Tag: Education

What’s a seiche?

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This animation reveals a standing wave (black) depicted as a sum of two propagating waves touring in reverse instructions (blue and pink). Related in movement to a seesaw, a seiche is a standing wave by which the most important vertical oscillations are at every finish of a physique of water with very small oscillations on the “node,” or heart level, of the wave. Standing waves can kind in any enclosed or semi-enclosed physique of water, from an enormous lake to a small espresso cup.

Seiches and meteotsunamis. What is the distinction?

Seiches and meteotsunamis are sometimes grouped collectively, however they’re two completely different occasions. Winds and atmospheric stress can contribute to the formation of each seiches and meteotsunamis; nonetheless, winds are sometimes extra essential to a seiche movement, whereas stress typically performs a considerable position in meteotsunami formation. Generally a seiche and a meteotsunami may even happen on the identical time. Seiches are standing waves with longer intervals of water-level oscillations (sometimes exceeding intervals of three or extra hours), whereas meteotsunamis are progressive waves restricted to the tsunami frequency band of wave intervals (two minutes to 2 hours). Seiches are often restricted to partially or totally enclosed basins, akin to Lake Erie. Meteotsunamis can happen in such basins however are additionally prevalent on the open coast. A single meteotsunami can journey lengthy distances and affect a really massive vary of the shoreline.

You probably have noticed water sloshing forwards and backwards in a swimming pool, bathtub, or cup of water, you might have witnessed a small-scale seiche (pronounced saysh). On a a lot grander scale, the identical phenomenon happens in massive our bodies of water akin to bays and lakes. A seiche could happen in any semi- or fully-enclosed physique of water.

Seiches are sometimes brought on when robust winds and speedy modifications in atmospheric stress push water from one finish of a physique of water to the opposite. When the wind stops, the water rebounds to the opposite facet of the enclosed space. The water then continues to oscillate forwards and backwards for hours and even days. In a similar way, earthquakes, tsunamis, or extreme storm fronts can also trigger seiches alongside ocean cabinets and ocean harbors.

Lake Erie is understood for seiches, particularly when robust winds blow from southwest to northeast. In 1844, a 22-foot seiche breached a 14-foot-high sea wall killing 78 folks and damming the ice to the extent that Niagara Falls quickly stopped flowing. As just lately as 2008, robust winds created waves 12 to 16 toes excessive in Lake Erie, resulting in flooding close to Buffalo, New York. Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, can also be recognized to routinely kind small seiches after the passage of afternoon squall strains throughout summer time months.

In among the Nice Lakes and different massive our bodies of water, the time interval between the “excessive” and “low” of a seiche might be as a lot as 4 to seven hours.  That is similar to the time interval between a excessive and low tide within the oceans, and is commonly mistaken as a tide.

Is the Earth spherical?

Earth from space

This NASA picture reveals Earth from area. The picture is a mixture of knowledge from two satellites. The Reasonable Decision Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite tv for pc collected the land floor information over 16 days, whereas NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite tv for pc (GOES) produced a snapshot of the Earth’s clouds.


Whereas the Earth seems to be spherical when seen from the vantage level of area, it’s truly nearer to an ellipsoid. Nonetheless, even an ellipsoid doesn’t adequately describe the Earth’s distinctive and ever-changing form.

Our planet is pudgier at the equator than on the poles by about 70,000 ft. That is because of the centrifugal power created by the earth’s fixed rotation. Mountains rising virtually 30,000 ft and ocean trenches diving over 36,000 ft (in contrast to sea degree) additional distort the form of the Earth. Sea degree itself is even irregularly formed. Slight variations in Earth’s gravity subject trigger everlasting hills and valleys within the ocean’s floor of over 300 ft relative to an ellipsoid.

Moreover, the form of the Earth is all the time altering. Typically this alteration is periodic, as is the case with day by day tides that have an effect on each the ocean and the crust; generally the change is gradual and regular, as with the drift of tectonic plates or the rebound of the crust after a heavy sheet of ice has melted; and generally the form of the planet adjustments in violent, episodic methods throughout occasions reminiscent of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or meteor strikes.

The Nationwide Geodetic Survey measures and screens our ever-changing planet. Geodesy is the science of measuring and monitoring the measurement and form of the Earth, together with its gravity subject, and figuring out the location of factors on the Earth’s floor.

What’s HAZMAT?

ship near oil spill

In January 2010, NOAA’s Workplace of Response and Restoration was notified of a collision between a crude oil tanker (T/V Eagle Otome) and a barge in Port Arthur, Texas.

HAZMAT is an abbreviation for “hazardous supplies”—substances in portions or varieties that will pose an affordable threat to well being, property, or the surroundings. HAZMATs embrace such substances as poisonous chemical substances, fuels, nuclear waste merchandise, and organic, chemical, and radiological brokers.  HAZMATs could also be launched as liquids, solids, gases, or a mix or type of all three, together with mud, fumes, fuel, vapor, mist, and smoke.

HAZMAT spills have brought about well being issues, accidents, and even demise in folks and animals, and have broken buildings, properties, property, and the surroundings. Given such dire penalties, it’s cheap to conclude that one might not encounter HAZMATs each day. The reality, nevertheless, is that many merchandise containing hazardous chemical substances are routinely used and saved in properties, and are transported on daily basis on the nation’s highways, railroads, waterways, and pipelines.

HAZMAT Incidents

1000’s of incidents happen every year during which HAZMATs are launched into the surroundings because of accidents or pure disasters. Along with probably harming folks and the surroundings, spills in coastal waters might trigger substantial disruption of marine transportation with potential widespread financial impacts. Each coastal and inland spills are known as HAZMAT incidents, and are routinely addressed by first responders like firefighters and native legislation enforcement.

NOAA HAZMAT Response

Below the Nationwide Contingency Plan, NOAA supplies scientific assist to the Federal On-Scene Coordinator for oil and different HAZMAT spills, and participates in emergency response actions in coastal and near-coastal waters.

NOAA’s Workplace of Response and Restoration responds to 120-150 HAZMAT incidents every year. Most are oil spills originating from leaking pipelines or vessel collisions, in addition to hurricanes and drilling properly blowouts, such because the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill within the Gulf of Mexico.

For the 1000’s of minor incidents dealt with by first responders, NOAA and the U.S. Environmental Safety Company collaborate on instruments just like the CAMEO software program suite that supply quick entry to chemical properties and different related info.

What’s a wetland?

VIDEO: What’s a wetland? This is what it is advisable to know in lower than a minute. Transcript

There are a lot of completely different sorts of wetlands and some ways to categorize them. NOAA classifies wetlands into 5 normal varieties: marine (ocean), estuarine (estuary), riverine (river), lacustrine (lake), and palustrine (marsh). Frequent names for wetlands embrace marshes, estuaries, mangroves, mudflats, mires, ponds, fens, swamps, deltas, coral reefs, billabongs, lagoons, shallow seas, bogs, lakes, and floodplains, to call only a few!

Typically discovered alongside waterways and in floodplains, wetlands fluctuate extensively because of variations in soil, topography, local weather, water chemistry, and vegetation. Massive wetland areas may be comprised of a number of smaller wetland varieties.
 
Wetland habitats serve important features in an ecosystem, together with performing as water filters, offering flood and erosion management, and furnishing meals and houses for fish and wildlife. They do greater than maintain crops and animals within the watershed, nonetheless. Many wetlands should not moist year-round as a result of water ranges change with the seasons. In periods of extreme rain, wetlands take in and gradual floodwaters, which helps to alleviate property harm and will even save lives.

Wetlands additionally take in extra vitamins, sediments, and different pollution earlier than they attain rivers, lakes, and different waterbodies. They’re additionally nice spots for fishing, canoeing, mountaineering, and bird-watching, and are fulfilling outside “school rooms” for individuals of all ages.

Video Transcript

Wetlands are discovered alongside waterways and in floodplains. They arrive in all sizes and shapes. Wetlands filter water, offering flood and erosion management. Wetlands have been as soon as considered ineffective swamps. However now, we all know they’re house to ample fish and wildlife.

What’s a maritime forest?

a maritime forest

These stumps are proof that bushes as soon as grew right here, however attributable to a always altering shoreline, they’re now principally submerged within the ocean.

Maritime forests are shoreline estuaries that develop alongside coastal barrier islands that assist an amazing variety of vegetation and animals. Many maritime forests in the US stay largely untouched by business improvement and carefully resemble the woodlands the place Native People lived and early colonists settled lots of of years in the past. Timber, bushes, and different vegetation in maritime forests and estuaries face up to sturdy winds, periodic flooding, and salt spray. Many species of mammals and reptiles make the forests their dwelling, and 1000’s of birds migrate to maritime forests annually.

a maritime forest

Currituck Banks Reserve, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, is a maritime forest.

A very good instance of a maritime forest is the Currituck Banks Reserve, situated on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  The western, ocean facet of Currituck consists of sand dunes of seaside grass and sea oats, which entrance a tightly woven cover of shrub-like thickets of wax myrtle, holly, and stunted oaks.  The cover acts as a windscreen to guard the forest’s much less tolerant inside bushes, typically consisting of American holly, seaside olive, ironwood, loblolly pine, pink maple, and dwell oak. On the opposite facet of the barrier island’s maritime forest lies the estuary of Currituck Sound, the place contemporary water meets the ocean’s salt water.  This shallow intertidal space is dwelling to the estuary’s ample natural world.

Like all barrier islands, maritime forests are always altering and on the transfer. On Currituck, for instance, one can see stumps of deciduous bushes alongside the sandy seaside. These bushes had been as soon as within the heart of the island, however because of the always altering shoreline, they’re now principally submerged within the ocean. Maritime forests, like all estuaries, are important for storm safety. Additionally they preserve essential vitamins and groundwater.

How does local weather change have an effect on coral reefs?


Local weather change is the best international menace to coral reef ecosystems. Scientific proof now clearly signifies that the Earth’s ambiance and ocean are warming, and that these adjustments are primarily as a consequence of greenhouse gases derived from human actions.

As temperatures rise, mass coral bleaching occasions and infectious illness outbreaks have gotten extra frequent. Moreover, carbon dioxide absorbed into the ocean from the ambiance has already begun to scale back calcification charges in reef-building and reef-associated organisms by altering seawater chemistry via decreases in pH. This course of known as ocean acidification.

Local weather change will have an effect on coral reef ecosystems, via sea stage rise, adjustments to the frequency and depth of tropical storms, and altered ocean circulation patterns. When mixed, all of those impacts dramatically alter ecosystem operate, in addition to the products and companies coral reef ecosystems present to folks across the globe.

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Threats to coral reefs: local weather change

Elevated greenhouse gases from human actions lead to local weather change and ocean acidification. Local weather change = ocean change. The world’s ocean is a large sink that absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2). Though this has slowed international warming, it’s also altering ocean chemistry.

Local weather change dramatically impacts coral reef ecosystems

Contributing elements that enhance greenhouse gases within the ambiance embrace burning fossil fuels for warmth and power, producing some industrial merchandise, elevating livestock, fertilizing crops, and deforestation. Local weather change results in:

  • A warming ocean: causes thermal stress that contributes to coral bleaching and infectious illness.
  • Sea stage rise: could result in will increase in sedimentation for reefs situated close to land-based sources of sediment. Sedimentation runoff can result in the smothering of coral.
  • Adjustments in storm patterns: results in stronger and extra frequent storms that may trigger the destruction of coral reefs.
  • Adjustments in precipitation: elevated runoff of freshwater, sediment, and land-based pollution contribute to algal blooms and trigger murky water circumstances that cut back mild.
  • Altered ocean currents: results in adjustments in connectivity and temperature regimes that contribute to lack of meals for corals and hampers dispersal of coral larvae.
  • Ocean acidification (a results of elevated CO2): causes a discount in pH ranges which decreases coral progress and structural integrity.

How one can assist

Shrink your carbon footprint to scale back greenhouse gases.

  • Drive much less.
  • Cut back, reuse, or recycle.
  • Buy energy-efficient home equipment and lightbulbs.
  • Print much less. Obtain extra. Use much less water.

Do your half to assist enhance general coral reef situation.

  • Cut back using garden and backyard chemical substances.
  • DO NOT dump family chemical substances in storm drains.
  • Select sustainable seafood. Go to FishWatch.gov.
  • Study good reef etiquette and apply it when within the water.
  • Volunteer for seaside and waterway clear ups.

How does overfishing have an effect on coral reefs?


Coral reef ecosystems assist essential industrial, leisure, and subsistence fishery sources within the U.S and its territories. Fishing additionally performs a central social and cultural position in lots of island and coastal communities, the place it’s typically a crucial supply of meals and revenue.

The impacts from unsustainable fishing on coral reef areas can result in the depletion of key reef species in lots of areas. Such losses typically have a ripple impact, not simply on the coral reef ecosystems themselves, but additionally on the native economies that depend upon them. Moreover, sure sorts of fishing gear can inflict critical bodily injury to coral reefs, seagrass beds, and different essential marine habitats.

Coral reef fisheries, although typically comparatively small in scale, could have disproportionately massive impacts on the ecosystem if carried out unsustainably. Fast human inhabitants development, elevated demand, use of extra environment friendly fishery applied sciences, and insufficient administration and enforcement have led to the depletion of key reef species and habitat injury in lots of areas.

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Threats to coral reefs: Overfishing

Coral reef fish are a major meals supply for over billion individuals worldwide. Many coastal and island communities depend upon coral reef fisheries for his or her financial, social, and tradition advantages. However an excessive amount of of a very good factor may be unhealthy for coral reefs.

  • Fishing Nurseries

    Nearshore habitats function nurseries for a lot of fish. Catching younger fish in nets removes them earlier than they can assist replenish the inhabitants.

  • Marine Particles

    Traps set too near reefs and marine particles, reminiscent of ghost traps misplaced nets, monofilament, and contours can injury coral reefs, which take a very long time to get well.

  • Indiscriminate Fishing

    Use of non-selective gears, like nets and traps, typically removes extra herbivorous fishes. These fish eat algae and assist preserve the ecosystem in steadiness.

  • Fishing Spawning Aggregations

    Some species collect in massive numbers at predictable occasions and areas to mate. Spawning aggregations are significantly susceptible to overfishing.

  • Fishing Too Many Large Fish

    Giant fish produce extra younger which are more likely to survive to maturity. Their absence means fish populations dwindle over time.

How one can assist

  • Educate your self on native fishing guidelines and laws. Your state fishery company or bait and sort out store can assist you study extra.
  • Make sustainable seafood selection. Be taught extra: www.fishwatch.gov
  • Solely take what you want. Catch and launch fish that you do not plan to eat.
  • Be a accountable aguarium proprietor. Know the place your fish come from and DO NOT launch undesirable fish into the wild.

How does land-based air pollution threaten coral reefs?


Impacts from land-based sources of air pollution—together with coastal growth, deforestation, agricultural runoff, and oil and chemical spills—can impede coral progress and copy, disrupt total ecological perform, and trigger illness and mortality in delicate species. It’s now nicely accepted that many critical coral reef ecosystem stressors originate from land-based sources, most notably toxicants, sediments, and vitamins.

Throughout the U.S., there are quite a few places the place coral reef ecosystems are extremely impacted by watershed alteration, runoff, and coastal growth. On U.S. islands within the Pacific and Caribbean, vital adjustments within the drainage basins resulting from agriculture, deforestation, grazing of feral animals, fires, highway constructing, and urbanization have elevated the amount of land-based air pollution launched to adjoining coral reef ecosystems.

Many of those points are made worse due to the geographic and climatic traits present in tropical island areas. Collectively they create distinctive administration challenges.

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Threats to coral reefs: land-based sources of air pollution

As human inhabitants and growth expands in coastal areas, the panorama is altered, rising land-based supply of air pollution and threatening coral reef well being.

Air pollution (e.g., sedimentation, toxins, pathogens, elevated vitamins):

  • Causes illness and mortality.
  • Disrupts ecological features.
  • Adjustments dynamics and feeding behaviors.
  • Prevents coral progress and copy.

Land-based sources of air pollution embrace:

  • Failed septic methods: vitamins and pathogens.
  • Coastal growth & impervious floor: sedimentation
    and toxins.
  • Stormwater runoff: sedimentation, toxins,
    vitamins, and pathogens.
  • Deforestation: sedimentation.
  • Oil and chemical spills: toxins.
  • Street development: sedimentation.
  • Agriculture: vitamins and sedimentation.

How one can assist!

  • Apply fertilizers and pesticides sparingly.
  • Choose up after your pets.
  • Wash your automotive in your garden.
  • Get rid of garden clippings in a compost pile.
  • Harvest rooftop rain water by means of rain barrels or rain gardens.
  • DO NOT dump paint, oil, antifreeze, particles, or different family chemical compounds into road gutters or storm drains.
  • Clear up spilled brake Fluid, oil,greaseand antifreeze
  • Keep correct septic system perform with inspections and pumpouts each 3-5 years.
  • Search shade between 10 am & 2 pm, use Ultraviolet Safety Issue (UPF) sunwear, and select sunscreens with chemical compounds that don’t hurt marine life.

What’s a meteotsunami?

a stormy ocean, iStock image

Stormy climate over the ocean can typically gasoline the event of meteotsunamis, a sequence of waves usually a lot smaller and fewer harmful than these related to seismically generated tsunamis.

Seiches and meteotsunamis. What is the distinction?

Seiches and meteotsunamis are sometimes grouped collectively, however they’re two totally different occasions. Winds and atmospheric stress can contribute to the formation of each seiches and meteotsunamis; nevertheless, winds are usually extra necessary to a seiche movement, whereas stress typically performs a considerable function in meteotsunami formation. Generally a seiche and a meteotsunami may even happen on the similar time. Seiches are standing waves with longer durations of water-level oscillations (usually exceeding durations of three or extra hours), whereas meteotsunamis are progressive waves restricted to the tsunami frequency band of wave durations (two minutes to 2 hours). Seiches are often restricted to partially or absolutely enclosed basins, resembling Lake Erie. Meteotsunamis can happen in such basins however are additionally prevalent on the open coast. A single meteotsunami can journey lengthy distances and affect a really massive vary of the shoreline.


You’ve heard of tsunamis—these large oceanic waves triggered primarily by earthquakes that may roll ashore, inflicting lack of life and catastrophe. However have you ever heard of meteotsunamis?

Meteotsunamis are massive waves that scientists are simply starting to raised perceive. In contrast to tsunamis triggered by seismic exercise, meteotsunamis are pushed by air-pressure disturbances typically related to fast-moving climate occasions, resembling extreme thunderstorms, squalls, and different storm fronts. The storm generates a wave that strikes in direction of the shore, and is amplified by a shallow continental shelf and inlet, bay, or different coastal function.

Meteotsunamis have been noticed to succeed in heights of 6 ft or extra. They happen in lots of locations all over the world, together with the Nice Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Coast, and the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.

Figuring out a meteotsunami is a problem as a result of its traits are nearly indistinguishable from a seismic tsunami. It may also be confused with wind-driven storm surge or a seiche. These uncertainties make it tough to foretell a meteotsunami and warn the general public of a possible occasion. Nonetheless, NOAA scientists have recognized atmospheric circumstances which are more likely to generate a meteotsunami and proceed to work on methods to forecast them.

What’s a barrier island?

a barrier island

Satellite tv for pc picture of Cape Hatteras Nationwide Seashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Credit score: NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Barrier islands kind as waves repeatedly deposit sediment parallel to the shoreline. As wind and waves shift based on climate patterns and native geographic options, these islands continuously transfer, erode, and develop. They’ll even disappear solely.

They’re usually separated from the mainland by tidal creeks, bays, and lagoons. Seashores and sand dune techniques kind on the aspect of the island dealing with the ocean; the aspect dealing with the shore typically accommodates marshes, tidal flats, and maritime forests. These areas are essential habitat for seabirds, fish and shellfish, and nesting sea turtles.

Many barrier islands are discovered off the U.S. Gulf and East coasts, such because the Outer Banks off North Carolina. Barrier island chains are inclined to kind close to river deltas and in areas with low tectonic exercise and comparatively flat coastal terrain. The rocky cliffs and shifting tectonic plates off the West Coast, together with different options of the terrain and tides, forestall barrier islands from forming there.

These islands are crucial to defending coastal communities and ecosystems from excessive climate. Seaside dunes and grasses on barrier islands soak up wave power earlier than the wave hits the mainland. This usually means smaller storm surge and fewer flooding on the coast.

Sadly, barrier islands are disappearing at an alarming fee. Erosion might be attributable to human actions similar to ship visitors, arduous levees, and infrastructure tasks, even these far upriver. Damming and dredging tasks can considerably have an effect on the quantity of sand and sediment accessible to fortify barrier islands. The consequences of local weather change, together with speedy sea degree rise and excessive climate occasions, may cause or worsen barrier island erosion.

NOAA helps pure and nature-based infrastructure tasks that restore and shield barrier islands and the advantages they supply to coastal communities and ecosystems. Hundreds of acres of barrier islands and marshland have been restored or enhanced as a part of Gulf Spill Restoration tasks. These tasks tackle injury to pure assets and wildlife from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, however the restored barrier islands additionally present added coastal resilience and shield essential estuary habitats.