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posted by cmn32480 on Friday August 07 2015, @07:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the subsurface-tsumani dept.

A group of scientists from the University of Miami have been tracking waves of a different breed – unseen colossal, skyscraper-tall underwater waves that are present in every one of our oceans.

Subsurface waves, otherwise known as internal waves (IW) are initiated by the effects of Earth's gravity, and rarely ever break the surface. To understand an IW, imagine separating the ocean into layers of water that get denser and denser as you go farther down. An IW is like a surface wave that occurs on one of the lower strata of the ocean levels.

Internal waves move much slower than their exterior counterparts, and whilst the height of the surface ocean remains essentially unaffected, the water layers beneath rise and fall dramatically as these waves pass by.

There's so much energy in those oceans. If the engineering challenges could be overcome tapping the currents, tides, and waves like these could solve a big chunk of mankind's demand for power.

takyon: University of Miami source.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 07 2015, @11:06AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 07 2015, @11:06AM (#219506) Journal

    Free energy is not really free. It affects something else usually.

    Some effects:

    • we'll make the Earth jolt stronger on a day-by-day basis [nasa.gov] - the transfer of tide energy to Earth crust will be stronger than the tidal friction alone. ...
    • ..We'll make the day longer, stealing from the angular momentum of the Earth and we'll see a smaller Moon [wikipedia.org] sooner - the tidal bulge will be more linked to the Earth rotation, thus the transfer of angular momentum to Moon (moving it to a higher orbit) will be stronger
      The current rate of Moon recession is 38.08±0.04 mm/yr
    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 1) by btendrich on Sunday August 09 2015, @06:07PM

    by btendrich (3700) on Sunday August 09 2015, @06:07PM (#220342)

    ..We'll make the day longer, stealing from the angular momentum of the Earth and we'll see a smaller Moon sooner - the tidal bulge will be more linked to the Earth rotation, thus the transfer of angular momentum to Moon (moving it to a higher orbit) will be stronger
    The current rate of Moon recession is 38.08±0.04 mm/yr

    What kind of affect will stretching out the day/night cycles have on average daytime/nighttime temperatures?