica using NASA's ICESat-1 and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites and upon ocean numerical modeling. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Arctic Ocean becoming a carbon sink -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory report that with the loss of sea ice during the last several decades, the Arctic Ocean is becoming a carbon sink, or a reservoir of carbon compounds, as more ocean water is open during summer. The team calculated the Arctic to be sequestering one megaton per year, based upon models of the changes in Arctic sea ice, temperature, ocean currents and the flow of carbon between 1996 and 2007. While most of the Arctic appeared to have become a carbon sink, some parts of the ocean basin appears to be a source for atmospheric carbon dioxide. [MIT News]
Long-term monitoring ice cover on freshwater lakes -- Scientists along with the dedicated members of the public have been monitoring winter freeze-thaw cycles of freshwater lakes in North America for as long as 160 years. These observers have recorded the dates of "ice-on" in autumn and "ice off" in spring, which provides the ice duration for that winter season. The resulting "ice phenology" provides an indication of changes in climate as well as changes in the freshwater ecosystems. The National Snow and Ice Data Center maintains a database with freeze and thaw observations from more than 700 lakes and rivers throughout the Northern Hemisphere. [Earth Gauge] (Note: This reporter has been monitoring the ice cover on Lakes Mendota and Monona in Madison, WI for several decades and has been helping maintaining one of the longer and nearly continuous ice phenology records in North America as the ice record for these lakes started at least 160 years ago. These records are available on the Wisconsin State Climatology Office website. EJH).
New instrument continues measurements of solar radiation reaching Earth's outer atmosphere -- NOAA's Total solar irradiance Calibration Transfer Experiment (TCTE) is currently measuring the total extra-atmospheric solar irradiance (TSI), or the flux of solar radiation at all wavelengths incident at the top of the Earth's atmosphere. TCTE, which was launched by NASA in November, is currently making measurements and is continuing the TSI record begun by NASA's Nimbus 7 satellite in 1978 and continued since by several subsequent spacecraft. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

9 December1938...A prototype shipboard radar designed and built by the Naval Research Laboratory was installed on the battleship, USS New York (BB-34). (Naval Historian Center)
9 December 2003...A subtropical storm became Tropical Storm Peter approximately 700 miles west-northwest of the Cape Verde Islands. With Tropical Storm Odette having formed in the Caribbean on the 4th, the development of Peter marked the first time since 1887 that two tropical storms formed in the Atlantic Basin in December. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
10 December 1582...France began use of the Gregorian calendar.
10 December 1799...The metric system was made compulsory by law in France. (Today in Science History)
10 December 1922...Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian oceanographer explorer, author, athlete and statesman in recognition of his work for refugees and the famine-stricken. Other prize winners that year were Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein.
10 December 1978 (date approximate)...A 90-foot research ship chartered by the University of Hawaii left Honolulu on the 9th, but failed to arrive in Kawaihae on the 11th. Except for an empty box, no trace of the ship, crew or scientists was found by an extensive air and sea search operation. Gusty trade winds prevailed over the area. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
11 December 1901...Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi sent the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, covering over 2000 miles from Cornwall in England to Newfoundland, Canada. (The History Channel)
12 December 1966...A Greek passenger ferry foundered in heavy seas near Heraklion, Crete with the loss of 241 lives.
13 December 1577...Five ships and 164 men under the command of English seaman Francis Drake (later knighted) set sail from Plymouth, England, to embark on Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, the first by a British explorer. The journey took almost three years. (The History Channel)
13 December 1642...Dutch navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman became the first European explorer to sight the South Pacific island group now known as New Zealand. (The History Channel)
13 December 1816...The first US patent for a dry dock was issued to John Adamson of Boston, MA. (Today in Science History)
13 December 1879...The first federal fish-hatching steamer was launched at Wilmington, DE.
14 December 1287...Zuider Zee seawall in the Netherlands collapsed with the loss of over 50,000 lives. (Wikipedia)
14 December 1902...The British Cable Ship Silverton set sail from the San Francisco Bay Area to lay the first telephone cable between San Francisco and Honolulu. The project, which involved laying a cable across 2277 nautical miles, was completed by 1 January 1903 as the ship landed and the first test message sent the same day. (Today in Science History)
14 December 1988...The first transatlantic underwater fiber-optic cable went into service.
14 December 1991...A ferry, the Salem Express, carrying 569 passengers sank in the Red Sea off the coast of Safaga, Egypt, after hitting a coral reef. Over 460 people were believed drowned.
15 December 1488...Bartholomeus Diaz returned to Portugal after sailing round Cape of Good Hope.
15 December 1582...The Spanish Netherlands, Denmark and Norway adopted the Gregorian calendar.
15 December 1965...The third cyclone of the year killed another 10,000 people at the mouth of the Ganges River, Bangladesh.
15 December 1987...High seas to 12-foot heights caused in part by 30-mph winds associated with an arctic cold front capsized a fishing boat in the coastal waters near California's Channel Islands. The ship's cargo shifted in the high seas and strong winds. Three of the nine people onboard drowned. (Accord's Weather Calendar)