Douglas Vakoch, California Institute of Integral Studies
Europa Clipper will contain a plaque that celebrates humanity’s relationship with water and a decades-old tradition of searching for life outside Earth.
Matter in deep space is very spread out, which makes it impossible for any sound waves to travel.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
The same instruments used to measure earthquakes pick up vibrations as ocean waves put pressure on the sea floor. Four decades of data tell a story about ocean storms.
The gap between breaking waves in North Carolina indicates a rip current flowing away from shore.
National Weather Service
Rip currents are a leading cause of near-shore drownings, but there are effective ways to survive one. And these phenomena also play important ecological roles that are an emerging research area.
New research may upend our understanding of the brain, showing that travelling waves of neuronal excitation dominate the activity associated with our thoughts and feelings.
In the future, our computer may be able to produce long-term forecasts in areas such as climate change, bushfires and financial markets – while being cheaper and more accessible than supercomputers.
Sea-level rise isn’t the only climate-related problem for our coasts – extreme waves that cause flooding and erosion are also changing, but exactly how is hard to predict.
Waves breaking on the shore of Étang-du-Nord, Magdalen Islands, during post-tropical storm Fiona on Sept. 24, 2022.
CANADIAN PRESS/Nigel Quinn
Storm Fiona caused a lot of property damage and erosion on the Canadian coast. But its effects are also felt in the depths of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
On Jan. 15, 2022, coastal areas across California were placed under a tsunami warning.
Gado via Getty Images
Tsunamis aren’t just bigger-than-average waves. Triggered by undersea earthquakes or volcanic eruptions like the one in Tonga, they are fast, massive and potentially destructive. Here’s why.
Tracking the pandemic’s waves enables authorities and policy makers to take action to keep new waves at bay.
Hawaiian surfer John John Florence, seen here competing in Portugal, is one of the favorites to win surfing’s first Olympic gold.
AP Photo/Francisco Seco
New research looked at wave conditions over the past 40 years, and found wave power has increased since at least the 1980s, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere.
Internal waves can create pretty cloud shapes in the sky, as well as making life unpleasant for passengers on aeroplanes. And in the oceans they can be a deadly hazard to submarines.