WEEK ELEVEN: 11-15 April 2016

Items of Interest

• Species dominance and ocean properties -- Discover how variations in both the physical and chemical properties of ocean waters can be accompanied by changes in the dominance of the various species of marine life in this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics --- During the last week only the western South Pacific Ocean basin experienced a tropical cyclone. Just before midweek, a tropical storm formed west of Vanuatu that intensified to become Cyclone Zena as it moved toward the east-southeast. During its travels, Zena intensified to become a category 2 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it passes near Fiji. By late in the week, Zena dissipated after being ripped apart because of strong vertical wind shear. Additional information along with satellite images on Cyclone Zena appears on the NASA Hurricane Page.
  
• Hurricane awareness tour commences to Mexico and the Caribbean -- NOAA and US Air Force Reserve hurricane experts will embark this week on a six-day, five-city tour to Mexico, Honduras, the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in a "hurricane hunter" aircraft designed to raise public hurricane awareness in communities in several countries surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. A series of events will be hosted that would include tours aboard the Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft. [NOAA National Hurricane Center News]
• New England and California marine sanctuaries are "Best Places to See Aquatic Life" -- New England's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary was recently voted as the "Best Place to See Aquatic Life" in USA TODAY's 10BEST contest, followed closely in second place by California's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
• New "Sea Level Change: Observations from Space" portal is unveiled -- NASA recently unveiled a new Web portal entitled "Sea Level Change: Observations from Space" (at https://sealevel.nasa.gov/) that is designed to provide the public, researchers and decision makers with up-to-date scientific information on the global sea level rise issue. This portal, which was developed at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will have an interactive data analysis tool that will allow direct access to NASA datasets on sea level. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Features]
• Efforts to save green sea turtles on nation's coasts are working -- NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a final rule that reclassified the listing for green sea turtle populations originating in Florida and the Pacific coast from endangered to threatened status under the Endangered Species Act because of successful conservation efforts. In addition, these two agencies will divide the turtles globally into 11 distinct populations segments, allowing for tailored conservation approaches for each population. [NOAA News]
• Awards for 2016 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside Program announced -- Officials with NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the New England Fishery Management Council recently announced that 15 research projects have been selected for support from the 2016 Sea Scallop Research Set-Aside (RSA) program. These projects address the council's research priorities for the nation's highest-valued single species commercial fishery. [NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center News]
• NOAA Administrator inspects innovative fishnets on Oregon coast -- On a recent visit to Newport on the Oregon coast, NOAA's Administrator, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, inspected a new and innovative type of fish net designed by a local small business to allow West Coast groundfishermen to catch more desired groundfish while avoiding sensitive stocks and other species. [NOAA News]
• Satellite imagery helps visualize El Niño's impact on marine plant life -- An oceanographer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Dr. Stephanie Uz, uses ocean color data obtained from sensors onboard orbiting NASA satellites to determine the impact that strong El Niño events in 1997 and 2015 have upon phytoplankton, a major source of food in the oceans. Watch the one-minute video entitled "How El Niño Impacts Marine Plant Life" where she explains and illustrates the impact of warm ocean water upon the phytoplankton population using the satellite imagery. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Feature]
• Alarm sounded for changing ocean chemistry along West Coast -- At the start of last week, the West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science Panel, a 20-member panel of leading West Coast ocean scientists presented a report that warns the ocean chemistry of the Pacific Ocean along the West Coast of North America is changing rapidly because of global carbon dioxide emissions. The report indicates that the governments of Oregon, California, Washington and British Columbia can take actions now to offset and mitigate the effects of these changes. A series of recommendations is outlined to address the "double whammy" of an increase in ocean acidification and hypoxia, or extremely low oxygen levels. [NOAA News] or [Oregon State University News]
• Chesapeake Bay ospreys thrive despite pollution -- In a three-year study led by US Geological Survey (USGS) scientists, the breeding population of ospreys in Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest estuary, appears to be thriving despite the long-lasting residues of banned toxic chemicals such as DDT and PCBs in the Bay's food chain. [USGS Newsroom]
• Two mysteries about wobbling Earth are solved -- Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently solved two mysteries involving wobbles in the Earth's rotation, based upon their research into the movement of water around the globe using data obtained from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. Changes in continental water mass in different regions has caused the spin axis to drift and with a speeding of the drift rate, especially since 2000. A deficit of water in a region of Eurasia that includes the Indian subcontinent and the Caspian Sea basin due to depletion of aquifers and drought appears to be the reason for the wobble of the spin axis. This region is situated at a latitude of 45 degrees, a location where the spin axis is most sensitive to changes. In addition, the wobble in the axis in a direction either east or west of its general direction of drift has a periodicity ranging from six to 14 years over the 115-year period of record, possibly explainable by the changes in continental water storage. [NASA Feature]
• North Pole had ice-free summers six to ten million years ago -- An international team of scientists who reconstructed the temperature record of the Late Miocene Epoch from sediment samples retrieved from the Lomonosov Ridge, a large underwater ridge of continental crust in the central Arctic Ocean, claim that this section of the Arctic Ocean would have been ice free during the summer between six and ten million years ago as the sea surface temperatures appear to have ranged between four and nine degrees Celsius. However, the researchers believe that the ocean would have been covered by sea ice of variable extent in from autumn through winter and into spring. [Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research 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]

Concept of the Week: Living Coral and El Niño

El Niño episodes of 1982-83 and 1997-1998, the most intense of the 20th 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.) Recent field work indicates that the 2015-16 El Niño, which may be the strongest since 1950, has resulted in major bleaching of coral reefs in many locations. 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

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

Historical Events:

• 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 Rodriguez 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 April 1851..."The Lighthouse Storm" of 1851 struck New England on this date. Heavy gales and high seas pounded the coasts of New Hampshire and eastern Massachusetts. The storm arrived at the time of a full moon and high tide producing unusually high storm tides. The storm was so named because it destroyed the lighthouse at Cohasset, MA. Two assistant lighthouse keepers were killed there when the structure was swept away by the storm tide. (National Weather Service files)
  
• 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. Because 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)
• 17 April 1492...Spain and the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus signed a contract for him to sail to Asia to obtain spices. (Wikipedia)
• 17 April 1524...Giovanni Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, onboard the frigate La Dauphine "discovered" New York Bay. (Wikipedia)

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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.