Worlds biggest wave

This is "suppose" to be the biggest wave a caught on tape, just pretty spectacular someone surfed through ir... intense

Storm-force winds exert less pull on ocean than expected

This 15 September 2004 NASA satellite image shows Hurricane Ivan. A snapshot of ocean conditions taken during Hurricane Ivan in 2004 has yielded new clues about the dynamics of storm surges that could help meteorologists make more accurate predictions, a study released Thursday.

Weather forecasters typically rely on data about surface winds and turbulence to try and figure out just how much a storm has churned up the ocean and what the resulting storm surge will look like -- the kind of surge that walloped New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But when US Navy researchers studied data gleaned from deep-sea sensors in the Gulf of Mexico as the eye of Hurricane Ivan passed overhead on September 15, 2004, the wave patterns they observed were quite different from what they anticipated.They expected the waves to build in speed and intensity in line with increasing wind speeds, based on the formulations used in current ocean circulation and storm surge computer models.The first-of-a-kind readings showed that the winds did indeed exert a drag effect on the waves at speeds below 72 miles per hour (32 meters per second), but above that point the wave speeds steadily declined.The investigators suspect that once the winds hit this point, which is considered the threshold for hurricane-force winds, the spray, foam and bubbles from breaking waves reduce the "drag" effect allowing the hurricane to slip over the sea."We should be able to improve storm surge predictions based on this finding," said William Teague, an oceanographer with the Naval Research Laboratory at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

( this study appears in the journal of science)

Enough is Enough

Why is this still going on?

A Japanese whaling ship returned to port from Antarctica Friday with a catch of 508 whales, despite having its annual hunt cut short by a deadly fire. The Nisshin Maru's hunt had triggered a high-seas showdown with environmental groups even before the fire, and Greenpeace issued a fresh condemnation of Japan's whaling program, wanting the damaged ship to be retired.
Tokyo says its whaling provides crucial data for the International Whaling Commission on populations and feeding habits of whales in Antarctic seas. The hunts are allowed by the commission, but environmental groups have long said the hunts are a pretext for keeping alive commercial whaling, which was banned in 1986.

Signs of slower ocean currents off Antarctica
Fresh water from glaciers, ice sheets seen impacting global circulation

The impact of global warming on the vast Southern Ocean around Antarctica is starting to pose a threat to ocean currents that distribute heat around the world, Australian scientists say, citing new deep-water data.Melting ice-sheets and glaciers in Antarctica are releasing fresh water, interfering with the formation of dense "bottom water," which sinks 2-3 miles to the ocean floor and helps drive the world's ocean circulation system.A slowdown in the system known as "overturning circulation" would affect the way the ocean, which absorbs 85 percent of atmospheric heat, carries heat around the globe.

If the water gets fresh enough ... then it won't matter how much ice we form, we won't be able to make this water cold and salty enough to sink," said Steve Rintoul, a senior scientist at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency."Changes would be felt ... around the globe," said Rintoul, who recently led a multinational team of scientists on an expedition to sample deep-basin water south of Western Australia to the Antarctic.Water dense enough to sink to the ocean floor is formed in polar regions by surface water freezing, which concentrates salt in very cold water beneath the ice.

The dense water then sinks.Only a few places around Antarctica and in the northern Atlantic create water dense enough to sink to the ocean floor, making Antarctic "bottom water" crucial to global ocean currents.But the freshening of Antarctic deep water was a sign that the "overturning circulation" system in the world's oceans might be slowing down, Rintoul said, and similar trends are occurring in the North Atlantic.

For the so-called Atlantic Conveyor, the surface warm water current meets the Greenland ice sheet then cools and sinks, heading south again and driving the conveyor belt process.
But researchers fear increased melting of the Greenland ice sheet risks disrupting the conveyor. If it stops, temperatures in northern Europe would plunge.Rintoul, who has led teams tracking water density around the Antarctic through decades of readings, said his findings add to concerns about a "strangling" of the Southern Ocean by greenhouse gases and global warming.
Australian scientists warned last month that waters surrounding Antarctica were also becoming more acidic as they absorbed more carbon dioxide produced by nations burning fossil fuels.
Acidification of the ocean is affecting the ability of plankton — microscopic marine plants, animals and bacteria — to absorb carbon dioxide, reducing the ocean's ability to sink greenhouse gases to the bottom of the sea.Rintoul said that global warming was also changing wind patterns in the Antarctic region, drawing them south away from the Australian mainland and causing declining rainfall in western and possibly eastern coastal areas.This was contributing to drought in Australia, one of the world's top agricultural producers, he said.

(info from msnbc)