1-5 August 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.

• Website for an undersea research program unveiled -- NOAA officials recently introduced a revised and user-friendly website for the NOAA's Undersea Research Program, which operates an underwater observatory and supports a variety of research to include coral health studies and climatic change. [NOAA News]
• "Lost City" expedition involves high-tech communications -- A NOAA-financed ocean expedition to explore the unique Lost City hydrothermal vents on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean during the last week of July has included a highly sophisticated communications system that links the onsite oceanographer, Robert Ballard, with Chief Scientist Debbie Kelley at the University of Washington in Seattle. [NOAA News] [EurekAlert!]
• Gulf "dead zone" forecast issued -- A group of scientists from the NOAA Oceans and Coasts Service recently forecasted that the "dead zone", a region of depleted dissolved oxygen that has appeared annually in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas should be the smallest in 15 years, roughly the size of Rhode Island. [NOAA News]
• Eye on the tropics --
• Climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently reported that major hurricanes in the North Atlantic and North Pacific basins have increased in intensity and duration by roughly 50 percent since the 1970s. He believes this increase correlates with an increase in sea surface temperatures for each basin. Other climatologists are more cautious in their appraisal of his work. [USA Today]
• Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center monitoring Tropical Storm Franklin reported last Friday that this tropical low pressure system had moved northeastward across the North Atlantic and loose its tropical characteristics over the weekend as it moved across colder water. [USA Today]
• Ocean spray lubricates winds in a hurricane -- Mathematicians for the University of California, Berkley and the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Russia have shown that windborne ocean spray drops lifted into the atmosphere by hurricane-force winds appear to provide sufficient lubricating effect so as to allow the hurricane to intensify, with wind speeds near the surface to exceed 140 mph. [EurekAlert!]
• Monitoring blooms in the Baltic from space -- The European Space Agency recently released images obtained from its Envisat satellite showing this summers marine phytoplankton bloom in the Baltic Sea, observable because the spectrometer onboard the satellite is sensitive to detecting ocean colors associated with the algae. [ESA]
• Interesting results from the Census of Marine Life -- Scientists involved with the "Hidden Ocean" Expedition and the Census of Marine Life have been impressed with the diversity and density of life in the deep and ice-covered Arctic Ocean off the Canadian coast as a result of their inventory of the biodiversity in the oceans. An inventory of marine line in the Southern Oceans surrounding Antarctic is just commencing. [Census of Marine Life] While the results from the Arctic appear encouraging, those scientists tracking life in tropical and midlatitude oceans present a less optimistic picture, with rapidly shrinking hotspots for tuna, marlin and swordfish during the last 50 years. [EurekAlert!]
• Studying the genes of a cold arctic microbe -- Scientists at The Institute for Genomic Research have analyzed the genome of C. psychrerythraea, bacteria that are found along the floor of the Arctic Oceans at temperatures ranging from -1 to +10 degrees Celsius. [EurekAlert!]
• 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.

• 1 August 1498...Christopher Columbus reached Venezuela, the first known European to visit that country. (Wikipedia)
• 1-3 August 1989...Hurricane Chantal made landfall along the Upper Texas coast about sunrise on the 1^st. Chantal deluged parts of Galveston Island and southeastern Texas with 8 to 12 inches of rain. Unofficial totals ranged up to twenty inches. Winds gusted to 82 mph at Galveston, and reached 76 mph in the Houston area. Tides were 5 to 7 feet high. The hurricane claimed two lives, and caused 100 million dollars damage. The remains of Hurricane Chantal also deluged north central Texas with heavy rain. Up to 6.50 inches drenched Stephens County, and Wichita Falls reported 2.22 inches of rain in just one hour on the 2^nd. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
• 1 August 2002...At the Delaware Bay buoy located 26 miles southeast of Cape May, NJ, an ocean water temperature of 83.1 degrees Fahrenheit was measured--marking the highest ocean temperature recorded at that buoy since observations began there in 1984. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 2 August 1880...Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was adopted officially by the British Parliament, selected because Greenwich had been the national center for time since 1675. GMT was originally set-up to aid naval navigation, but was not was used on land until transportation improved. GMT was adopted by the U.S. at noon on 18 Nov 1883 when the telegraph lines transmitted time signals to all major cities. Subsequently, GMT was adopted worldwide on 1 Nov 1884 when the International Meridian Conference met in Washington, DC, USA and 24 time zones were created. (Today in Science History)
• 2-3 August 1922...A typhoon hit the China Coast at Swatow on the night of the 2^nd. The wind and the storm surge killed as many as 50,000 of the city's 65,000 residents. Barometric pressure at landfall had dropped to at least 932.3 millibars (27.53 inches). (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 3 August 1492...The Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, in command of three ships, embarked from the Spanish port of Palos de la Frontera on a journey westward in search of a sea route to Asia. This expedition, which reached the Bahamas near North America on 12 October, was the first of four expeditions that Columbus made to the "New World". (The History Channel)
• 3 August 1958...At 11:15 EDT, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the first ship to reach the geographic North Pole submerged, traveling at a depth of approximately 500 feet from the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow, AK on 1 August to the Greenland Sea near Spitzbergen on 5 August. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
• 3 August 1970...Hurricane Celia made landfall near Port Aransas on the Texas coast, producing wind gusts to 161 mph at Corpus Christi, and estimated wind gusts of 180 mph at Arkansas Pass. Even at Del Rio, 250 miles inland, Celia produced wind gusts to 89 mph. The hurricane was the most destructive of record along the Texas coast causing 454 million dollars damage as 8950 homes were destroyed on the Coastal Bend. Celia also claimed eleven lives and injured 466 people. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel) (Intellicast)
• 3-4 August 1978...The remnants of Tropical Storm Amelia produced up to 32 inches of rain on Schackelford County in Texas, an incredible amount of rain for a far-inland and non-mountainous area. A twenty-foot wall of water killed six during the evening of the 4^th in Albany, resulting in 89 percent of the city being covered by water. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4(?) August 1609...A tempest struck the western Atlantic Ocean scattering small British convoy headed to Virginia. Two vessels sank; another, the Sea Venture was presumed lost. However, a ship made landfall on Bermuda, shipwrecking the crew. After a ten-month stay to build two small rescue boats, they sailed to Jamestown (Virginia) Colony. Incident accounts may have provided William Shakespeare with background material for The Tempest. (The Weather Doctor)
• 4 August 1666...A violent hurricane raked the island of Guadeloupe, destroying all boats along its coast, including a 17-ship fleet with 2000 troops. The island's batteries, with 6-foot thick walls, were destroyed and the 16-pounders (large cannons) were washed away. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 4 August 1858...After several unsuccessful attempts, the first trans-Atlantic cable, a 2000-mile submerged telegraph line conceived by Cyrus W. Field, was completed by USS Niagara and British ship Agamemnon. While the first messages were exchanged between President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria on 16 August, the cable ceased functioning in early September. The first permanent trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1866. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
• 5-7 August 1997...Although far to the southwest, Hurricane Guillermo generated surf to 12-foot heights along the beaches of southern California. In Newport Beach, lifeguards made almost 300 rescues on the 5^th and 6^th. Rip currents were responsible for one death and three injuries. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 5-6 August 1959...Hurricane Dot crossed Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands producing sustained winds of 103 mph and gusts to 125 mph. Over 6 inches of rain fell there and over 9 inches on the island of Hawaii. The sugar cane crop on Kauai sustained $2.7 million in damages. (Intellicast)
• 6 August 1986...A low pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast of Australia dumped a record 12.91 inches of rain in one day on Sydney. (Wikipedia)
• 7 August 1679...The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was towed to the southern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes. The ship disappeared on the return leg of its maiden voyage from Lake Michigan. (Wikipedia)

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