10-14 May 2010

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2010 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 30 August 2010. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

• Gulf oil spill updates -- Crude oil continued to spew into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico this past week from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Recent developments on this impending ecological disaster during the last week include:
• NOAA meteorologists and oceanographers are assisting with tracking of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Twice daily forecasts are being provided for the coastal regions that may be subjected to pollution from the spill. [NOAA NOS]

• Early last week, NOAA Fisheries Service closed commercial and recreational fishing for a minimum of ten days in federal waters in those sections of the Gulf of Mexico that have been affected by the oil spill. [NOAA News] By the end of the week, this region was expanded, but only represented five percent of the Gulf of Mexico. [NOAA News]
• Researchers on the university research ship Pelican from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology (NIUST), a partnership of the University of Mississippi, University of Southern Mississippi and NOAA, were directed to change their course that had been set to study deep sea corals to a mission that would collect seafloor and water column data from areas near the Deepwater Horizon spill source in the Gulf of Mexico. [NOAA News]

• Images from sensors on NASA's fleet of satellites show the spread of the oil slick from one week ago [NASA JPL] to late last week. [NASA JPL] [NASA Earth Observatory] Images from radar data collected from the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite also show the oil slick being carried toward the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico. [ESA]
• A leading bioremediation expert with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory warns that "extreme caution" needs to be exercised in cleanup efforts so as not to worsen the situation, as detergents and other chemicals used to clean the contaminated areas could be in sufficient concentrations to create their own problems. [Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory]
• Officials with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Louisiana were considering increasing the flow of the Mississippi River to help keep the oil spill from reaching the coast of Louisiana's Mississippi Delta. Crews attempted to place a large concrete and steel box over the leak on the floor of the Gulf in order to control the leak. Initial attempts were less than successful. [USA Today]
• New field season starts for "aquanauts" -- During this upcoming week, a new team of "aquanauts" will spend nearly two weeks in NOAA’s Aquarius, the world’s only permanent underwater laboratory in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, as part of NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations mission where the aquanauts will test exploration concepts and conduct life sciences experiments in a low gravity underwater environment that closely resembles space. [NOAA News]
• Eye on the tropics -- Although the official hurricane season is about to begin in the Northern Hemisphere, no organized tropical cyclones were found across any of the globe's ocean basins during the last week.
• Hurricane season begins in the eastern North Pacific -- The 2010 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific Ocean basin begins on Saturday, 15 May 2010. The hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico will begin in two weeks on 1 June. The official hurricane seasons in both basins end on 30 November 2010. NOAA has declared the week of 23-29 May 2010 to be Hurricane Awareness Week across the nation.
• Detailed underwater survey made of deposits from a volcanic flank collapse -- Scientists from various research institutions in the United Kingdom were mapping the large landslide deposits found in the waters offshore of the active Soufriere Hills Volcano on the island of Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles. The last major eruption and volcanic dome collapse of this volcano occurred this past February. The effort of this research team is focused on studying the behavior of landslides associated with volcanoes and if they trigger tsunamis. [EurekAlert!]
• Susceptibility of coral to temperature change is explored -- An international team of marine biologists recently reported on their research of the response of coral reefs to temperature changes in the waters of the Gulf of California and the eastern Pacific off the western coast of Mexico and Panama. They found that diversity of the coral species may significantly influence the response of the coral population to temperature increases, including the role played by natural selection. [EurekAlert!]
• 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, drought, floods, 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, to include drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• 10 May 1497...The Italian cartographer Amerigo Vespucci allegedly left the Spanish coastal city of Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World. (Wikipedia)
• 10 May 1503...Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands and named them Las Tortugas after the numerous sea turtles that he found there. (Wikipedia)
• 10 May 1960...The submarine, USS Triton (SSRN-586), completed a submerged circumnavigation of world in 84 days following many of the routes taken by Magellan and cruising 46,000 miles. (Naval Historical Center)
• 11 May 1833...The ship Lady of the Lake struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic while bound from England to Quebec, resulting in the loss of 215 lives. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 11-12 May 1965...The first of two cyclones that struck East Pakistan (now called Bangladesh) during the year made landfall. This system, along with the one on 1-2 June, killed about 47,000 people.
• 12 May 1916...Plumb Point, Jamaica reported 17.80 inches of rain in 15 minutes, which set a world record. (The Weather Doctor)
• 12 May 1978...The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that they would no longer exclusively name hurricanes after women.
• 14 May 1836...U.S. Exploring Expedition authorized to conduct exploration of Pacific Ocean and South Seas, the first major scientific expedition overseas. LT Charles Wilkes USN, would lead the expedition in surveying South America, Antarctica, Far East, and North Pacific. (Naval Historical Center)
• 15 May 1934...Lightship No. 117, occupying the Nantucket Shoals Station, in a dense fog, was struck by the RMS Olympic and sank on station with the loss of seven crewmembers. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 15-24 May 1951...Hurricane Able did a "loop-the-loop" north of the Bahamas and reached Category 3 strength off Cape Hatteras, NC. (The Weather Doctor)
• 16 May 1917...Marquette, MI had its latest opening of navigation on Lake Superior in history. (Intellicast)

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Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.