WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

12-16 July 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.

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the Tropics -- Although temperatures continue to increase across the Northern Hemisphere following the summer solstice two weeks previously, the weather across the tropical ocean basins remained uncharacteristically quiet last week.
  In the North Atlantic Basin, a tropical depression, identified as Tropical Depression 2, formed over the waters of the western Gulf of Mexico late last week. At the start of the weekend, TD-2 had made landfall along the northeast coast of Mexico, bringing heavy rain to the lower Rio Grande Valley and south Texas. For more information and satellite images of TD-2, consult the NASA Hurricane Page.
  The lingering effects of former Hurricane Alex, the first hurricane of 2010 in the North Atlantic basin, continued into the start of last week. Rain associated with this system continued through the 4th of July weekend across northern Mexico and the Southwestern US. In addition, Hurricane Alex disrupted the oil spill cleanup efforts in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional recent information and satellite images on the former Hurricane Alex.
  In the western North Pacific, the third tropical storm of 2010 formed early Sunday (local time) over the waters east of the Philippines and named Tropical Storm Conson. Movement of Tropical Storm Conson was to the west.
• A new look inside a hurricane-- NASA scientists from Goddard Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Dryden Flight Research Center and other laboratories will be conducting a major field campaign called GRIP (Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes) this summer that will provide an unprecedented look at the formation of tropical cyclones that can rapidly develop into hurricanes. Satellites, such as the Aqua, Terra and TRMM, aircraft and NASA's unmanned Global Hawk drone will be used in the campaign. [NASA's Earth Science News Team] [NASA JPL]
• Gulf oil spill updates --During the last week, more oil spewed from the Deepwater Horizon BP well into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast:
• Protecting the wild dolphins in the Gulf -- In response to calls from concerned citizens, officials with NOAA's Fisheries Service and the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. have issued a set of eight guidelines that the public should follow for helping the coastal populations of bottlenose dolphins who are in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico affected by the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill event. [NOAA News]
• Closed fishing area expanded in the Gulf-- At the start of last week, NOAA expanded the area of the Gulf of Mexico that is to remain closed to fishing because of the spreading oil spill. As of that time, approximately 33.5 percent of Gulf of Mexico federal waters were declared closed. [NOAA News]
• Current oil threat to Florida "clarified"-- NOAA oceanographers at the beginning of last week claimed that based on the output statistics from a recent run of NOAA's long-term projection model, the risk was low for weathered oil and tar balls from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill coming to the Florida Peninsula and the Florida Keys. This projection was based on last weekend's ocean and wind conditions. This NOAA model considers conditions that are typical for this season to evaluate long-term likelihood of threats to different shorelines. [NOAA News]
• Online game launched to encourage turtle conservation --During the last week, NOAA's National Ocean Service and Fisheries Service launched an online education game called "Sea Turtles and the Quest to Nest", which is the second in the NOAA's WaterLife series. This new web-based game is designed to encourage the conservation of loggerhead sea turtles through a series of games and animations that are aimed for fourth through seventh-grade students. [NOAA News]
• More teachers head to sea as part of the "Teacher at Sea" program -- Two teachers who had been selected as part of the 2010 NOAA "Teacher at Sea" Program departed on a research cruise aboard the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson in the Gulf of Alaska in late June. These teachers will participate alongside scientists in collecting data and gaining experience that they can use in their classrooms. The teachers include: Michele Brustolon, an eighth grade science teacher at Woodbury Middle School in Salem, MA [NOAA News] and Rebecca Kimport, a high school science teacher at Capital City Public Charter School in Washington, DC. [NOAA News]
• US and Indonesia partner on deep-sea expedition-- The first deep-sea expedition run jointly by the United States and the Republic of Indonesia began recently in a multi-year effort to explore the Coral Triangle, one of the deep-sea areas surrounding Indonesia. In addition data collection, this INDEX SATAL-2010 expedition is designed to the advance ocean science, technology and education [NOAA News]
• Response made to Inspector General's report --Late last week, NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco issued a statement in response to the report made by the US Commerce Department's Inspector General on the agency's Asset Forfeiture Fund. In her response, she promised that additional oversight of the fund would be established, so as to help maintain the nation's coastal and marine resources. [NOAA News]
• The Cooperative Institute for Satellite Meteorological Studies remains at Wisconsin --NOAA officials recently announced that the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison would continue to conduct studies using NOAA satellites to improve climate and severe weather forecasts. NOAA and CIMSS scientists are currently working on the future Joint Polar Satellite System, (JPSS) and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, or GOES-R series. [NOAA News] (Editor's note: The current CIMSS Director, Dr. Steve Ackerman is a valued friend of the AMS Education Program, helping develop some of the applets for the weather, ocean and climate courses. EJH)
• Lake Superior is warming toward record levels -- Based upon recent data collected from NOAA's buoys on Lake Superior, researchers at the Large Lakes Observatory of the University of Minnesota-Duluth have noted an increase in the lake temperature and they predict that the surface waters will reach record temperatures before the end of this summer. They attribute the warming of the lake to several factors including last winter's low ice coverage that led to an early spring "turnover," which would affect the mixing of the lake. [Minnesota Sea Grant News]
• Space agency's oceanographic field campaign reaches the Arctic--NASA's five-week ICESCAPE mission to the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska is underway, with the objective of studying the physics, chemistry and biology of the ocean and sea ice in the Arctic, a region that is sensitive to changes in climate. A variety of instruments and instrument platforms are being used to attain these goals. [NASA's Earth Science News Team]
• North Pacific seen to have played major role in past climate change --A team of scientists from Japan, Hawaii and Belgium recently reported that their research using radiocarbon dated sediment cores and a computer simulation indicates large changes in the ocean current pattern in the North Pacific Ocean may have had wide reaching effects on the global climate as the last Ice Age was beginning to end 17,500 to 15,000 years ago years ago. [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.

Historical Events:

• 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)
• 15-16 July 1916...A dying South Atlantic Coast storm produced torrential rains in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Altapass, NC was drenched with 22.22 inches of rain, a 24-hour rainfall record for the Tarheel State, and at the time, a 24-hour record for the U.S. (The current 24-hour rainfall record for the US is 43 inches set 25-25 July 1979 at Alvin, TX). Flooding resulted in considerable damage, particularly to railroads. (David Ludlum) (Intellicast) (NCDC)
• 17 July 1858...The U.S. sloop Niagara departed Queenstown, Ireland to assist in laying the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. (Naval Historical Center)
• 17 July 1994...The Polar Sea departed from Victoria, BC on operation Arctic Ocean Section 1994 and became the first U.S. surface vessel to reach the North Pole. She then transited the Arctic Ocean back to her homeport in Seattle, WA. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 17 July 1998...A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroyed 10 villages in Papua, New Guinea killing an estimated 1500 people, leaving 2000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless. (Wikipedia)
• 18 July 1986...Videotapes, taken by the deep-sea Alvin submersible, showing SS Titanic's remains were released. Looking like huge stalagmites, rusticles ("rust icicles") are a byproduct of the bacteria slowly converting the iron in the hull. The colony of iron-eating bacteria flourishes in the anaerobic (without oxygen) environment inside the hollow multi-layered rusticles while on the outside, porous layers support oxygen-dependent bacteria. In this eerie way, there is still life on the Titanic as the ship lies deep on the ocean floor. (Today in Science History)
• 18-19 July 1979...A 30-foot high tsunami wave leveled four Indonesian villages on the Sunda Islands during the night. The wave swept 1500 feet inland, causing 589 deaths among the sleeping villagers. A landslide from Mount Werung (Lomblen Island) caused the tsunami. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
• 18-22 July 1997...Hurricane Danny, the only hurricane that made landfall in the continental US in 1997, moved inland into coastal Alabama at a snails pace. Radar storm total estimates of 43 inches over Mobile Bay. A torrential 32.52 inches of rain fell on 19-20 July at Dauphin Island Sea Lab, establishing a 24-hour maximum precipitation record for Alabama. (NCDC) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)

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