WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

4-8 May 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.

Item of Interest:

May is National Wetlands Month -- The US Environmental Protection Agency, along with other federal agencies and environmental groups, has designated May as American Wetlands Month in an effort to increase public awareness of the importance of protecting and preserving the nation's wetlands. This year's observance is the 25th annual National Wetlands Month. [EPA-Wetlands]
Land of the Midnight Sun -- Barring clouds, the sun should rise at Barrow, AK early next Monday morning (2:37 AM AKDT on 11 May 2015) after spending 28 minutes below the horizon. The sun should then remain above the local horizon for the next 12 weeks, before going below the horizon for 50 minutes on 2 August 2015 (at 2:09 AM AKDT). [US Naval Observatory]
Viewing the ocean color and beauty of our "Blue Marble" -- A beautiful natural-color composite image generated from date collected by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the NOAA/NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) spacecraft in early April shows a large area of oceans in the Southern Hemisphere that include the Indian Ocean along with the Atlantic and Southern Oceans. In addition to the view of the expansive ocean waters, clouds are apparent on the image, including Tropical Cyclone Joalane over the Indian Ocean. Additional information is available on how this image was assembled from six orbits completed by the polar orbiting Suomi-NPP satellite. [NASA Earth Observatory]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- During the last week tropical cyclone activity was limited to Southern Indian Ocean basin, where Cyclone Quang formed early last week over 500 miles to the northwest of Exmouth that is located on the tip of the North West Cape in Western Australia. Initially traveling to the southwest, Quang curved to the south and then to the southeast, intensifying to a major category 4 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it approached the northwestern coast of Australia. At the end of last week Quang made landfall near Learmonth, Western Australia. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information on Cyclone Quang along with satellite images.
Over this past weekend a new tropical cyclone formed in the western North Pacific Basin. A tropical depression intensified to become Tropical Storm Noul near the Caroline Islands . As of Monday (local time) Noul was located 180 miles east of Yap and was traveling toward the northwest. This tropical storm could strengthen to a typhoon as it would move toward toward the west.
Pocket sharks are a rare find -- Researchers for NOAA Fisheries' Pascagoula (MS) Laboratory and Tulane University recently reported on their identification of the second possible specimen ever found of the "pocket shark" (Mollisquama) sp., a very small and rare species of shark. [NOAA Fisheries Stories]
Public invited to comment on principled for determining "at risk" species due to illegal fishing and seafood fraud -- NOAA is inviting public comment on the principles used to determine fish species "at risk" of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud. [NOAA News]
Revisions to Endangered Species Act governing incidental take statements finalized -- Officials with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service are finalizing the Endangered Species Act regulations governing Incidental Take Statements for endangered species in order to clarify and codify the current policy regarding the use of "surrogates." [NOAA Fisheries Newsroom]
New network listens for whales and fish in northwest Atlantic Ocean -- A new listening network known as the U.S. Northeast Passive Acoustic Sensing Network (NEPAN) is being established by NOAA and partners from the New York Bight northward to the northern Gulf of Maine would record and archive sounds from marine mammals and fish species in the western North Atlantic Ocean using a variety of buoys and autonomous underwater vehicles. .[NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center News]
Marshes, reefs and beaches found to enhance coastal resilience -- Scientists from NOAA's National Ocean Service recently reviewed the strengthens and weaknesses of various measures that could be employed to protect the nation's coastal communities from storms, flooding and erosion. They found that the resilience of these communities can be strengthened when they are protected by natural infrastructure such as marshes, reefs, and beaches, or with hybrid approaches, such as a "living shoreline" that represent a combination of natural habitat and built infrastructure. [NOAA News]
Ancient fossils used to identify current marine life at high risk of extinction -- An international team of researchers report that their study of marine fossils over the past 23 million years indicates worldwide patterns of extinction of marine life appear to remain remarkably similar over this time span, with some groups of animals showing similar rates of extinction throughout. In addition, a consistent set of characteristics in these marine animals appears to be associated with elevated extinction risk. The researchers used past global extinction patters to predict which ocean areas and marine organisms currently would be most at risk without additional human-caused threats caused by habitat destruction, overfishing, pollution and ocean acidification. [University of California Berkley News Center]
Two-mile long ice core reveals role of ocean current in transmitting climate changes between polar latitudes -- A two-mile long ice core retrieved from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been analyzed and provides more than 68,000 years of climate data that indicates a consistent pattern of changes in climate commencing in the Arctic before spreading southward across tropical latitudes to the Antarctic during planet Earth's last glacial period. Rapid climate fluctuations occurred between warm and cold periods and were known as Dansgaard-Oeschger events. Ocean currents were responsible for redistributing heat between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. [Desert Research Institute 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.

Historical Events:

4 May 1869...The first U.S. patent for an offshore oil-drill rig was issued to T.F. Rowland for his "submarine drilling apparatus" (No. 89,794). (Today in Science History)
4 May 1904...Construction began on the Panama Canal. (Wikipedia)
4 May 1910...Congress required every passenger ship or other ship carrying 50 persons or more, leaving any port of United States to be equipped with radio (100-mi radius) and a qualified operator. (USCG Historian's Office)
5 May 1990...A strong Pacific cold front moving rapidly inland caused weather conditions at the east end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington State to quickly change from sunny and calm to westerly winds of 60 mph and ten-foot waves. Three recreational fishing boats capsized in heavy seas off Port Angeles resulting in five deaths. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)
6 May 1994...The rail tunnel under the English Channel, or "Chunnel," that connects Folkestone, England, with Sangatte, France was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President Mitterrand. (The History Channel)
8 May 1961...The first practical seawater conversion plant in the U.S. was opened in Freeport, TX by the Office of Saline Water, U.S. Dept. of the Interior. The plant was designed to produce about a million gallons of water a day at a cost of about $1.25 per thousand gallons. (Today in Science History)
8 May 1992...The source of a "red tide" in the Gulf of Mexico was suggested by scientists at a conference on the ecology of the Gulf. The red tide produced huge blooms of reddish algae in sufficient quantity to kill fish and cause severe respiratory problems for humans. A "green river" that started 60 miles inland of Florida was indicated as the source of the algae. The wind and water currents that bring nutrients from the floor of the ocean to the surface provided the food that caused the algae population to explode once it reached the Gulf. (Today in Science History)
9 May 1502...The explorer Christopher Columbus left Spain for his fourth and final journey to the "New World". (Wikipedia)
9 May 1926...The Baden-Baden, a ship propelled by two 50-ft high cylindrical rotors arrived in New York having left Hamburg on 2 April 1926, and completed a transatlantic crossing from Germany. Utilizing the aerodynamic power of the Magnus Effect (discovered in 1852), which builds air pressure behind a rotating cylinder, these rotors drove 45-hp electric motors that powered the ship. Although a theoretical success, it was not sufficiently effective for commercial application. (Today in Science)
9 May 1980...A blinding squall, followed by dense fog, reduced visibility to near zero at the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida. The Liberian freighter SS Summit Venture hit the bridge piling, causing a 1200-foot section of the bridge to fall 150 feet into the bay. Several vehicles, including a bus, drove off the edge of the span, resulting in 35 deaths. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (Wikipedia).
9 May 1990...A tropical cyclone hit the southeast coast of India, killing 1000 people, even though 400,000 people evacuated because of early warning of the storm. More than 100 miles of coast were devastated as winds reached 125 mph and a storm surge measured at 22 feet flooded inland as far as 22 miles. (The Weather Doctor) (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
10 May 1497...The Italian cartographer Amerigo Vespucci allegedly left the Spanish coastal city of Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World. (Wikipedia)
10 May 1503...Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands and named them Las Tortugas after the numerous sea turtles that he found there. (Wikipedia)
10 May 1960...The submarine, USS Triton (SSRN-586), completed a submerged circumnavigation of world in 84 days following many of the routes taken by Magellan and cruising 46,000 miles. (Naval Historical Center)