7-11 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.

• World Ocean Day to be celebrated -- World Ocean Day or a "Celebration of the Sea" will be celebrated Tuesday, 8 June 2010 in an effort to increase public awareness and to foster public involvement in the management of the ocean and its resources. Although this date was created at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, it had not been officially recognized by the United Nations until 2009. This year's theme is "Our oceans: opportunities and challenges" and focuses on the great diversity of life in the oceans and how the citizens of the world can help in its conservation. A partial listing is provided for events across the US and other nations that will celebrate World Ocean Day. [The Ocean Project]
• "Break the Grip of the Rip®" -- NOAA, the United States Lifesaving Association and the National Park Service have designated this upcoming week of 6-12 June 2010 as national Rip Current Awareness Week. Using the theme, Break the Grip of the Rip®, efforts are meant to heighten public awareness of rip currents at surf beaches that claim the lives of as many as 100 people in the United States annually. [NOAA News] [NWS Rip Current Safety]
• World Environment Day -- Last Saturday, 5 June 2010, was declared World Environment Day by the United Nations in an effort to stimulate worldwide awareness of the environment and to enhance political attention and action. This observance was established initially by the UN General Assembly in June 1972 to mark the opening of the UN's Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Various activities were planned. This year's theme for World Environment Day is "Many Species. One Planet. One Future." [World Environment Day]
• Summer of Innovation program to be kicked off -- This coming Thursday 10 June, NASA will kick off its Summer of Innovation initiative in an effort to engage middle-school students and teachers in stimulating math- and science-based education programs. While the program will officially launched at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA with approximately 250 invited students and teachers from southern California, thousands more will be able to participate on a live NASA Television program. [NASA JPL]

• Eye on the tropics --- During the last week several tropical cyclones were reported across the tropical oceans:
• In the North Indian Ocean basin, Tropical Cyclone Phet developed at the start of last week over the waters of the Arabian Sea and traveled to the northwest toward Oman. As this tropical cyclone approached the coast, it had intensified to become a category 4 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, with maximum sustained winds of at least 145 mph, as of midweek. After making landfall along the coast of Oman, it turned and moved next to the northeast across the Gulf of Oman toward Pakistan, before turning toward the east. As of late Sunday (local time), Tropical Cyclone Phet had weakened to a tropical storm. As many as 16 people were killed in Oman because of Tropical Cyclone Phet, reported to have been one of the most intense tropical cyclones on record in this region. [USA Today] The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite images about Tropical Cyclone Phet.
• In the eastern North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Agatha the first named tropical cyclone of the 2010 season in this basin, made landfall along the coast of Guatemala on the previous weekend. Remnants of this storm moved eastward across central America and out over the western Caribbean at the start of last week, bringing torrential rain producing mudslides and flash floods that resulted in over 180 fatalities in Guatemala and El Salvador. An increase in respiratory and digestive illnesses were also noted in Guatemala, the result of increased humidity and pollution levels due to Agatha. [USA Today] Additional information on Tropical Storm Agatha, along with satellite images, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
• In the South Indian Ocean, a short-lived subtropical cyclone, identified as Subtropical Storm Joel, developed at the end of the previous week southeast of Madagascar. After 24 hours, this storm weakened and dissipated. Additional information and a satellite image on Joel are available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Monitoring sea surface temperatures over hurricane breeding areas -- An image of the sea surface temperatures of the tropical North Atlantic and the tropical eastern North Pacific made from data collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite shows waters that were sufficiently warm to promote hurricane formation, especially from the west coast of Africa to Central America, the region where Atlantic hurricanes typically develop. [NASA Earth Observatory]

• Movie made of 2009 hurricane season -- The Laboratory for Atmospheres at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center created and placed on the NASA Hurricane Page a six-minute video of the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season from a sequence of satellite images obtained from the fleet of NASA and NOAA satellites. [NASA GSFC/NOAA]

• Cooperative institute established to study hurricanes, coastal environment and climate change -- NOAA has chosen a consortium of more than nine research universities and NOAA led by the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science to continue its partnership in the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), which has as its mission the study of climate change, hurricanes, marine ecosystems and the coastal environment long the coast of the Southeastern States. [NOAA News]
• Teacher selected to participate in NOAA's "Teacher at Sea" program -- Richard Chewning, the environmental education program coordinator at University of Georgia’s Jekyll Island 4-H Center in Jekyll Island, GA has been selected to sail onboard the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson off the coast of Alaska as part of the Teacher at Sea program designed to bridge science and education. [NOAA News]
• Report issued on marine contamination levels around a Caribbean island -- A team of scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science recently completed a study titled An Ecological Characterization of the Marine Resources of Vieques, Puerto Rico that concludes the contamination levels and ultimately the health of the marine environment in the Vieques National Wildlife Refuge and the local Caribbean waters surrounding Puerto Rico's island municipality of Vieques is similar to that of the rest of the region including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The region in question had been used for military training exercises from 1941 to 2003. [NOAA News]

• Gulf oil spill updates --Oil continued to spew from the Deepwater Horizon BP well into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast:

• Changes made on the fishing closed area in the Gulf -- During the first half of the week, NOAA expanded several of the boundaries of the closed fishing area in the Gulf as the portions of the oil slick spread southward toward the region just to the west of the Dry Tortugas, located approximately 70 miles west of Key West, FL. At the same time, a western section of the closed area was reopened. [NOAA News] However, by the end of the week, the region around the Dry Tortugas and the Florida Keys was reopened because the oil had not reached this region as earlier predicted. [NOAA News]
• More satellite imagery of the oil spill -- Images made the previous week from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite showed the oil spreading along the coast of Louisiana's coast. [NASA JPL]

• Forecasts indicate oil could reach the nation's Atlantic coast later this summer -- Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and their colleagues at other research institutions developed a set of animations showing the trajectory of the oil using various model simulations extending out 130 days based on the Parallel Ocean Program, which is the ocean component of the Community Climate System Model. One of the animations showed the massive oil spill in the Gulf being carried by near surface currents through the Florida Strait and northward along the Atlantic Coast of the US by the Gulf Stream 130 days into the future. [UCAR/NCAR]

• Another forecast model predicts an active North Atlantic hurricane season -- Early last week, scientists at Florida State University's Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies announced that they were calling for an active 2010 North Atlantic hurricane season with 17 named tropical cyclones (tropical storms and hurricanes), including 10 hurricanes based upon the guidance supplied by their unique numerical forecast model. Their forecast compares with the long-term average of 11 named tropical cyclones and six hurricanes, as well as being consistent with the potentially active season foreseen by NOAA scientists and the hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University. [Florida State University News]
• Sediment cores indicate arctic ice at historically low point -- Researchers from Ohio State University and colleagues at other research institutions in the US, Canada, Denmark and the United Kingdom have determined from the sediment cores retrieved from the Arctic Ocean floor that the current Arctic ice cover is the smallest in several millennium. [Ohio State University News]
• Baltic Sea is more salty due to warmer climate -- Based upon their analysis of 500 years of climatic data, researchers from Sweden's University of Gothenburg claim that the warming climate appears to be responsible for reduced river runoff into the Baltic Sea, thereby increasing the salinity in this brackish sea. However, these researchers suggest that major regional differences may occur. [EurekAlert!]
• Transplanting coral is a solution for reef restoration -- A researcher from the University of Rhode Island claims that the restoration efforts that he and a team of colleagues, students and residents made on a dead reef in the British Virgin Islands by the "transplantation" of live coral pieces onto the reef could be a simple and cheap solution to reef restoration. [EurekAlert!]

• Using marine fossils to study land and sea level changes in Florida -- A geologist at the University of Florida claims that marine fossils found in the north-south running ridges that help form the Florida Peninsula together with the results from his computer model would indicate that rises in land level had been greater than changes in sea level in the past. He calculates that Florida's land surface is rising at an annual rate of one-twentieth of a millimeter, much less than the estimated annual sea level rise of approximately 3 millimeters. [University of Florida News]

• Mountains moved by flow in Earth's mantle -- Scientists at the University of Southern California and Italy's University of Rome theorize that small-scale convection in the Earth's mantle can help shape "mobile belts" containing crustal fragments floating between continental plates, which would result in upward motion of the semi-liquid mantle and the development of mountains and volcanoes. [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.

• 7 June 1914...The first vessel, the Alliance, passed through the Panama Canal. The 51-mile long canal, which links the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans across the isthmus of Panama, was officially opened on 15 August 1914. (Today in Science History) (Wikipedia)
• 7 June 1924...The Oil Pollution Act was passed. It was enforced by the Coast Guard.
  Protection of halibut in the North Pacific Ocean was placed under Bureau of Fisheries (Coast Guard- enforced since 1926). (USCG Historian's Office)
• 7 June 1972...Richmond, VA experienced its worst flood of record as rains from Hurricane Agnes pushed the water level at the city locks to a height of 36.5 feet, easily topping the previous record of thirty feet set in 1771. (The Weather Channel)
• 7-10 June 2001...Tropical Storm Allison made landfall along the Texas Gulf Coast near Galveston early on the 6^th and drifted northward before becoming stationary as a depression later in the day near Lufkin. Later, it began to drift back southward, moving offshore over the Gulf late on the 9^th at nearly the same place as it had made landfall. Allison caused disastrous flooding across the Upper Texas Gulf Coast, especially in the Houston area where a storm total of 36.99 inches fell at Port Houston. Twenty-three people lost their lives in Texas. Damage in the region amounted to $5 billion, which included 45,000 homes, 70,000 vehicles and 2000 businesses. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 8 June 1937...Observation of the total eclipse of the sun was made by a U.S. Navy detachment commanded by Captain J. F. Hellweg, USN, which was participating in the National Geographic Society - United States Navy Eclipse Expedition at Canton Island in the Phoenix Islands, Pacific Ocean. USS Avocet was assigned to this expedition. (Naval Historical Center)
• 8-9 June 1990...The Norwegian tanker Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston, TX, the result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room. Two crewmembers were killed. Coast Guard units fought the resulting fires and recovered spilled oil. (Information Please) (USCG Historian's Office)
• 8 June 1992...The first World Ocean Day was celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Wikipedia)
• 8 June 1937...Observation of the total eclipse of the sun was made by a U.S. Navy detachment commanded by Captain J. F. Hellweg, USN, which was participating in the National Geographic Society - United States Navy Eclipse Expedition at Canton Island in the Phoenix Islands, Pacific Ocean. USS Avocet was assigned to this expedition. (Naval Historical Center)
• 8-9 June 1990...The Norwegian tanker Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston, TX, the result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room. Two crewmembers were killed. Coast Guard units fought the resulting fires and recovered spilled oil. (Information Please) (USCG Historian's Office)
• 8 June 1992...The first World Ocean Day was celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Wikipedia)
• 9 June 1534...The French navigator Jacques Cartier became the first European explorer to discover the river that he named the St. Lawrence in present-day Quebec, Canada. (The History Channel)
• 9 June 1966...Hurricane Alma made landfall over the eastern Florida Panhandle near Alligator Point during the evening-- the earliest land-falling hurricane on the U.S. mainland on record. Peak sustained winds were near 90 mph. Highest winds reached 125 mph and lowest pressure 970.2 millibars (28.65 inches) were reported at the Dry Tortugas on the 8th. (Intellicast) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 9 June 1990...San Diego, CA set a new record rainfall amount on this date, as 0.38 inches of rain fell breaking the old record of 0.13 inches established in 1892. Moisture from the remains of Hurricane Boris was responsible for this rare rain event. (Intellicast)
• 10 June 1909...The International Distress Call (SOS distress signal) was used for the first time in an emergency. The Cunard liner SS Slavonia used the signal when it wrecked off the Azores. Two steamers received her signals and went to the rescue.
• 11 June 1644...The Florentine scientist, Evangelista Torricelli described in a letter the invention of a barometer, or "torricellian tube." (Today in Science History)
• 11 June 1764...The Sandy Hook Lighthouse, at the south point of the entrance to New York Harbor, was first lighted. Today, its octagonal tower, built by Mr. Isaac Conro of New York City with money collected by a group of New York merchants, is the oldest original light tower still standing and in use in the United States. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 11 June 1770...The British explorer Captain James Cook discovered the Great Barrier Reef off Australia when he ran aground. (Information Please)
• 11 June 1847...The English naval officer and an Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin died in Canada while attempting to locate the Northwest Passage.
• 12 June 1925...Lake Huron Lightship radio fog signal was placed in commission, the first signal of this kind on the Great Lakes. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 12 June 1991...On the same day that Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines awakened from its 635-year slumber, Typhoon Yunya crossed Luzon province. Mudslides and flooding caused many deaths and when added to the impacts of Pinatubo left more than a million homeless. (The Weather Doctor)
• 13 June 1415...Henry the Navigator, the prince of Portugal, embarked on an expedition to Africa.
• 13 June 1881...The steamer USS Jeannette was crushed in Arctic ice pack north of Siberia as the 1879-1881 Jeannette Arctic Exploring Expedition under the command of Lieutenant Commander George Washington DeLong, USN, attempted to reach the North Pole by ship. (Naval Historical Center)
• 13 June 1977...A tropical cyclone crossed the Arabian Sea from near the Laccadive Islands off southwest India and slammed into the island of Masirah, sultanate of Oman. Winds reached at least 104 mph and the 24-hour rainfall total was 16.95 inches. About 99% of buildings were damaged. (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, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.