WEEK TEN: 10-14 April 2017

For Your Information

• Applications invited for participation in Ocean Guardian Schools Program -- The NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in coordination with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation has invited local K-12 schools across the nation to become involved in fostering ocean literacy and environmental stewardship by applying to the Ocean Guardian School Program. Ocean Guardian School grants, which range from $1000 to $4000, are awarded annually to fund hands-on school- or community-based projects. Applications for the 2017-18 school year are being accepted through the end of April. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
• Teachers are invited to explore NOAA's updated "Data in the Classroom" website -- NOAA Office of Education has recently announced that its popular "Data in the Classroom" website has been updated and is back online with modern interactive, classroom-ready resources. Using this website, students will be able to use real-time data to explore today's most pressing environmental issues and develop problem-solving skills employed by scientists. "Data in the Classroom" has five curriculum modules, intended for middle and high school classes: El Niño, Sea Level, Coral Bleaching, Water Quality, and Ocean Acidification. [NOAA News]
• List made of ten interesting items about planet Earth -- A list has been prepared by NASA Earth System Science that includes ten items about our planet, such as the Earth not being perfectly round, the days are growing longer, and past sea levels have been very different that today. [NASA Global Climate Change News Feature]
• Public is encouraged to "#AdoptThePlanet" for Earth Day -- As a means of celebrating the upcoming Earth Day 2017 (Saturday, 22 April) NASA is inviting people from around the world to virtually "adopt" one of 64,000 individual pieces of Earth as seen from space. By clicking on go.nasa.gov/adopt and adopting a piece of the planet, the visitor to this site will receive a personalized adoption certificate for a unique numbered piece of Earth (on average 55 miles wide) to print and share on social media. Four data layers for this location will be provided that include data on chlorophyll, relative humidity, sea surface temperature and cloud top height. [NASA Goddard Feature]
• A Pascal full moon and religious celebrations-- The moon will reach the full moon phase early Tuesday (11 April 2017) at 0608 Z (2:08 AM EDT or 1:08 AM CDT, etc.). Since this full moon is the first following the spring equinox (20 March 2017), it is called the "Pascal Moon," an event that is important to the timing of important religious observances in both the Jewish and Christian religions. The Jewish festival of Passover will begin at sundown on Monday evening (10 April) and run through the following evening. The Christian festival of Easter will be this coming Sunday (16 April).
• Hydrothermal vent organisms -- You are invited to read this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth that describes how geoscientists have investigated the deep-sea environment in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents that form along the oceanic ridges nearly 3000 meters below the ocean surface. Interestingly, a diverse and abundant community of marine organisms has been found to live in these extreme oceanic conditions.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics -- Three tropical cyclones traveled across the waters of the South Indian and western South Pacific ocean basins during the last week.
• In the South Indian Ocean, Cyclone Ernie formed last Thursday as the 15th tropical storm of the 2016-17 season nearly 660 miles to the north-northwest of Learmonth, Australia. Initially traveling to the south-southwest, Ernie quickly intensified to become a category 4 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale early Saturday (local time) before curving to take a direction toward the southwest. Ernie began weakening this past weekend as it continued traveling to the southwest, keeping it well off the northwestern coast of Australia. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite imagery on Cyclone Ernie.
  
• In the western sections of the South Pacific Ocean basin, Tropical Storm 14 P formed late Wednesday approximately 100 miles southwest of the small island nation of Niue, or 1500 miles northeast of New Zealand. Travel was to the southeast. However, this 14th named tropical cyclone of the 2016-17 season in the South Pacific was relatively short lived as within 24 hours, it had weakened to a tropical depression due to wind shear that was tearing it apart. Consult the NASA Hurricane Page for satellite images and additional information on Tropical Storm 14P.
  A second named tropical cyclone identified as Tropical Storm Cook formed late last week over the western South Pacific Ocean approximately 400 miles to the north-northeast of Noumea, New Caledonia. Travel was toward the south. Heavy rain fell across the island nation of Vanuatu over this past weekend.[Australian Broadcasting Corporation News] Cook had intensified to a category 1 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale by early Monday (local time). Cyclone Cook could intensify as it was projected to travel toward New Caledonia, where it was expected to make landfall late Monday night.
• National Hurricane Center produces Tropical Cyclone Reports for each Atlantic and eastern Pacific tropical cyclone in 2016 -- NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) recently completed its preparation of 37 separate Tropical Cyclone Reports, covering each of the 16 tropical storms and hurricanes that formed in the Atlantic basin during 2016 and the 21 tropical systems in the eastern North Pacific during that year. In addition to providing the meteorological history of each storm, a critique is provided of NHC's forecast and warnings for these systems. [NOAA News]
• Early hurricane season forecast -- Last week, the hurricane forecast team from Colorado State University headed by Dr. Phil Klotzbach released its initial "Extended Range Forecast of 2017 Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Activity" that provides projected estimates of the number of named tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms) during the upcoming hurricane season that officially begins on 1 June 2017. The team, which had been formed by the late Professor William Gray, foresees slightly below-average tropical cyclone activity during this upcoming hurricane season. The team's initial April forecast envisions eleven named tropical cyclones, which include four hurricanes. Of these hurricanes, the forecasters foresee two major hurricanes (category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale). A below-average probability is anticipated for major hurricanes making landfall along the United States coastline and in the Caribbean. The team bases their outlook on the likelihood that the current ENSO-neutral conditions would evolve into either weak or moderate El Niño conditions by early autumn during the peak in the Atlantic hurricane season. Furthermore, the waters of the tropical Atlantic have anomalously cooled over the past month and the far North Atlantic is relatively cold, potentially indicative of a negative phase of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation. [The Tropical Meteorology Project]
  In mid-May, forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) also should provide their outlook for the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season.
• New constellation of micro-satellites goes operational to measure surface winds over oceans -- During the fourth week of March, NASA scientists completed the initial testing of the agency's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) , moving this constellation of eight microsatellites into a science operations mode. CYGNSS will take detailed measurement of wind speeds inside hurricanes beginning in May, just before the start of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. The CYGNSS spacecraft had been launched last December into a low-inclination, low-Earth orbit over the tropics. This orbital configuration is designed to permit frequent measurements of ocean surface winds in and near a hurricane's inner core, using GPS signals reflected by the ocean surface. These GPS signals are able to penetrate through the intense rain in a storm's eye wall. [NASA Feature]
• West Coast entanglement data compiled for 2016 -- As many as 71 separate cases of whales entangled by fishing gear from US fisheries were reported off the Pacific Coast running from British Columbia southward along Washington, Oregon and California to Mexico's Baja California during 2016. These 71 cases represented the highest annual total along the West Coast of North America since NOAA Fisheries began keeping records in 1982. [NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region Publications]
• Annual report issued by NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement -- During the last week NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement released its 36-page annual report for Fiscal Year 2016 that includes updates on investigations and staffing. [NOAA Fisheries Document]
• New technologies used to track leatherback turtles -- Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in partnership with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries are employing action cameras attached to the backs of the endangered leatherback turtles to track their movements across the North Atlantic. In addition to the camera, a transponder tag is attached to the turtles, which transmits data to a nearby autonomous underwater vehicle for additional processing. [NOAA Fisheries Feature Stories]
• Monk seal of the month of April is featured -- NOAA Fisheries' Pacific Islands Regional Office recently named the first known monk seal pup to be born on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu as its monk seal of the month. This adult female known either as RZ20 or Petunia was born in 1991 along Oahu's North Shore and was 24 years old when last seen in 2015 in Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. [NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Regional Office Stories]
• Highlights listed of important events that occurred in the National Marine Sanctuaries during 2016 -- In anticipation of this year's 45th anniversary of NOAA's National Marine Sanctuaries program, a list was made of eight "amazing things" that happened in the sanctuaries system during 2016. These accomplishments involved scientific investigations, educational programs, tourism and recreation. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
• Restoration project results in rebirth of a healthy eelgrass meadow -- A team of researchers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science invented a new approach that has been used in an innovative eelgrass bed restoration project along Virginia's Eastern Shore, creating thousands of acres of prime habitat for fish, crabs, and bay scallops. [NOAA National Ocean Service 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: Solving the Mystery of Seamount Ecosystems

The United States Commission on Ocean Policy reports that less than 5% of the ocean floor has been explored. This is beginning to change as scientists and engineers develop and apply new technologies to investigate deep ocean waters and the sea bottom (refer to Chapter 13 in your DataStreme Ocean textbook). Consider, for example, the effort to obtain a better understanding of seamount ecosystems.

A seamount is a submarine mountain of volcanic origin (now extinct) that rises more than 1000 m (3300 ft) above the ocean floor. Usually a seamount summit is 1000 to 2000 m (3300 to 6600 ft) below sea level. They occur as isolated peaks, chains (e.g., Emperor Seamounts in the North Pacific; New England chain in the North Atlantic), or clusters. The term "seamount" was first applied in 1936 to the Davidson Seamount located off the coast of Southern California. Scientists estimate that perhaps 30,000 dot the ocean floor with as many as two-thirds located on the Pacific Ocean bottom. However, fewer than one thousand seamounts have been named and only a handful of seamounts has received detailed scientific study.

In recent years, discovery of unique life forms on seamounts has spurred scientific interest in seamount ecosystems. Many nations, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, are supporting scientific cruises to observe and collect specimens from seamount ecosystems. Seamount ecosystems are unusually productive and are home to unique species. Some seamount surveys have found that certain seamount species are endemic, that is, they live on only one seamount or a few nearby peaks. For example, up to one-third of all species living on some seamounts off New Caledonia are endemic while up to half of the invertebrates and fish on the Nazca seamount off Chile are endemic. In the northeast Pacific, large-scale eddies may transport larval fish from coastal environments to isolated seamounts located out at sea. Furthermore, some scientists argue that seamounts may function as stepping stones that allow for migration of species over lengthy periods--perhaps over millions of years. In addition, some seamounts may serve as aids to navigation for fish that migrate over long distances. For example, hammerhead sharks may use the magnetic field surrounding seamounts to find their way.

The recent effort to survey and explore seamount ecosystems has reached new urgency with the realization of the devastating impact of commercial fish trawlers on those ecosystems. In some cases, trawling has striped off most marine life (e.g., coral gardens) from the surface of seamounts leaving behind mostly bare rock. Typically, trawled seamounts have only half the biomass and considerably fewer species than undisturbed seamounts. Scientists anticipate that a better understanding of seamount ecosystems will help make the case for their conservation and inform the most effective strategies for their protection. Australia is one of the first nations to protect seamount ecosystems, establishing the Tasmanian Seamount Marine Reserve in 1999. The reserve covers 370 square km (140 square mi) and includes more than a dozen seamounts.

Concept of the Week: Questions

1. Seamounts are extinct submarine volcanoes that occur primarily in the [(Atlantic) (Pacific)(Southern)] Ocean.
2. Commercial fish trawling has [(little if any)(a devastating)] impact on seamount ecosystems.

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 1996...The world's fastest measured surface wind (outside of a tornado) was recorded on Barrow Island, Australia, in Tropical Cyclone Olivia. Winds reached a speed of 249 mph. This gust became the highest surface wind speed record, replacing the 231-mph wind gust measured at New Hampshire's Mount Washington Observatory on 12 April 1934. (National Weather Service files)
• 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 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.
• CHECK == 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 waves. 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)
• CHECK -- 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)
• 16 April 2008...Typhoon Neoguri formed over the South China Sea on the 15th and rapidly intensified to attain typhoon strength by the 16th, reaching its peak intensity on the 18th with maximum sustained winds near 109 mph. More than 120,000 people are evacuated from Hainan when heavy rains cause flash floods across low-lying areas. Three fatalities are attributed to the storm, though 40 fishermen are reported missing. Neoguri made landfall on China earlier than any other tropical cyclone on record, about two weeks prior to the previous record set by Typhoon Wanda in 1971. (National Weather Service files)

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Prepared by DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D.,
email hopkins@aos.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2017, The American Meteorological Society.