WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

11-15 January 2016

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.

Items of Interest:

• Welcome ocean science educators to the annual AMS meeting -- The 96th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) is being held this week (10 - 14 January) in New Orleans, LA. The theme for this year's AMS meeting is "Earth System Science in Service to Society." One of the numerous symposia and conferences that will be conducted at the meeting is the 25th Symposium on Education, where educators from kindergarten through university levels will be attending workshops or giving presentations on weather, ocean, climate and space science education issues.
• Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the "father of satellite meteorology" -- NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) recently posted an article that celebrates 2015 as the centennial of the birth of the late Professor Verner Suomi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is often called the "father of satellite meteorology." Beginning in the late 1950s, he helped develop the various instruments placed on polar orbiting and geosynchronous satellite platforms to measure the reflected solar radiation and the emitted long-wave or infrared radiation from the Earth-Atmosphere system. As Director of the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University, he was instrumental in developing a computer system called McIDAS (Man-computer Interactive Data Access System) that permits analysis of data collected from satellites, radar and the traditional surface and upper air weather observation networks. [NOAA NESDIS News Archive]
• Approaching coldest time of the year -- This upcoming week is the third week of January, which for many locations across the nation typically marks the coldest week of the year, as indicated by the daily normal high and low temperatures. Usually, those stations located away from the moderating influences of the oceans reach their lowest temperatures during the third week of January, or a roughly one month after the winter solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere receives the fewest hours of daylight and the smallest amounts of solar radiation. During that month, temperatures continue to fall to their lowest typical values as cooling continues. However, the increased length of daylight and increased sunshine during this month begins to warm the ground and overlying atmosphere as normal daily temperatures begin to rise toward their highest levels in mid to late July.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics --- During the last week tropical cyclone activity was limited to the Pacific basins in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres:
  
  • In the central North Pacific basin, the first tropical depression of 2016 formed last Thursday morning approximately 800 miles to the south of Johnston Island or approximately 1450 miles to the southwest of Honolulu. Tropical Depression 1C intensified to become Tropical Storm Pali. Over this past weekend, Pali traveled generally toward the northwest. As of Sunday, Pali was nearly stationary near the International Dateline or approximately 700 miles to the south-southwest of Johnston Island. Additional information and satellite images on Tropical Storm Pali can be obtained from NASA Hurricane Page .
  • In the South Pacific basin, Tropical Cyclone Ula weakened slightly to become a tropical storm early last week as it traveled toward the west-southwest and then to the northwest. Turning toward the west and then southwest, Ula strengthened to become a category 4 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale by this past weekend as it passed near Vanutau and Fiji. As of Sunday (local time), Ula was approximately 300 miles to the east-northeast of New Caledonia. The forecast would have Ula weakening early this week as it heads toward New Zealand. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite images on Tropical Cyclone Ula.
• Remains of the 19th century "Lost Whaling Fleet" discovered off Alaska's Arctic coast -- NOAA archaeologists from the Maritime Heritage Program in NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries recently reported discovering battered hulls off Alaska's Arctic coast that appear to have been two whaling ships that may have been part of the "Lost Whaling Fleets expedition" trapped in the pack ice off the coast in September 1871. These ships along with 31 others sank in the near-shore waters of the Chukchi Sea, near Wainwright, AK after being destroyed by the pack ice. The more than 1200 whalers that were stranded along the Arctic coast were rescued by seven other whaling ships. Surprisingly, no one died in the incident, which was cited as one of the major causes of the demise of commercial whaling in the United States. [NOAA News]
• Monitoring climate change in the Pacific Ocean off Oregon coast -- An eight-minute NOAA Fisheries "On the Line" podcast was produced that contains an interview with Bill Peterson, a biological oceanographer from NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center who has been running the "Newport hydrographic line survey" for over 20 years. Bill and his colleagues make measurements of the copepods and other tiny marine creatures in the waters of the Pacific off the Oregon coast to the west of Newport. He discusses the changes in the marine environment over these 20 years that may be associated with changing climate. [NOAA Fisheries Podcast]
• Asian carp could affect Lake Erie fisheries -- Researchers at NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory and their colleagues report that their computer modeling study indicates that if Asian carp would successfully invade Lake Erie, this invasive species could eventually account for approximately one third of the total weight of fish currently in the lake and could cause declines in most fish species—including prized sport and commercial fish such as walleye. [NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]
• New field expedition designed to use advanced instrumentation to study coral reefs -- During this upcoming year, a new NASA field experiment called COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) will commence that will use advanced instruments on airplanes and in the water to survey more of the world's coral reefs than previously accomplished. This new three-year field expedition will measure the condition of these threatened ecosystems in reefs systems in Florida, Hawaii, Palau, the Mariana Islands and Australia. An airborne instrument called the Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM), developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be used in the investigations. [NASA News]
• Airborne laboratory to study uptake of carbon by the Southern Ocean -- A field campaign called the O₂/N₂ Ratio and CO₂ Airborne Southern Ocean (ORCAS) Study that is being led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will be launched late this week. A series of research flights using the NSF/NCAR HIAPER research aircraft will be made over remote sections of the Southern Ocean collecting data that will be used to determine the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide exchanged between the atmosphere and ocean in the region around Antarctic, with an anticipated increased knowledge of how much carbon dioxide is being sequestered in this oceanic reservoir. [NCAR/UCAR AtmosNews]
• Humans may be adding less nitrogen to oceans than predicted -- A team of scientists from the United States, South Africa and Bermuda recently reported that human activity appears to be adding far less nitrogen compounds to the open oceans than many of the current atmospheric models are predicting. Additional nitrogen added to the oceans could stimulate the ocean's ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which means that the underestimated nitrogen would affect estimates of the carbon cycle. [Brown University News]
• A year of storms in review through the "eyes" of the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission spacecraft -- Goddard Media Studios at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has assembled a 2-minute video that takes a look at the animated images made of 41 storms from around the world by the sensors onboard the agency's Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) spacecraft during 2015. [NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center]
• An El Niño forecast from Down Under -- Forecasters with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology recent reported that several ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) indicators suggest that the current El Niño event in the equatorial Pacific Ocean appears to have peaked and should be on a decline in coming months. Their models project that this El Niño would evolve into a ""ENSO-neutral state" by the second quarter of the year (April-June). [Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology]
• 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:

• 12 January 1836...Charles Darwin onboard the HMS Beagle reached Sydney, Australia.
• 12 January 1937...A plow for laying submarine cable was issued an U.S. patent. Designed to feed a cable at the same time that it would dig a trench in the ocean bed, the device could be used at depths up to one half mile. The first transatlantic cable of high-speed permalloy was buried on 14 June 1938. The inventors were Chester S. Lawton of Ridgewood, NJ and Capt. Melville H. Bloomer of Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Today in Science History).
• 12 January 1991...A major Atlantic storm intensified over the ocean waters off Newfoundland. Winds reached 105 mph at coastal Bonavista and ocean waves reached heights of 66 feet. A cargo ship sank 250 miles off the southeast Newfoundland coast. This storm was responsible for 33 deaths. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 13 January 1840...The 207-ft long side-wheel steamship Lexington burned and sank in Long Island Sound four miles off the northern coast of New York State's Long Island with the loss of 139 lives. Only four people survived. (Wikipedia)
• 15 January 1833...HMS Beagle anchored at Goeree Tierra del Fuego.
• 17 January 1773...HMS Resolution, commanded by English explorer Captain James Cook, became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle (66 deg 33 min S). (Wikipedia)
• 17 January 1779...The English explorer Captain James Cook made his last notation in ship's log Discovery. He was killed less than one month later on Hawaii's Big Island.

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Prepared by DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@aos.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2016, The American Meteorological Society.