From EurekAlert!
Public Release: 14-Jan-2019
Upper-ocean warming is changing the global wave climate, making waves stronger
The energy in ocean waves has been increasing as a consequence of climate change, according to a new study
University of California – Santa Cruz
Increasing wave energy with climate change means more challenges for coastal risk and adaptation.
Sea level rise puts coastal areas at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, but new research shows they face other climate-related threats as well. In a study published January 14 in Nature Communications, researchers report that the energy of ocean waves has been growing globally, and they found a direct association between ocean warming and the increase in wave energy.
A wide range of long-term trends and projections carry the fingerprint of climate change, including rising sea levels, increasing global temperatures, and declining sea ice. Analyses of the global marine climate thus far have identified increases in wind speeds and wave heights in localized areas of the ocean in the high latitudes of both hemispheres. These increases have been larger for the most extreme values (e.g., winter waves) than for the mean conditions. However, a global signal of change and a correlation between the localized increases in wave heights and global warming had remained undetected.
The new study focused on the energy contained in ocean waves, which is transmitted from the wind and transformed into wave motion. This metric, called wave power, has been increasing in direct association with historical warming of the ocean surface. The upper ocean warming, measured as a rising trend in sea-surface temperatures, has influenced wind patterns globally, and this, in turn, is making ocean waves stronger.
“For the first time, we have identified a global signal of the effect of global warming in wave climate. In fact, wave power has increased globally by 0.4 percent per year since 1948, and this increase is correlated with the increasing sea-surface temperatures, both globally and by ocean regions,” said lead author Borja G. Reguero, a researcher in the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Climate change is modifying the oceans in different ways, including changes in ocean-atmosphere circulation and water warming, according to coauthor Inigo J. Losada, director of research at the Environmental Hydraulics Institute at the University of Cantabria (IHCantabria), where the study was developed.
“This study shows that the global wave power can be a potentially valuable indicator of global warming, similarly to carbon dioxide concentration, the global sea level rise, or the global surface atmospheric temperature,” Losada said.
Understanding how the energy of ocean waves responds to oceanic warming has important implications for coastal communities, including anticipating impacts on infrastructure, coastal cities, and small island states. Ocean waves determine where people build infrastructure, such as ports and harbors, or require protection through coastal defenses such as breakwaters and levees. Indeed, wave action is one of the main drivers of coastal change and flooding, and as wave energy increases, its effects can become more profound. Sea level rise will further aggravate these effects by allowing more wave energy to reach shoreward.
While the study reveals a long-term trend of increasing wave energy, the effects of this increase are particularly apparent during the most energetic storm seasons, as occurred during the winter of 2013-14 in the North Atlantic, which impacted the west coast of Europe, or the devastating 2017 hurricane season in the Caribbean, which offered a harsh reminder of the destructive power and economic impacts of coastal storms.
The effects of climate change will be particularly noticeable at the coast, where humans and oceans meet, according to coauthor Fernando J. Méndez, associate professor at Universidad de Cantabria. “Our results indicate that risk analysis neglecting the changes in wave power and having sea level rise as the only driver may underestimate the consequences of climate change and result in insufficient or maladaptation,” he said.
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This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MCIUN).
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Dear God. What next.
What a load of MalarkAlert!
The fact that both have a net average change in that time is not “correlation”. If both change in sync or with a constant phase delay you may have an argument.
So, they’ve been measuring wave power world wide? Or did they just measure one place and assume that it is happening everywhere?
It’s California. There IS nowhere else that matters.
Wait a minute. Without going any further, my BS-O-Meter says it cooled for about 30 years after 1948 (My birth year!). How then can warmth cause increases in wave strength of 0.4 %/year during that period?
Additionally, what proxies are they using for wave strength? Anything valid back 70 years?
Additionally, what proxies are they using for wave strength?
Good question. A wave created by a 30kt wind over a fetch of 300nm w/sst of 5C has **exactly** the same energy as a wave created by a 30kt wind over a fetch of 300nm w/sst of 10C. The energy contained by a wave has nothing to do with the temperature of the water.
I was going to comment on that too:
Not sure I can do basic math anymore, but 0.4% per year is 4% per decade. Since 2018 is 70 years since 1948, they’re saying wave power has increased 28% over that period. All due to that all-powerful, trace GHG, CO2.
man that CO2 is a mighty little molecule. What do you suppose that pesky little powerhouse is going to do next.
Well, we have one study that says it has already made “97% of all climate scientists” look like fools. I can’t imagine anything to top that.
Spaniards are looking forward to the CalExit so they can reclaim their old colony
note:
This is research by University of California – Santa Cruz
This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science & Innovation
Isn’t UCSC a famous pot school?
The UC Santa Cruz mascot is the Banana Slug
which is probably smarter than many of the students/staff
What a load of Griff.
As far as I can tell, I have unequivocal proof that it thins one’s hair.
There is a funnier part to this story if the waves were increasing the jason1 and jason 2 baselines would drift up showing an increase in sea level … look at how they deal with waves 🙂
The interesting part is jason 3 has improved wave handling and now look at it’s sea level rise data.
So rather than making a rather nice story it actually makes the situation with sea level rise messier.
I should add the links so you get the problem
Jason2 wave height handling
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/documents/hdbk_j2.pdf
Jason 3 wave height handling
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/documents/hdbk_j3.pdf
When the corrections to you data are orders of magnitude greater than the signal you claim to have found, you are dealing with science fiction, not science.
That’s climate science in a nutshell…
The trend changes dramatically based on which adjustments and datasets you use. If your adjustments are making or breaking your trend you are clearly not hitting a significant enough genuine trend to elucidate.
Kind of what I was thinking… tide gauges and sea level measurements have the difficulty of waves… if wave strength increased then it could make sea level measurements bias higher (or, at least, I’d think so… I’ve never done a tide gauge measurement, myself).
Couldn’t it just be to do with greatly improved data collection since 1948 so that they are comparing rotten apples with fresh ones which is the basic flaw in all so called climate ‘science’.
Wave energy varies with the square of height so plenty of room there for false ‘trends’.
Cowabunga, dude, surf’s up! Let’s see, ocean waves are mostly driven by surface winds, and these winds are the atmosphere adjusting higher pressure toward lower pressure events, minus or plus the drag on a spinning earth, so the report is claiming that wind speed is up? We were treated to a report some time ago that said wind speed was down (and negatively impacting the wind turbine complexes). The effect is most noticeable at the coast where humans and ocean meet? Doh! What has happened to Professors?
Absolutely Ron.
Also, as with so many of these “studies”, exactly how is this wave strength measured, with what recording devices, infrastructure and staffing, in how many places around the world (anything less than many hundreds of sites with good global distribution being too poor a sample) and for how long (anything below 100 years being largely irrelevant due to the need to cater for oceanic cycles like the AMO)?
In other words, what is the integrity and magnitude of the data that the authors seek to draw major scientific conclusions from which, in turn, are linked to their narrative about AGW?
We see this time and time again – significant conclusions drawn from pitiful amounts of data, much of which unreliable anyway, and thus any conclusions drawn are pure speculation, if not to say fantasy.
I designed one of these special measuring machines when I was 12. I used coloured pencils and everything.
Don’t forget the power of the eraser.
Was it a colored eraser?
That was raaayciist, MarkW.
😜
I apologise to all for being politically incorrect. I should have said ‘pencils of colour’.
Not only that, but from where did they get data for 1948 to compare it to?
‘In fact, wave power has increased globally by 0.4 percent per year since 1948, and this increase is correlated with the increasing sea-surface temperatures, both globally and by ocean regions’
Not only can we not measure global ‘wave power,’ we don’t know global sea-surface temperatures, either.
Here is a WUWT reference to decrease (atmospheric stilling):
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/05/study-global-wind-speed-dropping-wind-farms-victim-of-atmospheric-stilling/
One of the requirements to be a climate scientist must be no functional memory. Maybe the climate colleges do memoryectomies on incoming students.
As with all such alarmist nonsense this flies in the face of elementary physics. The energy in waves derives from the strength of the wind driving them. Not from water temperature.
try reading the whole thing.
“The upper ocean warming, measured as a rising trend in sea-surface temperatures, has influenced wind patterns globally, and this, in turn, is making ocean waves stronger.”
Winds have declined over the past 30-40 years. Read anything concerning wind turbine history
and you will know this.
@Steve Ta
Wind is the result of a pressure difference between two areas. Pressure differece is the result of air density difference. Air density difference is the result of differential heating of the surface. Now we’re told that global warming reduces cooling at night and has its greatest effect at the poles. Both factors should result in more uniform temperatures and pressures across the globe. With a lower pressure gradient, there would be less wind and thus smaller waves.
Reading the whole thing is like eating the whole bag of marshmallows (when I can’t stand to eat even one).
Or, the short form:
EurekAlert!
Say no more
My comment related only to the comment from E J Zuiderwijk which seemed to imply that that poster had not read the full article.
My comment does not say or imply that winds have actually changed.
Shall we conclude that warm seas imply scary destruction waves while cold seas are calm and gentle ?
Good point, FL. Some people should try sailing around Tierra de Fuego and see what GIANT cold waves are like.
For sure! Just check out the luxury sailing that corvettes had in the N. Atlantic during WWII.
Another study to be filed under the general heading. “What has Global Warming ever done for us”
The strange thing is, as global warming is supposed to be most evident at the poles, thus the surface water (what there is of it) will be warmer there. That will reduce the wind energy driver, which is the difference between the tropics water temp, and the polar water temp. With that in mind shouldn’t the effect of sea temp rise be reduced winds and hence reduced wave activity?
Of course, it is always possible the AGW alarmists have stumbled unexpectedly onto a new energy source. Maybe it is global hot air blowing across the planet…?
Another Gore Effect?
More money needed to study
If wave energy is increasing contrary to the reduced-wind argument, will the increased wave energy have a cooling effect on the ocean surface? The ocean temperature below 1000m depth is typically 4C or cooler. Increased wave energy should help with the mixing.
Could it be that ocean heating promotes ocean cooling? Is there a feedback mechanism here??
storm seasons, as occurred during the winter of 2013-14 in the North Atlantic,
What idiots – 2013 / 2014 were La Niña years too.
The air in contact with the ocean, UV long wave radiation does not penetrate water. The ocean is warmed down to 100 metres, by direct sunlight, short wave radiation. It’s got nothing to do with carbon dioxide.
The wind is up, the wind is down, the waves are up, the waves are down. Whatever the truth, our grants keep rolling in with each newly minted catastrophic scare that we can release on the public.
Laugh of the day!
And when the wind is half-way up, they’re neither up or down.
But still milking the tax-payer.
Auto
The paper is available here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08066-0
The results are very largely model-based, not measured, as I expected and the older data are all reanalysis/hindcasts.
An interesting thing is that almost the entire increase seems to be in the Southern Ocean, particularly in recent years (Fig 1.)
Now what is special with the Southern Ocean:
1. It is cold
2. It is stormy
3. There is virtually nobody there
The perfect place for predictions, who would notice if they are wrong?
It does site one measurement study:
“Satellite-based altimeter measurements from 1985 to 2008 reveal increases of 0.25% per year for the 90th wave height percentile and 0.50% per year for the 99th percentile, in both hemispheres9. ”
Based on this study: Young, I. R., Zieger, S. & Babanin, aV. Global trends in wind speed and wave height. Sci. (80-.). 332, 451–455 (2011).
That study says in abstract: “… We used a 23-year database of calibrated and validated satellite altimeter measurements to investigate global changes in oceanic wind speed and wave height over this period. We find a general global trend of increasing values of wind speed and, to a lesser degree, wave height, over this period. The rate of increase is greater for extreme events as compared to the mean condition.”
So, it is based on 23 years of satellite data, with the rest of the claims based on what they call “hindcast data”. (Hindcast projections are “data”?)
The measured data is interesting. But the study is based on data already 10 years old. Does the more recent data support the trend that is being claimed on only 23 years of data (not long enough to prove the trend is not caused by natural cycles).
“So, it is based on 23 years of satellite data, with the rest of the claims based on what they call “hindcast data”.”
I was wondering where they got that 1948 data they claimed to have.
They are making some pretty bold predictions based on not a lot of data. This is endemic in the Climate Science Fiction world.
If you didn’t read WUWT one might actually take something like this seriously. Heck, it was peer-reviewed!
The peers are the ones to take least seriously of all.
I wonder if any of the ‘peers’ raised some of the questions posted at WUWT?
The thing about Hindcast is the more common name for it, is bull***t
0.4% change in energy. Sorry, I didn’t read the paper, but the first thing I thought of when I saw 4/1000 change in energy is what is their error range? Are satellites measuring wave height going to provide an accurate enough measure to be able to reasonably say they have detected a 0.4% change in energy?
I can just about understand how a satellite measures a temperature but how does it measure a wind speed?
Tut tut tty, so cynical. These people are sincere and pure as the driven snow that our children won’t know.
I’m sure that they are as distressed as you are that their predictions apply to an area where it is very inconvenient to verify.
Increasing wave energy with climate change means more challenges for coastal risk and adaptation.
But great for surfers! Are there Paleosurfers who study historical surfing patterns?
“Upper-ocean warming is changing the global wave climate, making waves stronger”
Is that sonething for humans to manage and for humans to decide how strong the waves should be and then to tweak mother nature and to get her to behave?
Have we lost our minds?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/10/06/ohc/
No, WE haven’t. But the so-called “climate scientists,” for the most part, are batshit crazy, and guilty of over the top hubris.
The question I always ask people when they say ” we must do something” is this: if we can prove unequivocally that all the changes you say we must prevent are 100% natural, do you still want us to try and stop the changes?
Sing along, you all know the tune
Blow the wind southerly, southerly,
southerly, Blow the wind south for the bonny blue sea.
Blow the wind southerly, southerly,
southerly, Blow, bonny breeze, my money to me.
The study admits in its introduction:
“Despite the changes detected in different wave parameters, a global and long-term time series of the effect of climate change in the global wave climate remains undetected.”
Yet the entire article clearly is claiming that “climate change” (global warming) is causing stronger and taller waves. They admit they can’t prove the hypothesis, but doesn’t let it stop them from making the claim in the headline anyway.
Sounds like the leaks from the Mueller investigation.
I don’t know how they determine wave energy from 1948, but I haven’t read the study. I understand the desire of scientists to “for the first ever blah blah blah climate change blah blah blah,” but I’m not comfortable simply dismissing the study with diving into it.
I understand your point, but this is just another study where you can dismiss it without bothering to read the whole thing. Can they possibly have the data to make these claims? Simple answer is no. Can they possibly have the proof of causation they claim? Simple answer is again no.
So if they can’t be measuring the thing properly over a decent amount of time and they can’t show what is causing something they can’t measure, what is the point?
If wave energy has been increasing at 0.4% a year since 1948, that means that over the period it must have increased in total by 32%.
I’m amazed no-one noticed earlier.
/sarc.
Uh, 28%? My age times 0.4%.
1.004^70=1.32
But it’s immaterial, they are smoking crack.
“…..wave power has increased globally by 0.4 percent per year since 1948…
Could this be evidence of the advance of the ‘silly season’ ( march madness/ mad as a march hare etc.) into january… due to global warming?
Just musing
Cheers
Mike
The ones in my bath tub have decreased substantially over that same time period. If they were like they were in the 60’s I wouldn’t even be able to sleep.
If Laird Hamilton agreed, I might believe this.
100 foot waves at Nazare
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Ftok14M5p8g
Should be really big in 100 years time.
I’ve observed that beach erosion is much worse in the winter when the water is cold than in summer when the water is warm. I don’t care how much “energy” a wave carries, winter waves are just different and much more destructive. May the higher water viscosity carries sand away better, maybe the wave period is more destructive, who knows. Summer waves tend to build offshore sandbars and build beaches up and winter waves tear everything down.
I would look at direction of the waves. If they are coming straight on shore there will be less erosion. If they tend to hit shore on a sideways angle there will be more erosion.
Physical geography 101.
Large waves move sand offshore and steepen the beach, gentle waves move sand onshore and cause a more flat beach to form.
In fall, winter and spring, mid-latitude cyclones are more frequent and more powerful, so waves are larger.
This is textbook stuff well understood for at least the past 50 years, and I do not think it was brand new insight then.
No, wait, I think they may be on to something. The missing heat, through the miracle of CarbonPhysics™ has transformed itself into wind energy, thus making for bigger, stronger waves. Eureka!
Oh no this will only encourage the taxeaters to have another bash at it again-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-17/oceanlinx-generator-stranded-as-court-proceedings-continue/8529602
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-17/huge-swell-sinks-wave-energy-generator/829282
“wave power”
Thanks for my salary.
What can I think up for next month?
Gee, I’d like a membership in a nice club.
I want to send my kids to private school.
I’m only amazed that they didn’t discover that these supposedly 32 per cent more powerful since 1948 waves haven’t been increasing continental drift by crashing more energetically into continental shelves and triggering more volcanic activity and earthquakes to boot. Making this stuff up really isn’t difficult if you just disregard worrying about anything except being right on and getting more grant money.
Oh wait, is this how islands are going to be tipped over like the congressman believed?
‘A wide range of long-term trends and projections carry the fingerprint of climate change, including rising sea levels, increasing global temperatures, and declining sea ice.’
None of which are happening, except for sea levels, the rate of which is nominal.
‘Analyses of the global marine climate thus far have identified increases in wind speeds and wave heights in localized areas of the ocean in the high latitudes of both hemispheres.’
Ahh . . . so it’s not global, but rather high latitudes. But you feel authorized to declare it for the full earth and scare people with ‘Sea level rise puts coastal areas at the forefront of the impacts of climate change.’
There is no such thing as a global marine climate. Climate is regional. It is weather over time. Weather is atmospheric. Marine is not atmospheric.
‘These increases have been larger for the most extreme values (e.g., winter waves) than for the mean conditions.’
Ahh . . . it’s seasonal, too.
‘However, a global signal of change and a correlation between the localized increases in wave heights and global warming had remained undetected.’
Thank God you found it!
What happens when you turn universities into profit centers, flood them with students via easily accessible student loans and lower academic standards to guarantee graduation of marginal students?
A plethora of busy-work scientific papers (publish or perish) to preserve academic country club member privilege.
What happens when you turn universities into profit centers
UC Santa Cruz is ALREADY a profit center from those of its students who select it for its proximity to Steamer Lane. What better self-gruntling studies could be made, than those of wave power?
Oh hell yeah. I remember O’Neil surfboards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamer_Lane
I had a long board exactly like this. It was so heavy it built muscle mass just moving it around. Lethal. Nearly killed my brother.
http://www.surfboardshack.com/upimages/556379024_sbs2.jpg