Giant Ocean Waves Getting Speedier, Courtesy of Global Warming
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06.13.07
A team of geophysicists from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, have determined that gigantic ocean waves have been speeding up due to global warming.
These large ocean waves, known as planetary waves, typically span hundreds of kilometers from crest to crest. Having predicted that planetary waves would accelerate as a result of the ocean surface warming, John Fyfe and Oleg Saenko, writing in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, modeled the changes to ocean wave patterns over the 20th and 21st centuries to test their hypothesis.
They were surprised to find that global warming had already exerted a measurable effect on the speed of waves. Because satellites had not been monitoring their speeds for long enough, no one had noticed until now. According to the model, the waves will be another 20 to 40% faster compared to pre-industrial speeds by the end of this century.
"We knew we'd see an effect, but we didn't think it would be significant for at least another two centuries," Fyfe said.
Adding that he believed that the faster waves will have an effect on global weather, he suggested that more research needed to be done to ascertain what the long-term consequences would be.
Via ::Global warming is speeding up ocean waves, ::Get Your Sailing and Kayaking in Soon
See also: ::Waves of News About Water, ::Wave Power gets Smarter, ::Ocean Saltiness Provides Early Warning System for Climate Change, ::Ocean's Twilight Zone Has Role in Climate Change
Faster and more of these giant waves bode no good for commercial fishmen and passanger liners. New designs will have to be considered in adapting vessels to surviving such collisions. Energy increases as the square of the velocity so if these waves are really 20 to 40% faster, this means that the energy content of the wave is about 1.4 (1.2^2=1.44) up to about 2 (1.4^2 = 1.96) times as great as normal giant waves.
There may also be shore effects of which we are presently unaware.
adrianakau2aol.com
"...planetary waves, typically span hundreds of kilometers from crest to crest."
Just to note that these waves are enormously wide (described in above quote from article). I don't think the previous poster caught that judging from his/her comment. The article doesn't mention the height - therefore the photograph accompanying the article, really, is very misleading.