WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

19-23 June 2006

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2006 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 28 August 2006. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE! The summer solstice will occur on the morning of Wednesday, 21 June 2006 (officially, 1226 Z, or 8:26 AM EDT, 7:26 AM CDT, etc.) as the earth's spin axis is oriented such that the sun appears to be the farthest north in the local sky of most earth-bound observers. While most of us consider this event to be the start of astronomical summer, the British call the day the "Midsummer Day", as the apparent sun will begin its southward descent again. For essentially all locations in the northern hemisphere, daylight today will be the longest and the night will be the shortest of the year. Starting Thursday, the length of darkness will begin to increase as we head toward the winter solstice on 22 December 2006 at 0022 Z. However, because the sun is not as perfect a time-keeper as a clock, the latest sunsets of the year at many mid-latitude locations will continue through about the first week of July -- a consequence of the earth being near aphelion (on 3 July 2006) and the apparent sun moving across the sky well to the north of the celestial equator.

Ocean in the News:

• Lightning Safety Awareness Week -- The National Weather Service is observing Lightning Awareness Week during this upcoming week of 18-24 June 2006. The theme for this year is "Lightning Kills, Play it Safe!" A cartoon character, Leon the Lightning Lion, has been developed to promote the slogan "When thunder roars, go indoors!" [NOAA News] For more information, go to http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/, a site that includes a variety of informational and teacher resource materials.
• Business is brisk for hurricane preparation -- With the start of the hurricane season and the landfall of Tropical Storm Alberto on the Gulf Coast of Florida last week, residents of the Southeast have been purchasing a variety of items including food, back-up generators and shutters in record quantities in anticipation of and preparation for future hurricanes. [USA Today]
• World's largest marine conservancy area created -- Last week President George W. Bush used his authority under the Antiquities Act to create the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, thereby protecting coral reefs and unique marine species across a section of the central North Pacific Ocean that encompasses the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, stretching from Niihau to Midway Atoll. [NOAA News] This newest national monument will not only offer protection to the reefs and marine life, but also permit some access for research, education, native Hawaiian practices, recreation activities and non-extractive special ocean uses. [NOAA Magazine]
• NOAA provides educational opportunities for students -- Three high school students from Colorado, Florida and Oregon were recognized by NOAA with "Taking the Pulse of the Planet" awards for their outstanding projects as part of the 2006 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Indianapolis. Their award winning projects included work on coral bleaching, a possible correlation between the North Atlantic Oscillation and tropical cyclone activity and potential warning devices for salmon approaching hydropower generators. These awards, which recognized the students' work in understanding earth systems, included an all expense paid trip to the Intel fair and the opportunity to participate in NOAA research with paid summer internships at a NOAA laboratory or field experience onboard a NOAA ship or at a National Marine Sanctuary. [NOAA News] An article in NOAA Magazine also showcases the educational opportunities and support that NOAA is providing those of the nation's students who are considering careers in the earth sciences. Check this online article for information concerning NOAA Education Funding Opportunities. [NOAA Magazine]
• Let NASA help you track that next hurricane -- The Scientific Visualization studio at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has created a webpage that identified as the Atlantic Hurricane Storm Summary that will aid amateur hurricane trackers follow each hurricane and estimate its strength this upcoming season. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Monitoring Alberto -- The first named tropical cyclone (to include tropical storms and hurricanes) of the 2006 North Atlantic hurricane season, Alberto, developed over the Caribbean, moved across the Gulf of Mexico early last week, made landfall near Cedar Key on Florida's Gulf coast on Tuesday and then moved northeastward across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Several satellites provided a variety of images of Alberto:
• Image from time of landfall -- A visible image made from the geosynchronous GOES 12 satellite shows Alberto in the northeast Gulf of Mexico before it made landfall on the Florida coast. [OSEI]
• Getting a 3-D image of Alberto -- Radar instruments onboard NASA's new CloudSat satellite were able to provide a three-dimensional image of the clusters of thunderstorm cells encircling Tropical Storm Alberto as it traveled across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida. Comparisons were made with a conventional NEXRAD radar image and an infrared image from the GOES-12 satellite. [NASA JPL]
• Rainfall rates determined by TRMM -- Images from the TRMM Precipitation and the TRMM Radar Microwave Imager onboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite show that rainfall rates of at least 30 mm per hour. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Hurricane damage could be reduced -- Following onsite inspections of the damage along the Gulf Coast caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a report was issued by the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology that made 23 recommendations, claiming that a combination of stricter adherence to building standards and codes along with good building practices and greater recognition of storm surge risks could significantly reduce structural damage from hurricanes. [EurekAlert!]
• Chilean Harmful Algal Blooms are monitored from space -- The Chilean Aquaculture Project (CAP), which includes members from Chile, Canada, France and Italy, have been using Earth Observation data collected from European Space Agency satellites to monitor the Harmful Algae Blooms that have been increasing in frequency in the waters in and around Chile during the last three decades. These blooms are causing significant financial loss to Chilean fish farms that produce salmon and mussels. [ESA]
• Generating electricity from tides -- Researchers from the University of Southampton have developed a simple and compact generator that produces electricity from water flowing in either direction past the unit's propellers due to tidal action. [EurekAlert!]
• Bacteria and algae could be causing coral death -- A team of researchers participating in the Line Island Expedition have found that bacteria with the aid of algae are contributing to the death of corals near the Line Islands, located in the South Pacific. The researchers also suggest that human activity also contribute to the coral death by contributing to the growth of algae. [EurekAlert!]
• Melting of Arctic sea-ice could threaten polar bears -- A group of 30 climate scientists and other colleagues signed a letter ring the US Fish and Wildlife Service to declare the polar bear as a threatened species since recent climatic change has been melting the sea ice habit of the bears. The scientists claim that the areal extent of the Arctic summer sea ice cover has diminished between 10 to 20 percent during the last 30 years. [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.

Historical Events:

• 19 June 240 BC...On the summer solstice, Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth using two sticks.
• 19-26 June 1972...Hurricane Agnes (a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale) moved onshore along the Florida Panhandle near Cape San Blas and Apalachicola with wind gusts to 80 mph, and eventually exited Maine on the 26^th. This hurricane moved northeast and joined with an upper level disturbance, producing from 10 to 20 inches of rain along its path along the Eastern Seaboard. In the Middle Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania, 24 hour rainfall amounts were generally 8 to 12 inches, with up to 19 inches in extreme southwestern Schuylkill County. At Wilkes-Barre, PA the dike was breached destroying much of the town. Agnes was responsible for 125 deaths, mainly due to flooding from North Carolina to New York State, and total damage was estimated at more than $3 billion. Torrential rains from Hurricane Agnes resulted in one of the greatest natural disasters in U.S. history. Agnes caused more damage than all other tropical cyclones in the previous six years combined (which included Celia and Camille). (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 20 June 1597...Willem Barents, the Dutch explorer who tried to search for the Northeast Passage, died in the Arctic off the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya when his ship became trapped in ice. (Wikipedia)
• 20 June 1819...The 320-ton paddle-wheel SS Savannah arrived in Liverpool, England to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, having left the port of Savannah, GA on 22 May. (InfoPlease Daily Almanac)
• 20 June 1940...The first successful west to east navigation of the Northwest Passage began at Vancouver, BC. (Wikipedia)
• 21 June 1791...A hurricane, called El Temporal de Barreto - the storm of Barreto, generated a monster ocean wave that carried off the coffin of a rich, but hated, count as he lay in state in his mansion near Havana, Cuba. (The Weather Doctor)
• 21 June 1886...A destructive hurricane hit the Apalachicola-Tallahassee area of Florida on the summer solstice. Extensive damage was done in Florida and throughout the southeast by this storm, which was the first hurricane of the year. Damage was due mainly to extremely high tides. (Intellicast)
• 21 June 1961...The first practical plant for the conversion of seawater to drinking water at Freeport, TX was dedicated when President John Kennedy pressed a switch installed in his Washington, DC office. The plant was capable of producing about a million gallons of water a day, supplying fresh water to Freeport at a cost of about $1.25 per thousand gallons. The large-scale evaporation method used then has now been replaced by reverse osmosis as special polymers are now used as filtering membranes. (Today in Science History)
• 22 June 1675...The Royal Greenwich Observatory was created by Royal Warrant in England by Charles II, with its practical astronomy serving as its primary mission, including navigation, timekeeping and the determination of star positions. In 1767 the observatory began publishing The Nautical Almanac, which established the longitude of Greenwich as a baseline for time calculations. The almanac's popularity among navigators led in part to the adoption (1884) of the Greenwich meridian as the Earth's prime meridian (0° longitude) and the international time zones. (Today in Science History)
• 22 June 1948...Congress enacted Public Law 738, which authorized the operation of floating ocean stations for the purpose of providing search and rescue communication and air-navigation facilities, and meteorological services in such ocean areas as are regularly traversed by aircraft of the United States. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 23 June 1501...The Portuguese navigator, Pedro Alvares Cabral, returned to Portugal after a voyage during which he claimed Brazil for Portugal and then journeyed to India in search of pepper and spices. (Wikipedia)
• 23 June 1611...English navigator Henry Hudson was set adrift along with his son and seven loyal crew members in an open boat in Hudson Bay by mutineers on his ship Discovery; they were never seen again. He was on his fourth voyage and he had become famous for attempting to find a route from Europe to Asia via the Arctic Ocean. (Wikipedia)
• 23 June 1716...The Province of Massachusetts authorized erection of first lighthouse in America on Great Brewster Island, Boston Harbor. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 23 June 1938...The first "oceanarium" opened at Marineland in St. Augustine, FL. (Today in Science History)
• 24 June 1497...The Italian navigator and explorer Giovanni (John) Cabot, sailing in the service of England, landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland, claiming the continent for England. (Wikipedia)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2006, The American Meteorological Society.