Science
Related: About this forumLarge waves measured for first time in Arctic Ocean
As the climate warms and sea ice retreats, the North is changing. An ice-covered expanse now has a season of increasingly open water that is predicted to extend across the whole Arctic Ocean before the middle of this century. Storms thus have the potential to create Arctic swell huge waves that could add a new and unpredictable element to the region.
A University of Washington researcher made the first study of waves in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, and detected house-sized waves during a September 2012 storm. The results were recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.
As the Arctic is melting, its a pretty simple prediction that the additional open water should make waves, said lead author Jim Thomson, an oceanographer with the UW Applied Physics Laboratory.
His data show that winds in mid-September 2012 created waves of 5 meters (16 feet) high during the peak of the storm. The research also traces the sources of those big waves: high winds, which have always howled through the Arctic, combined with the new reality of open water in summer.
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http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/07/29/huge-waves-measured-for-first-time-in-arctic-ocean/
catbyte
(34,374 posts)They are killing the planet as we know it.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)If people didn't put them in office we wouldn't even know who they were.
catbyte
(34,374 posts)cojoel
(957 posts)He wasn't wrong; just centuries ahead of his time.
Brother Buzz
(36,416 posts)and Cook after him. I've always wondered how they 'knew' the fabled Northwest passage existed.