WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

5-9 December 2016

DataStreme Ocean will return for Spring 2017 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 23 January 2017. 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:

Role of weather in the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941 -- Although the weather at Pearl Harbor on the leeward side of Hawaii's Island of Oahu on the morning of Sunday, 7 December 1941, was relatively pleasant when the US Navy base was attacked by Japanese aircraft and submarines, the weather did play a role during the days preceding the attack. Six Japanese aircraft carriers left Japan's Kure Naval Base in late November 1941 and travelled essentially undetected across the western North Pacific under the cover of unsettled weather associated with several large storms moving across the Aleutians and the Bering Sea that had cold fronts trailing to the southwest across the North Pacific. One of the storms did scatter the ships over several hundred miles, but did regroup with minimal use of radio communication. The Japanese carrier fleet came to a staging point within 275 miles north of Hawaii, where they launched their attack aircraft early Sunday morning. When the two waves of more than 350 aircraft took off from the carriers in the predawn darkness, strong winds were helping produce rough seas. These aircraft flew through and above a thick deck of low clouds until reaching the leeward side of Oahu, where the skies cleared because of the light northeasterly trade winds descending the slopes of the mountain range. The pilots used the local radio stations
The weather also played a role in the planning, as the Japanese government sent codes to their overseas diplomats using bogus weather reports involving wind directions to announce which countries with which it was cutting diplomatic ties.
Public invited to remotely view a dive to historic Japanese mini submarines that sank during the infamous Pear Harbor attack -- On Wednesday (7 December 2016), the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the public and media are invited to view a live-streamed dive using a remotely operated vehicle from the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to two Japanese mini submarines that were involved in the attack. Maritime archaeologists and scientists with NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research and NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries will be available for phone interviews following the dive.

NOAA News

NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity was extremely limited last week:

In the western North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Tokage began breaking apart at the start of the week as it traveled across the South China Sea west of Luzon Island in the Philippines. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite images on Tropical Storm Tokage.
In the North Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Storm Nada formed early last week over the Bay of Bengal to the east of Sri Lanka. Over the following two days this minimal tropical storm traveled generally to the west-northwest toward the coast of southeastern India. Nada began to break apart just before landfall on the Indian coast. Consult the NASA Hurricane Page has satellite images and additional information on Tropical Storm Nada.

Additional summaries of 2016 hurricane seasons in North Atlantic and the eastern and central North Pacific basins -- After the end of the official 2016 hurricane season in the North Atlantic, eastern North Pacific and central North Pacific basins last Wednesday (30 November 2016), NOAA scientists issued their preliminary assessment of this hurricane season in all three basins, stating that all three basins experienced above-normal seasons. They noted that for the first time since 2012. the Atlantic basin experienced above average tropical cyclone activity in 2016, as five tropical systems made landfall along the US coasts. [NOAA News]
The forecast team at Colorado State University released their summary of the tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic basin during 2016 along with a verification of their long-range seasonal and two-week forecasts. [Tropical Meteorological Project]
Nation celebrates biggest national seafood month on record -- The US Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, recently wrote a post that highlights this past November as being National Seafood Month and the accomplishments of the nation's fishing industry. She also mentions that during 2015, Americans added nearly one pound of seafood to their diets as compared with the previous year. [Commerce.gov News]
Florida airport is awarded a 10-year lease to house NOAA aircraft and operations center -- During the last week NOAA announced that it awarded a 10-year lease to the city of Lakeland in the central Florida Peninsula to house the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. The city will provide an aircraft hangar and office space for the AOC, the the main base for NOAA's fleet of nine specialized environmental data-gathering aircraft, including the agency's three "hurricane hunter" planes. [NOAA News]
Space Station instrument to monitor ocean winds concludes its mission -- Early last week NASA officials decided to terminate operations on the International Space Station Rapid Scatterometer (ISS-RapidScat) Earth science instrument, following attempts to revive the instrument after a power issue that developed during the last three months. ISS-RapidScat was placed on the outside of the orbiting International Space Station in September 2014 and outlasted its original decommission date as it made measurements of wind speed and wind direction over the ocean surface using microwave radiation emitted from the instrument's radar from an altitude of approximately 250 miles above the oceans. The data collected by ISS-RapidScat were used operationally by various meteorological agencies around the world to monitor tropical cyclones and for making weather and marine forecasts. [NASA Mission Pages]
Experience using underwater drones in Monterey Bay could be used in an ocean on Europa -- A research team from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Remote Sensing Solutions, Barnstable, MA has been developing an artificial intelligence process that could be used by underwater drones as they explore Monterey Bay along the central California coast. The researchers hope that their automated decision-making project will permit unmanned submersible drones to plot their own courses as they collect data below the surface. Ultimately, their experience could be employed when NASA would explore the icy oceans that may be found on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. [NASA Jet Propulsion Feature]
Waters of the Great Lakes remain relatively warm for late November -- Maps generated by the NOAA Coastwatch's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory depicting the Great Lakes surface temperatures for late November in 2014 and 2016 indicates the lake surface temperatures during this just concluded month were higher than those two years ago. The data for these plots were collected from several satellites. With the Great Lakes being as warm as in November 2010, the lakes should remain open and the potential source of ample amounts of lake effect snow on locations downwind of the lakes if cold winds blow across the lakes in a favorable direction. Graphs of average surface water temperatures over the last five years for each of the Great Lakes are available. More information on satellite-derived measurements of sea (and lake) surface temperature is available here. [NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory]
A model is developed to predict risks of harmful algal blooms for California's coastal waters -- NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science is support the development of the California Harmful Algae Risk Mapping (C-HARM) system that is being used to predict the likelihood of the development of the domoic acid-producing harmful algal blooms (HABs) of the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia. A blend of ecological forecast models, sea surface temperature data and satellite ocean color imagery was in the early development of the C-HARM system. [NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science 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:

5 December 1872...A British brigantine, the DeGratia, discovered the American ship Mary Celeste derelict and boarded her. The Mary Celeste, a brigantine had set sail from New York harbor for Genoa, Italy, on 5 November 1872. Everyone aboard the Mary Celeste had vanished-her captain, his family, and its 14-man crew. The ship, which appeared to have been abandoned for approximately nine days, was in perfect order with ample supplies and there was no sign of violence or trouble. The fate of the crew remains unknown. (Infoplease.com) (Wikipedia)
5 December 1492...The explorer Christopher Columbus became the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola, which now contains the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. (Wikipedia)
5 December 1949...A typhoon struck fishing fleet off Korea; several thousand men reported dead. (Infoplease.com)
5 December 1999...Denmark saw its worst storm on record as 109-mph winds tore through the country and local sea levels rose almost 17 feet above normal, ending in over $134 million in damages. Six people were killed. (National Weather Service files)
6 December 1830...The US Naval Observatory, the first U.S. national observatory, established as the Depot of Charts and Instruments in Washington, DC, under commander of Lieutenant Louis Malesherbes Goldsborough. Its primary mission was to care for the U.S. Navy's chronometers, charts and other navigational equipment. (Naval Historical Center)
6 December 2003...Tropical Storm Odette made a rare appearance after the official end of hurricane season, releasing 7 inches of rain on the Dominican Republic and doing 8 million dollars in damage. (National Weather Service files)
7-8 December 1703...A monstrous storm raked southern England and adjacent waters with winds in excess of 100 mph. Approximately 8000 deaths were the result of this storm, mostly at sea. Many naval and supply ships were anchored in harbors or in the English Channel. The Eddystone Lighthouse disappeared. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
7 December 1872...An expedition put to sea from Sheerness aboard the corvette H.M.S. Challenger under the command of Captain George Nares on a 3 1/2-year world oceanographic cruise. During the 68,890 nautical mile cruise that ended on 24 May 1876, the ship traversed the North and South Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, traveled north of the limits of drift ice in the North Atlantic polar seas and south of the Antarctic Circle. The scientists onboard the Challenger sounded the ocean bottom to a depth of 26,850-ft, found many new species, and provided collections for scores of biologists. (Today in Science History)
7 December 1932...The first gyro-stabilized vessel to cross the Atlantic, the Conte di Savoia of the Italian Line, arrived in New York City. The ship had 48,502 gross tons, an overall length 814.6 ft by beam 96.1 ft, two funnels, two masts, four screws and a speed of 27 knots. As one of the first ships to be fitted with gyrostabilizers, it was claimed that rolling was limited to a maximum of three degrees. The maiden voyage began from Genoa to Villefranche and New York on 30 November 1932. (Today in Science History)
8 December 1777...Captain James Cook left the Society Islands (French Polynesia).
8 December 1866...The first transpacific side-wheeler steamship launched in the U.S. was the Celestial Empire (later named China) with capacity for 1,300 passengers. The builder, William H. Webb of New York, introduced many features of naval architecture in this liner, since in common use. (Today in Science History)
8 December 1993...The U.S. Secretary of Defense declared that the Global Positioning System (GPS), accurate within 100 meters, had 24 GPS satellites operating in their assigned orbits, available for navigation use at Standard Positioning Service (SPS) levels for civil users. This worldwide satellite-based radionavigation system used as the Defense Department's primary radionavigation system provided authorized users encrypted Precise Positioning Service accurate to at least 22 meters. (Today in Science History)
8 December 2002...Super-typhoon Pongsona hit Guam with sustained winds of 144 mph and gusts to 173 mph, along with a storm surge to 20 feet. The 40-mile wide diameter eye was over Anderson AFB for 2 hours. One indirect death and 193 injuries were attributed to the typhoon. Some bridge pavement was "scrapped off" by wind and wave action. Damage was estimated at $700 million. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
9 December 1938...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)