WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

6-10 July 2015

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2015 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 24 August 2015. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Items of Interest:

Celebrate Shark Week 2015 -- Sunday, 5 July 2015, marks the start of Shark Week 2015, a week-long series of feature television programs dedicated to sharks that will be run on the Discovery Channel and in over 72 countries for a total of eight days and with 14 new episodes premiering. The week is also promoted on social media networks. Shark Week was first run in July 1987 in an effort to raise public awareness and respect for sharks. [The Discovery Channel]
Way out there!...The earth reaches aphelion, the point in its annual orbit when it is farthest from the sun this afternoon (officially at 20Z on Monday, 6 July 2015, which is equivalent to 4 PM EDT or 3 PM CDT). At aphelion, the earth-sun distance is 152,089,000 km, or 3.4% greater than the distance at perihelion, the smallest earth-sun distance, which occurred earlier this year during the early morning of 4 January 2015. [US Naval Observatory]
Welcome -- to the weather, climate and ocean educators attending the 2015 AMS DataStreme LIT Leader Summer Training Workshop that is being held in Silver Spring, MD from 6 to 8 July 2015.
Extra "leap" second inserted into the year -- By international agreement, one second was added to last Tuesday (30 June 2015) at 23:59:59 UTC to account for the slowing of the Earth's rotation because of tidal forces between Earth and the Moon. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Remembering IGY and the "Year of the Satellite" -- This past week NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) commemorated the 58th anniversary of the start of the International Geophysical Year (IGY). During that year, the first artificial satellites were launched by the former Soviet Union (Sputnik 1 and 2) and the United States (Explorer 1). These satellites represented the start of the study of the Earth-atmosphere system from space. [NOAA NESDIS News Archive]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the Tropics -- Tropical cyclone activity was found across the western sides of the North and South Pacific basins during the last week:

In the western North Pacific basin, Typhoon Chan-Hom formed near the midpoint of last week northeast of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. This typhoon was classified as a category 1 typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. By the weekend, Typhoon Chan-Hom had weakened to a tropical storm as it was traveled in a direction to the north-northwest, passing close to Guam. This tropical storm was expected to ultimately dissipate during this week. See the NASA Hurricane Page for satellite imagery and additional information on Typhoon Chan-Hom.
Late last week,Tropical Depression 10W strengthened to become Tropical Storm Linfa over the Philippine Sea to the east of Luzon Island in the Philippines. This next tropical storm traveled to the west-northwest, reaching Luzon during this past weekend. After crossing northern Luzon, Linfa moved out into the South China Sea and began curving to the north. Forecasts indicate that Linfa should travel toward southern sections of Taiwan by midweek. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite imagery on Tropical Storm Linfa.
Over the past weekend, Tropical Storm Nangka formed to the east-northeast of Kwajalein and intensified into a category 1 typhoon. Travel was to the west-northwest across the Marshall Islands. Current forecasts indicate that this typhoon would travel to the northwest during the early part of this week.
In the western South Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Raquel formed early last week to the north of the Solomon Islands. Taking a somewhat erratic path toward the south, Raquel passed through the Solomon Islands during the latter half of the week. By the start of this past weekend, Raquel had weakened as it moved to the south of the islands and dissipated. Satellite images and information concerning Tropical Storm Raquel appear in the NASA Hurricane Page.

Observed ocean acidification creating risks to Alaskan shellfish hatchery -- Scientists from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and the University of Alaska Fairbanks have been collaborating with a shellfish hatchery in Seward, AK to research the effects of ocean acidification. In their report "On the Frontline: Tracking Ocean Acidification in an Alaskan Shellfish Hatchery," they have shown that projected increases in acidification of Alaskan coastal waters would make the support of state shellfish hatcheries more difficult by 2040 unless costly mitigation efforts are installed to modify seawater used in the hatcheries. [NOAA News]
Applicants sought for membership on Hydrographic Services Review Panel -- NOAA is currently soliciting applications through mid August for membership on the Hydrographic Services Review Panel, a federal advisory committee that advises the NOAA administrator on the agency's hydrographic programs, products, and technology. [NOAA News]
Beach tar from California oil pipeline spill mapped by high-tech airborne equipment -- Following the oil spill along the California coast to the west of Santa Barbara, CA on 19 May 2015, NASA deployed its De Havilland Twin Otter aircraft carrying an airborne instrument called the "Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, Next Generation" (AVIRIS-NG) that was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to study the spill and test the ability of imaging spectroscopy to map tar on area beaches. The work is advancing our nation's ability to respond to future oil spills. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
New under-ice rover undergoes tests -- A remotely operated submersible under-ice vehicle known as the "Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE)" that was developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently underwent its first tests in a large aquatic tank at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. The main body of this vehicle contains instrument sensors, computers and communications equipment. Eventually this buoyant under-ice rover will be used to study the ocean ice cover in the Arctic Ocean and surrounding Antarctica, capable of descending to ocean depths of approximately 700 feet. [NASA Jet Propulsion News]
Coastal erosion threatens northern Alaska habitat and infrastructure -- Scientists with the US Geological Survey (USGS) have recently published a study that finds the remote coast of northern Alaska has been subjected to some of the highest shoreline erosion rates in the world, with some sections of the coast retreating at annual rates exceeding one meter. This finding is based upon the analysis of shoreline data extending back for more than 50 years along the Alaska coast westward from the Alcan border to Icy Cape along the Chukchi Sea in northwest Alaska. The changes to the coast may be due in part to increased sea level associated with human activity and to storms. The retreating shoreline can have major impacts not only upon natural coastal ecosystems, but upon Native Alaskan villages and various energy and defense related infrastructure. [USGS Newsroom]
Greenhouse gas emissions appear to create primary threat to polar bears -- Researchers employing updated US Geological Survey (USGS) research models warn that greenhouse gas emissions especially from human activity appear to remain the primary threat to the preservation of the planet's polar bear populations. This finding is based the results obtained from the numerical simulations using two emission scenarios, with one involving reduced emissions designed to stabilize global temperatures, while the other scenario involves emission and warming rates continuing at the current pace. Reduced sea ice would cause a reduction in polar bear populations. [USGS Newsroom]
Assessing the role of lightning in maintaining the atmosphere's electrical balance -- A scientists at NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory explains how lightning produced in thunderstorms serves to maintain a global electric circuit that features a negatively charged Earth's surface and a positively charged ionosphere. Without lightning, the electrical balance in the Earth and atmosphere would disappear within five minutes. In addition, lightning serves as the largest natural mechanism for nitrogen fixation, which is important for nourishing plant life, and generating nitrogen oxides that are ozone-producing chemicals at altitudes of several miles above the Earth's surface. Currently, lightning is monitored over land by surface lightning detection networks, but the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) that will be on the GOES-R satellite to be launched in 2016 will help track lightning over the oceans. [NOAA NESDIS News Archive]
An All-Hazards Monitor -- This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA's National Weather Service, FAA and FEMA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, fire weather, marine weather, severe weather, drought and floods. [NOAA/NWS Daily Briefing]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Historical Events:

6 July 1484...Portuguese sea captain Diogo Cão located the mouth of the Congo River. (Wikipedia)
6 July 1988...The world's worst offshore accident occurred when 167 oil workers were killed by explosions and fires that destroyed the Piper Alpha drilling platform in the British sector of the North Sea.
7 July 1901...First three-day weather forecast issued for the shipping lanes of the North Atlantic. (Northern Indiana NWSFO)
7 July 1952...The liner SS United States made the fastest-ever eastbound crossing of the Atlantic of 3 days, 17 hours and 48 minutes on her maiden voyage from Nantucket Light Ship off New York's Long Island to Bishop Rock Lighthouse in western England.
8 July 1497...The Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, set sail from Lisbon, Portugal with four ships on the first direct European voyage to India, first rounding Africa's Cape of Good Hope and reaching Calicut on India's southwest coast on 20 May 1498. (Wikipedia)
8 July 1879...The first ship to use electric lights departed from San Francisco, CA.
11 July 1576...The British seaman Martin Frobisher sighted Greenland during one of his attempts to find the Northwest Passage. (Wikipedia)
11 July 1776...The English explorer Captain James Cook began his third and final voyage, exploring the North Pacific, western North America to as far north as the Bering Strait and the Sandwich Islands (later renamed the Hawaiian Islands), where he was killed in February 1779. (Wikipedia)
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)