WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

12-16 June 2017

DataStreme Ocean will return for Fall 2017 with new Investigations files starting during Preview Week, Monday, 21 August 2017. All the current online website products will continue to be available throughout the summer break period.

Items of Interest:

Celebrating Capitol Hill Ocean Week® -- The nation's premier annual conference examining current marine, coastal and Great Lakes policy issues is the Capitol Hill Ocean Week® (CHOW), which is scheduled to run from Tuesday 13 June through Thursday 15 June in Washington, DC at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News] or [National Marine Sanctuary Foundation]
Celebrating National Ocean Month -- As part of National Ocean Month, this week is designated as Week 2: Ocean Health according to the web portal maintained by NOAA's National Ocean Service. This web portal provides links to a variety of websites containing facts, images and video designed to highlight both the beauty and importance of the nation's oceans and marine environment. [NOAA National Ocean Service]
Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2017 Campaign commences -- The sixth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2017 will commence this Friday (16 June) and continue through Sunday, 25 June. GLOBE at Night is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program designed to encourage citizen-scientists worldwide to record the brightness of their night sky by matching the appearance of a constellation (Hercules in the Northern Hemisphere and Scorpius in the Southern Hemisphere) with the seven magnitude/star charts of progressively fainter stars. Activity guides are also available. The GLOBE at night program is intended to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution. The next series in the 2017 campaign is scheduled for 15-24 July 2017. [GLOBE at Night]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics -- The weather was relatively quiet across the tropical ocean basins of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres during the last week. However, over this past weekend, the fourth named tropical cyclone of 2017 in the western North Pacific basin developed from a tropical depression over the waters of the South China Sea to the west of the Philippine Islands. This system, initially identified as Tropical Storm 04 and then Merbok, was traveling to the north-northwest toward southeastern China. As of late Sunday (local time), Tropical Storm Merbok was located approximately 300 miles to the south-southeast of Hong Kong. Forecasts indicate that Merbok should continue to travel toward the north-northwest with only slight intensification, making landfall along the southeastern China coast to the east of Hong Kong on Tuesday. After making landfall, Merbok should curve toward the northeast and then east-northeast, moving back over the western Pacific Ocean later in the week.
Updated El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion is released -- Forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) released their monthly El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion late last week. They reported an ENSO-neutral situation continued through May 2017, although sea surface temperatures (SST) were above-average across the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean. However, the atmospheric system remained close to average, which has led researchers to maintain the continuation of an ENSO-neutral situation with neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions prevailing. While many of the prediction models used by the forecasters had indicated an onset of an El Niño during Northern Hemisphere summer (June, July and August), recent runs by several models appear to favor continuation of ENSO-neutral conditions into boreal autumn (September through November). The forecasters give ENSO-neutral conditions a 50 to 55 percent chance of continuing through fall 2017, while giving development of El Niño conditions a 30 to 50 percent. Therefore, the CPC's ENSO Alert System Status remained non activate. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center]
An ENSO blog was written by a contractor with CPC describing why CPC and IRI forecasters are anticipating a continuation of ENSO-neutral conditions through this Northern Hemisphere summer. She uses a variety of simple graphs and maps to illustrate long-term changes in the SST have occurred in one regoin of the central equatorial Pacific (called Niño3.4) that is used as a standard to determine the occurrence of an El Niño or La Niña. She also includes a graphic that shows how the various prediction models used by CPC and IRI appear to indicate a possible transition to a weak El Niño before returning to ENSO-neutral conditions. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
An El Niño forecast from Down Under -- Forecasters with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology recently issued an updated ENSO forecast, in which they reported a current continuation of ENSO-neutral conditions. According to their interpretation, while sea surface temperatures (SST) in the tropical Pacific were above-average, cooling had occurred in some areas in May in response to stronger than average trade winds. Since four of the eight international climate models were predicting SSTs to exceed El Niño thresholds, the Australian forecasters maintain a possible development of an El Niño event in the equatorial Pacific Ocean later this calendar year of 2017, even with the current stalled development. Therefore, the Bureau's ENSO Outlook status remains as an El Niño WATCH, meaning the likelihood of El Niño forming in 2017 is approximately 50%. [Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology]
Discovering deep-sea corals from a electronic database -- The NOAA Deep-Sea Coral Data Portal has been created by NOAA's Deep-Sea Coral Research and Technology Program (DSCRTP) and NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) to provide access to deep sea coral and sponge data, images, and technical reports from research funded by DSCRTP. NCEI created the National Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Database, which contains over 430,000 records from extending from 1842 to 2015. More than 27,000 images of corals and sponges are also included in this database. [NOAA NCEI News]
Socioeconomic analysis of Puerto Rico's reefs is completed -- NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program recently published its Summary Findings for Puerto Rico as part of its Socioeconomic Component of the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP). A collection of socioeconomic indicators was gathered and monitored, with a 131-page report produced outlining human dimension data relevant to coral reef resources in Puerto Rico. Survey results representative of each of the nine Puerto Rican regions were tabulated and included in the report. [NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science News]
Program disentangles whales and other animals trapped by marine debris off Hawaiian Islands -- The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary and works with the Hawaiian Islands Entanglement Response Network to remove marine debris and disentangle trapped marine animals in the waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. The network is supervised by NOAA Fisheries' Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program and includes partnerships with NOAA Fisheries, the state of Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources and the US Coast Guard, along with whale researchers, Hawaii's tour industry and fishermen. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
Public comments solicited on proposals for Atlantic geophysical survey interaction with marine mammals -- NOAA Fisheries is inviting the public to make comment on five separate proposals requested from companies to conduct geophysical surveys using seismic air gun arrays in the Atlantic Ocean. These proposals are being made under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow these companies to conduct their geophysical survey using the seismic air guns to incidentally, but not intentionally, harass marine mammals. [NOAA Fisheries News Center]
Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program grant recommendations made -- NOAA Fisheries recently recommended that 41 projects receive a total of more than $10 million under its 2017 Saltonstall-Kennedy (SK) Grant Program as part of its goal to address the needs of the nation's fishing communities, to optimize economic benefits by building and maintaining sustainable fisheries, and to increase other opportunities designed to keep working waterfronts viable. This year's recommended projects fall into seven priorities: 1.) marine aquiculture; 2.) fishery data collection; 3.) techniques for reducing bycatch and other long-term ecosystem change; 4.) promotion, development and marketing; 5.) socio-economic research and 7.) territorial science.[NOAA Fisheries News]
Satellite sees turquoise swirls in Black Sea -- An image obtained from data collected by the MODIS instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite near the end of May shows several large-scale turquoise swirls covering the waters of the Black Sea. These swirls are produced by phytoplankton being carried across the otherwise dark sea waters by near-surface water currents and eddies. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Satellites catch Aleutian volcano spreading ash across the Bering Sea -- Bogoslof Volcano, one of the active volcanoes in Alaska's Aleutian Island chain, has been spewing volcanic ash and condensate into the atmosphere in a series of explosions that began in December 2016. A recent natural-color image made of the Bogoslof Volcano by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on NASA's Landsat 8 satellite early last week shows the ash plume extending to the northwest across the Bering Sea. A week earlier, an animation of the eruption was assembled from a sequence of images obtained by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on NASA's Terra satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Tracking sea ice breakup in the Canadian Arctic important to Inuit peoples -- A MODIS satellite image produced from data obtained by NASA's Aqua satellite during the last week of May shows the breakup of the sea ice surrounding the Belcher Islands in Canada's Nunavut Territory. Landfast ice could be seen anchored to shore, but offshore, polynyas, or area of open water were detected. Farther offshore, pack ice remained across much of Hudson Bay. The seasonal rhythms in the formation and breakup of this ice is critically important to the Inuit peoples who hunt and fish around the Belcher Islands. Some of the veteran hunters recently voiced their concerns about the behavior of sea ice and climate changes for the Sanikiluaq Sea Ice Project. [NASA Earth Observatory]
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]

Historical Events:

12 June 1925...Lake Huron Lightship radio fog signal was placed in commission, the first signal of this kind on the Great Lakes. (USCG Historian's Office)
12 June 1991...On the same day that Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines awakened from its 635-year slumber, Typhoon Yunya crossed Luzon province. Mudslides and flooding caused many deaths and when added to the impacts of Pinatubo left more than a million homeless. (The Weather Doctor)
13 June 1415...Henry the Navigator, the prince of Portugal, embarked on an expedition to Africa.
13 June 1881...The steamer USS Jeannette was crushed in Arctic ice pack north of Siberia as the 1879-1881 Jeannette Arctic Exploring Expedition under the command of Lieutenant Commander George Washington DeLong, USN, attempted to reach the North Pole by ship. (Naval Historical Center)
13 June 1972...Severe weather conditions over the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico began to converge and form a tropical depression that would become Hurricane Agnes over the next two weeks. This hurricane affected most of the eastern United States with the northeast being the hardest hit with heavy rainfall. (National Weather Service files)
13 June 1977...A tropical cyclone crossed the Arabian Sea from near the Laccadive Islands off southwest India and slammed into the island of Masirah, sultanate of Oman. Winds reached at least 104 mph and the 24-hour rainfall total was 16.95 inches. About 99% of buildings were damaged. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
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)
16 June 1896...A tsunami ravaged the coast of Japan killing between 22,000 and 27,000 people. (National Weather Service files)
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)
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)
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)
17 June 1971...Hurricane Bridget sank the flagship of the Admiral of the Mexican Navy as it passed off the coast of Mexico near Acapulco. (National Weather Service files)
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)