WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

5-9 May 2014

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2014 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 25 August 2014. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Item of Interest:

National Ocean Service invites the public to visit coastal and marine places -- The assistant administrator for NOAA's National Ocean Service, Dr. Holly A. Bamford, has invited the public to visit the variety of coastal and marine places around the nation that her agency helps protect during the upcoming week (3-11 May 2014), which is National Travel and Tourism Week. The online campaign sponsored by the National Ocean Service is entitled "Come Visit Us." The National Ocean Service works to conserve marine areas through coastal management and place-based conservation programs such as the 28-unit National Estuarine Research Reserve System, 13 National Marine Sanctuaries, and the Coral Reef Conservation Program. [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
May is National Wetlands Month -- The US Environmental Protection Agency, along with other federal agencies and environmental groups, has designated May as American Wetlands Month in an effort to increase public awareness of the importance of protecting and preserving the nation's wetlands. This year's observance is the 23rd annual National Wetlands Month. [EPA-Wetlands]
Land of the Midnight Sun -- Barring clouds, the sun should rise at Barrow, AK early this Saturday morning (3:00 AM AKDT on 10 May 2014) after spending one hour and 14 minutes below the horizon. The sun should then remain above the local horizon for the next 12 weeks, before going below the horizon for 62 minutes on 2 August 2014 (at 2:03 AM AKDT). [US Naval Observatory]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- During the last week tropical cyclone activity was limited to the western North Pacific basin, where Typhoon Tapah formed from a tropical depression several hundred miles to the southeast of Guam at the start of the week. Traveling northward, Tapah intensified into the basin's second category 1 typhoon (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) of 2014 by midweek. Tapah eventually weakened to a tropical depression several hundred miles to the southeast of Iwo To as it curved to take a track toward the north-northwest by late last week. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information on Typhoon Tapah along with satellite images.
Reports provide an indication of economic role of the nation's improving fisheries -- During the last week, officials with NOAA Fisheries released two reports that show strong economic gains from fishing along with the improvement in fish stocks. One of the reports was entitled the "Fisheries Economics of the United States 2012" and revealed that the nation's commercial and recreational saltwater fishing generated more than $199 billion in sales in 2012, which represented a gain of seven percent over the previous year. Furthermore, the economic impact of fishing jobs increasing three percent from 2011 to 2012. The other report was the "Status of US Fisheries, 2013" that indicated two more fish stocks were rebuilt to target levels in 2013, bringing the number of rebuilt US marine fish stocks to 34 since 2000. [NOAA News]
New fisheries survey ship is commissioned -- NOAA commissioned a new fisheries survey vessel at the end of last week in a ceremony in San Diego, CA. This 208-foot state-of-the-art ship, named NOAA Ship Reuben Lasker, will be used to conduct fish, marine mammal and turtle surveys off the West Coast of the United States and in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. [NOAA News]
Hydrographic survey season for 2014 sets sail -- The fleet of ships operated by NOAA have received their sailing orders and are currently sailing to their assigned areas to survey more than 2000 square nautical miles in U.S. coastal waters this year. Their mission is to collect data that will strengthen the nation's coastal environmental intelligence. The NOAA Office of Coast Survey will manage and conduct these surveys. [NOAA News]
Ocean acidity found to be dissolving marine snail shells off US West Coast -- A team of researchers from NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Oregon State University recently reported that direct evidence shows increased acidification of the continental self waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean off the US West Coast has been responsible for the dissolving the shells of pteropods, or tiny free-swimming marine snails that provide food for pink salmon, mackerel and herring. The researchers based their findings on pteropod samples collected during recent survey cruises. They estimate that the percentage of pteropods in this region with dissolving shells due to ocean acidification has doubled in the near-shore habitat since the pre-industrial era. [NOAA News]
An El Niño event could be developing across Pacific -- The slow eastward movement of a pool of warm water across the equatorial Pacific Ocean beginning in early 2014 and continuing through April appears to indicate that an El Niño event could be developing by the second half of 2014. Therefore, forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center have issued an El Niño watch that indicates atmospheric and oceanic conditions across the tropical Pacific appear favorable for an El Niño event in the next six months [NOAA Climate.gov News]
NOAA's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index increases in 2013 -- Scientists at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory recently reported that the NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) increased by 1.5 percent between 2012 and 2013 to a value of 1.34. The AGGI is a dimensionless index, based on measurements of the concentrations of various greenhouse gases from the agency's global air sampling network. The AGGI determines the direct climate influence of many long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that are added to the atmosphere by human activity, measured as a percentage of the base or "index" year of 1990. Consequently, the 2013 AGGI value of 1.34 means the combined heating effect of long-lasting/human-caused emissions with that of existing gases trapped in the atmosphere has increased by 34 percent since 1990. [NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research News]
The NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite becomes nation's primary polar-orbiting weather satellite -- NOAA officials recently reported that the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP (National Polar-orbiting Partnership) satellite has now become the primary operational polar-orbiting spacecraft for NOAA's operational weather forecasting mission, replacing the NOAA-19 satellite that had been the primary satellite. The NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite, which was named for Verner Suomi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was launched in October 2011 and has five onboard instruments that have gained operational status: Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) and Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES). [NOAA NESDIS News]
New carbon-monitoring satellite reaches launch pad -- The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, a new NASA spacecraft designed to make precise measurements of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, arrived at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base last week to begin final preparations for a launch on 1 July 2014. This observatory is NASA's first satellite mission dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, a critical component of Earth's carbon cycle, the leading human-produced greenhouse gas driving changes in Earth's climate. In addition to measuring carbon dioxide, OCO-2 will monitor solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, or the "glow" of the chlorophyll contained within green plants. [NASA Global Climate Change News]
US and France agree to "Surface Water and Ocean Topography" mission -- Late last week, the NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) President Jean-Yves Le Gall signed an agreement that will implement the joint development and launch of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, which will represent the first global survey of Earth's surface water and the topography of ocean height. The spacecraft to be used in the SWOT mission is scheduled to be launched in 2020 and will employ wide swath altimetry technology to produce high-resolution elevation measurements of the surface of lakes, reservoirs and wetlands and of the ocean surface. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
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]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

5 May 1990...A strong Pacific cold front moving rapidly inland caused weather conditions at the east end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington State to quickly change from sunny and calm to westerly winds of 60 mph and ten-foot waves. Three recreational fishing boats capsized in heavy seas off Port Angeles resulting in five deaths. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
6 May 1994...The rail tunnel under the English Channel, or "Chunnel," that connects Folkestone, England, with Sangatte, France was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President Mitterrand. (The History Channel)
8 May 1961...The first practical seawater conversion plant in the U.S. was opened in Freeport, TX by the Office of Saline Water, U.S. Dept. of the Interior. The plant was designed to produce about a million gallons of water a day at a cost of about $1.25 per thousand gallons. (Today in Science History)
8 May 1992...The source of a "red tide" in the Gulf of Mexico was suggested by scientists at a conference on the ecology of the Gulf. The red tide produced huge blooms of reddish algae in sufficient quantity to kill fish and cause severe respiratory problems for humans. A "green river" that started 60 miles inland of Florida was indicated as the source of the algae. The wind and water currents that bring nutrients from the floor of the ocean to the surface provided the food that caused the algae population to explode once it reached the Gulf. (Today in Science History)
9 May 1502...The explorer Christopher Columbus left Spain for his fourth and final journey to the "New World". (Wikipedia)
9 May 1926...The Baden-Baden, a ship propelled by two 50-ft high cylindrical rotors arrived in New York having left Hamburg on 2 April 1926, and completed a transatlantic crossing from Germany. Utilizing the aerodynamic power of the Magnus Effect (discovered in 1852), which builds air pressure behind a rotating cylinder, these rotors drove 45-hp electric motors that powered the ship. Although a theoretical success, it was not sufficiently effective for commercial application. (Today in Science)
9 May 1980...A blinding squall, followed by dense fog, reduced visibility to near zero at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida. The Liberian freighter SS Summit Venture hit the bridge piling, causing a 1200-foot section of the bridge to fall 150 feet into the bay. Several vehicles, including a bus, drove off the edge of the span, resulting in 35 deaths. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (Wikipedia).
9 May 1990...A tropical cyclone hit the southeast coast of India, killing 1000 people, even though 400,000 people evacuated because of early warning of the storm. More than 100 miles of coast were devastated as winds reached 125 mph and a storm surge measured at 22 feet flooded inland as far as 22 miles. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
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.