Weekly Ocean News

Weekly Ocean News

DATASTREME OCEAN WEEK ELEVEN: 9-13 April 2012

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics -- During the last week, the following tropical cyclone activity was detected over the world's ocean basins:
In the western North Pacific basin, Typhoon Pakhar, a weak category 1 typhoon (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) made landfall along the southern coast of Vietnam at the beginning of last week. Check the NASA Hurricane Page for satellite images and additional information on Typhoon Pakhar.
In the western South Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Daphne formed early last week over the waters near the Fiji Islands, where this tropical storm produced locally heavy rain that caused flooding with several fatalities. Daphne traveled to the southeast, but quickly lost its tropical characteristics and became an extratropical system that then dissipated. Additional information and satellite imagery on the tropical storm can be obtained from the NASA Hurricane Page.
Hurricane season forecast -- Last week, the hurricane forecast team from Colorado State University headed by Phil Klotzbach released its April forecast of the 2012 North Atlantic hurricane season that officially begins on 1 June 2012. The team foresees a less active hurricane season than average due in part to to an anomalous cooling of the surface waters in the equatorial Atlantic during the last several months. Additionally, they are anticipating a good chance that El Niño conditions could develop by late fall or early fall replacing the dwindling La Niña event. In this April forecast, the forecasters call for 10 named tropical cyclones (hurricanes and tropical storms), with four potentially becoming hurricanes. As many as two hurricanes could become severe, reaching category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. They also anticipate a below average probability of a major Atlantic hurricane making landfall somewhere along the coast of the coterminous US. [USA Today] [The Tropical Meteorology Project]
New ways to help mariners avoid right whales -- A set of apps (application software) for iPad and iPhone called "Whale Alert" has been developed to provide East Coast mariners with a visual display of all relevant right whale management initiatives and warnings designed to help in the avoidance of endangered right whales. A GPS system in the iPad displays the ship's location relative to the management measures, simplifying mariner compliance. The apps have been produced by a collaboration of government agencies, academic institutions, non-profit conservation groups and private sector industries led by scientists at NOAA's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. [NOAA News]
New portals designed to provide information on tsunamis in the Northwest -- The Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing System (NANOOS), in partnership with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries and Washington State Department of Natural Resources, has developed and launched the Pacific Northwest Tsunami Evacuation Zones, a new suite of online portal and smartphone apps (application software) designed to provide information on tsunami zones in the US Pacific Northwest. [NOAA News]
New management measures announced for 2012 Gulf of Maine cod catches -- During the past week, NOAA announced that fishers will be allowed to catch as much as 6700 metric tons of Gulf of Maine cod in the 2012 fishing year. This announcement has been based upon a new stock assessment for the cod. [NOAA News]
A moderate "red tide" could develop off New England in 2012 -- Researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and North Carolina State University studying the toxic algae in the Gulf of Maine warn that a "moderate" regional toxic algae outbreak popularly called a "red tide" could occur in the coastal and offshore waters of New England this spring and summer. [Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography]
Reduced global harvest of "forage fish" is recommended -- The Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force comprised of scientists from the US, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and France recently recommended that more conservative catch limits be implemented for "forage fish" that are crucial prey species. The scientists based their recommendations upon their comprehensive analyses of the global "forage fish" populations. [Oregon State University]
Sediment chemicals in nation's coastal rivers are lower than global averages -- In a recent study conducted by the US Geological Survey, the amount of sediment-associated chemicals found in 131 of the nation's rivers draining the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts are lower than worldwide averages. These coastal rivers represent a significant pathway for sediment-associated chemicals to be delivered to the world's coastal zones and oceans. [USGS Newsroom]
Industrial air pollution and volcanic activity linked to Atlantic Ocean temperature changes -- Researchers with the United Kingdom's Met Office claim that they have clearly linked the "dirty pollution" associated with aerosols generated by industry along with volcanic eruptions to the observed temperature variations in the Atlantic Ocean known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) during the 20th century. These researchers used a Met Office climate model to simulate physical processes to reproduce the temperature variations. They warn that human activity can drive large-scale regional climate changes. [UK Met Office]
Slow subsidence of Earth's crust found beneath the Mississippi Delta -- Geologists from Tulane University who compared detailed sea-level reconstructions from several areas in coastal Louisiana including the Mississippi Delta and the New Orleans metropolitan area have found the Earth's crust has been sinking during the last 7000 years at a much slower rate than previously assumed. However, they warn that the sea-level rise along the Gulf Coast could occur at a rate approximately five times greater than during pre-industrial times. [NSF News]
Rapid Antarctic ice shelf disintegration seen from space -- A sequence of images obtained from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) onboard the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite over a ten-year span documents the rapid disintegration and retreat of the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica. The breakup and shrinkage of the Antarctic ice shelf has been attributed to increased global temperatures associated with climate change. [ESA News]
Rising carbon dioxide levels linked to temperature increases ending last Ice Age -- Scientists from Oregon State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and France's CNRS-Universite Aix-Marseille claim that they have established a clear cause-and-effect relationship between increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the globally-averaged temperature changes during the end of the last Ice Age. [Oregon State University]
Ice sheet collapse and sea-level rise near end of last Ice Age investigated -- Using data collected from coral samples obtained during the Tahiti Sea-Level Expedition 310 of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, a team of international scientists have shown that the occurrence of a dramatic sea-level rise approximately 14,600 years ago during the "Bølling warming" at the onset of the last deglaciation corresponds to a rapid collapse of massive ice sheets. This global sea level rise identified as Melt-Water Pulse 1A (MWP-1A) was approximately 14 meters. [International Ocean Discovery Program]
Studies focus on a past major global warming event -- Scientists have been studying the origins of the onset of a major increase in global temperature during the Cenozoic Era approximately 55 million years ago that had been identified as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). Scientists from the University of New Hampshire and the Utrecht University in the Netherlands have found that this major "hyperthermal" was followed a series of hyperthermals that occurred more than 50 million years ago. During all these hyperthermal events, carbon was released into the atmosphere. [University of New Hampshire Media Relations]

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.

Concept of the Week: Living Coral and El Niño

El Niño episodes of 1982-83 and 1997-1998, the most intense of the century, confirmed the connection between higher than average ocean temperatures and bleaching of hermatypic corals. (Hermatypic corals live in warm shallow water and build large reefs.) Water temperatures higher than 29°C (the normal maximum sea surface temperature in the equatorial eastern Pacific) can trigger expulsion of zooxanthellae, microscopic dinoflagellates whose symbiotic relationship with coral polyps is essential for the long-term survival of coral. Without zooxanthellae, coral polyps have little pigmentation and appear nearly transparent on the coral's white skeleton, a condition known as coral bleaching. If maximum temperatures are not too high for too long, corals can recover, but prolonged warming associated with an intense El Niño (that may persist for 12 to 18 months) can be lethal to coral. Most hermatypic corals thrive when the water temperature is 27 °C, but do not grow when the water becomes too cold. Although the ideal temperature varies with species and from one location to another, the temperature range for optimal growth is quite narrow--only a few Celsius degrees. This sensitivity to relatively small changes in water temperature is an important source of information on past climates as fossil coral is a significant component of many limestones. Evidence of bleaching episodes in fossil corals may yield important clues to past changes in the world's tropical ocean.

Coral, sometimes referred to as "the rainforests of the ocean," provides a base for local ecosystems and have many benefits (e.g., fisheries, tourism) that are important in many parts of the globe. Hence, vulnerability to El Niño-associated warming is an object of considerable scientific interest. During the 1997-98 El Niño, NOAA charted significant coral bleaching from portions of the Great Barrier Reef near Australia, French Polynesia in the south Pacific, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Kenya, and around the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Closer to home, coral bleaching was reported in the Florida Keys, the Cayman Islands, and off the Pacific coast of Panama and Baja California. Fortunately damage from the 1997-98 El Niño warming was less drastic than the 1983-84 El Niño when up to 95% of the corals in some locations died. Many of the corals damaged in the late 1990s have at least partially recovered including important reefs in the Florida Keys. For additional information on coral status, go to the NOAA website http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/.

Concept of the Week: Questions

Most hermatypic corals thrive at an ocean water temperature of [(10) (27)] °C.
Corals [(can) (cannot)] recover from bleaching if high ocean water temperatures are not long lasting.

Historical Events:

9 April 1770...The English explorer Captain James Cook discovered Botany Bay on the Australian continent.
10 April 1877...The first of two great coastal storms struck the Virginia and North Carolina coasts. The Oregon Inlet was widened by three-quarters of a mile. The "entire topography of country is materially altered," according to a description of the altering of sand dunes at Cape Hatteras, NC. (Intellicast)
10 April 1998...Northeast winds at 40 mph on the 9^th and 10^th combined with high levels of Lake Erie produced waves to 14 ft along the lakeshore in Ottawa and Sandusky Counties in Ohio. Much damage resulted, along with the destruction of 10 houses. Bulldozers were needed to clear the debris from roads. Downtown Port Clinton streets were flooded. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
11 April 1803...A twin-screw propeller steamboat was patented by John Stevens of Hoboken, NJ. (Today in Science History)
11 April 1900...The U.S. Navy acquired its first submarine, a 53-foot craft designed by Irish immigrant John P. Holland that was propelled by gasoline while on the surface and by electricity when submerged. (Today in Science History)
13 April 1960...The Navy's first navigation satellite, Transit-1B, was placed into orbit from Cape Canaveral, FL and demonstrated the ability to launch another satellite. The Transit system was designed to meet Navy's need for accurately locating ballistic missile submarines and other ships. (Naval Historical Center) (Today in Science History)
14 April 1543...Bartolomé Ferrelo returned to Spain after assuming command of the ill-fated expedition of the Spanish navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo (who died on San Miguel Island in California's Channel Islands). The expedition was the first known entry by Europeans into San Francisco Bay in the New World.
14-15 April 1912...The British steamer RMS Titanic sank following its collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland on its maiden voyage from South Hampton to New York. The collision occurred at about 11:45 PM on 14 April and the ship, which was considered unsinkable, sank in 2.5 hours during the early morning hours of the 15^th. Reports showed 1517 people out of 2207 onboard lost their lives in this accident. Because of this disaster, certification and life saving devices were improved and an International Ice Patrol was established to monitor the iceberg hazards in the North Atlantic. The U.S. Coast Guard continues to conduct much of the effort. (US Coast Guard Historian's Office) A 21-year old telegraph operator at the Marconi radio station in New York City, David Sarnoff who became a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting, received and transmitted the distress calls from the Titanic. (Today in Science History)