WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

17-21 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:

• Whale rescue gets an assist from NOAA ship -- The NOAA Ship Nancy Foster assisted the assisted the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in disentangling a humpback whale from fishing lines off the Massachusetts coast a week ago. [NOAA News]
• NOAA restoration project is lauded -- The 10th anniversary of the NOAA Community-based Restoration Program was recently celebrated at the US Capitol. This program, which attempts to encourage collaborative strategies and partnerships, applies a grass-roots approach to restoration of fishery habitats around the nation. [NOAA News]
• Tropical weather update -- Tropical cyclones (low pressure systems) continued to form and move across both eastern and western sections of the tropical North Pacific last week:
  • In the eastern Pacific, two tropical cyclones intensified to become the first two hurricanes of the 2006 hurricane season in the Eastern North Pacific basin. Hurricane Bud formed early last week, followed by Hurricane Carlotta. By late in the week, Bud had intensified to a strong Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Intensity scale before weakening to a tropical depression, while Carlotta became a weak Category 1 hurricane. Both systems were moving away from land during the weekend. [USA Today] A visible satellite image obtained from sensors onboard NOAA's GOES 11 satellite at the end of last week shows Tropical Storm Bud and Hurricane Carlotta moving westward across the Eastern Pacific away from the Mexican coast. [NOAA Operational Significant Event Imagery]
  • In the Western Pacific, Typhoon Bilis (the western Pacific's counterpart to a hurricane) weakened to tropical storm status late last week as moved across the East China Sea and made landfall in China. Earlier, Bilis had been responsible for 14 deaths in the northern Philippines as it moved across the Philippine Sea and across northern Taiwan, producing torrential rain and strong winds across the Philippines, Taiwan and southeast China. In southern China, 326,000 people were evacuated from coastal regions. [USA Today] A satellite image made from Japan's geosynchronous MTSAT-1R satellite last week shows Tropical Storm Bilis east of Taiwan moving to the northwest toward the East China Sea. [NOAA Operational Significant Event Imagery]
• Summer scholarships promote atmosphere and ocean sciences -- One-hundred ten students from colleges and universities across the US and Puerto Rico are participating in the Hollings Scholarship Program, which allows them to serve as summer interns with NOAA and participate in a wide variety of oceanic and atmospheric research projects, including conducing fish surveys, analyzing storm data and participating in Antarctic climate studies. [NOAA News]
• Monitoring the oceanic component of Earth's chlorophyll -- A composite global image of the chlorophyll concentrations in the near-surface ocean waters for the boreal (northern hemisphere) spring season has been created from data obtained from Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Development of hurricane prediction model funded -- The Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at Florida State University has received a grant from NOAA to develop a model that could more accurately predict the intensity during an upcoming hurricane season than current methodologies. [EurekAlert!]
• Submersibles to look for valuable metals on the Pacific Ocean floor -- An international team of scientists will use the Remotely Operated Vehicle Jason and the Autonomous Benthic Explorer to explore, map and collect samples that could contain copper, gold and other commercially valuable minerals from near hydrothermal vents on the Pacific floor off Papua New Guinea. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• A remotely operated submersible vehicle is honored -- Jason Jr., the remotely operated submersible vehicle that was used to discover the wreck of the RMS Titanic in 1986, and its engineering team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution were recently awarded the 2006 Great Moments in Engineering award by GlobalSpec, Inc. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Whales could reach 200 years old -- Scientists analyzing eye tissues of rare bowhead whales claim that some members of this species could live between 160 and 200 years. [National Geographic News]
• Norwegian whale catch is down -- Officials in Norway have reported that the Norwegian whaling fleet had caught only about half of the whales that its quota allows this season. [BBC News]
• Fishermen being bought out -- The environmental advocacy group, Nature Conservatory, has been attempting to purchase the fishing permits off the central California coast, a move that is designed to help end bottom trawling that damages the sensitive marine ecosystems. [MSNBC News]
• Listening for those little tremors -- Seismologists from Stanford University and the University of Tokyo have been monitoring the small tremors and earthquakes, especially around the "Pacific Ring of Fire" (such as Japan, the Pacific Northwest and California's San Andreas Fault), and have found that the signals associated with non-volcanic tremors may be useful in forecasting the occurrence of major earthquakes. [EurekAlert!]
• Jellyfish overtake fish in over-harvested waters -- Researchers from the University of St. Andrews, the University of the Western Cape, the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen (Norway) and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology have found that the biomass of jellyfish has overtaken that of native fish in the offshore waters along the coast of Namibia, which have been heavily fished since the 1970s. [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:

• 17 July 1858...The U.S. sloop Niagara departed Queenstown, Ireland to assist in laying the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. (Naval Historical Center)
• 17 July 1994...The Polar Sea departed from Victoria, BC on operation Arctic Ocean Section 1994 and became the first U.S. surface vessel to reach the North Pole. She then transited the Arctic Ocean back to her homeport in Seattle, WA. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 17 July 1998...A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroyed 10 villages in Papua, New Guinea killing an estimated 1500 people, leaving 2000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless. (Wikipedia)
• 18 July 1986...Videotapes, taken by the deep-sea Alvin submersible, showing SS Titanic's remains were released. Looking like huge stalagmites, rusticles ("rust icicles") are a byproduct of the bacteria slowly converting the iron in the hull. The colony of iron-eating bacteria flourishes in the anaerobic (without oxygen) environment inside the hollow multi-layered rusticles while on the outside, porous layers support oxygen-dependent bacteria. In this eerie way, there is still life on the Titanic as the ship lies deep on the ocean floor. (Today in Science History)
• 18-19 July 1979...A 30-foot high tsunami wave leveled four Indonesian villages on the Sunda Islands during the night. The wave swept 1500 feet inland, causing 589 deaths among the sleeping villagers. A landslide from Mount Werung (Lomblen Island) caused the tsunami. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 18-22 July 1997...Hurricane Danny, the only hurricane that made landfall in the continental US in 1997, moved inland into coastal Alabama at a snails pace. Radar storm total estimates of 43 inches over Mobile Bay. A torrential 32.52 inches of rain fell on 19-20 July at Dauphin Island Sea Lab, establishing a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for Alabama. (NCDC) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 19 July 1843...The first all-metal liner, the SS Great Britain, was launched from Bristol, England. Designed by I. K. Brunel, the SS Great Britain was the first of the great steamships. She was the world's first screw-propeller driven (and first iron-hulled) steamship to cross the Atlantic (1845). The six-masted, single-screw, 3,270-ton vessel is 322 feet in length overall and carried a crew of 130 including 30 stewards for her 360-seat dining room. As the world's biggest ship of the time, she embarked on a varied career, first as a luxury liner carrying passengers to New York and Melbourne, then as a ferry carrying troops to the Crimea and India, and finally as a cargo ship, before being abandoned in the Falkland Islands in 1886. She was brought back to Bristol on this day in 1970, where she is now being restored by volunteers to her original appearance at the Great Western Dock in which she was built. (Today in Science History)
• 19 July 1886...A hurricane from the Gulf of Mexico crossed Florida causing great damage from Cedar Keys to Jacksonville. This was the third hurricane in one month to cross the Florida peninsula. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast)
• 19 July 1897...LT Robert E. Peary, USN, departed on a year long Arctic Expedition that made many important discoveries, including one of largest meteorites, Cape York. (Naval Historical Center)
• 19 July 1994...Hurricane Emilia was the first of three Category-5 hurricanes to develop in the Central Pacific in 1994 as unusually warm sea temperatures prevailed south of Hawaii. Sustained winds reached 160 mph. (Intellicast)
• 20 July 1964...Four Navy divers entered Project SEALAB I capsule moored 192 feet on the ocean floor off Bermuda for a 11-day experiment. On the 22^nd they submerged and then surfaced on 31 July 1964. (Naval Historical Center)
• 20 July 1985...Treasure hunters found the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank approximately 40 miles off the coast of Key West, FL, in 1622 during a hurricane. The ship contained over $400 million in coins and silver ingots. (InfoPlease.com)
• 22 July 1986...Hurricane Estelle passed 120 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands creating a ten to twenty-foot surf. The large swells resulted from a combination of high tides, a full moon, and 50-mph winds. The hurricane also deluged Oahu Island with as much as 6.86 inches of rain on the 24th and 25th of the month. (Storm Data)
• 22-23 July 1996...A strong storm system centered south of Tahiti in the South Pacific was responsible for eight-foot surf along the south shores of Hawaii's Oahu Island. Water safety personnel rescued 95 people from the high surf. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 23 July 1715...Boston Light, the first lighthouse in America was authorized by the Boston Light Bill for construction at Little Brewster Island, MA. This light, located on Little Brewster Island to mark the entrance to Boston harbor, has guided ships since its lantern was first lighted just before sunset, on 14 Sep 1716. In the 1600s, treacherous rocks caused countless loss of lives. False signal fires lit in the wrong places by "wreckers" lured ships aground to plunder. Boston Light was blown up by the British in 1776, but rebuilt in 1783 by Governor John Hancock. The lighthouse was also the last remaining staffed station in the U.S. (Today in Science History)
• 23 July 1788...A weather diary kept by George Washington recorded that the center of a hurricane passed directly over his Mount Vernon home. The hurricane crossed eastern North Carolina and Virginia before moving into the Central Appalachians. Norfolk, VA reported houses destroyed, trees uprooted, and crops leveled to the ground. (David Ludlum)
• 23 July 1958...USS Nautilus (SSN-571) departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii for the first submerged transit of the North Pole. (Naval Historical Center)
• 23 July 1982...The International Whaling Commission decided to end commercial whaling by 1985-86. (Wikipedia)

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