Weekly Ocean News

Weekly Ocean News

WEEK ELEVEN: 17-21 April 2017

Items of Interest

Worldwide GLOBE at Night 2017 Campaign commences -- The fourth in a series of GLOBE at Night citizen-science campaigns for 2017 will commence this Tuesday (18 April) and continue through Thursday, 27 April. 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 (Leo in the Northern Hemisphere and Crux 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 17-26 May 2017. [GLOBE at Night]
Large asteroid to make close approach to Earth this week -- Astronomers are predicting a large asteroid identified as Asteroid 2014 JO25 will safely pass within 1.1 million years of Earth early this Wednesday (19 April 2017), or approximately 4.6 times the Earth-Moon distance. This asteroid will be large, as it is reported to have a diameter of approximately 2000 feet, or 60 times the diameter of the asteroid that penetrated into the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. The public may be able to see the asteroid with small telescope, while scientists should be able to study it using both radar and optical observations. Apparently, this week's passage of Asteroid 2014 JO25 should be the closest it has been to Earth in at least 400 years. [EarthSky]
New "Night Light" maps from satellites are available for download -- NASA scientists recently released numerous satellite images of planet Earth at night on the NASA Earth Observatory's "Night Light" website. These nighttime images have been obtained from low-light sensors onboard orbiting satellite platforms such as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NASA/NOAA Suomi NPP satellite. The data obtained from the satellite have been subjected to various enhancement techniques using computer algorithms developed by NASA and partner institutions. The recently released images supplement earlier nighttime images obtained from the US Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites beginning in the early 1970s. In addition to spectacular views of Earth at night, these images can provide planetary scientists and researchers from other disciplines with an indication of how urban areas have expanded and increased the intensity of artificial illumination over the last several decades. Additional uses of these new images involve weather forecasting, surveillance of sea ice and the monitoring of unregulated or unreported fishing. [NASA Earth Observatory]
Celebrate Earth Day --This Saturday (22 April 2017) marks the 47th Earth Day, first proposed by the late Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin in 1970 as a teach-in to heighten awareness of the environment. The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has posted a website called "Gaylord Nelson and Earth Day: The Making of the Modern Environmental Movement" that highlights Senator Nelson and his idea became Earth Day. Several governmental websites provides links to various activities and resources planned for this week, including a website maintained by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).NASA is inviting people from around the world to virtually "adopt" one of 64,000 individual pieces of Earth as seen from space. By clicking on go.nasa.gov/adopt and adopting a piece of the planet, the visitor to this site will receive a personalized adoption certificate for a unique numbered piece of Earth (on average 55 miles wide) to print and share on social media. Four data layers for this location will be provided that include data on chlorophyll, relative humidity, sea surface temperature and cloud top height. [NASA Goddard Feature]
Applications invited for participation in Ocean Guardian Schools Program -- The NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries in coordination with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation has invited local K-12 schools across the nation to become involved in fostering ocean literacy and environmental stewardship by applying to the Ocean Guardian School Program. Ocean Guardian School grants, which range from $1000 to $4000, are awarded annually to fund hands-on school- or community-based projects. Applications for the 2017-18 school year are being accepted through the end of April. [NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries News]
Species dominance and ocean properties -- Discover how variations in both the physical and chemical properties of ocean waters can be accompanied by changes in the dominance of the various species of marine life in this week's Supplemental Information...In Greater Depth.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics -- During the last week tropical cyclones were monitored across the waters of the Indian Ocean and the western South Pacific Ocean .

In the South Indian Ocean, Cyclone Ernie, which had become a category 4 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale at the end of the previous week, weakened as it traveled to the west-southwest at the beginning of last week. Environmental conditions that included strong vertical wind shear caused Cyclone Ernie to be ripped apart at the start of last week when it was approximately 760 miles to the west-northwest of Learmonth, Western Australia. Throughout its life, Ernie remained well off the northwestern coast of Australia. Consult the NASA Hurricane Page for additional information and satellite imagery on Cyclone Ernie.
In the western sections of the South Pacific Ocean basin, Tropical Cyclone Cook intensified to a category 2 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale early last week. Cyclone Cook traveled across New Caledonia before hitting New Zealand's North Island this week. Torrential rains and strong winds accompanying Cook were reported in New Zealand. A wide swath of damage was caused by flooding and winds gusting to 125 mph. Power outages were due to downed trees and power lines. Several inches of rain fell in widespread areas, resulting in highways. Initial assessment indicates that Cook was the strongest cyclone to hit New Zealand in decades. [1newsnow New Zealand] Satellite images and additional information on Cyclone Cook can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
In the North Indian Ocean basin a tropical storm developed over the Bay of Bengal several hundred miles off the coast of Burma this past weekend that eventually was named Tropical Storm Maarutha. Traveling toward the northeast, Maarutha was located approximately 315 miles to the south-southeast of Chittagong, Bangladesh by late Sunday. Current forecasts indicate that Maarutha should make landfall along the coast of Myanmar by early Monday, accompanied by strong winds and torrential rainfall.
In the western North Pacific Ocean basin, a tropical depression developed at the start of this past weekend in the Philippine Sea to the east of the Philippines. Identified as Tropical Depression 2W, this system traveled toward the west-northwest toward the Philippines before weakening and ultimately becoming a remnant low pressure system late Saturday (local time) as it was located approximately 430 miles to the east-southeast of the Philippine capital of Manila. The NASA Hurricane Page has a satellite image and additional information on Tropical Depression 2W.

Updated El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Diagnostic Discussion is released -- Late last week 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. They reported an ENSO-neutral situation continued through March 2017 featuring near-average sea surface temperatures (SST) across the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, but above-average SST values located in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Consequently, neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions prevailed. Many of the prediction models used by the forecasters indicate a continuation of ENSO-neutral conditions through late spring and early summer in the Northern Hemisphere (May-June). However, some of the models were pointing to an onset of an El Niño during by the start of boreal summer (June). Therefore, the CPC's ENSO Alert System Status was not activated. [NOAA Climate Prediction Center]
An ENSO blog was written by a contractor with IRI describing the current ENSO-neutral conditions across the equatorial Pacific and the difficultly that the CPC and IRI forecasters are having detecting a clear signal as to when an El Niño would develop in the next three to six months. Attention was focused upon the "coastal El Niño," where the pool of above average SST values was limited to the coastal waters off of South America, while below-average SST values were detected farther west. A comparison was also made of the output information generated by the sets of statistical and dynamical models used to make forecasts of SSTs over sections of the equatorial Pacific Ocean through the end of 2017. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
An El Niño forecast from Down Under -- Forecasters with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology recent reported that although ENSO-neutral conditions were continuing currently, they foresaw development of an El Niño event in the equatorial Pacific Ocean during this calendar year of 2017. 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]
Florida's manatee population could survive for another century -- In a new study conducted by the US Geological Survey and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, veteran manatee scientists claim that Florida's manatee population is highly likely to endure for the next 100 years, so long as wildlife managers continue to protect the marine mammals and their habitat. The researchers estimated a less than a one-half of one percent chance that either Florida's Atlantic or its Gulf of Mexico manatee population could fall to as few as 500 adults, the level that could imperil Florida manatees' long-term survival. [USGS Newsroom]
A network of underwater gliders employed to develop a climatology of the California Current System -- A research team of scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have produced a climatology of the California Current System, a southward flowing current along the US West Coast, using data collected from underwater gliders. The California Current ecosystem is a highly productive eastern boundary current that supports a diverse array of marine wildlife and fisheries. These gliders were a part of the California Underwater Glider Network. [NOAA Climate Program Office News]
Knowledge of ENSO events enhanced by two decades of Pacific buoy observations -- Researchers from the University of Washington and NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory have used surface wind observations gathered from the TAO/TRITON array of buoys in the tropical Pacific to obtain a better understanding of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) sea surface temperatures through determining the wind stress across the equatorial Pacific basin. The TAO/TRITON array was first established with 70 moored buoys as a part of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) project in 1994, but then renamed the TAO/TRITON in January 2000 to recognize the introduction of TRITON (Triangle Trans-Ocean Buoy Network) buoys in the western Pacific by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. [NOAA Climate Program Office News]
Milestone reached in the Global Drifter Program -- In mid-March 2017, more than half of the satellite-tracked ocean drifters that are part of the Global Drifter Program were using the Iridium satellite system, replacing the Argos system. The transition to the Iridium system was proposed in November 2014 to achieve cost savings for NOAA and to provide timely data worldwide. The aim is that 80 percent of the drifters will be Iridium serviced by mid 2019. [NOAA Climate Program Office News]
NOAA launches new tsunami website that features major advance in tsunami product dissemination -- Recently NOAA has unveiled a new Tsunami.gov website that is designed by the National Weather Service's (NWS) National Tsunami Warning Center and Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, in collaboration with the NWS's Tsunami Service Program. All warning center products will be displayed on this official Tsunami.gov website, which is intended to be a consolidated "one-stop shop" for dissemination of products from the NWS warning centers. [NOAA Weather-Ready Nation News]
Monitoring the formation of an iceberg from space -- A sequence of three images obtained from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite in August and December of 2016 and in early April 2017 shows the steady expansion and lengthening of a crack in Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf. This ice shelf is a slab of ice floating along the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Eventually, the crack on the ice shelf will result in the loosing of an iceberg that will become detached from the main ice shelf. [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]

Concept of the Week: Living Coral and El Niño

El Niño episodes of 1982-83 and 1997-1998, the most intense of the 20th 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.) Recent field work indicates that the 2015-16 El Niño, which may be the strongest since 1950, has resulted in major bleaching of coral reefs in many locations. 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:

17 April 1492...Spain and the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus signed a contract for him to sail to Asia to obtain spices. (Wikipedia)
17 April 1524...Giovanni Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, onboard the frigate La Dauphine "discovered" New York Bay. (Wikipedia)
18 April 1906...An early morning magnitude 7.8 earthquake along with a subsequent fire devastated much of San Francisco, CA, resulting in one of the worst natural disasters to hit a major US city. As many as 6000 people may have died because of this disaster. The earthquake was along the San Andreas Fault, with an epicenter thought to have been near Mussel Rock along the coast at suburban Daly City. The earthquake generated a local tsunami wave in the San Francisco Bay region that was only approximately 10 cm in height as recorded at a single tide gauge station situated at the opening to San Francisco Bay. (USGS)
18 April 1848...U.S. Navy expedition to explore the Dead Sea and the River Jordan, commanded by LT William F. Lynch, reached the Dead Sea. (Naval Historical Center)
19 April 1770...Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales, Australia. Cook originally named the land Point Hicks.
20 April 1534...Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, set sail from St. Malo, France with two ships to explore the North American coastline in an attempt to find a passage to China. In this first voyage, he explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
20 April 1952...The tankers Esso Suez and Esso Greensboro collided in thick fog off the coast of Morgan City, LA. Only five of the Greensboro's crew survived after the ship burst into flame. (David Ludlum)
21 April 1910...The U.S. Government took over sealing operation of Alaska's Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea from private lessees. (USCG Historian's Office)
21 April 1906...Commander Robert Peary, USN, discovered that the supposed Arctic Continent did not exist. (Naval Historical Center)
22 April 1500...Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first known European to sight Brazil, claiming it for Portugal. (Wikipedia)
22 April 2003...Tropical Storm Ana became the first Atlantic tropical storm since records began in 1871 to form during the month April. Maximum sustained winds reached 55 mph. Beginning as a non-tropical area of low pressure on the 18th about 210 miles south-southwest of Bermuda, it was classified as a sub-tropical storm early on the 20th, it gained full tropical characteristics near 0000 UTC on the 21st, developing an "eye" feature. (National Weather Service files)
23 April 1792...John Thomas Romney Robinson, inventor of the cup anemometer, was born. (National Weather Service files)
23 April 1924...A tube transmitter for radio fog-signal stations, developed to take the place of the spark transmitters in use, was placed in service on the Ambrose Channel Lightship and proved successful. (USCG Historian's Office)