Weekly Ocean News

DATASTREME OCEAN WEEK ELEVEN: 10-14 April 2006

Ocean in the News:

(Thurs.) State of the national marine sanctuaries reviewed -- The director of the NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Program recently released the 2005 State of the Sanctuaries Report that outlines the accomplishments of the program that includes 13 national marine sanctuaries, focusing upon resource protection, science and exploration, maritime heritage and education/outreach. [NOAA Magazine]
(Thurs.) A 5-million year record of sea-surface temperatures constructed -- Using an analysis of ocean sediments, geologists at Brown University have created a five-million year record of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific that appears to be the longest continuous record currently available. [Brown University]
(Thurs.) Early diet may be related to decline in seal population -- Researchers with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and he Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward report that the decline in the population of harbor seals in the offshore waters of Alaska appears to be associated with insufficient fat levels available in their diets when they are pups. The change in diet especially for female harbor seals could be related to a variety of factors, including availability of prey, warmer ocean waters, pollution and disturbance from increased human activity. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Increased ocean acidity noted -- NOAA scientists from the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory along with colleagues from other governmental agencies and universities reported that they found that the ocean samples collected from the Pacific Ocean during their recent research cruise from Tahiti north to Alaska indicates that the waters of the Pacific in both hemispheres has become more acidic, as more inorganic carbon is dissolved in the ocean water. The scientists are studying the effects of the ocean acidification upon the water chemistry and marine organisms. [NOAA News]
(Tues.) Secrets of origins of famous estuary may be in the rocks -- An international team of scientists are analyzing the rock samples obtained from a 1.1-mile long core extracted from under Cape Charles, VA along Chesapeake Bay in an attempt to find the remnants of an asteroid that produced a large crater in what is now the nation's largest estuary approximately 35 million years ago. [US Water News Online]
(Tues.) Albatross study reveals variations in oceanic contamination -- Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz reported that dramatic differences in the levels of such contaminants as PCBs, DDT and mercury were found in the bodies of albatross species that forage in different areas of the North Pacific, suggesting different levels of contamination in the waters off California and Alaska. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Link between chinook salmon and orca whales found Scientists with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, along with the US National Marine Fisheries Service recently reported that decrease in the orca whale populations along the Pacific coastal waters of British Columbia and Washington State appears linked with a decline in chinook salmon in these waters off the West Coast. [ENN]
(Tues.) A submerged arctic ridge could chronicle formation of Earth's crust -- A marine geologist has been studying the rocks collected by US and German icebreakers from the Gakkel Ridge, a 1200-mile long submarine mountain range on the floor of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean, in an effort to develop a chronology of how the earth's crust formed. This ridge is one of two locations on earth where the crust has slowly spread apart to expose slabs of the mantle. [Science News Online]
Five names retired following 2005 hurricane season -- The international committee of the World Meteorological Organization that maintains the lists of tropical cyclone names for all the world's ocean basins recently announced that the names of Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan and Wilma have been officially retired from the list of names for tropical storms and hurricanes in the North Atlantic Basin because all five hurricanes were exceptionally destructive during the historic 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. These names will be replaced with Don, Katia, Rina, Sean and Whitney on the list, which will identify those tropical cyclones during the 2011 hurricane season. [NOAA News]
Iceberg knocks tip off a large ice sheet -- A series of images obtained from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar onboard the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite provide before and after images of C-16, an iceberg approximately as large as New York's Long Island, colliding with Drygalski Ice Tongue, a large floating ice tongue that is a part of Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf. A new iceberg was created from this collision. [ESA] Meteorologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who have been tracking this iceberg from satellites and from meteorological and positional data collected from automatic weather stations that they have installed on the iceberg and the Ice Tongue. [University of Wisconsin-Madison News Service] Satellite images of the iceberg obtained from polar orbiting NOAA satellites are updated daily. [Space Science and Engineering Center, UW-Madison]
Ocean acidification could pose problems for coral -- A researcher from the Marine Conservation Biology Institute and colleagues suggest that the acidification of the world's ocean by increased concentrations of dissolved carbon dioxide could make deep sea calcifying marine animals more vulnerable, thereby threatening the cold-water coral ecosystems. [EurekAlert!]
US space agency helps monitor Australian coral reef -- An international team of scientists studying the coral bleaching that has been rapidly spreading across Australia's Great Barrier Reef have been obtaining essentially real-time sea surface temperature and ocean color data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites. These data may help provide the scientists with how environmental conditions can impact this fragile marine ecosystem by widespread coral bleaching. [NASA GSFC] Two MODIS images from the Aqua satellite made in February 2006 show the sea surface temperature and chlorophyll concentrations based upon ocean color over coastal waters of northeast Australia, including those along the Great Barrier Reef. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Tropical limbed fish fossils found in northern Canada -- Paleontologists at the University of Chicago, Harvard and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia reported on the discovery of a fossil fish on Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut Territory that had four legs, indicating that this specimen was a transitional creature between fish and limbed animals that ultimately moved from a marine to a terrestrial environment roughly 375 million years ago. [EurekAlert!] NASA recently posted an image taken by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus sensor on the Landsat 7 satellite of the site on Ellesmere Island where this new fossil legged fish species was found. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Puget Sound called a "toxic stew" -- Researchers attending a public forum at Seattle, Washington's Town Hall last week reported that a variety of toxins have entered the waters of Puget Sound, contaminating this estuary and adversely affecting the fish that are found in these waters. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
London could see a major storm surge -- The Flood Risk Management Consortium, a group of scientists and other professionals from academia, business and government in the United Kingdom, is running a simulation that will test the effects of a 23-foot high storm surge that would travel upstream along the River Thames to downtown London. The Environment Agency was using this model to study the effectiveness of London's flood defenses. This wave was generated by a "virtual storm" by the UK Met Office. [BBC News]
Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes -- A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, including drought, floods, and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

An Earth Day educational opportunity -- George Wilken, a DataStreme Atmosphere LIT member in Arkansas, forwarded the following information: "On April 21, 2006, Earth Day Network will host a live online chat during which high school and college students can pose questions to a panel of climate change experts. Interested observers can watch the chat live online or download a video and transcript at a later date. The panelists for the chat include David Battisti of the University of Washington, John Harte of the University of California at Berkeley, John Reilly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dan Schrag of Harvard University. The chat will be moderated by Vicki Arroyo of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

"If you are affiliated with a high school or college and you are interested in having your class interact with the panelists, please send an email with the subject heading "Climate Change Live Chat" to education@earthday.net. Include in the text your school's name and location and the grades and subjects you teach. For more information, please visit http://www.earthday.net/news/LiveChat.aspx "

Concept of the Week: Living Coral and El Niño

El Niño episodes of 1982-83 and 1997-1998, the most intense of the century, confirmed the connection between higher than average ocean temperatures and bleaching of hermatypic corals. (Hermatypic corals live in warm shallow water and build large reefs.) Water temperatures higher than 29 °C (the normal maximum sea surface temperature in the equatorial eastern Pacific) can trigger expulsion of zooxanthellae, microscopic dinoflagellates whose symbiotic relationship with coral polyps is essential for the long-term survival of coral. Without zooxanthellae, coral polyps have little pigmentation and appear nearly transparent on the coral's white skeleton, a condition known as coral bleaching. If maximum temperatures are not too high for too long, corals can recover, but prolonged warming associated with an intense El Niño (that may persist for 12 to 18 months) can be lethal to coral. Most hermatypic corals thrive when the water temperature is 27 °C, but do not grow when the water becomes too cold. Although the ideal temperature varies with species and from one location to another, the temperature range for optimal growth is quite narrow--only a few Celsius degrees. This sensitivity to relatively small changes in water temperature is an important source of information on past climates as fossil coral is a significant component of many limestones. Evidence of bleaching episodes in fossil corals may yield important clues to past changes in the world's tropical ocean.

Coral, sometimes referred to as "the rainforests of the ocean," provides a base for local ecosystems and have many benefits (e.g., fisheries, tourism) that are important in many parts of the globe. Hence, vulnerability to El Niño-associated warming is an object of considerable scientific interest. During the 1997-98 El Niño, NOAA charted significant coral bleaching from portions of the Great Barrier Reef near Australia, French Polynesia in the south Pacific, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya, and around the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Closer to home, coral bleaching was reported in the Florida Keys, the Cayman Islands, and off the Pacific coast of Panama and Baja California. Fortunately damage from the 1997-98 El Niño warming was less drastic than the 1983-84 El Niño when up to 95% of the corals in some locations died. Many of the corals damaged in the late 1990s have at least partially recovered including important reefs in the Florida Keys. For additional information on coral status, go to the NOAA website http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Most hermatypic corals thrive at an ocean water temperature of [(10) (27)] °C.
Corals [(can) (cannot)] recover from bleaching if high ocean water temperatures are not long lasting.

Historical Events:

10 April 1877...The first of two great coastal storms struck the Virginia and North Carolina coasts. The Oregon Inlet was widened by three-quarters of a mile. The "entire topography of country is materially altered," according to a description of the altering of sand dunes at Cape Hatteras, NC. (Intellicast)
10 April 1998...Northeast winds at 40 mph on the 9^th and 10^th combined with high levels of Lake Erie produced waves to 14 ft along the lakeshore in Ottawa and Sandusky Counties in Ohio. Much damage resulted, along with the destruction of 10 houses. Bulldozers were needed to clear the debris from roads. Downtown Port Clinton streets were flooded. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
11 April 1803...A twin-screw propeller steamboat was patented by John Stevens of Hoboken, NJ. (Today in Science History)
11 April 1900...The U.S. Navy acquired its first submarine, a 53-foot craft designed by Irish immigrant John P. Holland that was propelled by gasoline while on the surface and by electricity when submerged. (Today in Science History)
13 April 1960...The Navy's first navigation satellite, Transit-1B, was placed into orbit from Cape Canaveral, FL and demonstrated the ability to launch another satellite. The Transit system was designed to meet Navy's need for accurately locating ballistic missile submarines and other ships. (Naval Historical Center) (Today in Science History)
14 April 1543...Bartolomé Ferrelo returned to Spain after assuming command of the ill-fated expedition of the Spanish navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo (who died on San Miguel Island in California's Channel Islands). The expedition was the first known entry by Europeans into San Francisco Bay in the New World.
14-15 April 1912...The British steamer RMS Titanic sank following its collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland on its maiden voyage from South Hampton to New York. The collision occurred at about 11:45 PM on 14 April and the ship, which was considered unsinkable, sank in 2.5 hours during the early morning hours of the 15^th. Reports showed 1517 people out of 2207 onboard lost their lives in this accident. As a result of this disaster, certification and life saving devices were improved and an International Ice Patrol was established to monitor the iceberg hazards in the North Atlantic. The U.S. Coast Guard continues to conduct much of the effort. (US Coast Guard Historian's Office) A 21-year old telegraph operator at the Marconi radio station in New York City , David Sarnoff who became a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting, received and transmitted the distress calls from the Titanic. (Today in Science History)
16 April 1851...The famous "Lighthouse Storm" (a "nor'easter") raged near Boston Harbor. Whole gales and gigantic waves destroyed the 116-ft Minot Ledge Light at Cohasset, MA with the loss of its two keepers still inside. The lighthouse was the first one built in the United States that was exposed to the full force of the ocean. The storm coupled with a spring tide resulted in massive flooding, great shipping losses and coastal erosion. Streets in Boston were flooded to the Custom House. (David Ludlum) (US Coast Guard Historians Office) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
16 April 1854...A furious storm that produced two feet of snow at New Brunswick, NJ also caused approximately 18 shipwrecks along the New Jersey coast. The immigrant ship Powhattan beached 100 yards from the shore. With rescue impossible, 340 people onboard lost their lives. "The shrieks of the drowning creatures were melancholy indeed." (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
16 April 1992...The Katina P ran aground off Maputo, Mozambique, causing 60,000 tons of crude oil to spill into the ocean. (Wikipedia)