31 May-4 June 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.

• Change in season -- Meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere, the three-month span from March through May, concludes on Monday (31 May 2010), while meteorological summer (June, July and August) will commence on the following day.
• Atlantic Hurricane Season begins -- The official 2010 hurricane season for the North Atlantic Basin will begin on Tuesday, 1 June. 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. The season will run until 30 November in both basins.

• Hurricane outlooks issued -- Scientists with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center have released their outlooks for the upcoming hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, the eastern Pacific and central Pacific Basins last week:
• For the North Atlantic basin, the outlook indicates an "active to extremely active" hurricane season in 2010. Specifically, the outlook calls for a 70 percent chance of 14 to 23 named tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms), including 8 to 14 hurricanes, with three to seven major hurricanes (Category 3 hurricanes or greater on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Intensity Scale). The forecasters point to a combination of favorable upper tropospheric wind patterns, warm Atlantic Ocean water and a continuation of the 15-year trend toward more active Atlantic hurricane seasons for the anticipated active Atlantic hurricane season. [NOAA News]
  For comparison, Phil Klotzbach and Bill Gray at Colorado State University released an updated forecast of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season in early April calling for a season with above average activity as they foresee15 named tropical cyclones, of which eight could reach hurricane status. [The Tropical Meteorology Project]
  Forecasters at the United Kingdom's Met Office also expect an active North Atlantic hurricane season. [UK Met Office]
• For the Eastern North Pacific basin (east of 140 degrees West longitude), the outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center suggests a below-normal hurricane season. This outlook would call for a 70 percent chance of 9 to 15 named tropical cyclones, with four to eight hurricanes and one to three major hurricanes. These anticipated numbers compare with the long-term average of 16 named cyclones, nine hurricanes and as many as five major hurricanes. The forecasters indicate that the lower than average season may be influenced by the atmospheric conditions that have decreased hurricane activity over the basin during the last decade and the fading of the current El Niño event. [NOAA News]
• For the Central North Pacific basin (between 180 degrees and 140 degrees West longitude), forecasters at NOAA's Central Pacific Hurricane Center in collaboration with their colleagues at the Climate Prediction Center expect that the upcoming would have below normal activity. They called for two to three tropical cyclones to develop in the central North Pacific in 2010. On average, four to five tropical cyclones (including tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes) travel across the basin. The lower than average anticipated numbers could be related to a continuation of low tropical cyclone activity across the region and to an anticipated conditions that were deemed either ENSO-neutral or La Niña-like. [NOAA Central Pacific Hurricane Center]
• Mapping ocean "heat potential" for tropical cyclones -- Scientists at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and colleagues at the University of Miami and Spain's University of Santiago de Compostela have been using a Google Earth application that they created to map the heat contained in the upper layers of the ocean, using satellite altimetry observations. This application was developed to assess the "Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential" (TCHP) for the global ocean basins to study the connection between ocean heat and tropical cyclones (such as hurricanes). These maps, which will be updated daily, will also show the tracks and intensities of tropical cyclones. [NASA] See also information on AOML's Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential that has a link to Google Earth.
• Would a La Niña event be on the horizon? Researchers and forecasters are currently assessing the possibility that a La Niña event could develop within the next several months as the current El Niño event was waning. They are monitoring the changes in the water temperatures across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which had been above average in the eastern sections prior to May, indicative of an El Niño. However, this warm water had disappeared by late in the month, raising the possibility of the onset of a La Niña. [UCAR Magazine]
• Gulf oil spill updates -- Efforts continued last week to stem the oil spewing into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast from the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill disaster:
• NOAA ships deployed to the region -- The NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson was conducting a Loop Current research cruise, deploying a variety of US Navy ocean monitoring instruments such as floats, drifters and gliders to monitor the surface and deep currents that would spread the oil spilled. [NOAA News] The NOAA Research Ship Gordon Gunter also was sent to the Gulf to help define the subsurface plume of oil near the spill site using sophisticated sonar equipment and the autonomous underwater vehicle called the "Gulper" provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. [NOAA News]
  An autonomous underwater vehicle from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute was deployed late last week to collect information about the oil plume emanating from the floor of the Gulf around the Deepwater Horizon spill, as part of an agreement with NOAA. Data that will be collected include temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen of the seawater, concentration of particulate matter, including oil droplets and chlorophyll content from marine algae. [EurekAlert!]

• Closed fishing area expanded -- Late last week, NOAA expanded the closed fishing area in the Gulf to include a large area to the east where large oil patches were detected. While the Fishery Closure Boundary enclosing the closed fishing area had expanded, approximately 75 percent of the Gulf remained open for fishing at the end of last week. [NOAA News]

• Multi-agency effort decontaminates ships passing through the spill -- NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey, the US Coast Guard and the US Navy have been preparing ship anchorage areas near the mouth of the Mississippi River along the Louisiana Gulf Coast where ships would undergo inspection and oil decontamination before entering the ports along the river. [NOAA News]
• Use of dispersants and the impact considered -- A two-day meeting was held last week where over 50 experts from the government, academia and industry considered the potential environmental impacts of prolonged use of dispersants designed to disperse the oil spreading across the Gulf waters. The University of New Hampshire's Coastal Response Research Center, NOAA, EPA and the US Coast Guard convened this meeting. [NOAA News]
• Monitoring oil spill from space -- An image made at the start of last week from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite showed the oil reaching the mouth of the Mississippi Delta. [NASA JPL] Satellite altimetry data obtained from the NASA/French Space Agency Jason 1 and Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 satellites are being used to track changes in the warm Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico that could spread the oil slick toward the Florida Strait. [NASA JPL]
• And from high altitude aircraft -- By early last week, a NASA ER-2 aircraft from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center had made eleven flights over the northern Gulf of Mexico during a nearly three-week span, mapping the oil spill using the agency's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument mounted on the aircraft flying at altitudes of up to 65,000 feet. Scientists have then used spectroscopic methods to map and analyze the condition of the oil from the AVIRIS measurements collected by this mission, which was made at the request of NOAA. [NASA JPL]
• New best estimate of oil flow from well made -- The US Geological Survey Director, who is chair of the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG), announced last week that this group had developed a preliminary estimate of the quantity of oil flowing from the BP oil well that was independent of estimates made by BP. Three separate methodologies were used by FRTG.[USGS Newsroom]

• Mussel Watch program conducts baseline sampling -- NOAA’s Mussel Watch program mobilized three teams of scientists to test shellfish, sediment and water at 60 locations along the Gulf of Mexico from the Florida Keys westward to the Brazos River in Texas in an effort to collect additional baseline data on contamination in strategic areas of the Gulf shoreline. [NOAA News]

• Impact of oil spill on marine food webs studied -- Scientists from the California Academy of Sciences, Louisiana State University and Denison University have been collecting shells from oysters, clams and periwinkles along the Gulf Coast to study the impact of the oil spill on marine food webs. [California Academy of Sciences]
• Computer model used for locating and forecasting of underwater oil masses after a spill -- Researchers at the University of Miami have developed a computer model for locating sunken oil masses on the bottoms of bays following an oil spill and then forecasting the changes in the concentration of these oil masses over time. This computational model, developed for the Emergency Response Division of NOAA/NOS/OR&R (NOAA's Ocean Service Office of Response and Restoration), can be used in oil spill planning, response and recovery operations. [EurekAlert!]
• Hurricanes may threaten Gulf pipelines -- Using data collected from underwater sensors during the passage of Hurricane Ivan in 2004, a research team at the US Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center, MS have determined that hurricanes moving across the Gulf of Mexico are capable of developing underwater currents sufficiently powerful to disturb the seabed creating underwater mudslides that could damage oil pipelines and other equipment. [EurekAlert!]

• Spawning habitat of bluefin tuna mapped in the Gulf -- Researchers at the University of California at Davis and Stanford University have developed new maps that show the spawning habitat of bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico. The region critical to spawning intersects the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. [EurekAlert!]

• Investigating how whales changed over time -- UCLA and University of California, Davis evolutionary biologists have used molecular and computational techniques to study the evolution of whales over the last 35 million years. [EurekAlert!]
• Sailor credits satellite technology for his life -- A sailor from Missouri recently recounted the story of his rescue after his 34-foot sailboat was capsized in the waters off eastern Puerto Rico last December. He credits NASA technology along with the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) program managed by NOAA for saving his life. [NASA GSFC]
• North Atlantic algae bloom seen from space -- An image obtained recently from the MODIS sensor on NASA's Terra satellite shows a large swirl of phytoplankton or algae that were blooming in the near surface waters of the North Atlantic southwest of the British Isles and France. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Ways that marine animals survive stress studied -- Researchers from Tufts University and Germany's Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and Konstanz University have been studying how marine wildlife responds to environmental and ecological disasters through the production and secretion of the stress hormone corticosterone. [EurekAlert!]
• Huge carbon dioxide "burp" may have helped end last ice age -- Scientists at the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge and other research institutions report that their radiochemical analysis of a marine sediment core extracted from the Southern Ocean floor indicate a large increase in the carbon dioxide, or "burp" that occurred approximately 18,000 years ago. The carbon dioxide had been sequestered in the deep ocean during the last ice age, but then was released into the atmosphere, helping signal the end of that ice age. [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.

• 31 May 1911...The hull of the ill-fated Titanic was launched in Belfast, Northern Ireland. At the ceremony, a White Star Line employee claimed, "Not even God himself could sink this ship." (Information Please)
• 31 May 1997...The Confederation Bridge, also dubbed the "Fixed Link," was officially opened, linking Canada's Prince Edward Island with mainland New Brunswick. This 8-mile long bridge that crosses the Northumberland Strait is the longest bridge in the world that spans waters that freeze. (Wikipedia)
• 1-17 June 2001...The deadliest and costliest tropical storm in US history, Tropical Storm Allison, wandered westward across the tropical Atlantic and crossed over into the Pacific before reversing direction and moving back into the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. On 1 June the tropical wave, which eventually evolved into TS Allison, moved into the Gulf of Tehuantepec on the Pacific coast of Mexico after moving westward across the tropical Atlantic and the Caribbean from off the west coast of Africa on 21 May. On the 2^nd, a cyclonic (counterclockwise) circulation developed to the south-southeast of Salma Cruz, Mexico, but the low-level circulation became ill-defined as the system moved inland on the 3^rd over southeastern Mexico and western Guatemala. This system intensified again and eventually moved northward to the Texas Gulf Coast and then eastward to the Atlantic before turning into an extratropical storm in mid-June. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 2-4 June 1986...A tropical disturbance brought flooding rains to parts of the Greater Antilles. The flooding caused 59 deaths in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. As many as 240,000 people lost their homes to this disturbance. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 3 June 1979...The world's worst oil spill occurred when an exploratory oil well, Ixtoc 1, blew out, spilling over 140 million gallons of crude oil into the Bay of Campeche off the coast of Mexico. Although it is the largest known oil spill, it had a relatively low environmental impact. The well was finally capped in March 1980. Booms were placed along the Texas coast to protect major inlets from the oil that was carried northward by prevailing surface currents in the Gulf of Mexico. (Information Please) (Wikipedia)
• 4 June 1825...A hurricane struck Long Island, NY leveling trees and causing damage to ships. The early season hurricane, which originated near Cuba, caused major damage along the Atlantic coast from Charleston, SC to New York City. Many were lost at sea. (David Ludlum)
• 4 June 1976...Forty-foot waves from a tropical cyclone smashed Gogha (port), India. Excellent warnings limited the death toll to approximately 70. Dredging of the harbor at Bhavnnagar ceased for several years as storm runoff from the Kansa River washed away accumulated sand and silt. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 6 June 1882...More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay, India were killed as a tropical cyclone that developed over the Arabian Sea pushed huge waves into the harbor. (Wikipedia)

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