WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

16-20 May 2016

DataStreme Earth Climate System will return for Fall 2016 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 22 August 2016. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Items of Interest:

• Hurricane season starts in the eastern North Pacific -- The 2016 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific Ocean basin began this Sunday, 15 May 2016. The hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin, including the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico will begin in two weeks on 1 June. The official hurricane seasons in both basins end on 30 November 2016. NOAA has declared this week of 15-21 May 2016 to be Hurricane Awareness Week across the nation.
• Hurricane preparedness activities planned for this week --
• NOAA has declared this week of 15-21 May 2016 to be Hurricane Awareness Week across the nation. Seven states will also be observing their Hurricane Awareness Weeks during this week, including Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. Several states will observe the following week (New York and Virginia), while five New England States (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island) will wait until late July.
• A free 45-minute National Hurricane Center webinar on hurricanes for students in grades 4 through 6 will be held on Tuesday 17 May at 11 AM EDT in conjunction with the Galveston, TX stop on the 2016 Hurricane Awareness Tour. The webinar will be presented by the Hurricanes: Science and Society team at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography in partnership with the NOAA National Hurricane Center and the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center. Registration is required.
• NOAA hurricane experts will embark on a five-day, five-city tour along the Gulf Coast of the United States in an US Air Force Reserve WC-130J hurricane hunter aircraft and the NOAA G-IV aircraft to raise public hurricane awareness. The schedule, which runs from Monday 16 May through Friday 20 May, includes stops in San Antonio and Galveston in Texas, New Orleans in Louisiana, Mobile in Alabama and Naples in Florida. [NOAA Weather-Ready Nation]
  The 2016 Pacific Hurricane Awareness Tour will also commence this week in Hawaii, with stops in Oahu County (19 May) and Kauai County (26 May).
• For those unable to attend the awareness tour, go to the #HurricaneStrong! link
• North American Safe Boating Week -- On this upcoming Saturday (21 May), the 2016 National Safe Boating Week will start and run through Friday, 27 May. This week helps launch the 2016 North American Safe Boating Campaign. Check the Safe Boating Week site maintained by the Safe Boating Council. In addition, Friday 20 May is "Wear Your Life Jacket to Work Day."
• National Maritime Day will be observed -- Next Sunday, 22 May 2016, has been declared National Maritime Day, a day created to recognize the maritime industry. The holiday was created by the United States Congress on 20 May 1933. The date of 22 May was selected because on 22 May 1819, that the American steamship Savannah set sail from Savannah, GA on the first ever transoceanic voyage under steam power.
  The annual European Maritime Day 2016 will be observed as part of the annual meeting of Europe's maritime community in Turku, Finland on 18 and 19 May 2016. The European Maritime Day, which is celebrated annually around 20 May with the aim to raise awareness of the importance of the sea among the European citizens. The European Maritime Day was established jointly by the European Council, the European Parliament and European Commission in 2008 as part of the European Union's (EU) maritime policy. The theme of this year's conference is "Investing in competitive Blue Growth – smart and sustainable solutions."
• Zenithal Sun -- This week marks one of the two times during the year when the noontime sun is directly overhead to residents on the Big Island this week on 19 May at Hilo; those on Oahu (Honolulu metropolitan area) will experience the noon sun at the zenith in approximately one more week (25-27 May). The sun will again be over the Big Island during the last week of July. [US Naval Observatory, Data Services]
• A "Weather-Ready Nation' safety app is launched -- NOAA and Raytheon, one of NOAA's first Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) Ambassadors™, recently unveiled a safety application or app that has been designed to teach school age children (10 to 12 years old and 13 years and up) and adults how to prepare for, survive and recover from extreme weather and water emergencies. This app contains eight 10-minute safety modules. The individual modules were developed by Raytheon along with adjustments provided by the Georgia Science Teachers Association, FEMA and the National Weather Service. [NOAA Weather-Ready Nation News]

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics --- No tropical cyclones developed in any of the global ocean basins during the last week.
• El Niño Advisory and La Niña Watch are continued --Forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) recently announced that they are continuing their El Niño Advisory for the current El Niño event due to positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies across most of the equatorial Pacific during April 2016, signifying warmer than average ocean waters. However, these SST anomalies have been decreasing in magnitude, although cool water with negative SST anomalies were being detected across sections of the eastern equatorial Pacific. The weakening of the El Niño event with the decline in SST anomalies have led forecasters to issue a La Niña watch as they envision a La Niña event developing during the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2016, with a a 75 percent chance of La Niña during fall and the 2016-17 winter. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center]
  An ENSO blog was written by a CPC researcher describing the weakening of the El Niño event during the last several months after peaking last November. A cross-section of the equatorial Pacific is shown that shows a large layer of colder than average water extending from beneath the surface in the eastern sections of the Pacific to depths ranging between 100 to 200 meters below the surface. This large pool of cool water stretching across most of the equatorial Pacific suggests the possibility of a transition into a La Niña event in the next several months. Comparisons are made between El Niño and La Niña events are made. The worldwide climate impacts of a possible La Niña are also shown. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
• Massive El Niño event of 2015 fueled by leftover warm water in Pacific Ocean -- Researchers from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory recently reported that easterly winds across the tropical Pacific Ocean helped stall a potent El Niño event in 2014, but left a pool of warm water in the central Pacific, which then helped create one of the strongest El Niño event on record in 2015 when a series of strong westerly wind bursts started in the Northern Hemisphere spring and continued through summer of 2015. [NOAA News]
• Five ways given to enjoy and protect the Florida Keys reef -- A feature prepared by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary enumerates five ways that the public can enjoy their visit to the underwater reef environment in the sanctuary and protect it at the same time. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
• IR images used to detect hard-to-spot Arctic animals -- NOAA scientists and colleagues from Russia's State Research and Design Institute for the Fishing Fleet are using infrared cameras from aircraft to detect warm-blooded animals in the Arctic such as ice seals and polar bears that would be hard to detect by the human eye or ordinary cameras because of the light-colored fur blend in with their background of sea ice and snow. These infrared cameras, which detect the infrared radiation due to the elevated animals' body temperatures, permit the scientists to fly higher and get better estimates of animal populations. [NOAA News]
• Vortices in layer clouds over Indian Ocean seen from space -- An image made from data collected by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 satellite earlier this month shows numerous vortices in the layer of marine stratocumulus clouds over the southwestern Indian Ocean. These eddy-like features in the cloud shield called von Kármán for the Hungarian-American physicist who initially described the physical processes associated with their formation were induced by swirling wind flow around the 9000-foot Mawson Peak on Heard Island in the South Indian Ocean. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Plankton bloom in Black Sea seen from space -- A natural color image of the Black Sea obtained in early May that was created from data obtained from the MODIS sensors onboard NASA's Aqua satellite shows light blue colors in the near surface waters, probably created by blooming phytoplankton. One type of Black Sea phytoplankton is the coccolithophore plankton that is plated with white calcium carbonate, which helps turn the water a light blue color.[NASA Earth Observatory]
• Volcanic eruption on remote South Atlantic Ocean detected by satellite -- False color satellite images made from data collected by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard the NASA/USGS Landsat 8 satellite in late April and early May show the eruption of Mount Sourabaya, a stratovolcano on the uninhabited Bristol Island that is located in the far South Atlantic Ocean between South America and Antarctica. The multiple wavelength bands permit viewing the hot lava in the volcano's caldera and the white plumes containing condensate and volcanic aerosols being carried away from the eruption. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Higher water levels on Lakes Michigan and Huron affects boaters and beachgoers -- According to reports made by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the water levels of Lakes Michigan and Huron are approximately one foot above the 90-year average at the beginning of the month, which is in stark contrast to the relatively low levels that were two feet below average in 2013. The current near record high levels are permitting more cargo to be carried by lake freighters and easier access to boats moored at permanent docks, but narrower beaches for beachgoers and lake-front property owners. The nearly four-foot increase in lake levels are due to several factors including changes in precipitation over the lake basins, the inflow of water from Lake Superior, evaporation and lake ice extent. [The Detroit News]
• "Meteotsunamis" can cause havoc on Lake Michigan in spring -- After reviewing several historical disasters on Lake Michigan that had been previously attributed to seiches, researchers with the Wisconsin Sea Grant have found that some of these events were due to a phenomenon called a "meteorological tsunami" or "meteotsunami." These meteotsunamis represent single waves that are similar to tsunamis but generated by strong storm systems moving across the lake waters, producing heights reaching nine to 18 feet when the wave front reaches shallow water and the shore. The researchers found that on average, 80 meteotsunamis larger than one foot occur annually on all the Great Lakes, with these events occurring most frequently in spring, especially on Lake Michigan. [University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering News]
• 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.

• 16 May 1917...Marquette, MI had its latest opening of navigation on Lake Superior in history. (Intellicast)
• 16 May 1951...Hurricane Able performed a loop north of the Bahamas and reached Category 3 strength off Cape Hatteras, NC. (National Weather Service files)
  
• 17-21 May 1887...An early season tropical storm raked Cuba and The Bahamas. (The Weather Doctor)
• 17 May 1970...The Norwegian ethnologist, Thor Heyerdahl, and a multinational crew set sail on a trans-Atlantic voyage from Morocco on Ra II, a papyrus sailing craft modeled after the ancient Egyptian vessels in an effort to prove his theory that Mediterranean sailors reached the Americas in ancient times. After 57 days, the Ra II reached Barbados. (The History Channel)
• 19 May 1535...French explorer Jacques Cartier set sail on his second voyage to North America with 3 ships, 110 men, and Chief Donnacona's two sons (whom Cartier kidnapped during his first voyage). (Wikipedia)
• 19 May 1912...The US Navy established the North Atlantic Ice Patrol following the RMS Titanic disaster. (Naval Historical Center)
• 20 May 1497...John Cabot set sail from Bristol, England, on his ship The Mathew looking for a route to the west (other documents give a 2 May date). (Wikipedia)
• 20 May 1498...The Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrived at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut) on the Malabar Coast, after departing Lisbon, Portugal in July 1497. (The History Channel) (Wikipedia)
• 20 May 1570...Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issued the first modern atlas. (Wikipedia)
• 20 May 1845...HMS Erebus and HMS Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sailed from the River Thames in England, beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage. All hands were lost. (Wikipedia)
• 20 May 1964...The first U.S. atomic-powered lighthouse was put into operation in the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore Harbor, MD. Designed to supply a continuous flow of electricity for ten years without refueling, the 60-watt nuclear generator generated heat from strontium-90 in the form of strontium titinate, a safe radioisotope. The heat was converted to electricity by 120 pairs of lead telluride thermocouples. Complete with shielding, the unit was only 34.5 inches high and 22 inches in diameter. It was designed and produced by the nuclear division of Martin-Marietta Corp. (Today in Science History)
• 20 May 1999...A devastating cyclone, packing winds of up to 170 mph and a high storm surge, struck the Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Some 600 villages were devastated and more than 400 people killed. (The Weather Doctor)
• 22 May 1819...The steamship SS Savannah left Savannah, GA on a voyage to Liverpool, England and became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. It reached Liverpool on 20 June. (Wikipedia)
• 22 May 1849...The future President, Abraham Lincoln, received a patent for the floating dry dock described as for "buoying boats over shoals" (No. 6,469). He was the first American president to receive a patent. His idea utilized inflated cylinders to float grounded vessels through shallow water. (Today in Science History)
• 22-24 May 1948...A rare early season hurricane struck the island of Hispaniola, killing an estimated 80 people. (The Weather Doctor)
• 22 May 1960...A 8.6 magnitude earthquake off the coast of south central Chile triggered a tsunami that moved across the Pacific Ocean. Between 490 and 2290 people were estimated to have been killed by the earthquake and tsunami, and damage estimates were over one half billion dollars. Hilo, HI was devastated by the tsunami. (The University of Washington)

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Prepared by DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D.,
email hopkins@aos.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2016, The American Meteorological Society.