25-29 April 2005

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2005 with new Ocean News and Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 29 August 2005. All the current online homepage products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• NOAA assesses nation's social and economic needs -- NOAA officials have recently posted several websites that identify the role of NOAA in monitoring the planetary environment, but also help in the assessment of how the oceans and atmosphere impact the nation's economy. [NOAA Magazine]
• Ocean blooms caused by snowmelt -- A researcher from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and other associates have used satellite imagery that detects ocean colors to demonstrate that the concentrations of phytoplankton in the western Arabian Sea increased while winter and spring snow cover over southwest Asia and the Himalayas decreased. They proposed a mechanism for this relationship between snow cover and marine phytoplankton in the Arabian Sea. [EurekAlert!]
• Glaciers on Antarctic Peninsula shrinking -- Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey and the US Geological Survey recently reported that 87 percent of the glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula have not only retreated in the last 50 years, but the average retreat rates have accelerated. The shrinking has been attributed to dramatic local warming. [EurekAlert!]
• A new hurricane forecast model unveiled -- Scientists at the University College London have unveiled a computer model that they say will improve the long-range forecasts of the strengths of hurricanes reaching the US. [EurekAlert!]
• A long climate record obtained from African lake -- Oceanographers from the University of Rhode Island, Syracuse University, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University of Arizona, and the University of Bergen have assembled a 1.5 million-year record of the climate and climatic change from sediments cores obtained from under the deep Lake Malawi in East Africa. [EurekAlert!]
• Solutions to bycatch loss unveiled -- Three award winning solutions to the accidental injuring and killing marine life accidentally ensnared by fishing nets and longlines were recently announced at the International Smart Gear Competition. The winners included a former high school biology teacher turned commercial fisherman, a North American team of scientists and a team of Indian scientists. [EurekAlert!]
• Bacteria play major role in removal of nitrogen from oceans -- Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and the Radboud University of Nijmegen have found that anammox bacteria in some oxygen-poor regions of the tropical ocean have been converting nitrogen compounds in the nutrient-rich waters to nitrogen gas at a rate that will require reevaluation of the nitrogen cycle in the oceans. [Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology]
• 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.

• 25 April 1859...Ground was broken at Port Said, Egypt for the Suez Canal, an artificial waterway that was to cross the isthmus of Suez to connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas. (The History Channel)
• 25 April 1959...With the first ocean-going ships passing through locks along the St. Lawrence River, the St. Lawrence Seaway was officially opened to shipping, serving as the international waterway connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. The official dedication of the Seaway was on 26 June 1959. (Wikipedia)
• 27 April 1521...The Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives during a tribal skirmish on Mactan Island in the Philippines after completing nearly three-quarters of a trip around the world. One of his ships, the Victoria, under the command of the Basque navigator Juan Sebastiýn de Elcano, continued west to arrive at Seville, Spain on 9 September 1522 and become the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. (The History Channel)
• 28 April 1947...Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl and five others set out in a balsa wood craft known as Kon Tiki to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia. The trip took 101 days.
• 29 April 1770...The British explorer, Captain James Cook, arrived at and named Botany Bay, Australia. (Wikipedia)
• 30 April 1492...Spain gave Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration. (Wikipedia)
• 30 April 1894...An Antarctic iceberg fragment was sighted at a latitude comparable to Rio de Janeiro. Reported by the ship Dochra, this sighting remains the nearest to the equator that an iceberg has been seen. (Today in Science)
• 30 April 1991...Southeast Bangladesh was devastated by a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of approximately 150 mph during the early morning. A 20-foot storm surge inundated offshore islands south of Chittagong, taking water from the Bay of Bengal inland for miles. This cyclone resulted in up to 200,000 deaths and $1.4 billion damage. (Accord Weather Guide Calendar)
• 1 May 1683...A patent was awarded in England for the extraction of salt from seawater. (Today in Science)
• 1 May 1883...At Cape Lookout, NC, a storm tide swept over the island drowning sheep and cattle. (Intellicast)
• 1 May 1921...The first radio fog signals in the United States were placed in commission on Ambrose Lightship, Fire Island Lightship, and Sea Girt Light Station, NJ These signals installed by the US Lighthouse Service were meant guide ships approaching New York Harbor. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 1 May 1936...The Whaling Treaty Act outlawed the taking of right whales or calves of any whale. This law was enforced by the Coast Guard. (USCG Historian's Office)

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URL: DS-Ocean/news.html

Prepared by AMS DSOcean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2005, The American Meteorological Society.