Waves are getting STRONGER as scientists warn we have ‘underestimated risks of climate change’
There's a growing risk of damage to coastal areas, experts warn
WAVES around the world are getting stronger thanks to climate change, a new report warns.
When combined with rising sea levels, the risk of damage to coastal areas grows significantly, and has scientists worried about our preparedness.
Researchers have analysed the global marine climate, and found that wind speeds and wave heights are increasing around the world.
The study suggests that the increase in largest for already-extreme waves (like those in winter), than for average waves.
But waves are generally becoming more powerful regardless – and this change has now been linked to global warming.
The revolutionary finding was published today in the Nature Communications journal, highlighting climate change's growing risk to humanity.
The study focused on the energy that's contained in ocean waves.
This is the energy that is transferred from the wind, and then transformed into a wave motion.
Scientists call this "wave power", and say it's been steadily increasing in line with warming of the ocean surface.
The heating-up of Earth's sea surface has changed the wind patterns around our planet.
This, scientists now believe, is making ocean waves stronger.
"For the first time, we have identified a global signal of the effect of global warming in wave climate," said Borja, G. Reguero, lead author on the study and a researcher at the University of California.
"In fact, wave power has increased globally by 0.4% per year since 1948.
"And this increase is correlated with the increasing sea-surface temperatures, both globally and by ocean regions."
It's worrying for scientists, as it means that rising sea levels could cause more devastation than previously realised.
However, there's also a benefit to this discovery: researchers can now use wave power to measure global warming.
This means scientists now have something new to observe when trying to keep tabs on climate change.
"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," said Inigo J. Losada, director of research at the Environmental Hydraulics Institute at the University of Cantabria, where the study was developed.
Rising sea levels – what's the problem?
Here's what you need to know...
- The global sea level has been gradually rising over the past century
- Sea levels rise due to two main reasons
- The first is thermal expansion – as water gets warmer, it expands
- The second is melting ice on land, adding fresh water into seas
- This has a cyclical effect, because melting ice also warms up the planet (and oceans), causing more even ice to melt and boosting thermal expansion
- It's currently rising at a rate of around 0.3cm per year
- The sea is huge, so that might sound harmless
- But rising sea levels can have a devastating effect over time
- Low-lying coastal areas can disappear completely, even putting areas of the UK at risk
- It can also mean sea storms and tsunamis can have a more devastating effect, reaching further in-land than they would have previously
- There's also an increased risk of flooding
According to researchers, the effects were particularly apparent during the winter of 2013 and 2014 in the North Atlantic, where storm seasons affected the west coast of Europe.
And scientists also spotted large evidence of the trend during the 2017 hurricane season in the Caribbean.
This knowledge can now help scientists predict how wave power will change in future, particularly in relation to sea level height, as Fernando J. Méndez, associate professor at Universidad de Cantabria, explained.
"Our results indicate that risk analysis neglecting the changes in wave power and having sea level rise as the only driver may underestimate the consequence of climate change and result in insufficient or maladaptation," said the professor.
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Just last year, scientists definitively linked rising sea levels to global warming.
And scientists recently issued a warning about the risk of "devastating tsunamis" caused by climate change.
Researchers have also found evidence of three deadly tsunamis crashing into the UK within the last 10,000 years – so Britain certainly isn't safe from the climate change threat.
Are you worried about climate change? Let us know in the comments!
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