WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

7-11 July 2008

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2008 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 25 August 2008. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics -- Several tropical cyclones (low-pressure systems that form over tropical waters) were detected during the last week:
  • In the eastern North Pacific, Tropical Storm Boris, which became the second named tropical cyclone of the season for that basin at the end of last week, continued westward away from the Mexican coast. By midweek, this system intensified to become the first hurricane of the eastern North Pacific hurricane season. By the end of this past week, Boris weakened to tropical depression status before dissipating. Additional information and satellite images on Hurricane Boris can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
    Tropical Storm Cristina, the third named tropical cyclone to form in the eastern North Pacific, dissipated early last week well off the western coast of central America. An image obtained from NOAA's GOES-11 satellite shows the clouds associated with Tropical Storm Boris and Tropical Depression Cristina early last week. [NOAA OSEI] An image from NASA's Aqua satellite shows a slightly different perspective of these two systems. [NASA Earth Observatory]
    The fourth tropical cyclone of the season developed into Tropical Storm Douglas off the west coast of Mexico near the midpoint of last week. This minimal tropical storm moved northwestward off the Mexican course and dissipated late last week. Additional information and satellite images are available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
    Tropical Depression 5-E formed on Sunday off the Mexican coast. This system was expected to travel to the northwest offshore of Mexico.
  • In North Atlantic, the second named tropical cyclone of the 2008 hurricane season formed late last week off the coast of Africa and was named Tropical Storm Bertha. As of Sunday, this tropical storm was traveling westward across the central tropical Atlantic. An image from the European Meteosat-9 satellite shows the clouds associated with tropical storm Bertha at the end of last week. [NOAA OSEI]
• Response to hurricanes is readied -- Aware of the start of the hurricane season in both the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has prepared to respond quickly to hazardous material spill incidents resulting from hurricanes and other severe storm events. Scientists from this office will work with other federal, state and local agencies to provide scientific support and assistance before, during and after hurricanes strike. [NOAA News]
• Tuna not being conserved by some nations in eastern Pacific -- The U.S. Commissioner to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission who is also the Southwest Administrator of NOAA's Fisheries Service recently expressed disappointment that several fishing nations have blocked the Commission's plan to conserve yellowfin and bigeye tuna stocks in the eastern Pacific Ocean that have become depleted. [NOAA News]
• Trapped young dolphin is freed -- A juvenile bottlenose dolphin that had become entangled with a rubber strap in the Wilmington River near Savannah, GA was rescued through the combined efforts of the Southeast Regional Marine Mammal Stranding Network and colleagues from NOAA, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Savannah State University, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, University of Georgia Marine Extension and Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. [NOAA News]
• Bottlenose dolphins evaluated -- Experts from NOAA's Fisheries Service have been evaluating the health and wellbeing of a group of bottlenose dolphins that have been feeding in the Shrewsbury River, an estuary in northern New Jersey. Some concern has been voiced they could be threatened by contact with humans. [NOAA News]
• Applicants for fisheries advisory pane sought -- NOAA’s Fisheries Service is seeking applicants for its Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee, which advises the Secretary of Commerce on living marine resource issues that are the responsibility of the Department of Commerce. Applications should be submitted by 21 July 2008. [NOAA News]
• Fifteen years of changes in sea level monitored -- NASA scientists recently released a global map of the changes in sea level between 1993 and 2008 as detected by satellite-based altimeters on board the TOPEX and Jason 1 satellites. This map shows that some areas across the Western Pacific Ocean experienced an increase in sea level by nearly nine inches (225 mm) while sea level decreased by several inches across some scattered regions. Changes in sea level were caused by changes in the ice sheets as well as thermal expansion due to warming associated with increased global temperatures and the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Continental slope shaped by internal waves -- Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin have found that a class of powerful internal or invisible waves that are located beneath the ocean's surface generate intense currents that shape the submarine edges of the continents, as well as contributing to ocean mixing and the determination of climate. [EurekAlert!]
• Penguins seen as indicators of ocean health --A University of Washington conservation biologist warns that penguins could serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine, providing a warning signal of impending changes in the health of the world oceans due to climate change, pollution, coastline development and overfishing. [EurekAlert!]
• Start of melt season along coastal Greenland -- Images in natural and false colors obtained from data collected by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra Satellite in late June show the beginning of the ice melt season along the west coast of Greenland. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Dramatic seasonal changes in northern Japan and far eastern Russia -- Comparison of two images obtained by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite from early March and early June shows the rapid change from late winter to early summer across northern Japan's Shiretoko Peninsula, Russia's Kuril Islands and the nearby waters of the Sea of Okhotsk. The snow that covered the peninsula and islands, along with the ice that covered the Sea of Okhotsk in March had disappeared by June. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Carbon sink in the Southern Oceans is studied -- An ocean scientist from University of East Anglia and her colleagues claim that they have found the reason for the relatively small changes in the absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the Southern Oceans despite the increased amounts of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. They argue that the winds have increased between 1981 and 2004 in the Southern Hemisphere because of the "ozone hole" over the Antarctic and increased global temperatures, resulting in enhanced upwelling of deep, carbon-rich water. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Pathway for marine methane production traced -- An oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa reports finding a new pathway for methane production in the oceans involving the decomposition of an organic, phosphorus-containing compound, methylphosphonate, which may be responsible for the supersaturation of methane in ocean surface waters. This compound could affect the global climate, as methane is a highly effective greenhouse gas. [EurekAlert!]
• An earth systems science agency is proposed -- A group of former high-ranking federal officials recently called for the establishment of an independent earth systems science agency, formed through the merger of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This new agency would manage federal research programs that would meet future environmental and economic challenges. [EurekAlert!]
• Gulf of Mexico viewed as "Florida's toilet" -- The director of the Clean Water Network of Florida recently reported that poorly treated sewage is being flushed into the Gulf of Mexico by Floridians, resulting in a risk of pollution to the Gulf that is two orders of magnitude worse than from offshore drilling. [US Water News Online]
• Cyclone relief efforts aided by data from space -- Nearly two months after the disaster that occurred in Myanmar (Burma) due to the landfall of Tropical Cyclone Nargis, international relief workers are continuing to rely on data collected from earth observation satellites, such as the development of damage assessment maps. [ESA]
• Call for carbon dioxide emission cuts prompted by ocean acidification -- A team of chemical oceanographers from the Carnegie Institution, the University of Hawaii, the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the United Kingdom's Southampton University warn that unless more aggressive cuts in the emissions of carbon dioxide by humans than proposed are not undertaken soon, the added carbon dioxide into atmosphere and ocean could drastically alter the ocean chemistry, resulting in increased acidification that would affect marine life. [EurekAlert!]
• Olympic sailing could be helped by new technology -- In anticipation of the need for real-time wind data for the sailing venue at the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing, researchers from the Ocean University of China have developed a mobile lidar (light detection and ranging) station that can accurately measure wind speed and direction over a large area. [EurekAlert!]
• Biodiversity study could have climate change implications -- An international team of researchers who have been developing the Paleobiology Database at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which represents a database of taxonomic and distributional information about the entire fossil record of plants and animals, have found that their diversity curve shows most of the early spread of marine invertebrates occurred well before the Late Cretaceous (100 to 65 million years ago). The researchers feel that these new findings concerning the history of biodiversity will lead to an improved understanding of the future responses of organisms to climate change. [NSF News]
• An All-Hazards Monitor--This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, marine weather, tsunamis, rip currents, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and coral bleaching. [NOAAWatch]
• 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:

• 7 July 1901...First three-day weather forecast issued for the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic. (Northern Indiana NWSFO)
• 7 July 1952...The liner SS United States made the fastest-ever eastbound crossing of the Atlantic of 3 days, 17 hours and 48 minutes on her maiden voyage from Nantucket Light Ship off New York's Long Island to Bishop Rock Lighthouse in western England.
• 8 July 1497...The Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, set sail from Lisbon, Portugal with four ships on the first direct European voyage to India, first rounding Africa's Cape of Good Hope and reaching Calicut on India's southwest coast on 20 May 1498. (Wikipedia)
• 8 July 1879...The first ship to use electric lights departed from San Francisco, CA.
• 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 News on 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)

Return to DataStreme Ocean Webpage

Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
ã Copyright, 2008, The American Meteorological Society.