WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

22-26 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:

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 4 focuses on Ocean Awareness. [NOAA National Ocean Service]
Facts about sea turtles -- In recognition of Sea Turtle Week 2015, NOAA's National Ocean Service posted a list of 13 interesting facts about sea turtles, which represent one of the world's most endangered species. [NOAA National Ocean Service]
Lightning Awareness Week -- The nation will celebrate its annual National Lightning Safety Awareness Week this upcoming week, 21 through 27 June 2015, as declared by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS). On average, 55 people in the nation are killed annual by lightning and numerous more are injured. NWS, in conjunction with other sponsors, has a "Lightning Safety" website, http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/, that has links to a variety of informational and teacher resource materials. As many as 20 states are also observing this week with statewide activities.

Ocean in the News:

Eye on the tropics --- Tropical cyclone activity was reported across the North Pacific and North Atlantic basins in the Northern Hemisphere last week:

In the eastern North Pacific basin, Hurricane Carlos, the third named tropical cyclone of the 2015 eastern Pacific hurricane season traveled to the northwest off the coast of western Mexico during the early part of last week. Weakening to a tropical storm, Carlos made landfall along the Mexican coast to the west-northwest of Manzanillo. Additional information and satellite imagery on Hurricane Carlos are available on the NASA Hurricane Page.
In the North Atlantic basin, Bill, the second named tropical cyclone of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane formed from a low pressure area late last Monday in the western Gulf of Mexico approximately 160 miles off the Texas Gulf Coast. This tropical storm traveled to the northwest and made landfall during the midday hours of Tuesday on Matagorda Island, accompanied by strong winds, above normal water levels and locally heavy rains. Although Tropical Storm Bill weakened rapidly, it continued to bring heavy rain into the southern and central Plains as it traveled to the north as a tropical depression across Texas and Oklahoma. Several weather stations in these two states received between 10 and 12 inches of rain. Over this past weekend, remnants of this tropical depression traveled to the east-northeast across the Ozark Plateau and the mid-Mississippi Valley before dissipating over the lower Ohio Valley. The NASA Hurricane Page has satellite images and additional information on Tropical Storm Bill.
In the western North Pacific basin, tropical depression Kujira formed this past weekend over the waters of the South China Sea more than 200 miles off the coast of Vietnam. This tropical depression was traveling to the northwest this Monday (local time) and was expected to travel toward the southern China coast near Hainan Island by during the first half of this week.

TRMM spacecraft reenters tropical atmosphere -- According to the U.S. Strategic Command's Joint Functional Component Command for Space, NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) spacecraft reentered the Earth's atmosphere over the South Indian Ocean late Monday 15 June (Eastern Time) and broke apart as it traveled through the atmosphere. As many as 12 pieces of the spacecraft could have reached the ocean surface. The TRMM satellite, which was launched in 1997, collected precipitation data across the Earth's tropical and subtropical latitudes until April. [NASA News]
An energetic start to hurricane season in eastern North Pacific basin -- Within the first month of the 2015 hurricane season in the eastern North Pacific (from the western coast of North and Central America to longitude 140 degrees West), three hurricanes have formed in this basin. Two of these hurricanes (Andres and Blanca) reached major category 4 hurricane status on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as maximum sustained surface winds surrounding both hurricanes reached at least 140 mph. Satellite image animations of these two hurricanes are available. The rapid start to the season in the eastern Pacific appears to be due in part to the current El Niño event that is spreading warmer than average water across the eastern equatorial and tropical sections of the basin. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Regional fishery council appointments for 2015 announced -- Late last week the US Department of Commerce announced the appointment of 30 members to three-year terms on the nation's eight regional fishery management councils that partner with NOAA Fisheries Service to manage ocean fish stocks. The eight regional councils have 72 appointed members and some of this year's appointments will be new to these councils, while others are returning members. The terms for the recently appointed members begins on 11 August 2015. [NOAA Fisheries News]
Improvements made to global ocean color visualization -- Scientists at NOAA's Center for Satellite Applications and Research have developed a new ocean color product that uses data collected by the VIIRS instrument onboard the NOAA/NASS Suomi NPP satellite to produce more accurate analyses of global phytoplankton concentrations, also known as "ocean color." This product is now available, with a high resolution image of the average phytoplankton concentration for the month of May 2015 serving as an example. [NOAA NESDIS News Archive]
Average "dead zone" predicted for this summer in Gulf of Mexico ....-- Scientists with NOAA's National Ocean Service, the US Geological Survey and several academic research institutions issued a joint news release last week that reports the researchers predicting the size of the Gulf of Mexico's hypoxic zone (also known as the "dead zone") for this upcoming summer 2015 to be approximately the same as the average size over the last several years. The dead zone in the Gulf waters holds very little oxygen and is the result of excessive nutrient pollution. The current outlook incorporates the statistics generated by four hypoxia models for the first time. [NOAA National Ocean Service News]
Arctic Ocean off Alaska rapidly becoming more corrosive to marine life -- Researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have determined that the surface waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off the northern coast of Alaska are becoming more acidic over the last decade. This research team had collected water temperature, salinity and dissolved carbon during month-long expeditions to these waters in 2011 and 2012 onboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy. The increased acidity appears to be the result of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide that are being absorbed by the surface waters. The continued decline of calcium carbonate (in the ocean waters known as aragonite) may impact the ability of tiny shelled animals to exist in these waters. Therefore, the researchers warn that the acidity of the waters of the Arctic Ocean off Alaska could reach levels that would threaten the ability of marine animals to build and maintain their shells by 2030. They also foresee the Bering Sea to the west of Alaska could reach this level of acidity by 2044. [NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]
Spacecraft carrying ocean salinity monitoring instrument ceases operation -- At the end of the first week of June, the international Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft that carried the NASA-built ocean salinity measuring instrument ended due to the spacecraft's power and attitude control system stopped operating. The spacecraft, which represented a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales, was launched in 2011 on a mission to make space-based measurements of ocean surface salinity. The spacecraft successfully achieved its science objectives and completed its primary three-year mission in November 2014. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory News]
Instrumented "Saildrones" successfully complete test mission in cold Bering Sea waters -- Two instrumented autonomous surface vehicles called "Saildrones" from NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory successfully completed a 6-week test run in the cold waters of the eastern Bering Sea off the southwestern coast of Alaska. These remotely controlled wind- and solar-powered "Saildrone" vehicles are equipped with meteorological and oceanographic sensors that would permit the increased collection of observational data in the harsh environment of the remote polar oceans. [ NOAA Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric Research News]
NASA participates in North Sea oil cleanup training exercise -- Two weeks ago, NASA participated in Norway's annual Oil on Water exercise for the first time, as a specialized NASA airborne instrument called the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) on NASA's C-20A piloted research aircraft so as to monitor a controlled release of oil into the North Sea. The drills are designed to give responders experience with existing cleanup techniques and equipment and a chance to test new technologies, while the use of the UAVSAR provided a test of the radar's ability to distinguish between more and less damaging types of oil slicks. [NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory]
Interactive map provides tour of nation's ocean and Great Lakes economies -- NOAA recently released an interactive map that invites the public to learn about the economic value of their coastal states and counties along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans along with the Great Lakes. A time series breakdown of the ocean economy for 30 coastal states and approximately 400 coastal counties during the 2005-2012 interval had been obtained from the "Economics: National Ocean Watch (ENOW)" data set. Six economic sectors had been considered. [NOAA Maps]
Review of global weather and climate for May 2015 -- Scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center report that the recently concluded month of May was the warmest May since sufficiently dense global climate records began in 1880. They based their report on preliminary calculations of the combined global land and ocean surface temperature for May 2015, which was 1.57 Fahrenheit degrees (0.87 Celsius degrees) above the 20th century (1901-2000) average May temperature. This temperature reading exceeded the previous record that was set one year ago by 0.14 Fahrenheit degrees. When considered separately, the average May 2015 land surface temperature was 2.30 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average, which meant that this temperature tied the reading for May 2012 for the highest May land temperature since 1880. The global ocean surface temperature for May 2015 was 1.30 Fahrenheit degrees above the 20th century average, which also represented a record May sea surface temperature. The El Niño event has developed, with above average sea surface temperatures across the east and central equatorial Pacific Ocean
In addition, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature for the last three months (March through May), which is considered meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere (fall in the Southern Hemisphere), was the highest since 1880. [NOAA/NCDC State of the Climate]
The average Arctic sea ice extent for May 2015 was the third smallest extent for May since satellite records began in 1979, while the corresponding sea ice extent around Antarctica was the largest on record for May according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
A global map of Selected Significant Climate Anomalies and Events for May 2014 is available from NCDC.
Revised sea surface temperature time series released -- Scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (formerly National Climatic Data Centers) recently released an updated global monthly sea surface temperature analysis dataset identified as version 4 of the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST v4). This dataset, which has global sea surface temperature data for each month extending back to 1880, represents an improvement on previous versions in that contains greater coverage in high-latitude ice-free oceans, updated sea ice data and improved ship bias corrections. [NOAA NCEI News]
Interpreting the significance of ranking hottest years -- NOAA climate scientist Deke Arndt has written a blog entitled "Is Second Place Really 'First Loser'?" that represents a follow-up on a blog that he posted earlier this month in which he thought that the year 2015 could surpass 2014 as having the highest annual global temperature since a sufficiently detailed global temperature record commenced in 1880. In the current blog, Deke discussed the significance of ranking and how it can be interpreted or misinterpreted. [NOAA Climate.gov News]
Distinguishing between "global warming" and "climate change" -- A Q&A feature on the NOAA Climate.gov website distinguishes between the often used terms "global warming" and "climate change." Briefly, global warming typically refers to the recent increases in the Earth's surface temperature, while "climate change" represents alterations in the planetary climate including changes not only in air temperature, as well as changes in precipitation patterns and glaciers. [NOAA Climate.gov News & Features]
US Climate Resilience Toolkit gets Presidential recognition -- During a visit to NOAA's National Hurricane Center just before the beginning of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season, President Barack Obama specifically mentioned the "Climate Resilience Toolkit" when discussing the importance of making the nation's communities more resilient to a changing climate. This online toolkit, which represents a key part to his Climate Action Plan, was developed through a partnership between various federal agencies and organizations with the goal of making this toolkit a vital resource for decision-makers looking to take action and boost their climate resilience. [NOAA Climate Program Office 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:

22 June 1675...The Royal Greenwich Observatory was created by Royal Warrant in England by Charles II, with its practical astronomy serving as its primary mission, including navigation, timekeeping and the determination of star positions. In 1767 the observatory began publishing The Nautical Almanac, which established the longitude of Greenwich as a baseline for time calculations. The almanac's popularity among navigators led in part to the adoption (1884) of the Greenwich meridian as the Earth's prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) and the international time zones. (Today in Science History)
22 June 1948...Congress enacted Public Law 738, which authorized the operation of floating ocean stations for the purpose of providing search and rescue communication and air-navigation facilities, and meteorological services in such ocean areas as are regularly traversed by aircraft of the United States. (USCG Historian's Office)
23 June 1501...The Portuguese navigator, Pedro Alvares Cabral, returned to Portugal after a voyage during which he claimed Brazil for Portugal and then journeyed to India in search of pepper and spices. (Wikipedia)
23 June 1611...English navigator Henry Hudson was set adrift along with his son and seven loyal crew members in an open boat in Hudson Bay by mutineers on his ship Discovery; they were never seen again. He was on his fourth voyage and he had become famous for attempting to find a route from Europe to Asia via the Arctic Ocean. (Wikipedia)
23 June 1716...The Province of Massachusetts authorized erection of first lighthouse in America on Great Brewster Island, Boston Harbor. (USCG Historian's Office)
23 June 1938...The first "oceanarium" opened at Marineland in St. Augustine, FL. (Today in Science History)
24 June 1497...The Italian navigator and explorer Giovanni (John) Cabot, sailing in the service of England, landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland, claiming the continent for England. (Wikipedia)
26 June 1954...Eight fishermen were swept off the breakwater of the Montrose Harbor in Chicago, IL by a seiche on Lake Michigan. At the time, this killer wave rose suddenly from a serene Lake Michigan; sunny skies and calm wind conditions were reported. The seiche, produced by an earlier squall on the lake, caused the lake water to rise ten feet. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
26 June 1959...Following an opening ceremony attended by President Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, 28 naval vessels sailed from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes, marking the formal opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway to seagoing ships. The Seaway consists of a navigational channel system of canals, locks, and dredged waterways, permitting travel from the Gulf of St. Lawrence nearly 2500 miles inland to Duluth, MN on Lake Superior. (Naval Historical Center) (The History Channel)
26 June 1986...Hurricane Bonnie made landfall on the upper Texas coast. A wind gust to 98 mph occurred at Sea Rim State Park. The town of Ace recorded 13 inches of rain. (Intellicast)
26 June-7 July 1989...Tropical Storm Allison formed in the Gulf of Mexico from remnants of Hurricane Cosme in the eastern North Pacific. Periods of heavy rain caused flooding across parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Winnfield, LA reported a six-day total of 29.52 inches of rain. This system was responsible for eleven deaths and approximately $500 million in damage. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
27 June 1898...The first solo circumnavigation of the globe was completed in slightly more than three years by the Canadian seaman and adventurer Joshua Slocum of Briar Island, NS when he returned to Newport, RI after sailing the 37-foot Spray a distance of 46,000 miles. After completing this voyage Slocum wrote the classic book, Sailing Alone Around the World describing his adventure. (Wikipedia)
27-29 June 1954...Excessive rains from remnants of Hurricane Alice led to the Rio Grande River's worst flood. Up to 27.1 inches of rain fell at Pandale, TX. As many as 55 people died from the flooding. The river crest at Laredo, TX broke the previous highest record by 12.6 feet. The roadway on the US. 90 bridge over the Pecos River was covered by 30 feet of water on the 27^th. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar) (David Ludlum)
27 June 1957...Hurricane Audrey smashed ashore at Cameron, LA drowning 381 persons in the storm tide, and causing 150 million dollars damage in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Audrey left only a brick courthouse and a cement-block icehouse standing at Cameron, and when the waters settled in the town of Crede, only four buildings remained. The powerful winds of Audrey tossed a fishing trawler weighing 78 tons onto an offshore drilling platform. Winds along the coast gusted to 105 mph, and oilrigs off the Louisiana coast reported wind gusts to 180 mph. A storm surge greater than twelve feet inundated the Louisiana coast as much as 25 miles inland. It was the deadliest June hurricane of record for the U.S. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
27 June 1978...SEASAT, an experimental U.S. ocean surveillance satellite was launched. Each day, SEASAT made 14 orbits of the Earth, and in a period of 36 hours was able to monitor nearly 96% of the oceanic surface. The measurement equipment on board was able to penetrate cloud cover and report measurements such as wave height, water temperature, currents, winds, icebergs, and coastal characteristics. Although it operated for only 99 days before a power failure, it had already shown the viability of the use of a satellite for collecting oceanic data. The information collected was shared with scientists and was used to aid transoceanic travel by ships and aircraft. (Today in Science History)
27-29 June 1997...Although thousands of miles away, a strong low pressure system southeast of New Zealand produced surf up to seven feet, with occasional sets to ten feet, along Hawaii's south-facing coasts. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
28 June 1983...A waterspout was sighted over Hazin Bay on the Yukon-Kuskokwim coast of Alaska. Satellites detected thunderstorms in the area. (Accord's Weather Guide Calendar)
28 June 1992...A slow moving tropical depression produced excessive rains across southwest Florida. Four-day totals ending on the 28^th, ranged up to 25 inches in the Venice area, with a general 8 to 14 inches over Sarasota and Manatee counties. Two deaths resulted from the flooding. (Intellicast)