Science Watch if climate change is causing major waves of the Ocean (Washington Post)

This is one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world, where 1 million foot cubic water a second struck with 20 or 30 feet waves of the Ocean on a stretch of four miles of sand shifting.

A small band of pilot emission conditions often dangerous to guide ships in the Columbia River bar extending over Washington and Oregon.

Drivers who work the "graveyard of the Pacific" have a deep respect for the relentless forces, they face on a daily basis as they Ascend tankers, bulk carriers, car transporters and ships passenger and cargo stand off the coast. They commute in 72-foot recovery vessels that can roll over 360 degrees in winter gales and sometimes force an explosion of North Pacific storms hurricane.

Drivers also confirm this as specialists of the Sea began to speak: the ocean waves are increasingly larger and more powerful, and climate change could be the cause.

"We were talking a few years now,", said Captain Dan Jordan, who has served in shipping for 30 years to become a driver of Columbia Bar. "The mother nature has an easy way to tell us who is in charge."

Using the buoy and models based on wind plans, scientific data say the waves of the Pacific Northwest Coast and along the Atlantic coast of West Palm Beach, Florida, Cape Hatteras, N.C., increase constantly size. And, at least in the Northwest, the big waves are considered more a threat to coastal communities and beaches that the rise in sea level accompanying global warming.

Similar increases the wave height was noticed in the North Atlantic off the coast of England.

Unclear is whether increased the number and the height of the "rogue" waves beyond the continental shelf. The existence of such waves freak, which can reach 100 feet or more in height and can marshes a large vessel in a few seconds, has not proven until 2004, when the European satellites equipped with radar detected 10 of them for a period of three weeks. According to some estimates, two merchant ships per month disappear without trace, appears to be victims of rogue waves.

"Obviously, it is a question that interests us," said Trevor Maynard team popular London Lloyd developments change and emerging risks that climate world tracks. "We are witnessing climate change fingerprints on a batch of events."

Increase in the average

Since the mid 1970s, buoy data show that larger wave height of Northwest Coast has increased an average of approximately four inches a year, or about 10 feet total according to Peter Ruggiero, Geosciences at Oregon State University Assistant Professor and is the principal author of a study published recently in the coastal engineering journal.

Ruggiero and his colleagues also estimated how high a wave of 100 years could be. It would be great waves would enter as well as all the 100 years. Estimate has increased by 40% since the 1970s, 33 46 feet feet. Some calculations consider that a wave of 100 years could be high 55-foot taller than a five-storey building.

"We assume that trends will grow in the future," said Ruggiero.

Science Watch if climate change is causing major waves of the Ocean (Washington Post)

This is one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world, where 1 million foot cubic water a second struck with 20 or 30 feet waves of the Ocean on a stretch of four miles of sand shifting.

A small band of pilot emission conditions often dangerous to guide ships in the Columbia River bar extending over Washington and Oregon.

Drivers who work the "graveyard of the Pacific" have a deep respect for the relentless forces, they face on a daily basis as they Ascend tankers, bulk carriers, car transporters and ships passenger and cargo stand off the coast. They commute in 72-foot recovery vessels that can roll over 360 degrees in winter gales and sometimes force an explosion of North Pacific storms hurricane.

Drivers also confirm this as specialists of the Sea began to speak: the ocean waves are increasingly larger and more powerful, and climate change could be the cause.

"We were talking a few years now,", said Captain Dan Jordan, who has served in shipping for 30 years to become a driver of Columbia Bar. "The mother nature has an easy way to tell us who is in charge."

Using the buoy and models based on wind plans, scientific data say the waves of the Pacific Northwest Coast and along the Atlantic coast of West Palm Beach, Florida, Cape Hatteras, N.C., increase constantly size. And, at least in the Northwest, the big waves are considered more a threat to coastal communities and beaches that the rise in sea level accompanying global warming.

Similar increases the wave height was noticed in the North Atlantic off the coast of England.

Unclear is whether increased the number and the height of the "rogue" waves beyond the continental shelf. The existence of such waves freak, which can reach 100 feet or more in height and can marshes a large vessel in a few seconds, has not proven until 2004, when the European satellites equipped with radar detected 10 of them for a period of three weeks. According to some estimates, two merchant ships per month disappear without trace, appears to be victims of rogue waves.

"Obviously, it is a question that interests us," said Trevor Maynard team popular London Lloyd developments change and emerging risks that climate world tracks. "We are witnessing climate change fingerprints on a batch of events."

Increase in the average

Since the mid 1970s, buoy data show that larger wave height of Northwest Coast has increased an average of approximately four inches a year, or about 10 feet total according to Peter Ruggiero, Geosciences at Oregon State University Assistant Professor and is the principal author of a study published recently in the coastal engineering journal.

Ruggiero and his colleagues also estimated how high a wave of 100 years could be. It would be great waves would enter as well as all the 100 years. Estimate has increased by 40% since the 1970s, 33 46 feet feet. Some calculations consider that a wave of 100 years could be high 55-foot taller than a five-storey building.

"We assume that trends will grow in the future," said Ruggiero.

Dead whales Foster ocean life (Discovery)

A study of whale carcasses discovered new species of snails and bone-eating to. Whale falls attract also several feeders "context" who live on the high seas. Whale carcasses may keep some secrets about how animals made their way into the deep ocean.

When a whale dies and falls on the sea floor, the carcass is a boon for future generations of crabs and bone-eating around and snails, horrific experiments have revealed. The morbid smörgåsbord could tell us much about the evolution of deep sea animals.

By dragging the whale died off the coast ranges, placing them in the depths of the ocean and return year after year, researchers discover whole communities animal develops on whale carcasses.

New research in Monterey Submarine Canyon California involving carcasses submerged five juvenile whales turned more than a dozen new species of worms-eating of bones and bone-eating snails. The work also raised the possibility that these small animals is more effective than previously thought to reduce whale bone dust.

"Original research suggested that bones would be the last 50 to 100 years," said Lonny Lundsten Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. This would mean that the bones of large whales may last long enough to serve as artificial reefs for animals requiring a harder surface on which live as the vase soft ocean floor.

But Lundsten whales and his colleagues studied have almost disappeared in five to seven years, they go in a recent issue of the Deep Sea Research.

"We discovered that is the phase of reef is really there," said Lundsten.

That being said, all whales in Monterey study were juveniles. An adult blue whales have larger bones and finally the longest. "But we always think that even a large blue whale does not last long."

Another surprise, that they have found is that many of the animals living on the carcasses are not experts step - like worms and whalebone eating snails. Instead, they are just normal scavengers who are still skittering on deep sea looking manna from the top.

"We found is that most animals are animal background" submarine canyon, said Lundsten. Right whale fall brings the. "This is really just a big piece of food."

On the other hand, there is a new species and consuming to unique bone, Osedax genus, discovery whale falls in different parts of the world, said Lundsten. These worms are now known to employ a bacterial symbionts to help dissolve the whale bone.

A sort of newly discovered snail has also found eating bones, but it is still studied to know exactly how she manages to digest the mineralized material. These eating bones form a critical case to make whaling community possible fall.

How to snails Osedax manage to locate and occupied distant whale falls remains a mystery, said Craig Smith of the University of Hawaii, who has studied whale off the coast of Southern California falls among others.

"They seem to be finding whale falls very well," Smith said to.

It compares to another unusual face of marine organisms in the same problem: the tube worms and other animals develop in hot water vents in the ocean floors in widely separated locations around the world. As whale falls, these ocean winds are of short duration, which means they much be a way for animals disperse and find new homes for hundreds or even thousands of kilometres.

One thing that could help the Osedax is that they can be snacking on other types of bone between the whale falls said Lundsten. Now, the experiments have shown that the Osedax to same bone cow will eat when they are available.

It may also be a tomb of a larger story whaling and the deep ocean vents, said Smith. Perhaps falls of whales and other deaths of large animals in the history of oceans who have introduced progressively recuperators shallow waters deeper and deeper, until they find ways to adapt to such things as the hot vents.

"It highlights just how connected ocean are ecosystems," said Smith.