14-18 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.

• Eye on the tropics-- Although the hurricane season officially started in the North Atlantic basin at the beginning of last week, no organized tropical cyclone activity was detected across the world's ocean basins through the week. An image obtained from data collected by sensors onboard NASA's TRMM (he Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) satellite shows the heavy precipitation that accompanied Tropical Cyclone Phet, which made landfall in Pakistan at the start of last week. NASA Hurricane Page
• More Gulf oil slick news --

• Analysis made of samples drawn from sub-surface -- At the start of last week, the NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco announced that analysis had been made by NOAA and the University of South Florida of water samples collected by the University of South Florida’s R/V Weatherbird II late last month from different depths in the Gulf of Mexico at three stations situated to the northeast and southeast of the BP oil spill source. The analysis showed very low concentrations of sub-surface oil and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) at sampling depths ranging from 50 meters to 1,400 meters. [NOAA News]
• Changes in Gulf fishing area announced -- At the start of last week, NOAA opened an area of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing that they had closed at the end of the previous week. [NOAA News]
• Sunglint reflects the oil slick -- A false-color image obtained from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite shows a sunglint and the oil slick on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast last week. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• "Dead zone" could widen and worsen due to oil spill -- A zoology professor at Michigan State University warns that the current oil spill could exert a direct impact on the "dead zone," an oxygen depleted region in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico by widening the impacted area and making its effects worse by enhancing hypoxia, or oxygen depletion. [Michigan State University]
• Estimating the value of the lost oil from the spill -- A professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware recently launched a website that determines the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in terms of the lost uses of the lost fuel, determined on a daily basis. For example, based upon an estimated spill rate of 19,000 barrels of oil from a day, 38,000 automobiles could have been powered for one year. [University of Delaware]
• Educational material about the oil spill -- Earth Gauge has provided a list of educational research material on a website http://www.earthgauge.net/2010/Gulf-Oil-Spill-Resources that is constantly updated with new material.
  The June theme for Earth Gauge Kids is "Gulf of Mexico." Find fun facts about the Gulf, an experiment to learn about oil spill cleanup, and more.
• Newly-discovered bacteria strain could aid oil spill cleanup -- Researchers from Oregon State University and colleagues at two Chinese universities have found a new strain of bacteria that produce non-toxic "biosurfactants" called "rhamnolipids," which appear to effectively help degrade polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), environmental pollutants found in oil spills. [Oregon State University]

• Funding to support ocean and coastal observation technologies -- Last week NOAA officials announced that a grant from the agency's Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) program was awarded to the Southeastern Universities Research Association, a consortium of more than 60 universities, in order to evaluate the readiness of marine forecasts along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts and to improve those forecasters. The marine forecasts would range from storm surge flooding to seasonal dead zones and would be intended for use by the public, emergency managers and researchers. [NOAA News]
• Agreement extends GRACE mission --Last week, top officials with NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) signed an agreement that would extend the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission through its expected life (approximately 2015). This mission, launched in 2002, monitors minute changes in the Earth's gravity field and has provided data for various studies involving changes in global sea level, polar ice mass, deep ocean currents and continental aquifers. [NASA JPL]
• Fishing rules enforced -- NOAA’s Office of General Counsel for Enforcement and Litigation in the Pacific Islands region recently announced that a Notice of Violation and Assessment was issued to a Spanish company that owns a fishing vessel for 67 counts of fishing inside the US Exclusive Economic Zone in the western and central Pacific Ocean over two years without a required US permit. [NOAA News]
• Impact of fishing on atolls studied -- A team of researchers from Stanford University have been conducting a field experiment on Palmyra Island and Tabuaeran (or Fanning Island), two remote atolls in the equatorial Pacific, in an attempt to study the effects of fishing on the health of these coral reef ecosystems. They are comparing Tabuaeran, an inhabited ecosystem, with Palmyra, which contains a "no-catch" reserve. [Stanford University]
• Grants awarded to benefit nation's marine protected areas -- NOAA and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation recently announced that five grants were awarded to fund stewardship projects and improve coordination efforts within the National System of Marine Protected Areas designed to help protect and conserve these coastal and marine locations. In addition, 29 existing marine protected areas joined the national system, which now consists of more than 250 sites located in 31 states and territories. [NOAA News]
• Acidity changes in Chesapeake Bay impacts oyster shell growth -- Researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science have found that acidity in some sections of Chesapeake Bay have been increasing based upon 23 years of water quality data and that this increased acidity appears to reduced the rates of oyster shell formation. The researchers have found that in some locations, the acidification has increased at rates greater than those found in the open ocean that are associated with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. [EurekAlert!]
• Architects advised on building practices designed to withstand hurricanes -- A professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology's College of Architecture and Design has been advising architects from around the world on how to design and build low-rise buildings to reduce the effect of wind pressure exerted on the buildings by extreme hurricane winds. [EurekAlert!]

• New online map details North American network of marine protected areas -- As part of last week's World Oceans Day celebration, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) unveiled an online North American Environmental Atlas that provides the public, researches and decision makers with information about the marine projected areas in the US, Canada and Mexico. The CEC is an international organization created under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) by Canada, Mexico and the US to address regional environmental concerns: [EurekAlert!]

• Tracking coral larvae may help assess health of Hawaiian reef -- With the start of a coral spawning event during this coming week, researchers from the US Geological Survey, the University of Hawaii and Malama Maunalua will use satellite-tracked drifters to track dispersal of coral larvae along Oahu's south shore in an effort to better understand the health of coral reefs in Maunalua Bay. [EurekAlert!]
• Ecosystem in pristine atoll studied -- Researchers from San Diego State University, the University of California-Santa Barbara, the University of Hawaii, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been conducting a series of surveys of the ecosystem and the physical characteristics of the Millennium atoll, a relatively pristine coral reef ecosystem in the Republic of Kiribati, which is a member of the Southern Line Islands chain. [EurekAlert!]

• Crocodiles use ocean currents for long-distance travel -- By tracking the movement of tagged adult estuarine crocodiles over one year, ecologists from Australia's University of Queensland, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the Australia Zoo have concluded that despite being poor swimmers, these crocodiles ride ocean currents, thereby permitting them to cross wide expanses of the South Pacific. [EurekAlert!]

• A cool Pacific Ocean could have resulted in suffering in North America and Medieval Europe -- A climate scientist at University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science reports that the reconstructed sea surface temperatures from 1320 to 1462 made by him and his colleagues from fossil coral cores from the Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean indicates a cool central Pacific. He claims that these cool waters, associated with La Niña conditions would have been responsible for drought conditions in North America and Europe would have been responsible for famines, as well as the disappearance of the cliff dwellers in what is now the US Southwest. [Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science]
• 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.

Historical Events:

• 14 June 1834...The first US patent for a practical underwater diving suit was issued to Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, ME. One month earlier, he tested his suit, an airtight leather outfit with a brass helmet connected via a rubber hose to an air bellows pump on a boat, in the Webb River. (Today in Science History)
• 15 June 1744...British Admiral George Anson returned to England after circumnavigating the globe in an expedition that lasted nearly four years.
• 15 June 1990...The first use of bioremediation in open waters was to treat an oil slick from the supertanker Mega Borg following an explosion and fire on 8 June 1990 approximately 70 miles south-southeast of Galveston, TX. The 3-day bioremediation tests were conducted using oil-metabolizing bacteria and nutrients. The results of the tests were inconclusive. (Today in Science History)
• Month of June...According to a 1969 US Army technical report, the average dewpoint temperature at Ras Andahglie and Assab, Eritrea (Ethiopia) average slightly more than 84 ºF. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 16 June 1903...The famous Norwegian explorer, Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, began the first east-west navigation of the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by leaving Oslo, Norway on the ship Gjøa. Amundsen and six others spent two winters exploring over land and ice from the place currently called Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Canada. (Wikipedia)
• 17 June 1579...During his "Famous Voyage," Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, claimed San Francisco Bay for England, calling the region along the northern California coast "Nova Albion" (meaning, New England). (Wikipedia)
• 16-18 June 1972...The greatest three-day rainfall in Hong Kong since 1889 produced 25.68 inches and resulted in disastrous landslides and building collapses. More than 100 people died, while thousands were made homeless. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 18 June 1903...Alaska's first coastal lighthouse, Scotch Cap Lighthouse, was lit. This light, which was also the first major lighthouse built by the U.S. outside the 48 coterminous states, was located near the west end of Unimak Island on the Pacific side of Unimak Pass, the main passage through the Aleutian Islands into the Bering Sea. This light in an octagonal wooden tower was replaced by a concrete lighthouse in 1940, which was destroyed by a tsunami in 1946, with the loss of the five crewmen stationed there. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 18 June 1875...A severe coastal storm (or possible hurricane) struck the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. Eastport, ME reported wind gusts to 57 mph. (David Ludlum)
• 19 June 240 BC...On the summer solstice, Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth using two sticks.
• 19-26 June 1972...Hurricane Agnes (a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale) moved onshore along the Florida Panhandle near Cape San Blas and Apalachicola with wind gusts to 80 mph, and eventually exited Maine on the 26^th. This hurricane moved northeast and joined with an upper level disturbance, producing from 10 to 20 inches of rain along its path along the Eastern Seaboard. In the Middle Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania, 24 hour rainfall amounts were generally 8 to 12 inches, with up to 19 inches in extreme southwestern Schuylkill County. At Wilkes-Barre, PA the dike was breached destroying much of the town. Agnes was responsible for 125 deaths, mainly due to flooding from North Carolina to New York State, and total damage was estimated at more than $3 billion. Torrential rains from Hurricane Agnes resulted in one of the greatest natural disasters in U.S. history. Agnes caused more damage than all other tropical cyclones in the previous six years combined (which included Celia and Camille). (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
• 20 June 1597...Willem Barents, the Dutch explorer who tried to search for the Northeast Passage, died in the Arctic off the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya when his ship became trapped in ice. (Wikipedia)
• 20 June 1819...The 320-ton paddle-wheel SS Savannah arrived in Liverpool, England to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, having left the port of Savannah, GA on 22 May. (InfoPlease Daily Almanac)
• 20 June 1940...The first successful west to east navigation of the Northwest Passage began at Vancouver, BC. (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.