WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

30 December 2013-3 January 2014

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.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sincerely,

Ed Hopkins and the AMS DS Ocean Central Staff

Items of Interest:

No "leap second" will lengthen 2013 -- The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) has determined that no "leap second" would be inserted to lengthen the calendar year of 2013. Since 1972, "leap seconds" have been inserted on the last day of December 15 times, with the most recent occurrence on 31 December 2008 when the service's atomic clocks were stopped for one second just before midnight (2359Z, or 6:59 PM EST, 5:59 PM CST, etc) 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. At the time, tidal friction and other natural phenomena had slowed the Earth's rotation rate by approximately two milliseconds per day. In addition, a "leap second" has been inserted ten times at the end of June, with the most recent one added on 30 June 2012. [US Naval Observatory]
In Close -- Earth reaches perihelion, the point in its orbit that is closest to the sun (147.1 million kilometers or 91.2 million miles), next Saturday morning (officially at 12Z on 4 January 2014 or 7 AM EST, 6 AM CST, etc.).
Setting the record straight -- Early last week the Executive Director of the American Meteorological Society, Keith Seitter, wrote a letter to the The Boston Globe in response to an op-ed column that appeared in that newspaper earlier in December entitled "Majority rules on climate science?" In the recent letter, Dr. Seitter felt that comments made by the author of the column could have given the public the wrong impression on a survey of the scientific community consisting of members of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Seitter was a co-author of the survey. [AMS]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- The South Indian Ocean basin continued to experience tropical cyclone activity during the last week. None of the other basins reported organized tropical cyclones:
At the start of last week, Cyclone Amara strengthened to become a major category 4 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it traveled to the south and then southeast. Maximum sustained surface winds reached 150 mph as Amara passed to the east of La Reunion Island. Amara weakened to a remnant low last Monday approximately 750 miles to the east-southeast of Port Louis, Mauritius. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite images on Cyclone Amara.
Cyclone Bruce, which had become a major category 5 tropical cyclone over the previous weekend, weakened as it traveled to the southeast on Monday. By Tuesday night, Bruce had weakened sufficiently and lost its tropical characteristics nearly 700 miles to the south-southeast of Diego Garcia. Additional information on Cyclone Bruce along with satellite images are available from the NASA Hurricane Page.
Over the past weekend, Tropical Storm Christine (also known as Tropical Cyclone 05S) formed on Saturday (local time) from a tropical depression approximately 300 miles off the Kimberley coast of the state of Western Australia. Tropical Storm Christine strengthened as it traveled toward the southwest on Saturday and Sunday. By early Monday Christine had become a major category 3 tropical cyclone (which the Australian Bureau of Meteorology labeled "Severe Tropical Cyclone Christine.). Forecasts indicate that Christine would make landfall along the northern coast of Western Australia near Port Hedland by early Tuesday as a major tropical cyclone. Additional information on Tropical Cyclone Christine can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page (Note that Christine was originally named Tropical Cyclone 05S.)
Ship remains trapped in Antarctic sea ice -- As of this past Sunday, the Russian-flagged expedition vessel Akademik Shokalskiy with 74 researchers, crew and tourists remained trapped in the sea ice surrounding Antarctica for nearly one week. At this time, the Australian icebreaker ship Aurora Australis was 28 nautical miles away from the ship and waiting for the weather to clear before attempting to break through the ice. A Chinese ship Xue Long was also standing by and could be used for helicopter evacuations. The expedition ship was trying to update scientific measurements taken by the 1911-1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson, as well as to gauge the effects of climate change on the region. [CNN]
Massive aquifer found under Greenland ice sheet -- A team of glaciologists from the University of Utah and NASA have discovered a large liquid water reservoir under the compacted snow and ice that forms the Greenland Ice Sheet initially from drilling ice cores through the ice sheet and then from radar data collected during one of NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne campaigns. This “perennial firn aquifer” in southeastern Greenland, which has an areal size larger than the state of West Virginia, contains liquid water year around. The researchers calculated that the water in the aquifer has the potential for raising global sea level by 0.016 inches (0.4 mm). [NASA's Earth Science News Team] [University of Utah News Center]
Review of Canada's top ten weather stories in 2013 -- During the last week, meteorologists with Environment Canada released a list of what they considered the top ten weather events across Canada during this calendar year of 2013. Some of these stories focused upon the floods that were the result of locally heavy rainfall in Alberta and in the Toronto (Ontario) metropolitan area. In addition to locally heavy rainfall events, snowmelt also helped cause flooding. A story also described how the summer weather helped produce bumper crops across the Prairie Provinces in western Canada, while crops were average across the nation. An unseasonably cold summer across northern Canada helped slow sea ice melting in the Canadian Arctic Ocean, while wet weather across the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Valley helped restore water levels. [Environment Canada]
Earthquake could result in increased tsunami hazard in Caribbean -- Scientists from the US Geological Survey (USGS) and France report that strain developing in an earthquake zone near the island of Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles could produce an earthquake with a magnitude ranging between 8 and 8.4 along with a large tsunami that could race across the Caribbean Sea. Using an earthquake with similar magnitude near Guadeloupe in 1843 as a reference, the researchers predicted that a future magnitude 8 earthquake and subsequent tsunami could cause several tens to several hundreds of fatalities, and hundreds of millions to billions of US dollars in damages. [USGS Newsroom]
New advances in climate science made by NOAA Climate Program Office in 2013 -- NOAA's Climate Program Office (CPO) recently identified some of the advances made by this office in climate observation, research, modeling, and decision support activities for society. In terms of observing the climate system, CPO helped in the preparation of the "2012 State of the Climate" report that identified the calendar year of 2012 as being one of the 10 warmest years on record globally and the annual "Arctic Report Card" was released indicating that the Arctic basin had slightly lower temperatures during the 2013 summer. The CPO also helped fund the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report on "The Physical Science Basis" that was released in September 2013. [NOAA Climate Program Office 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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

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)
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.