WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

21-25 December 2015

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2016 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 18 January 2016. 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:

• Happy Winter Solstice! The winter solstice will occur this Monday night (officially, at 0448 Z on 22 December 2015, or 11:48 PM EST, 10:48 PM CST, etc. on the 21st). At that time, the earth's spin axis will be oriented such that the sun appears to be the farthest south in the local sky of most earth-bound observers. While most of us consider this event to be the start of astronomical winter, the British call that day the "Midwinter Day", as the apparent sun will begin its northward climb again. For essentially all locations in the Northern Hemisphere, the night will be the longest and the daylight on the following day will be the shortest of the year. Starting Tuesday night, the length of darkness will begin to shrink as we head toward the summer solstice on 20 June 2016 at 2234Z.
• Dreaming of a White Christmas -- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), formerly National Climatic Data Center, produced a national map showing the climatological probability (in percent) that a snow depth of at least one inch would be observed on the morning of 25 December based upon the 1981-2010 standard 30-year climatological reference interval. This map shows the ratio of the number of times that a particular station experienced a white Christmas during the interval as a probability. For example, Des Moines, IA had only 12 Christmases between 1981 and 2010 when an inch or more snow cover was observed, so the probability that residents of Iowa's capital city would have a white Christmas is 40%. Some locations across the nation are almost certain to have a white Christmas, generally along the Canadian border surrounding the Great Lakes, such as Marquette, MI (with 96%) and in New England, such as at Caribou, ME (87%). Stations at higher elevations in the Rockies also have a higher probability, such as at Flagstaff, AZ with a 65%. Sites close to the oceans typically have a lower probability, as the oceans tend to be relatively warm at this time of year. Santa typically finds tough sledding on his journey to that half of the country south of latitude 40 degrees that is not mountainous, where chances of a white Christmas fall from 50% to 20% or less. You can monitor the current snow cover across North America using a snow chart that is based upon satellite data.
  Environment Canada has also produced a tabulation of the Chances of a White Christmas for 43 major population centers across Canada based on data collected between 1955 and 2013.
• Climatology of Southeast NCAA bowl games updated -- The Southeast Regional Climate Center has provided a listing of the weather history for fifteen NCAA college bowl games that are to be played within the next two weeks across the Southeastern States. This climatology includes the warmest, coldest, wettest and snowiest days in the particular bowl's history.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity was limited to the western North Pacific Ocean basin last week. At the start of last week, Typhoon Melor had intensified to become a category 4 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it approached the Philippines. Melor made landfall on several of the islands as it traveled to the west-northwest and then took an erratic path to the north and south after moving out over the South China Sea. This major typhoon brought heavy rainfall to the Philippine Islands. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite imagery on Tropical Storm Melor.
  A tropical depression, identified as Tropical Depression 29W, formed west of Palau, a part of the Micronesia region in the western Pacific Ocean, at the midpoint of last week. Traveling westward, this tropical depression weakened and dissipated within 48 hours of formation. Additional information and satellite images for Tropical Depression 29W are available on the NASA Hurricane Page
• "Living shorelines" can lesson effects of climate change -- In a recently released study, scientists with NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science have shown that the "living shorelines" constructed from natural materials such as salt marsh plants, sand and rock not only protect and stabilize shorelines, but can also store carbon that otherwise would enter the atmosphere, promote coastal resilience and improve water quality and fish habitats. These measures would serve to blunt the effects of a changing climate. [NOAA News]
• New coastal mapping tool helps gauge potential for coastal inundation in Hawaii due to sea level rise -- An online sea-level rise inundation mapping tool has been developed by the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program to serve as a decision-support tool for local planners and decision-makers that shows the effect of sea-level rise on the coastal inundation zones (hurricane and tsunami) on Oahu, primarily along the beaches of Honolulu. For a three-foot rise in sea level, this tool showed that 80 percent of the area's economy, nearly half of its population and much of the infrastructure and land would be at risk of coastal inundation. [NOAA Sea Grant News]
• Interagency collaboration has goal of sustainable management and resilience of nation's fisheries in a changing climate -- A partnership between the Office of Science and Technology within NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service and the Coastal and Ocean Climate Applications Program in NOAA's Climate Program Office gave awarded grants to seven new projects in Fiscal Year 2015 that are designed to increase understanding of climate-related impacts on fish stocks and fisheries. [NOAA Climate Program Office News]
• A global review of November 2015 temperatures -- Preliminary analysis of temperature data by scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) indicates that the worldwide combined ocean and land surface temperature for November 2015 was the highest global November surface temperature since a sufficiently dense and reliable network began in 1880. This combined global temperature was approximately 1.75 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century (1901-2000) average November temperature. They also found that the global ocean surface temperature was the highest for any November since 1880, while the global land surface temperature was the fifth highest temperature reading for any November on record. Furthermore, they reported that the combined land and ocean surface temperature for the globe was the second highest temperature for any month in the 136-year period of record, slightly less than the all-time monthly temperature record set the previous month (October 2015). The record warm ocean waters in the tropics is due to the strong El Niño event that is currently underway. [NOAA/NCEI State of the Climate]
  A global map of Selected Significant Climate Anomalies and Events for November 2015 is available from NCDC.
  According to satellite data collected by National Snow and Ice Data Center, the sea ice over the Arctic Ocean during November 2015 had the sixth smallest areal extent for any November since satellite-derived ice records began in 1979. However, the sea ice around Antarctica was the 14th largest November ice extent on record. The Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was the seventh largest November snow cover in the 50-year period of record that began in 1966. [NOAA/NCEI Global Snow & Ice]
• Annual Arctic Report Card released -- Last week, NOAA's Climate Program Office released its tenth annual update of the "Arctic Report Card" for 2015, a peer-reviewed report of the state of the air, ocean and ice in the Arctic basin prepared by an international team of 70 experts from 11 countries, including those from NOAA. These experts have found air and water temperatures across the Arctic continued to increase at a rate double that of other areas around the globe. Arctic air temperatures between October 2014 and September 2015 were more than two Fahrenheit degrees above average, which represents the highest since records began across the basin in 1900. Sea surface temperatures in some areas of the Arctic Ocean, such as the Chukchi Sea off Alaska and the eastern Baffin Bay off Greenland were increasing at approximately one Fahrenheit degree per decade. The team also found that along with increasing air and sea surface temperatures, decreases were occurring in the sea ice extent and the mass of the Greenland ice sheet. In addition, changing behavior of fish and walrus were also noted. The general health and numbers of polar bear populations were also observed to decline. [NOAA News] More detailed information along with four-minute video is available on this report. [Arctic Report Card]
• UK Met Office global average temperature forecast made for 2016 -- During the last week, scientists at the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office (Met Office) released their annual global temperature forecast for the upcoming year of 2016. They anticipate the global average temperature in 2016 to be 0.53 Celsius degrees above the long-term (1981-2010) average of 14.3 degrees Celsius, with a range of uncertainty extending from 0.41 to 0.65 Celsius degrees around the central estimate. Therefore, 2016 could be one of the warmest years since comprehensive global climate records began in 1880, possibly exceeding this current year's potentially record high. Using observational data running through October 2015, the scientists noted that this current year's global temperature has a central estimate of 0.72 Celsius degrees above the 1961-1990 average of 14.0 degrees Celsius. [Editor's note: The statistics involved with the global temperature record are from the three main global temperature datasets compiled by: The Met Office and University of East Anglia (HadCRUT4); NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NOAA NCDC) and NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies (NASA GISS). The Met Office still uses the 1961-1990 interval for long-term averages that is accepted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), rather than the 1981-2010 interval currently used by NCDC. EJH] [UK Met Office 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]

Historical Events:

• 21 December 1163...A hurricane hit villages in Holland/Friesland, causing floods.
• 21 December 1872...The HMS Challenger set sail from Portsmouth, England on the 4-year scientific expedition that would lay the foundation for the science of oceanography. (Wikipedia)
• 21 December 1936...Ice breaking operations in channels and harbors by the US Coast Guard was authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Executive Order No. 7521. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 22 December 1832...The HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin reached the Barnevelts Islands
• 22 December 1837...Congress authorized the President "to cause any suitable number of public vessels, adapted to the purpose, to cruise upon the coast, in the severe portion of the season, and to afford aid to distressed navigators." This statute was the first authorizing activities in the field of maritime safety, thereby interjecting the national government into the field of lifesaving for the first time. Although revenue cutters were specifically mentioned, the performance of this duty was imposed primarily upon the Revenue Marine Service and quickly became one of its major activities. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 22 December 1894...The Dutch coast was hit by a hurricane.
• 23 December 1811...A cold storm hit Long Island Sound with a foot of snow, gale force winds, and temperatures near zero. During the storm, many ships were wrecked, and in some cases, entire crews perished. (David Ludlum)
• 23 December 1854...A tsunami struck the coast of Japan, with water in the harbor of Simoda changing depth between 8 and 40 feet. Twelve hours later this giant wave reached the Pacific coast of the U.S. The newly installed self-registering tide gauges noted these waves. The information derived from this event enabled Alexander D. Bache, Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, to apply a newly derived law relating ocean depth to wave speed and provide the first relatively accurate scientific estimate of the depth of an ocean between Japan and the Pacific coast of the U.S. The velocity of the sea wave from Simoda to San Francisco was 369 mph. (Today in Science History)
• 25 December 1492...The Santa Maria, one of the ships that Christopher Columbus used in his historic trans-Atlantic voyage, landed at the Dominican Republic.
• 25 December 1974...Tropical Cyclone Tracy (a hurricane in the waters surrounding Australia) made landfall near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Excellent warnings kept the death toll to between 50 and 60, with more than 20,000 people evacuated in the week following the storm. Some areas were totally devastated. Peak wind speeds reached exceeded 174 mph. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 26-31 December 1993...The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race off Australia was plagued by hurricane-force wind gusts in excess of 74 mph and 33 foot high seas. Of 104 starters, only 37 yachts finished the race. On the 28^th, one yacht owner spent five hours in the water after being swept overboard. (Accord's Weather Calendar)
• 26 December 2004...A massive earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale approximately 100 miles off the western coast of Sumatra created a tsunami that caused devastation in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, The Maldives and many other areas around the rim of the Indian Ocean. The death toll is currently estimated at more than 300,000. Officials say the true toll may never be known, due to rapid burials. Indonesia was worst affected with as many as 219,000 people killed. (Wikipedia)

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