WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

WEEK SIX: 12-16 October 2015

For Your Information

• Celebrate Earth Science Week 2015 -- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the National Weather Service, along with NASA, the US Geological Survey and several professional scientific organizations such as the American Geological Institute have recognized next week (11-17 October 2015) as Earth Science Week 2015 to help the public gain a better understanding and appreciation for the earth sciences and to encourage stewardship of the Earth. This year's theme for the 18th annual Earth Science Week is “Visualizing Earth Systems,”  which is designed to explore "what it means to see our planet through eyes informed by the geosciences." [American Geological Institute]
• Exploring the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary -- NOAA's National Ocean Service has produced a feature highlighting Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary that is located in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico between 75 and 110 miles off the coast of Texas and Louisiana. This somewhat remote marine sanctuary contains a secret coral "garden" with unique underwater features festooned with colorful sponges, textured sea plants and myriad marine life living among more than 20 species of hard corals. [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
• Teaching climate literacy -- NOAA Climate Program Office has recently posted a set of seven concepts that can be used to support the "teaching the guiding principle for informed climate decisions." These practical tips relate climate principles to real world experiences and problems. [NOAA Climate.gov News] [Editor's note: Thanks go to Professor Mark Seeley, an extension climatologist/meteorologist at the University of Minnesota and a long-time LIT member with the AMS DataStreme program in the eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. EJH]
• Biomixing in ocean motion -- If you would like information on recent findings that indicate marine organisms contribute to motion in the ocean, please read this week's Supplemental Information…In Greater Depth.

• Eye on the Tropics -- During the last week tropical cyclone activity continued in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean basins of the Northern Hemisphere:
• In the North Atlantic basin, Hurricane Joaquin traveled toward the northeast across the western North Atlantic after passing close to Bermuda as a major category 3 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) at the start of last week. Joaquin weakened to become a tropical storm last Wednesday as it traveled rapidly toward colder waters, eventually loosing its tropical characteristics and becoming an extratropical low over 700 miles to the east-southeast of Newfoundland late in the day. The NASA Hurricane Page has satellite images and additional information on Hurricane Joaquin.
• In the eastern North Pacific basin, a tropical depression formed last Friday morning approximately 1670 miles to the west-southwest of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, before becoming Tropical Storm Nora, the 14th named tropical cyclone of the 2015 eastern Pacific hurricane season, by late Friday. Over the weekend, Nora traveled westward, crossing the 140-degree West meridian of longitude, the boundary between the eastern and central Pacific basins by late Saturday night (Hawaiian time).
  
• In the central North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Oho traveled toward the northeast and north-northeast at the start of last week, passing several hundred miles to the east of the Hawaiian Islands. By midweek, Oho had strengthened to become a category 2 hurricane
  on the Saffir-Simpson Scale by midweek before encountering colder waters of the North Pacific. As of early Thursday, Oho had lost all its tropical characteristics, becoming an strong extratropical cyclone (midlatitude low pressure system) that was moving rapidly to the north-northeast toward the Gulf of Alaska and the western coast of North America. See the NASA Hurricane Page for additional information and satellite images on Hurricane Oho.
  After entering the central Pacific basin from the east at the start of the weekend, Tropical Storm Nora continued toward the west-northwest. As of late Sunday morning (Hawaiian time), Nora was slowly intensifying as it got to within 920 miles to the east-southeast of Hilo on Hawaii's Big Island. Nora could become a hurricane as it would curve toward the northeast, passing to the east of the Hawaiian Islands early this week.
  
• In the western North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Choi-wan became a category 1 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it traveled toward the north over the open waters of the western North Pacific well to the east of the Asian continent. During the early part of the week, this typhoon traveled north and then weakened to become a tropical storm and then an extratropical cyclone as it moved across cooler waters near the Kuril islands. Additional information and satellite information on Typhoon Choi-wan is available from the NASA Hurricane Page.
• In the North Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Cyclone 3A formed late last week over the waters of the Arabian Sea. Over the past weekend this tropical cyclone moved slowly toward the north. As of Sunday, Tropical Cyclone 3A weakened to a post-tropical cyclone as it continued to track toward the west-northwest. At this time, the remnant low was located approximately 600 miles to the south-southeast of Karachi, Pakistan.
• Record rains across the Southeast -- Hurricane Joaquin and a separate midlatitude upper atmosphere storm were responsible for bringing record rains to sections of the Southeastern US over the previous weekend. Sections of South Carolina around the Charleston and Columbia metropolitan areas received rainfall totals of over 20 inches in three days. [National Weather Service Forecast Office, Charleston, SC] A map made from data collected from the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement mission) shows excessive rainfall over the first five days of October over South Carolina and over the Bahamas from both the midlatitude storm system and Hurricane Joaquin. [NASA Earth Observatory] The historic and excessive rain event across the Carolinas and sections of Virginia during the first several days of October resulted in saturated ground across a large area that eventually caused runoff and flooding. A map was generated early last week from data collected from a radiometer onboard NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite that displays the soil moisture in the top five centimeters. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Storm damage shown along North Carolina's Outer Banks -- A midlatitude weather system along with Hurricane Joaquin created persistent onshore winds along the Southeastern Coast of the United States over the previous weekend that caused damage along the coasts of the Carolinas. A gallery of images and video showing the effects of the storm damage along the Outer Banks is available. [The Outer Banks Voice] [Editor's note: Special thanks go to Terri Kirby Hathaway, Marine Education Specialist for the North Carolina Sea Grant Program and an AMS DataStreme LIT Leader from Manteo, NC for forwarding this story. EJH]]
• El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion & El Niño advisory -- NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society recently released their El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion that showed a strong El Niño event continued as sea surface temperatures (SST) were above average across the central and eastern tropical Pacific during September 2015. SST values ranged from between two to three Celsius degrees above normal from the central into the eastern equatorial Pacific [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]. Consequently, forecasters at CPC have continued their El Niño advisory that indicates the continuation and possible strengthening of a strong El Niño event possibly peaking by late fall and early winter in the Northern Hemisphere. These forecasters foresee a greater than 95 percent chance that this El Niño event would continue through the boreal winter of 2015-16, followed by a gradual weakening through spring 2016. A detailed El Niño/Southern Oscillation Diagnostic Discussion with supporting maps and charts is available from CPC.
  An ENSO blog written by CPC staff suggests that this current El Niño event is one of the strongest since 1950 as SST values for the three months of July, August and September 2015 were the third highest on record. These forecasters expect this El Niño event to peak during the late fall or early winter 2015-16 (in the Northern Hemisphere). The blog also has a discussion and accompanying graphics as to how strong El Niño events have influenced winter precipitation events across the United States. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
• Improved coastal observations and forecasts offered by online map update -- NOAA recently upgraded its "nowCOAST" web portal that is a GIS-based online map service that provides visual point-and-click access to 60 NOAA data products and services, Which include more frequently updated ocean observations along with coastal and marine weather forecasts. This new version uses data from NOAA's National Ocean Service and National Weather Service. [NOAA News] or [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
• Global coral bleaching event is declared for only the third time -- NOAA scientists recently issued their standard four-month bleaching outlook for coral reefs around the world that shows a continuing threat for bleaching in the Caribbean, Hawaii and Kiribati, along with a potentially expanding threat into the Republic of the Marshall Islands due to record high ocean temperatures causing widespread coral bleaching. Their outlooks were developed jointly by NOAA's Satellite and Information Service and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction through funding from the Coral Reef Conservation Program and the Climate Program Office. This global coral bleaching event is the third ever on record following previous events in 1998 and 2010. [NOAA News]
• Public comment solicited on draft restoration plans for Gulf of Mexico by NOAA and Deepwater Horizon Natural Resources Trustees -- During the last week NOAA and the other Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Trustees released a set of 15-year comprehensive, integrated environmental ecosystem restoration plans for the Gulf of Mexico in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and spill. Public comment is invited on these plans at eight public meetings that will be held between mid October and mid November in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and in Washington, DC. [NOAA News]
• Public comment solicited on two proposed national marine sanctuaries -- Officials with NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries are seeking public through mid January 2016 on two possible national sanctuaries that are part of the nation's maritime heritage. One of these sanctuaries located in the waters of western Lake Michigan off the coast of east-central Wisconsin that contain as many as 39 known historic shipwrecks. The other potential sanctuary is in Mallows Bay, a tidal section of the Potomac River in Maryland that contain nearly 200 submerged vessels, including some dating back to the Revolutionary War. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
• More than $1.3 million awarded to predict coastal acidification impacts to marine species and vulnerable habitats -- NOAA officials recently announced that it was awarding more than $1.3 million to three universities in California, Texas, and Maryland that would be intended for research on how ocean acidification would affect economically and ecologically important marine species and coastal habitats. [NOAA News]
• Grants awarded to advance climate research and improve community resilience -- During the past week NOAA's Climate Program Office announced that it awarded $48 million for 53 new research projects at a variety of governmental and university laboratories that are designed to advance the understanding, modeling and prediction of Earth's climate system and to improve decision making. [NOAA News]
• Asteroid impact and volcanism combined to cause demise of dinosaurs -- Geologists at the University of California Berkley have found evidence indicating that an asteroid impact of Earth approximately 66 million years ago accelerated the number of volcanic eruptions in India for the next several hundred thousand years, beginning approximately 50,000 years after the asteroid or comet impact. The combined effects of the asteroid impact and the volcanic eruptions produced an environment with sufficiently dense aerosols and noxious fumes leading to a change in climate and ultimately the extinction of many marine and land animals, including the dinosaurs. This extinction is at the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary. [University of California Berkley News]
• An All-Hazards Monitor-- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com]

Report from the Field

• A rare find along the Outer Banks -- Terri Kirby Hathaway, Marine Education Specialist for the North Carolina Sea Grant Program and an AMS DataStreme LIT Leader from Manteo, NC was featured in an article where she showed some rare "sea beans," or seeds from tropical plants that are carried from distant locations on ocean currents and then are deposited along the beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks. She reported that she has collected 40 different kinds of sea beans. [PilotOnline.com] [Editor's note: Special thanks go to Terri Kirby Hathaway for providing this article. EJH]

Concept of the Week: Abyssal Storms

Until recently, ocean scientists thought of the deep ocean abyss as a dark and cold, but serene place where small particles rained gently onto the ocean floor. However, instruments lowered to the sea floor to measure ocean motion or currents and resulting mobilization of bottom sediments detected a much more active environment. Scientists found that bottom currents and abyssal storms occasionally scour the ocean bottom, generating moving clouds of suspended sediment. A surface current of 5 knots (250 cm/sec) is considered relatively strong. A bottom current of 1 knot (50 cm/sec) is ripping. Although this may be called an abyssal storm, the water motion pales by comparison to wind speeds in atmospheric storms.

Abyssal currents and storms apparently derive their energy from surface ocean currents. Wind-driven surface ocean currents flow about the margins of the ocean basins as gyres centered near 30 degrees latitude. (Refer to Figure 6.6, page 152, in your textbook.) Viewed from above, these subtropical gyres rotate clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. For reasons given in Chapter 6 of your textbook and this week's Supplemental Information, surface currents flow faster, are narrower, and extend to greater depths on the western arm of the gyres. These are known as western boundary currents and include, for example, the Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic basin. Abyssal currents are also most vigorous on the western side of the ocean basins, moving along the base of the continental rise, which is on the order of several kilometers deep.

Abyssal storms may be linked to or may actually be eddies (rings) that occasionally break off from the main current of the Gulf Stream (and other western boundary currents). During an abyssal storm, the eddy or ring may actually reach to the bottom of the ocean where the velocity of a bottom current increases ten-fold to about 1.5 km (1 mi) per hr. While that is an unimpressive wind speed, water is much denser than air so that its erosive and sediment-transport capacity is significant even at 1.5 km per hr. At this higher speed, the suspended sediment load in the bottom current increases by a factor of ten. Abyssal storms scour the sea floor leaving behind long furrows in the sediment. After a few days to a few weeks, the current weakens or the eddy (ring) is reabsorbed into the main surface circulation and the suspended load settles to the ocean floor. In this way, abyssal storms can transport tons of sediment long distances, disrupting the orderly sequence of layers of deep-sea sediments. Scientists must take this disruption into account when interpreting the environmental significance of deep-sea sediment cores.

Concept of the Week: Questions

1. In the subtropical ocean gyres, boundary currents flow faster on the [(western)(eastern)] side of an ocean basin.
2. Currents in an abyssal storm erode, transport, and redeposit sediments that have accumulated on the [(continental shelf)(deep ocean bottom)].

Historical Events

• 12 October 1492...Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sighted and landed on an island (possibly Watling Island) in the Bahamas during his travels westward across the Atlantic Ocean in search of an ocean route to eastern Asia. Apparently he underestimated the size of the world and assumed that he had reached East Asia after setting sail with three ships from Palos, Spain on 3 August 1492. During this expedition, which was the first known European expedition to the Americas since the 10^th century Viking colonies in Newfoundland, he sighted Cuba and landed on Hispaniola. (The History Channel)
• 12 October 1886...A hurricane made landfall between Sabine Pass, TX and Johnson's Bayou, LA. Waves were said to be as high as 2-story buildings. The surge extended 20 mi inland, with 150 people killed. Survivors clung to trees or floated on mattresses. Only two of 100 homes in Sabine Pass were reparable. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 12 October 1954...Hurricane Hazel pounded Haiti and the island of Hispaniola with winds of 125 mph. Many villages were reported totally destroyed and more than 1000 Haitians died. (The Weather Doctor)
• 12 October 1965...End of Project Sealab II where teams of naval divers and scientists spent 15 days in Sealab moored 205 feet below surface near La Jolla, CA. (Navy Historical Center)
• 12 October 1979...The lowest observed sea-level barometric pressure (870 millibars or 25.69 inches of mercury) was recorded near Guam in the western Pacific Ocean at the center of Typhoon Tip. (The Weather Doctor)
• 13 October 1775...Birthday of U.S. Navy. The Continental Congress established the Continental Navy, later the U.S. Navy. (Naval Historical Center)
• 13 October 1884...The longitude that passes through the principal Transit Instrument at the Observatory in Greenwich, England was selected as the single universal meridian at the International Meridian Conference held in Washington, DC. A universal day was also selected. (Today in Science History)
• 15 October 1947...A hurricane made a hairpin turn off the Georgia coast after being seeded with dry ice. The storm passed over Savannah and tracked inland through Georgia. (Intellicast)
• 15 October 1954...Hurricane Hazel struck the Carolina coastline near Cape Fear, NC. The hurricane (category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) demolished every pier along a 170-mile stretch from Myrtle Beach, SC to Cedar Island, NC, and obliterated rows of beach homes. At Long Beach, 300 homes vanished; no debris remained. Hurricane Hazel also destroyed 1500 homes as it made landfall with 17-ft tides. Winds between Myrtle Beach, SC and Cape Fear, NC gusted to 150 mph. Later, the remnants of Hazel moved northward into Ontario and became the most remembered storm in Canadian history. Winds gusted to 75 mph and as much as 7.2 inches of rain fell. Eighty people died, mostly from flooding in the Toronto area (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel) (The Weather Doctor)
• 15 October 1999...A waterspout (a tornado over water) moved onshore at Fort Lauderdale Beach, FL and blew out a plate glass window in a bar, injuring 8 patrons. The waterspout also overturned a vehicle and caused other significant damage on Los Olas Blvd. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 16 October 1877...Bjørn Helland-Hansen, the Norwegian pioneer of modern oceanography, was born on this date. His studies of the physical structure and dynamics of the ocean were instrumental in transforming oceanography from a descriptive science to one based on the principles of physics and chemistry. (Today in Science History)
• 18 October 1910...Northeasterly winds as high as 70 mph (from a hurricane moving northward up the Florida peninsula) carried water out of Tampa Bay and the Hillsboro River. The water level lowered to nine feet below mean low water. Forty ships were grounded. (The Weather Channel)

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Prepared by DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2015, The American Meteorological Society.