Skyscraper-high waves discovered under the deep Pacific Ocean

Out on the south Pacific, over one of the deepest parts of the ocean, a team of researchers have been studying waves, but not the kind that we're most familiar with. They are studying waves that travel along the ocean floor, called internal waves, and they have found that some can reach heights tall enough to swamp a 50-story building.

Scientists have known about internal waves for some time (they're also called 'gravity waves'). As waves move back and forth on the surface of a large body of water, waves are also moving back and forth through the denser water deeper down. At the boundary between the surface layer of water and the denser deep water, these waves can look very much like those we see on the surface. You can watch an animation of these kinds of waves by clicking here. When these waves roll over rises in the ocean floor, they can crest to incredible heights.

Matthew Alford is the University of Washington professor who leads the research group, called the Wave Chasers, which is made up of researchers from the University of Washington, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Victoria. He talked about the waves seen in the north Pacific Ocean back in 2011, which have been seen up to 100 metres high:

In their latest research efforts, the Wave Chasers have been dropping sensors down into the Samoan Passage, one of the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, to watch as super-cold, dense water from the Antarctic flows through this narrow channel on its way towards the north Pacific. According to Alford, 6 million cubic meters of water travels through this passage ever second. That's over 350 times the discharge rate of the St. Lawrence River.

Along with the incredible amount of water flowing through the area comes incredible large waves when this flow hits the continental shelf. The Wave Chasers recorded waves reaching up to 250 metres high.

That's less than half the height of the CN Tower, but it's enough to swamp all but a handful of the tallest buildings in Canada. These massive waves are certainly beneficial to the planet, as they help mix the ocean layers, but they can also be a danger to submarines and even surface ships operating in the area.

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Understanding these waves will not only help us better understand how our climate works, thus allowing us to make better predictions of how it will change in the future, but it can also give us a way to keep our travels in the ocean safer as we learn to avoid these massive waves.

(Images courtesy: Wave Chasers, Tom Peacock/MIT/Wide Eye Productions)

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