Ocean wind speeds and wave heights around the world have increased significantly over the past quarter of a century, according to Australian research that has given scientists their first global glimpse of the world's rising winds and waves.
Published in the journal Science today, the research – the most comprehensive of its kind ever undertaken – used satellite data collected from 1985 to 2008.
It shows the extreme wave height off the coast of south-west Australia today is six metres on average, more than a metre higher than in 1985.
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"That has all sorts of implications for coastal engineering, navigation and erosion processes," said Alex Babanin, an oceanographer at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, and co-author of the paper.
However, there are greater uses for the data compiled by Professor Babanin, his Swinburne colleague Stefan Zieger and the Australian National University vice-chancellor, Ian Young.
To date scientists have largely focused on temperature as an indicator of climate change. But climate is about much more than temperature, as winds and waves control the flux of energy from the atmosphere to the ocean.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/scien ... 1c97e.html
Surf's up!
Surf's up!
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