WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

15-19 June 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.

Items of Interest:

Celebrate Sea Turtle Week 2015 -- This upcoming week (15-19 June 2015) has been declared Sea Turtle Week. [NOAA Fisheries]
National Ocean Month continues -- June is National Ocean Month and NOAA's National Ocean Service has a website entitled 30 Days of the Ocean that 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. Week 3 focuses on Ocean Life. [NOAA National Ocean Service]
Happy Summer Solstice! The summer solstice will occur next Sunday (officially, 21 June 2015 at 1638 Z, or 12:38 PM EDT, 11:38 AM CDT, etc.). At that time, the earth's spin axis is oriented such that the sun appears to be the farthest north in the local sky of most earth-bound observers. While most of us consider this event to be the start of astronomical summer, the British call the day the "Midsummer Day", as the apparent sun will begin its southward descent again. For essentially all locations in the Northern Hemisphere, daylight on Sunday will be the longest and the night will be the shortest of the year. Starting Monday, the length of darkness will begin to increase as we head toward the winter solstice on 22 December 2015 at 0448 Z. However, because the sun is not as perfect a time-keeper as a clock, the latest sunsets of the year at many mid-latitude locations will continue through about the first week of July -- a consequence of the earth being near aphelion (during the afternoon of 6 July 2015) and the apparent sun moving across the sky well to the north of the celestial equator.
Ocean Sampling Day to be held -- On Sunday, 21 June 2015, scientists and volunteers around the world plan on participating in Ocean Sampling Day as they collect water samples from the Earth's oceans and rivers. This international collaboration is intended to collect baseline information on the diversity of marine microorganisms so that changes in ocean ecosystems can be detected by comparing samples from the same locations over time. [NOAA Ocean Service News]
World Hydrography Day celebration -- The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) will celebrate its annual World Hydrography Day on Sunday, 21 June 2015, the 94st-anniversary date on which the IHO was created in 1921. The theme for this year's celebration is "Our seas and waterways - yet to be fully charted and explored." This year's theme was selected because large sections of the world's oceans and other navigable waters remain unsurveyed, while higher resolution maps of the Moon and Mars are available. [International Hydrographic Organization]
Summer institute to commence for Maryland science teachers -- During the upcoming month of July elementary school teachers from Maryland who teach science will be able to participate in NASA's Summer Watershed Institute, organized by education specialists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. The teachers will study the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding area alongside scientists and engineers who will provide an insider perspective on scientific study. [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity continued across the eastern North Pacific and Northern Indian Ocean basins in the Northern Hemisphere last week:

In the eastern North Pacific basin, Tropical Storm Blanca continued traveling toward the north-northwest off the southern sections of the western coast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula at the start of this past week. Blanca had become a category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane at the end of the previous week. By last Tuesday, Blanca made landfall along the northern sections of the Baja Peninsula, where it disintegrated. However, rain from the remnants of former Hurricane Blanca continued to spread northward and eastward across northern Mexico and into the Southwestern States. The NASA Hurricane Page has additional information and satellite imagery on Hurricane Blanca.
Carlos, the third named tropical cyclone of the 2015 eastern Pacific hurricane season formed from a tropical depression approximately 260 miles south of Acapulco, Mexico at the midpoint of last week. Traveling toward the northwest, this tropical depression strengthened to become a tropical storm and then to a category 1 hurricane by late Saturday as it approached the southwestern coast of Mexico. By Sunday, Carlos was traveling parallel to the Mexican coast as a minimal hurricane. Current forecasts indicate that Carlos could make landfall along the western coast of Mexico early this week. Additional information and satellite imagery on Hurricane Carlos are available on the

NASA Hurricane Page

In the North Indian Ocean Basin, Tropical Cyclone Ashobaa traveled toward the west-northwest and west across the waters of the Arabian Sea during the first half of last week. Near the end of the week Tropical Cyclone Ashobaa made landfall along Oman's eastern coast, accompanied by strong winds, heavy rain and 10-foot ocean waves. This tropical cyclone remained a tropical storm, as maximum sustained surface winds did not exceed 63 mph. The NASA Hurricane Page has satellite images and additional information on this tropical storm.

TRMM spacecraft expected to reenter tropical atmosphere soon -- The U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Functional Component Command for Space is predicting that NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) spacecraft should reenter the Earth's atmosphere early Tuesday, 16 June, and disintegrate as it travels through the upper atmosphere between 35 degrees North and 35 degrees South latitude. The TRMM satellite, which was launched in 1997, collected precipitation data across the Earth's tropical and subtropical latitudes until April. [NASA News]
Survey ships deployed for Arctic charting projects -- Early last week NOAA's Office of Coast Survey officially launched its 2015 Arctic hydrographic survey season at Kodiak, AK as two of its survey vessels were deployed. One of the vessels was departed for Alaska's Kotzebue Sound. The mission is to measure ocean depths and to search for dangers to navigation that would be used to update hydrographic maps of the region that should improve navigational safety. [NOAA News]
National marine sanctuaries expanded off the California coast -- Early last week the Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries in the waters of the North Pacific off the northern California coast were expanded following Congressional review. This expansion was designed to help protect the region's marine and coastal habitats, biological resources and special ecological features. In addition, the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary was renamed to the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary to reflect the expansion. [NOAA News]
El Niño advisory continues -- Sea surface temperatures continued to increase across central and eastern sections of the equatorial Pacific during May 2015, which indicates that an El Niño event is currently underway. Forecasters with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) have continued their El Niño advisory that indicates atmospheric and oceanic conditions across the tropical Pacific appear favorable for an El Niño event in the next six months. These forecasters foresee that an approximately 90 percent chance that this El Niño event would continue through the Northern Hemisphere autumn of 2015, together with an 85 percent chance that it will last through the 2015-16 winter. A detailed El Niño/Southern Oscillation Diagnostic Discussion with supporting maps and charts is available from CPC. An ENSO blog written by CPC staff suggests that the El Niño event could become strong in the next several months. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Climate model output statistics available to the public -- Early this week NASA released the high-resolution NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP) dataset containing projected global temperature and rainfall patterns through the year 2100 produced from 21 general circulation model simulations in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The new NEX-GDDP model projections show how global temperature and precipitation might change under different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. The CMIP5 model runs were developed in support of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). [NASA Earth Observatory]
New efforts made to monitor underwater sound -- Beginning last year, NOAA has begun establishing the "Ocean Ocean Noise Reference Station Network," which represents a set of ten undersea listening stations with standardized hydrophones deployed at various offshore sites along the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, Arctic coasts of the US to systematically measure ambient noise levels in the ocean. Additional stations are scheduled to be established near Hawaii and American Samoa. In addition to forming baseline ambient noise levels, this network is intended to monitor long-term changes and trends in underwater sound across vast expanses of the nation's waters, which could ultimately help understand how noise from human activity could affect marine life. [NOAA Office of Science and Technology News]
Current El Niño appears to accelerate coral bleaching in Caribbean - NOAA's Coral Reef Watch was recently released and NOAA scientists expect the spread of coral bleaching conditions during this upcoming Northern Hemisphere summer from the tropical Pacific across the northeast Pacific and the Caribbean. The outlook is based on sea surface temperature forecasts from NOAA's operational climate forecast system. . The ongoing El Niño is causing additional warming of the sea surface water along the west coasts of North and South America. Maps are provided showing where a 60-percent likelihood of coral heat stress at any time from June through September 2015 in the eastern Pacific Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea and in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. [NOAA Climate.gov 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:

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 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)
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)
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)
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)
19 June 240 BC...On the summer solstice, Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth using two sticks.
19-26 June 1972...Hurricane Agnes (a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale) moved onshore along the Florida Panhandle near Cape San Blas and Apalachicola with wind gusts to 80 mph, and eventually exited Maine on the 26^th. This hurricane moved northeast and joined with an upper level disturbance, producing from 10 to 20 inches of rain along its path along the Eastern Seaboard. In the Middle Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania, 24 hour rainfall amounts were generally 8 to 12 inches, with up to 19 inches in extreme southwestern Schuylkill County. At Wilkes-Barre, PA the dike was breached destroying much of the town. Agnes was responsible for 125 deaths, mainly due to flooding from North Carolina to New York State, and total damage was estimated at more than $3 billion. Torrential rains from Hurricane Agnes resulted in one of the greatest natural disasters in U.S. history. Agnes caused more damage than all other tropical cyclones in the previous six years combined (which included Celia and Camille). (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
20 June 1597...Willem Barents, the Dutch explorer who tried to search for the Northeast Passage, died in the Arctic off the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya when his ship became trapped in ice. (Wikipedia)
20 June 1819...The 320-ton paddle-wheel SS Savannah arrived in Liverpool, England to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, having left the port of Savannah, GA on 22 May. (InfoPlease Daily Almanac)
20 June 1940...The first successful west to east navigation of the Northwest Passage began at Vancouver, BC. (Wikipedia)
21 June 1791...A hurricane, called El Temporal de Barreto - the storm of Barreto, generated a monster ocean wave that carried off the coffin of a rich, but hated, count as he lay in state in his mansion near Havana, Cuba. (The Weather Doctor)
21 June 1886...A destructive hurricane hit the Apalachicola-Tallahassee area of Florida on the summer solstice. Extensive damage was done in Florida and throughout the southeast by this storm, which was the first hurricane of the year. Damage was due mainly to extremely high tides. (Intellicast)
21 June 1961...The first practical plant for the conversion of seawater to drinking water at Freeport, TX was dedicated when President John Kennedy pressed a switch installed in his Washington, DC office. The plant was capable of producing about a million gallons of water a day, supplying fresh water to Freeport at a cost of about $1.25 per thousand gallons. The large-scale evaporation method used then has now been replaced by reverse osmosis as special polymers are now used as filtering membranes. (Today in Science History)