WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

16-20 July 2007

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2007 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 27 August 2007. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Ocean in the News:

• NOAA's role in national aquaculture is highlighted -- The 2007 National Marine Aquaculture Summit, hosted by NOAA, was near the end of last month as a means to allow government officials, policy makers, business leaders and researchers an opportunity to exchange ideas and make recommendations on how the United State can accelerate domestic aquaculture and seafood production, as well as how it can join the global aquaculture community. Full Testimony appears as a 7-page pdf file that requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. (See below).
• Eye on the tropics --
  • In the Western North Pacific, Tropical Storm Man-Yi intensified to become a typhoon (the western North Pacific's counterpart to a hurricane), as it moved to the northwest and to the north, passing near Okinawa as a Category 4 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale near the end of the week. Over the weekend it curved to the northeast as it brushed the southern islands in the Japanese archipelago. As of Monday (local time), Man-Yi had weakened and had been downgraded to a tropical storm as it traveled to the east-northeast along the southern coast of the main Japanese islands. As many as three people were killed and more than 70 injured in Japan due to the torrential rain, strong winds and landslides associated with Man-Yi. [CNN] An image obtained from the MODIS instrument onboard NASA's polar orbiting Terra satellite shows Typhoon Man-Yi passing near Okinawa late last week. [NASA Earth Observatory] The Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT-1R geosynchronous satellite captured several images of Typhoon Man-Yi with a distinct eye at mid week while the typhoon moved across the western North Pacific [NOAA OSEI] and at the end of the week as it passed near Okinawa [NOAA OSEI].
  • In the Eastern North Pacific, two tropical depressions formed and moved westward late last week. As of Sunday afternoon, Tropical Depression 5-E continued to move to the west as a disorganized system, while Tropical Depression 6-E intensified to become Tropical Storm Cosme, the third named tropical cyclone (hurricane or tropical storm) of the season in the eastern North Pacific. This tropical storm was projected to move toward the west-northwest during the early part of the week.
• Absence of a La Niña event does not change hurricane season forecast significantly -- NOAA scientists recently have predicted that the development of a La Niña event should not occur within the next two months. Such an event involving anomalous atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns is marked by a cooling of the surface waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. However, the researchers believe that despite the lack of a La Niña event, the upcoming hurricane season in the Atlantic remain active, with the official NOAA hurricane forecast for the 2007 North Atlantic hurricane season calling for 13 to 17 named tropical cyclones (low pressure systems including hurricanes and tropical storms), including 7 to 10 hurricanes, of which 3-5 could become major systems (Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale). In addition, the forecast from the Colorado State University includes 17 named cyclones, including 9 hurricanes (5 of which could be major). [USA Today]
• Venezuelan oil slick seen from Space Station -- A photograph made by an astronaut on the International Space Station shows an oil slick that formed in the surface waters of the strait between the Gulf of Venezuela and northern Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo earlier this year. This oil slick may have been the result of ocean-going olla tankers pumping their bilges. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Submarine earthquakes could be damped by fragmented seafloor -- Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who have been studying earthquake activity along a transform fault in the eastern Pacific Ocean conclude that a fragmented structure of seafloor faults, together with volcanic activity that had not been recognized earlier, could cause a dampening of the effects of those submarine earthquakes. [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]
• Predicting sand wave behavior could lead to safer shipping -- A researcher at the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has developed a mathematical model that can be used to predict the movement of sand waves, formed by an interaction between tidal currents and sand. This model would be used to help provide shipping and the design of offshore structures. [Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research]
• 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)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2007, The American Meteorological Society.