Something in the Air: Weather Forecasting
In large part due to computer modeling and data from satellites, meteorologists are making significant progress in their efforts to increase both the accuracy and the utility of their forecasts.
Sonar
Renowned oceanographer and geophysicist Walter Munk talks about sonar, which stands for sound navigation and ranging, the process by which objects (like submarines, for example) are discovered when sound waves are reflec..
Spreading
Renowned oceanographer and geophysicist Walter Munk observes that spreading decreases the energy of sound as it travels. Energy loss due to spreading is proportional to the square of the distance from the source.
Surf's Up: A Wind Wave's Journey
The typical ocean wave is actually a surface gravity wave, also known as a wind wave. While the notion that most waves are generated by wind blowing over the ocean surface is fairly straightforward, a wave's exact point ..
Surf's Up: Internal Waves
While wind waves travel on the surface of the ocean; internal waves form beneath the surface, between water layers of different density. They can be very large and much more complex than surface waves.
Surf's Up: Monitoring and Predicting Wave Processes
Wave monitoring and prediction is important not only for anticipating wave energy on the coast, but out at sea as well. With that in mind, oceanographers have devised a number of highly innovative techniques and devices.
Surf's Up: Rogue Waves
While the effects of wind wave energy are mostly felt along the shoreline, the impact of waves can also be felt out in the open ocean. In some cases, as with extraordinarily large "rogue" waves, these kinds of waves are ..
Surf's Up: Shoreline Effects of Wind Wave Energy
Nearly all of the effects of wind wave energy are felt along the shoreline, often in the form of erosion. The erosion process on the shoreline moves sand from one place to another and, over time, actually changes the ori..
Surf's Up: Wave Climate and the D-Day Story
Just as continental locations have a climate, so, too, do ocean waves. Knowing the wave climate at Normandy became a key part of the planning process in advance of the Allied D-Day invasion during World War II.
Survivors: Early Invertebrates
The first animals on Earth were invertebrates-animals without backbones-and they diversified rapidly in the geologic period known as the Cambrian.