Weekly Ocean News

WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

9-13 October 2017

This is Break Week One for the Fall 2017 offering of this course. This Weekly Ocean News contains new information items and historical data, but the Concept of the Week is repeated from Week 6.

For Your Information

Celebrate Earth Science Week 2017 -- 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 this week (8-14 October 2017) as Earth Science Week 2017 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 20th annual Earth Science Week is “Earth and Human Activity” that is designed to promote awareness of what geoscience tells about human interaction with the planet's natural systems and processes. [American Geological Institute]
Observe Earth Observation Day -- On Tuesday 10 October 2017, Earth Observation Day (EOD) will be observed as a celebration of the NASA/USGS (US Geological Survey) Landsat mission. EOD is a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) educational outreach event sponsored by AmericaView, a nationwide, university-based, and state-implemented consortium, and its partners. The goal of EOD is to engage students and teachers in remote sensing as an exciting and powerful educational tool. Lesson plans and educational resources for educators and students are available from the EOD website. [AmericaView]
Fire Prevention Week -- This upcoming week (8-14 October 2017) is Fire Prevention Week across the nation, held in commemoration of the great Chicago (IL) and Peshtigo (WI) fires that occurred simultaneously on 8 October 1871. This year’s Fire Prevention Week campaign is “Every Second Counts: Plan 2 Ways Out!”
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2017 Campaign commences -- The tenth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2017 will commence this Wednesday (11 October) and continue through Friday, 20 October. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation (Cygnus in the Northern Hemisphere and Grus in the Southern Hemisphere) with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The next series in the 2017 campaign is scheduled for 10-19 November 2017. [GLOBE at Night]
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.

Ocean in the News

Eye on the tropics --- During the last week, tropical cyclone activity was confined to the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins: :

In the North Atlantic Basin, the sixteenth tropical depression of 2017 formed over the southwestern Caribbean Sea last Wednesday morning. Moving toward the northwest, this tropical depression, called Tropical Depression 16 (or TD16) strengthened to become Tropical Storm Nate on Thursday morning over the Caribbean waters approximately 10 miles south of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. By late Thursday morning, Tropical Storm Nate had made landfall along the Nicaraguan coast. Tracking to the northwest, Nate traveled across Nicaragua and Honduras, before moving offshore late Thursday night approximately 95 miles to the east-southeast of Isla Guanaja, Honduras. Continuing northward, Nate strengthened as it traveled across the northwestern Caribbean and Yucatan Channel on Friday. Traveling through the Yucatan Channel and into the southern Gulf of Mexico late Friday, Nate became the eighth Atlantic hurricane of 2017, by late evening as an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft determined maximum sustained surface winds to be 75 mph as the center of Hurricane Nate was located approximately 95 miles to the west-northwest of the western tip of Cuba. On Saturday, Nate continued to strengthen as it took a track across the central Gulf toward the north-northwest and then north. as it strengthened. Nate made an initial landfall along the Louisiana coast approximately 10 miles to the southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River by early Saturday evening as a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. This first landfall was followed by a second landfall along the Mississippi coast approximately 5 miles to the west of Biloxi, MS late in the evening. After making landfall, Nate weakened to a tropical storm during the predawn hours od Sunday as it curved toward the north across southern and central Mississippi. During the midmorning, Tropical Storm Nate weakened to a tropical depression as it was approximately 40 miles to the southwest of Birmingham, AL. As of Sunday evening, As of early Sunday evening, Tropical Depression Nate was moving toward the north-northeast, approximately 75 miles south of Nashville, TN. A large area of clouds, torrential precipitation and gusty winds was spreading north across the Tennessee Valley toward the Ohio Valley. Current forecasts suggest that Nate would curve toward the northeast and cross the central Appalachians on Monday, reaching Maine by Tuesday.
The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite images of Hurricane Nate (formerly called TD16).
In the eastern North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Ramon formed during the predawn hours of last Wednesday over the open waters approximately 100 miles to the south-southeast of Puerto Angel, a community along the southern coast of Mexico. Initially, this 15th named tropical cyclone of 2017 in the eastern Pacific traveled to the north-northwest before curving toward the west, taking it away from the Mexican coast. Over the next 12 hours, Ramon remained a minimal tropical storm before weakening to a tropical depression on Wednesday evening and then a trough of low pressure early Thursday morning. At that time the remnants of Ramon were located approximately 214 miles to the southwest of Acapulco, Mexico. Additional information and satellite images for Tropical Storm Ramon are available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
In the western North Pacific basin, Tropical Depression 23-W (TD-23W) had formed over the South China Sea approximately 410 miles to the south of Hong Kong at the start of this week (local time). This tropical depression was forecast to travel to the west-northwest toward the northern coast of Vietnam, potentially becoming a tropical storm before making landfall on Tuesday. See the NASA Hurricane Page for more information on TD-22W.

String of intense hurricanes see from space -- A 2:33-minute YouTube vide was produced by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center that focuses upon the rapid intensification of three of this season's major Atlantic hurricanes: Harvey, Irma and Maria. Rapid intensification is defined as a situation where maximum sustained surface winds associated with a tropical cyclone increase by at least 35 mph in a 24-hour span. Attention is paid to the need for improvement of forecasts to account for rapid intensification of hurricanes that are approaching land. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]
Hurricane forecast displays may be difficult to interpret by general public -- Researchers at the University of Utah recently reported that the public appears to have significant misunderstandings of the two most commonly used tropical storm/hurricane forecast visualization methods. One of these displays is the "summary" display that contains a "cone of uncertainty" and the other is the "ensemble" display. The participants in this study were asked to interpret size and intensity of the hurricane traveling across the Gulf of Mexico that appeared in the two types of displays. [University of Utah News]
Role of ocean data in monitoring Earth's climate is highlighted -- An international team of scientists recently reported that measurement and analysis of the ocean heat content and the changes in global sea level may provide a more reliable answer to how fast the Earth's climate is warming than merely relying upon atmospheric measurements. The oceanic heat content and sea level height measurements are made independently and, along with atmospheric data, are archived with public access at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). [NOAA NCEI News]
Highlighting the "Coral Reef Economy" -- NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program produced a 1:48-minute video called "The Coral Reef Economy" that identifies the benefits provided by coral reefs to the nation's economy and wellbeing. [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
New iceberg recently calved from Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier -- A natural-color image obtained from data recently collected by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) sensor onboard NASA's Landsat 8 satellite confirms the birth of a new iceberg from the Pine Island Glacier located where ice from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet flows into the Southern Ocean' Amundsen Sea. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Tool developed to predict how coasts recover from storms -- A modeling tool called the "Coastal Recovery from Storms Tool Barrier" (CReST) was developed by a team of scientists from Oregon State University and the University of North Carolina that is aimed at predicting how barrier islands and sand dunes function and recover following storms. This tool should then enable coastal managers to better evaluate how these natural and managed islands recover from storms and change through time under different sea level rise and management scenarios. [NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science News]
Southern California sea otter population survey indicates a road toward recovery -- Scientists with the US Geological Survey (USGS) and their colleagues reported that a recent survey of populations of a threatened sea otter subspecies in the coastal waters of southern California shows that the otter populations are expected to exceed the goals set by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for the delisting of the subspecies under the Endangered Species Act. [USGS News]
Methodology for creation of national billion-dollar weather and climate disaster list is highlighted -- Seven items are identified that describe how the NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) produces its list of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters across the nation. NCEI tracks and evaluates climate events across the US that have great economic and societal impacts as part of its responsibility to monitor and assess the climate. Currently, NCEI monitors and assesses the financial impacts of NCEI currently monitors and assesses the costs and impacts of: hurricanes, drought, inland floods, severe local storms, wildfires, crop freeze events and winter storms. At least 218 weather and climate disasters have been identified by NCEI since the list was initially established in 1980. As of last week, 15 weather and climate disaster events have been identified that have each created at least $1 billion during the calendar year of 2017. While Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria have been entered to the list of events, the costs for these three hurricanes have not been included in the tally. [NOAA NCEI News] [Editor's note: These 15 events that have occurred so far this year ties 2011 for the most billion-dollar weather disasters for the first nine months of any year on record. EJH]
Volcanic theory for Permian Extinction is bolstered by recent study -- Scientists from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, New York University and Barnard College claim that their chemical analysis of sedimentary rocks in Hungary, Japan and India appears to provide new evidence to bolster the theory that the Permian Extinction (approximately 252 million years ago) was caused by massive volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia. Apparent dramatic warming in the global environment associated with the major volcanic eruptions lasting over a 800,000 year span resulted in 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent on land–to become extinct in what is considered to be the largest of five known mass extinctions in earth's history. Intense global warming recorded in the oceans and on land appears to be the result of large quantities of carbon dioxide and methane directly from the volcanic eruptions as well as from interactions of magma with coal deposits. [Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory 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]

This Concept of the Week is repeated from last week.

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 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.

Historical Events

9 October 1804...The famous "Snow Hurricane" moved ashore along the New Jersey coast near Atlantic City on this day. After briefly passing through Connecticut and into Massachusetts, cool air was entrained in the circulation with heavy snow falling between New York to southern Canada. The Berkshires in Massachusetts and Concord, NH recorded two feet of snow with this hurricane. (National Weather Service files)
9 October 1873...LT Charles Belknap called a meeting at the Naval Academy to establish the U.S. Naval Institute for the purpose of disseminating scientific and professional knowledge throughout the U.S. Navy. (Navy Historical Center)
9 October 1967...A cyclone of relatively small dimension with a surface width of only 31 miles, hit India's coast at Orissa and moved to the northeast along the coast for 75 miles. As many as 1000 people and 50,000 head of cattle died. A surge in the storm's wake penetrated 16 miles inland. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
10-16 October 1780...The most deadly Western Hemisphere hurricane on record raged across the Caribbean Sea. This "Great Hurricane of 1780" killed 22,000 people on the islands of Martinique, St. Eustatius, and Barbados. Thousands more died at sea. (The Weather Doctor)
10 October 1780...The Great Hurricane of 1780 made landfall on the island of Barbados on this day with estimated wind gusts of 200 mph. This hurricane went on to affect the islands of St. Vincent where only 14 of 600 homes stood at Kings Town. St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, and Puerto Rico were all impacted from this hurricane. This is the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record with between 20,000 and 22,000 deaths. (National Weather Service files)
10 October 1845...Naval School, renamed the U.S. Naval Academy, opened in Annapolis, MD with 50 midshipmen students and seven faculty. (Navy Historical Center)
10 October 1861...Fridtjof Nansen, the Norwegian explorer, oceanographer, statesman, and humanitarian was born. Nansen led a number of expeditions to the Arctic (1888, 1893, 1895-96) and oceanographic expeditions in the North Atlantic (1900, 1910-14). He wrote The Oceanography of the North Polar Basin (1902). For his relief work after World War I, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1922. (Today in Science History)
10 October 1913...President Woodrow Wilson with the aid of a telegraph signal sent from Washington, DC triggered the demolition of the Gamboa Dike, allowing water to fill the Culebra Cut and create Lake Gatun, at 85 ft above sea level, the largest man-made lake at that time. This act signaled the completion of construction of the Panama Canal, which would eventually open to ship traffic between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on 14 August 1914. (Wikipedia, Today in Science History)
11 October 1737...A deadly cyclone and storm surge of 42 ft raced up the Hooghly River in India and through the city of Calcutta destroying an estimated 40,000 boats and drowning as many as 300,000 people. (The Weather Doctor)
11 October 1846...One of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes of the 19th century ravaged Havana, Cuba and Key West, FL. At Havana the entire city was demolished and at Key West 594 of the town's 600 buildings were destroyed, with 5 feet of water reported in the city. The old Key West lighthouse and Fort Taylor were reduced to ruins. The storm eventually traveled up the entire U.S. East Coast and into the Canadian Maritimes. (Intellicast) (National Weather Service files)
11 October 1897...Property saved at Cape Hatteras, NC. During a severe storm, the surf threatened to wash away a fish house, with valuable nets and other gear. Surfmen saved the property and took it to a place of safety. They also assisted a lighthouse keeper by removing lenses from the beacon to a secure place. The lighthouse was in danger of being washed away by the sea. (US Coast Guard Historian's Office)
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 approximately 300 miles west of Guam in the western Pacific Ocean at the center of Typhoon Tip. This super typhoon had 190-mph winds. Gale force winds extended 1,350 miles out from the eye making it the largest tropical cyclone on record. (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)