Wipeout

The waves brewing in the "Graveyard of the Pacific," the stretch of coastal region that spans from Oregon to Washington state, are getting larger and more powerful according to scientists.

The culprit behind the relentless waves is thought to be climate change. Scientists are using buoy data and models based on wind patterns to determine whether their predictions are correct. They are reporting that the waves off the coast of the Pacific Northwest as well as the Atlantic seaboard are steadily increasing in size. Similar increases have been documented in the North Atlantic off the coast of England.

This is just another fingerprint that climate change has put on Earth. Kind of scary.

Apparently this has been studied since the mid 1970s, with data showing increases of four inches per year, which would now add up to be 10 feet total. However, some scientists are skeptical about whether there's a link to climate change, citing the fact we don't know enough information about the ocean to make that judgement. One of my personal favorite quotes regarding this is from Richard Seymour, head of the Ocean Engineering and Research Group at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California:

"It has always surprised me that we know more about the surface of Mars than the floor of the Pacific Ocean."

That makes two of us.

I just hope we don't one day have to deal with this: