Surf's Up! - And Rising Fast!! - Aquarius Papers

by Robert Wilkinson

In good news for surfers and bad news for everyone living on a coastline, it seems that waves are getting bigger and bigger by the year.

From a recent McClatchy news story by Les Blumenthal, "Is climate change to blame for bigger ocean waves?" we find that ship pilots guiding boats in and out of harbors are concerned that ocean waves are "becoming bigger and more powerful, and climate change could be the cause." Even the very conservative Lloyd's of London, which is tracking global climate change developments since they're involved in insuring merchant ships, are "seeing climate change fingerprints on a lot of events."

This is fairly important, since larger coastal and ocean waves have the ability to impact everything from shipping to the homes along the coasts. And the news isn't coming only from climate scientists - this is reported by ship captains who "commute in 72-foot self-righting boats that can roll over 360 degrees as winter gales and sometimes hurricane-force storms blast out of the North Pacific."

From the article:

"We've been talking about it for a couple of years now," said Capt. Dan Jordan, who served in the merchant marine for 30 years before becoming a Columbia River Bar pilot. "Mother Nature has an easy way of telling us who is in charge."

Using buoy data and models based on wind patterns, scientists say that the waves off the coast of the Pacific Northwest and along the Atlantic seaboard from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., are steadily increasing in size... in the Northwest, the larger waves are considered more of a threat to coastal communities and beaches than the rise in sea level accompanying global warming is....

Since the mid-1970s, buoy data shows the height of the biggest waves off the Northwest coast has increased an average of about four inches a year, or about 10 feet total, according to Peter Ruggiero, an assistant geosciences professor at Oregon State University and the lead author of a study published recently in the journal Coastal Engineering.

Ruggiero and his colleagues also estimated how high a 100-year wave might be. These would be the largest waves expected to come along every 100 years. The estimate has increased 40 percent since the 1970s, from 33 feet to 46 feet. Some calculations estimate a 100-year wave might be 55 feet high, taller than a five-story building.

In the story we read one pilot speaking of a 44-foot wave recorded recently off the Columbia river, and in the Spring of 2007, a storm brought in a 54-foot wave, after which the buoy recording the wave heights quit. Here's more:

On the East Coast, a yet-to-be-published study also has showed that average wave heights have been increasing, by a couple of centimeters or so a year.

"The averages aren't very exciting," said Peter Adams, an assistant professor in the University of Florida's Department of Geological Sciences who used wind data from the past 20 to 30 years to develop a wave height model. "Given that there are 3 million waves a year, one wave every 10 seconds, it's not so alarming."

Adams said he finds it startling that the height of the biggest waves has increased nearly a foot in 10 years.

"In a lifetime, that can be profound," he said.

Of course there is a lot of speculation about the cause of the radical increase of wave sizes. While a scientist or two are skeptical, more of those in the front lines believe it's associated with global climate change than not.

It's no news that there are still those who believe that we humans are not severely impacting our biosphere through the individual and collective impact of all the thoughtless and even stupid things we do. Oh well. Maybe the climate change deniers should all buy houses a few feet from the ocean to prove their commitment to their point of view.

Or spend a year or two on a 72 foot boat rolling under water and back up again as 40 foot waves hit. Then over time they'll get direct observation and experience as the waves get larger and larger. Out of the lab and into the field (or the drink, if you will!)

Surf's up! (and up, and up and up!)