Are the Seas getting more Violent?

[Viking Sailor]

Originally Posted by Don C L

OK! The prosecution stipulates! But still, really, would you hire a scientist who, by the admission of the announcement, was "controversial?"

Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity was very controversial when it was published in 1905. It wasn't until 1920 that it was finally accepted.

[Wotname]

Jeepers Newt, I dunno about the seas getting more violent but it sure does seem that the climate debate is the anchors and guns topic on CF!

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Don C L

OK! The prosecution stipulates! But still, really, would you hire a scientist who, by the admission of the announcement, was "controversial?"

Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, Darwin, Da Vinci, Von Braun, etc etc etc..... yeah, who'd hire those bums?

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Viking Sailor

Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity was very controversial when it was published in 1905. It wasn't until 1920 that it was finally accepted.

The difference is that Einstein had an actual theory. And it wasn't accepted because people were going about trying to prove or disprove it. That's the way of science.

[44'cruisingcat]

In response to the thread, I'd say the seas are becoming far less violent.


A few hundred years ago pretty much everyone was at war with someone, government sponsored piracy was rife, and life was pretty much worthless.


Things are much safer now. Most places it's only the weather you need to worry about.

[Reefmagnet]

I'm refusing to get into any debates on this thread - promise!

I'd think beach erosion, shifting channels and sand banks could possibly be a good indicator of changes to average conditions over time. Anyone notice these kind of changes in their neck of the woods?

[Group9]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Dr Moore is an interesting guy. He's also a lobbyist for the logging and nuclear industries, just sayin'.

But we play by the Al Gore rules here, right? where since Gore makes the occasional buck speaking about the climate, he's the anti-Christ. Same rules would therefore disqualify Moore, I suspect. I await the judges' ruling...

Eventually, every single issue in the human condition, seems to be money, and who gets it, and who loses it, in the last equation.

That's one thing that hasn't changed much in the last few thousand years.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

This must be having a significant impact on cruisers taking the downwind ride from Panama across the Pacific. I've heard some of our more senior members make comment about higher trade wind speeds.

Here's the scenario in a nutshell: More heat means more energy. More energy means more movement of weather systems beyond their seasonal locations and, in some cases, strengths. Picture a kid on a swing or a pendulum: Nudge either and the amplitude increases

This (and last) winter's crazily skewed jet stream sucked very cold, dry air usually at 60 N down to 40 N. Something powered that, and the heat differential of a rapidly warming (in a relative sense) Arctic is a candidate. We shovelled the results in the Northeast of the U.S. and in Ontario east to the Maritimes. What's less acknowledged is that it was a sunny, warm winter in Vancouver, and a sunny, hot drought in California. Why? The seasonal rains/snows were sucked off course.

So more energy/heat means less seasonality. One's pilot charts become useless. Bad weather and more of it happens. The good weather happens when you haven't planted crops. The seasons flick back and forth.

Thinking everything gets uniformly hot is in fact not how it's started to work. The Earth's weather systems move, as does the Earth. "More chaotic" is the forecast.

[boatman61]

Are they getting more violent.. or are they pretty much the same..
Today more ships are abandoning the traditional routes for the most direct.. fuel economy being the driver.. not the superstitious crap about 'Rogue Wave's'...
More and more leisure 'Bucket List' sailors and Charterer's, newbie cruisers out on the sea's.. folks who got excited in their first 'big sea's' of 9-12ft..
Kinda normal...!! even on nice days the swell alone can be that big..
In my lifetime long distance cruising has gone from a lifestyle choice.. in the 60's you likely would not find enough to fill a one of todays marina's..
to being as fashionable as the NZ/OZ Gap Trek to Europe has been as far back as I can remember..
The thing about oceans is.. I can be sailing along in sunshine and see another boat 2miles away getting thrashed by a F8.. so for me.. the sea's are just the same.. nice with the odd bad spots.. for that guy the sea's were definitely getting worse..

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

Here's the scenario in a nutshell: More heat means more energy. More energy means more movement of weather systems beyond their seasonal locations and, in some cases, strengths. Picture a kid on a swing or a pendulum: Nudge either and the amplitude increases...So more energy/heat means less seasonality. One's pilot charts become useless. Bad weather and more of it happens. The good weather happens when you haven't planted crops. The seasons flick back and forth.

Thinking everything gets uniformly hot is in fact not how it's started to work. The Earth's weather systems move, as does the Earth. "More chaotic" is the forecast.

Yes, I agree (don't have to convince me ). What's interesting is that as our understanding of climate gets deeper, so to does our appreciation for the complexity of the global systems. There Earth isn't just a black box, it has internal complexities which respond as a system. The basic physics and chemistry is grade-9 stuff, but how it plays out in the internally-linked, dynamic systems collectively known as climate are really interesting.

The fact is, most of human civilization has existed in an unusually calm period of climate stability. Now that we've pushed the planet's climate out of balance, we're moving into a whole new world of uncertainty for all species -- including our own. At the more mundane level of us sailors, it does seem to me that all our traditional knowledge of routes, timing and passages is now open to far greater uncertainty.

Fascinating ... and kinds scary .

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Yes, I agree (don't have to convince me ). What's interesting is that as our understanding of climate gets deeper, so to does our appreciation for the complexity of the global systems. There Earth isn't just a black box, it has internal complexities which respond as a system. The basic physics and chemistry is grade-9 stuff, but how it plays out in the internally-linked, dynamic systems collectively known as climate are really interesting.

The fact is, most of human civilization has existed in an unusually calm period of climate stability. Now that we've pushed the planet's climate out of balance, we're moving into a whole new world of uncertainty for all species -- including our own. At the more mundane level of us sailors, it does seem to me that all our traditional knowledge of routes, timing and passages is now open to far greater uncertainty.

Fascinating ... and kinds scary .

+1.
Our time here is limited. All we can really do is try to hang on for a bit longer. Of course, our own stupidity could prevent that -- easily.

[Group9]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Yes, I agree (don't have to convince me ). What's interesting is that as our understanding of climate gets deeper, so to does our appreciation for the complexity of the global systems. There Earth isn't just a black box, it has internal complexities which respond as a system. The basic physics and chemistry is grade-9 stuff, but how it plays out in the internally-linked, dynamic systems collectively known as climate are really interesting.

The fact is, most of human civilization has existed in an unusually calm period of climate stability. Now that we've pushed the planet's climate out of balance, we're moving into a whole new world of uncertainty for all species -- including our own. At the more mundane level of us sailors, it does seem to me that all our traditional knowledge of routes, timing and passages is now open to far greater uncertainty.

Fascinating ... and kinds scary .

Good point. Without climate changes, the dinosaurs would be running things, not us.

All of these arguments remind me of that line from Crocodile Dundee. "Those rocks over there are ten million years old. People arguing about who owns them is like two fleas arguing about who owns the dog they are riding on."

[tropicalescape]

Originally Posted by s/v Beth

Lots of debate going on as to if the oceans are actually increasing in height. Several islands seem to be only inches from disaster. Perhaps they are under risk from another effect of Global Warming- increasing numbers of storms and the seas that accompany them. This is an interesting article that tries to be even handed about the subject:
Are Category 4 and 5 hurricanes increasing in number? | Weather Underground
I think that even a mild increase in the number of storms may lead to increased erosion and cover these little islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans before their time....

I have traveled quite abit through out the North and Central Pacific Rim and with my own eyes I have seen islands that have lost coast line and had salt water that inundated gardens...This is a true occurrence with sea water levels rising..The ones that will benefit are the ones that harness the resources that will be uncovered as the ice melts in the north uncovering land that has not seen sun light in millennium if at all..

[TrinitySeas]

Good discussion! I'm a fairly novice cruiser (and firsttime poster here) with a fairly significant professional experience on these topics. My perspective is not conventional, for I conclude that climate is closer to (functions more as) a physiology than as the chemical thermostat that most climate scientists (e.g. IPCC) presume. A simple essay that places these topics into an intuitive context may be found here: Katrina, Wilma and Me: Learning to Live with Climate Surprises? | Grimm | Geoscience Canada
The issue is not global warming, nor even climate changing, for climate is dynamical and perpetually changing. At issue is the conclusion that the pattern of change is itself changing, perhaps, even very likely, transformative changing as contrasted with the transitional changing we agricultural-industrial humans have grown accustomed over the last 10000 years. The implication, me thinks: we need to learn to expect (more and bigger) surprises. Three word hypothesis about the coming several years: accelerated hysteresis changing.

[Goosebumps]

two points: 1. the 15th century saw ice age where even south Europe open water and rivers were frozen over, what is so exteeme about today's climate
2. has anyone else on CF suffered negative reactions to them yacht cruising because it now is very unsafe to go sailing, passage making liveaboard