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Title: Freak waves spotted from space-" waves as tall as 10 storey buildings"
Source:
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URL Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3917539.stm
Published: Aug 21, 2009
Author: n
Post Date: 2009-08-21 16:51:52 by gengis gandhi
Keywords: None
Views: 354
Comments: 19
Freak waves spotted from space Wave, PA Esa tasked two of its Earth-scanning satellites to monitor the oceans with their radar The shady phenomenon of freak waves as tall as 10 storey buildings has finally been proved, the European Space Agency (Esa) said on Wednesday. Sailors often whisper of monster waves when ships sink mysteriously but, until now, no one quite believed them. As part of a project called MaxWave - which was set up to test the rumours - two Esa satellites surveyed the oceans. During a three week period they detected 10 giant waves, all of which were over 25m (81ft) high. Strange disappearances Over the last two decades more than 200 super-carriers - cargo ships over 200m long - have been lost at sea. Eyewitness reports suggest many were sunk by high and violent walls of water that rose up out of calm seas. But for years these tales of towering beasts were written off as fantasy; and many marine scientists clung to statistical models stating monstrous deviations from the normal sea state occur once every 1,000 years. The waves exist in higher numbers than anyone expected Wolfgang Rosenthal, GKSS Research Centre, Germany "Two large ships sink every week on average," said Wolfgang Rosenthal, of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany. "But the cause is never studied to the same detail as an air crash. It simply gets put down to 'bad weather'." To prove the phenomenon or lay the rumours to rest, a consortium of 11 organisations from six EU countries founded MaxWave in December 2000. As part of the project, Esa tasked two of its Earth-scanning satellites, ERS-1 and ERS-2, to monitor the oceans with their radar. The radars sent back "imagettes" - pictures of the sea surface in a rectangle measuring 10 by 5km (6 by 2.5 miles), which were taken every 200km (120 miles). Around 30,000 separate imagettes were produced by the two satellites during a three-week period in 2001 - and the data was mathematically analysed. Esa says the survey revealed 10 massive waves - some nearly 30m (100 ft) high. "The waves exist in higher numbers than anyone expected," said Dr Rosenthal. Wave map Ironically, while the MaxWave research was going on, two tourist liners endured terrifying ordeals. The Breman and the Caledonian Star cruisers had their bridge windows smashed by 30m waves in the South Atlantic. Impression of a freak wave, BBC Sailors often whisper of monster waves when ships sink mysteriously The Bremen was left drifting for two hours after the encounter, with no navigation or propulsion. Now that their existence is no longer in dispute, it is time to gain a better understanding of these rogues. In the next phase of the research, a project called WaveAtlas will use two years' worth of imagettes to create a worldwide atlas of freak wave events. The goal is to find out how these strange cataclysmic phenomena may be generated, and which regions of the seas are most at risk. Dr Rosenthal concluded: "We know some of the reasons for the rogue waves, but we do not know them all."
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#1. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
81 ft. waves. Wouldn't that be something to see (from afar)! I had no idea that two large ocean vessels per week were lost. you never hear about it. That's a lot of dead men over a years time.
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Director, CIA 1973–1976 The purpose of the legal system is to protect the elites from the wrath of those they plunder.- Elliott Jackalope
Lost in a fog off of Long Island once, running by compass, with a guestimated heading, I thought I was seeing a 100ft rogue wave coming at me. It turned out to be fire island. oops. Almost ran up onto the beach. hehehe
#2. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
(Edited)
This guy may be prowling 4um: |
Used Tires Amityville, Babylon, Lindenhurst
#3. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
Godzilla!!!!!
We know some of the reasons for the rogue waves, but we do not know them all."
_________________________________________________________________________
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#4. To: Hayek Fan (#1)
to me, this is an example of belief systems at work. for who knows how long, mariners report these things...no sense or benefit to them making up such stories. the skeptic belief system standard response is that since it seems so unusual, it just can't be. well, eye witness reports being made consistently over time are pretty good indicators. lots of examples of people over many cultures, long spans of time reporting anomalous events, but it 'can't be' until 'science' proves it.
if a people will not prosecute officials who subvert and violate the constitution, then the constitution has no authority over officials.
Gengis Gandhi, Troubled Genius
#5. To: Hayek Fan (#1)
200 ships lost over 20 years = 10 ships/year or ~ 1/month. There must be something about those numbers because I came up with the same conclusion you did the first time through.
I had no idea that two large ocean vessels per week were lost. you never hear about it. That's a lot of dead men over a years time.
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
#6. To: Esso, Hayek Fan (#5)
Think about this one: Exxon Valdez runs aground due to pilot error and spills oil with a huge outcry; ships lost at sea otherwise met with silence. Oil is spilt into the ocean nevertheless. And let's not bring up the thousands of ships (especially oil tankers) sunk around the planet during both world wars.
_________________________________________________________________________
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#7. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
what is it with computer models passing for science these days?
and many marine scientists clung to statistical models
"If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute." --Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791
#8. To: farmfriend (#7)
Haven't you heard? We make our own reality now. Been that way since 9-11 changed everything. Besides, that sciencey stuff is so...icky!
what is it with computer models passing for science these days?
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
#9. To: farmfriend (#7)
Nothing wrong with computer models, compared to pen-and-paper. Nothing better, either. It's not the tool, it's the mindset. A model may be thought good if it is consistent with observation and predicts some observations that are later confirmed. That the model is inside a computer doesn't matter, except when a scientist is trying to snow you, and says that the range of possible observations is what the model says. That's just good old orthodoxy.
what is it with computer models passing for science these days?
Anti-racism is code for white genocide
#10. To: X-15 (#3)
Details at 11!
We know some of the reasons for the rogue waves, but we do not know them all.
"Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost." - Dante
#11. To: gengis gandhi, Hayek Fan, all (#4)
for who knows how long, mariners report these things...no sense or benefit to them making up such stories. the skeptic belief system standard response is that since it seems so unusual, it just can't be. well, eye witness reports being made consistently over time are pretty good indicators. lots of examples of people over many cultures, long spans of time reporting anomalous events, but it 'can't be' until 'science' proves it. You can find similar items throughout the history of "Science": When French Peasants reported "rocks falling from the sky" in the 1700's they were called nuts or dishonest since "Science Knew" that rocks didn't fall from the sky. Today we call them Meteorites. To this day anomalous human artifacts are found in strata which would suggest a much greater age for anatomically modern man. The evidence and suggestions made by that evidence are routinely disregarded, mocked, and the discovers ridiculed because "Science Knows" that modern man is no more than about 35,000 years old. Yet, artifacts and fossils have been found as far back as in Miocene strata - which would suggest an age of at least 3 million years. The same sort of reasoning is applied to the age of artifacts such as the Great Pyramid on Giza - which shows signs of ocean salt deposits on the lower levels. It has been in excess of twenty thousand years since the Giza Plateau was in the middle of a shallow salt sea. Ditto the Sphinx whose enclosure, and it, shows signs of heavy water erosion. The problem of course is that the last time that desert plateau got enough rainfall to account for the erosion would have been prior to 8,000 B.C. or at least 6,500 years earlier than mainstream Egyptology credits its age to. When Alfred Wegner proposed the theory of "Continental Drift" in the early part of the 20th Century he was laughed at and ridiculed because "Science Knew" that the continents were in the same position they had always been in. It wasn't till the International Geophysical Year in 1958-59 that core samples and magnetometer readings of reversals in the earths magnetic field proved Wegner right. Today it is called Plate Tectonics and "Science Knows" that the continents are in constant motion. One of the greatest fallacies is that our current state of knowledge is definitive. We have just begun to understand the universe in which we live, and by no credible measure have definitive answers to everything. Hell, we still don't know for sure what electricity is or what causes an electric current. We use it in our technology but "Science" can give no definitive answer.
to me, this is an example of belief systems at work.
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. ~ Anatole France
#12. To: Original_Intent (#11)
Interesting post about how we "know" what we know.
#13. To: TooConservative, wudidiz, christine, Ghengis Gandhi, all (#12)
It is an interesting subject. How do we know what we know? And how do we know it is correct? Two very revolutionary questions and ones that have been asked by thinkers in most every major culture for which we have a written history. Science, as is perceived by the average non-scientist, is a realm of mystery and to some inerrant, and yet the history of science could be written as a comedy of errors. The discovery of X-rays was an accident and Roentgen "discovered" their existence purely as an accident when he noted an unexpected phenomena while studying electron tubes. When Harvey first published his work on the human circulatory system he was called a kook and worse. Yet, today we take it for granted that the heart is a pump and it drives the blood in an endless loop throughout the body. As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in his book, written originally as his Master's Thesis, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" mainstream "science", rather than cold analytical arbiters of logic and observation, will defend the existing worldview against all contrary evidence. Thus we have "man in his current form is no more that about 35,000 years old". This is a view maintained most heatedly in the face of increasingly accumulating evidence suggesting much much greater age for mankind. Ditto the rise of civilization. Our record of civilization upon planet earth is limited by what little has survived from the most ancient times. Data which does not fit the preconceived views of that rise is disregarded - either not seen because it does not fit the observers template of reality or derided because it does not. If one takes the "Scientific Method" literally and applies it directly then any contrary datum must be accounted for by the existing theory, the theory revised to accomodate it, or the theory thrown out and a new one formulated which accounts for ALL of the data. The basis of what is real and what exists is what is real for you. Another way of putting it is "You see what your knowledge and experience tells you, you see. When that changes everything changes." (With apologies to James Burke for the less than verbatim quote.) Thus we go back to the "meteorites". French Scientists of the time "KNEW" that rocks did not fall from the sky and therefore they couldn't and didn't. Until that viewpoint changed they were unable to see meteorites for what they are - the flotsam and jetsam floating around in space that happened to get swept into the earth's gravitational field and eventually pulled to ground. That simple acknowledgment of the existence of meteorites had profound impact upon how we see the universe and our place in it. It helped to further disintegrate the old Aristotelian view of the earth as the center of the cosmos. Although much had already been done to do so meteorites were pretty much the final nail in the coffin. So, in the end we return to the beginning - what you see is determined by what you know. When what you know changes then the universe changes. And in a darker aspect there appear to be those at the top of our society who wish to control what people know and thus what they see.
Interesting post about how we "know" what we know.
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. ~ Anatole France
#14. To: Original_Intent (#13)
Good post. I always liked Burke. Clearly, you did too.
#15. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
Ha ha! I avoid all this stuff by living in the Ozarks. I just have to deal with the Ozark Howler, who ate my parents. I did get a pretty good inheritance, though.
There's no place better thanTurtle Island.
#16. To: gengis gandhi (#0)
O this is fascinating GG
thank you very much for posting this article
Love, Palo
#17. To: TooConservative (#14)
Thank you. Yes, Mr. Burke opened my eyes up another notch and changed how I looked at the universe. I still recall when his series "The Day the Universe Changed" aired for the first time and how I, with increasing eagerness, awaited each succeeding episode. I had the pleasure of seeing him in person when I was taking a Graduate Class which centered around that very same series (Science and Culture in the Western Tradition CI 635). The Professor was able to hornswoggle the school into inluding tickets to the lecture as part of our tuition. He's every bit as much fun in person as on the telly, and is considerably taller than I was expecting - comfortably over 6 foot.
Good post. I always liked Burke. Clearly, you did too.
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't. ~ Anatole France
#18. To: Turtle (#15)
LOL!!!!!
#19. To: Original_Intent (#17)
Funny, I also had a vague impression from the series that he was like 5'6".
considerably taller than I was expecting - comfortably over 6 foot.
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