WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

10-14 July 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.

Ocean in the News:

• New observation platforms enhance Great Lakes monitoring -- Last week, the NOAA Administrator announced that 13 new coastal weather observation platforms would be deployed across the Great Lakes region, thereby filling some of the gaps in the observation network and providing additional weather information for boaters and National Weather Service forecasters alike. [NOAA News]
• East Coast users to get enhanced satellite data from NOAA CoastWatch Program -- NOAA recently announced that it has opened the "East Coast Node" to its CoastWatch program at its Chesapeake Bay Office in Annapolis, MD, thereby affording users with increased availability of environmental data from over the Atlantic Ocean obtained from the Agency's fleet of polar orbiting and geosynchronous satellites. These environmental data include sea surface temperature, ocean surface winds, and chlorophyll-a levels. [NOAA News]
• Distress calls are handled by satellites -- NOAA officials reported that more than 18,500 people have been rescued worldwide since 1982 as the result of the international cooperation associated with COSPAS-SARSAT (Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System), where NOAA and Russian satellites and other spacecraft detect and relay distress calls, often times from sea. [NOAA News]
• Weather service issues Katrina assessment report -- The National Weather Service recently released an internal evaluation of its performance during last year's Hurricane Katrina. Although the National Hurricane Center issued accurate forecasts of the intensity and track of Katrina with lead times extending to nearly two days that helped in preparation, improvements in communications within NOAA and with the public have been recommended. [NOAA News]
• Hurricane Awareness -- Although National Hurricane Awareness Week was observed in May (21-27 May 2006) in advance of the start of the official 2006 hurricane season for the North Atlantic Basin (1 June 2006), Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia will conduct their own state hurricane awareness activities during the upcoming week (10-14 July). The National Hurricane Center maintains a hurricane preparedness website that provides information and educational material for the various hurricane hazards including storm surge, high winds, tornadoes and flooding. (A Spanish version of this website is also available.) In the Eastern North Pacific basin, the hurricane season began on 15 May 2006. The official hurricane season will run until 30 November in both basins.
• Offshore aquaculture is highlighted -- The status of offshore aquaculture and the role of NOAA in the efforts to increase domestic seafood production was recently given a boost from President George W. Bush who emphasized the need for sustainable aquaculture as proposed in the National Offshore Aquaculture Act. [NOAA Magazine]
• East Asia braces for a typhoon -- A typhoon, the counterpart of a hurricane in the western North Pacific Ocean basin, traveled toward the northwest across the Philippine and East China Seas late last week, accompanied by strong winds, torrential rain and a storm surge. Officials in the Philippines, South Korea and Japan were placed on alert from the hazards associated with Typhoon Ewiniar. [USA Today] A visible image of Typhoon Ewiniar obtained from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument onboard NASA's Terra satellite shows the typhoon as it was passing the northern Philippines and approaching Taiwan. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Algal bloom seen off Vancouver Island -- An image made recently by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite depicts brightly colored blue and green swirls indicating a large phytoplankton bloom in the Pacific ocean waters offshore of British Columbia's Vancouver Island and Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge seen from a new perspective -- A detailed image of the famous Golden Gate Bridge was made by Space Imaging’s IKONOS satellite from an altitude of approximately 425 miles above the earth's surface. This image, which has a resolution of approximately 12 feet, shows the suspension bridge that spans the entrance to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Water cycle balance found by satellite -- Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists who have collected and analyzed data obtained by sensors aboard NASA satellites report that they have measured the complete water cycle for the South American continent. Data collected from TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission), QuikSCAT (Quick Scatterometer) and Grace (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) missions confirmed that the total amount of precipitation falling on the continent from the marine atmosphere was balanced with the amount of river runoff to the oceans. [NASA JPL]
• Sonar use halted -- A temporary restraining order was issued last week in US. District Court in Hawaii that prevents the US Navy from using high-power sonar in underwater training exercises in the Pacific waters off the Hawaiian Islands. The environmental group Natural Resource Defense Council contends that sonar is harmful to marine mammals, such as causing whales to become stranded. [National Geographic News]
• Piracy on high seas becomes high tech -- The director of the International Maritime Bureau recently claimed that piracy on the high seas continues, flourishing across the Indian Ocean from east Africa to Indonesia. A variety of sophisticated techniques and weapons are used by these modern-day pirates. [National Geographic News]
• New radar program helps coastal residents -- A new radar program has been developed to scan the coastal and offshore waters of the Atlantic Ocean along the South Carolina coast as part of the regional SEACOOS (SouthEast U.S. Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System) project. This new radar program is intended to monitor the sea state and help improve forecasts of wave heights, storm surge and rip currents that could affect coastal residents. [USA Today]
• Silent earthquakes could trigger bigger ones -- A team of scientists from Stanford University and the US Geological Survey have found that slow-moving "silent earthquakes" that do not produce significant seismic waves can trigger swarms of conventional temblors of greater magnitude. These scientists are calling for their colleagues from around the world, especially in subduction zones of the Pacific Northwest, Japan and Mexico to search for evidence that corroborates their findings. [EurekAlert!]
• Sustainability of lobster fisheries studied -- A researcher from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a Rhode Island lobsterman have studied model results that consider the biological and economic factors affecting the lobster fisheries and recommended that ways could be used to improve the sustainability of the dwindling New England lobster fisheries. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Darwin's impassible ocean barrier is breached -- Scientists affiliated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute report that common genetic connections exist in reef fish in the eastern and central Pacific, on opposite sides of what the famous 19th century biologist Charles Darwin thought was an impassible ocean barrier. [EurekAlert!]
• Coral materials may respond to ocean changes -- Researchers at Johns Hopkins University demonstrated that coral would build their skeletons from different materials, depending upon the chemical composition of the surrounding seawater. [EurekAlert!]
• Oceans becoming more acidic -- A report entitled "Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs and Other Marine Calcifiers" was released last week by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research that claims that increased emission rates of carbon compounds into the atmosphere due to human activity has ultimately altered oceanic chemistry, resulting in the oceans becoming more acidic as marine calcifiers such as coral change their physical structure. [UCAR/NCAR] The full detailed report is available in pdf format, which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (see below). [UCAR/NCAR]
• 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:

• 11 July 1576...The British seaman Martin Frobisher sighted Greenland during one of his attempts to find the Northwest Passage. (Wikipedia)
• 11 July 1776...The English explorer Captain James Cook began his third and final voyage, exploring the North Pacific, western North America to as far north as the Bering Strait and the Sandwich Islands (later renamed the Hawaiian Islands), where he was killed in February 1779. (Wikipedia)
• 12 July 1844...Captain J.N. Taylor of the Royal Navy first demonstrated the fog horn. At the time, it was called a telephone - to mean far-signaling, thus an instrument like a fog-horn, used on ships, railway trains, etc., for signaling by loud sounds or notes. The 19 July 1844 Times (London) reported, "Yesterday week was a levee day at the Admiralty, and amongst the numerous models...was Captain J. N. Tayler's telephone instrument... The chief object of this powerful wind instrument is to convey signals during foggy weather. Also the Illustrated London Newson 24 Aug. 1844 referred to "The Telephone; a Telegraphic Alarum. Amongst the many valuable inventions...that of the 'Telephone, or Marine Alarum and Signal Trumpet', by Captain J. N. Taylor." (Today in Science History)
• 12 July 1920...The Panama Canal was formally dedicated, having taken more than 30 years to overcome the enormous engineering challenges and complete at a cost of $347 million. The first ship had traveled through six years earlier when the Panama Canal opened to shipping on 15 Aug 1914. At that time, the world scarcely noticed the event since German troops were driving across Belgium toward Paris and the newspapers relegated the Panama story to their back pages; the greatest engineering project in the history of the world had been dwarfed by the totality of World War I. (Today in Science History)
• 12 July 1993...A magnitude 7.8 earthquake that was situated offshore of Hokkaido, Japan produced a tsunami that killed 202 people on the island of Okushiri. (Wikipedia)
• 13 July 1996...Heavy rains from the remnants of Hurricane Bertha caused roads to washout in the Camden, ME area. Two people were hurt when they drove into a 600-pound boulder that had fallen onto the roadway due to the heavy rain. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 15-16 July 1916...A dying South Atlantic Coast storm produced torrential rains in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Altapass, NC was drenched with 22.22 inches of rain, a 24-hour rainfall record for the Tarheel State, and at the time, a 24-hour record for the U.S. (The current 24-hour rainfall record for the US is 43 inches set 25-25 July 1979 at Alvin, TX). Flooding resulted in considerable damage, particularly to railroads. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast) (NCDC)

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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.