Rogues and Climate Change?
Recently brought into the spotlight by the film "The Perfect Storm," Rogue Waves were until very recently thought to be the stuff of sailors' tales. We at CHL headquarters are hoping that some of our volunteer scentist staff find a connection between climate change and rogue wave frequency and/or magnitude. I don't know what exactly they can contribute to our homogenity goals, but they are pretty cool!

STORY: Rogue waves that rise as high as 10-story buildings and can sink large ships are far more common than previously thought, imagery from European Space Agency (ESA) satellites has shown. As part of a scientific project initiated by the European Union in December 2000, two ESA satellites monitored the world's oceans to test the frequency of monster waves that were once dismissed as a nautical myth.

Three weeks of data from the early months of 2001 showed more than ten individual giant waves around the globe of over 80 feet in height. Previously, ESA said, scientists believed that such large waves occurred only once every 10,000 years. "Having proved they existed in higher numbers than anyone expected, the next step is to analyze if they can be forecasted," said Wolfgang Rosenthal, a scientist at the GKSS research center in Geesthacht, Germany.

ESA said that severe weather had sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 650 feet in length over the past two decades and that rogue waves were believed to be a major cause of such accidents. Current ships and off-shore platforms are built to withstand maximum wave heights of only 50 feet, ESA said.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 10:12 AM | |