National Oceanic

Storms and snow notwithstanding, this winter was still warmer than average. The global temperature for December, January and February averaged 54.38 degrees Fahrenheit, 0.58 degree warmer than normal for the last century, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday.

Shipping lanes along the California coast - the oceanic superhighways for Asian goods coming to America - are poised to be rerouted in order to protect endangered whales from collisions. The International Maritime Organization, which governs global shipping, has approved three proposals that would shift one lane through the Santa Barbara Channel and the approaches to the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex and ports located in San Francisco Bay. The route adjustments were recommended by the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after four blue whales were thought to have been killed by ship strikes in the Santa Barbara Channel in 2007 and an additional five whales were suspected ship-strike victims off the Central and Northern California coast in 2010.

Trying to understand the unusual weather? Check out the El Nino Theme Page at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/el-nino/home.html, where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides up-to-the-minute data on the powerful Pacific Ocean current that is believed to disrupt weather patterns worldwide.

This year's punishing drought is getting worse across much of the nation, federal officials said Monday. "Severe to extreme drought affected about 33%" of the continental U.S. in June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported. That was an increase of nearly 10 percentage points from May, the agency said.   What's more, when "moderate drought" was factored in, about 55% of the continental U.S. was affected, NOAA said.  The hardest-hit areas, according to NOAA, are the southern to central Rockies, Central Plains and the Ohio Valley, bringing yellowed crops and cracking soil.

Shipping lanes along the California coast - the oceanic superhighways for Asian goods coming to America - are poised to be rerouted in order to protect endangered whales from collisions. The International Maritime Organization, which governs global shipping, has approved three proposals that would shift one lane through the Santa Barbara Channel and the approaches to the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex and ports located in San Francisco Bay. The route adjustments were recommended by the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after four blue whales were thought to have been killed by ship strikes in the Santa Barbara Channel in 2007 and an additional five whales were suspected ship-strike victims off the Central and Northern California coast in 2010.

State Sen. Ray Haynes (R-Riverside) says that God brought him to the Legislature and that God urged him to run for the U.S. Senate (Feb. 23). He also calls environmentalists "clean-air Nazis" and says global warming is hocus-pocus. On the same day "Climate Is Warming at Steep Rate, Study Says" reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, backed by the National Academy of Sciences, indicated that the Earth's climate is warming at an unprecedented rate. It may well be that Haynes' evangelical Christian right conservatives may one day inherit the Earth--a dead planet.

With the world's oceans facing mounting threats from pollution, climate change and overfishing, the Obama administration on Friday held the first of several public hearings intended to help it draft a coordinated policy for managing the health of the seas. During their stop in Alaska, members of the White House's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force said they expected to have a list of priorities for improving ocean stewardship in place by mid-September. By December, officials said, they planned to set out a broad strategy for sustainably allocating natural resources among interests such as fishing, oil and gas development, shipping, wind and tidal energy, boating and wildlife preservation.

This year's punishing drought is getting worse across much of the nation, federal officials said Monday. "Severe to extreme drought affected about 33%" of the continental U.S. in June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported. That was an increase of nearly 10 percentage points from May, the agency said.   What's more, when "moderate drought" was factored in, about 55% of the continental U.S. was affected, NOAA said.  The hardest-hit areas, according to NOAA, are the southern to central Rockies, Central Plains and the Ohio Valley, bringing yellowed crops and cracking soil.

The Aquarium of the Pacific's newest exhibit introduces visitors to an eerie world beyond the reach of sunshine: the bottom of the ocean, a strange seascape of crushing pressure, volcanic fissures and an abundance of cryptic creatures. The Wonders of the Deep gallery, which is scheduled to open to the public May 24, will be one of the few places where visitors can marvel over bioluminescent fish and opportunistic scavengers that inhabit the biological oases created by dead marine mammals that sink to the bottom.

Marine biologist Dan Madigan stood on a dock in San Diego and considered some freshly caught Pacific bluefin tuna. The fish had managed to swim 5,000 miles from their spawning grounds near Japan to California's shores, only to end up the catch of local fishermen. It was August 2011, five months since a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami had struck in Japan, crippling the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Madigan couldn't stop thinking about pictures he'd seen on TV of Japanese emergency crews dumping radioactive water from the failing reactors into the Pacific Ocean.

Exceptionally warm ocean waters and favorable atmospheric conditions are expected to bring an above-average number of tropical storms and hurricanes to the Atlantic and Caribbean, national weather forecasters predicted Thursday. The forecast comes as Florida braces for the remnants of Tropical Storm Emily, which has pounded the Caribbean in recent days with rain and winds above 50 mph. The storm weakened considerably Thursday, but is expected to bring some rain and winds to Florida over the weekend.

The new normal is warmer. That's the assessment of the nation's top weather agency, which will release data Friday showing the 30-year "normal" temperature in the United States. "The climate of the 2000s is about 1.5 degree Fahrenheit warmer than the 1970s, so we would expect the updated 30-year normals to be warmer," said Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. That recent temperature trend was enough to drag the three-decade moving average, from 1981 to 2010, up by half a degree Fahrenheit from the 1971 to 2000 period, according to the report by NOAA.

Robert Downs leads the scientists who sniff at fish. Each day, his team of seven sensory experts dip their noses into large Pyrex bowls of snapper, tuna and other raw seafood to test for even a whiff of the pungent oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. This is not Grand Cru wine. "We use specific terms for the aroma," said Downs, who supervises the seafood smellers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine lab here. "Diesel oil. Bunker oil. Asphalt.

The federal government's top ocean scientists are urging the Interior Department to drastically reduce plans to open the coast to offshore oil and gas drilling, citing threats to marine life and potentially devastating effects of oil spills in Arctic waters. The recommendations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are informal and not binding. But if adopted, they would restrict development in some of the nation's most resource-rich untapped offshore areas and mark a significant departure from the pro-drilling policies of the George W. Bush administration.

With the world's oceans facing mounting threats from pollution, climate change and overfishing, the Obama administration on Friday held the first of several public hearings intended to help it draft a coordinated policy for managing the health of the seas. During their stop in Alaska, members of the White House's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force said they expected to have a list of priorities for improving ocean stewardship in place by mid-September. By December, officials said, they planned to set out a broad strategy for sustainably allocating natural resources among interests such as fishing, oil and gas development, shipping, wind and tidal energy, boating and wildlife preservation.

Storms and snow notwithstanding, this winter was still warmer than average. The global temperature for December, January and February averaged 54.38 degrees Fahrenheit, 0.58 degree warmer than normal for the last century, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday.

WASHINGTON -- Work to repair remaining earthquake damage to the closed Washington Monument will begin within about 30 days and be completed in 12 to 18 months, National Park Service officials said Wednesday. The Park Service announced that Perini Management Services Inc. of Massachusetts had been chosen to complete the $15-million project. The damage was caused by a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck the East Coast in August 2011. “This is a major step toward getting the monument safely opened to the public once again,” said Bob Vogel, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

State Sen. Ray Haynes (R-Riverside) says that God brought him to the Legislature and that God urged him to run for the U.S. Senate (Feb. 23). He also calls environmentalists "clean-air Nazis" and says global warming is hocus-pocus. On the same day "Climate Is Warming at Steep Rate, Study Says" reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, backed by the National Academy of Sciences, indicated that the Earth's climate is warming at an unprecedented rate. It may well be that Haynes' evangelical Christian right conservatives may one day inherit the Earth--a dead planet.