Monster wave meets “Queen Elizabeth 2

A huge wall of water races towards the “Queen Elizabeth 2” on the night of 11 September. The monster wave, which approaches the cruise ship over the Newfoundland Bank and finally rolls over it, is over thirty metres high. Miraculously, the passengers and crew survive the natural disaster almost unharmed. The ship, however, is badly damaged.

The “Queen Elizabeth 2” was en route from Southampton to New York. A warning had been issued the evening before. “It’s going to be a bit stormier today,” the captain Ronald Warwick let his passengers know. A little later at dinner, dishes flew off the table, the musicians interrupted their playing, and all the guests had to go to their cabins. No one yet suspected that the foothills of Hurricane Luis were piling up a gigantic wave over the Newfoundland Bank. The shallow waters off the coast are known for their high swells anyway.

In the early hours of the morning, the 33-metre-high wave hit the ship. “It was as if we were steering straight into the white cliffs of Dover,” is how Warwick later described the approaching wall of water. According to the crew, the monster wave was a three sisters phenomenon: three huge waves followed each other at intervals of 13 seconds. None of the people on board were harmed. The luxury ship was still navigable after the accident, but severely damaged.

For scientists, this proves that monster waves really do exist. For a long time, similar stories of adventure were not taken very seriously by seafarers, but now a measuring buoy near the ship provided the proof: the wave that rolled over “Queen Elizabeth 2” was 33 metres high.

Monster of the Sea

It seems to be the year of monster waves. Just nine months before the collision with the “Queen Elizabeth 2”, a single giant wave had hit a Norwegian oil rig. The 26-metre high Caventsman hit the oil rig on New Year’s night during a storm in the North Sea. This is proven by the measurements of the automatic wave measuring system. Until then, it was believed that waves could not get higher than 15 metres. Reports of much higher waves were considered to be sailor’s yarn, all ships and drilling platforms were constructed according to a maximum wave height of 15 metres. This should now be a thing of the past. Ships and drilling platforms will have to prepare themselves against possible monster waves in the future.

Waves and monster waves

Wind and waves – these two forces of nature belong inseparably together. Unlike the tides, waves are created by the wind. The wind glides over the surface of the water and pushes the water along. How high the waves get depends on the wind strength and on the distances over which the wind whistles across the water.

If the waves run up onto the land on the coasts, they become higher. This is because as the water depth decreases, there is less and less space for the water to move upwards. In shallow water, the wave is also slowed down at the bottom. The crest of the wave, on the other hand, tilts forward without braking and “breaks”. The swirling of the water in the air creates white whitecaps, the spray.

When an extremely strong wind blows across the sea, a storm surge occurs. Storm surges are particularly frequent in spring and autumn. With their force, they can cause severe flooding and completely change the shape of the coast. The North Sea coast with the German Bight is particularly at risk from storm surges. Because the North Sea is very shallow, the water here can pile up very high during a storm.

In addition, there are also individual particularly steep waves that are much higher than the waves in their vicinity. For a long time, such monster waves or “cavent men” were thought to be “sailor’s yarn”, i.e. exaggerated adventure stories told by seafarers. However, satellite images and precise measurements can now prove that such monster waves really do exist. They can reach heights of up to 40 metres, posing a serious danger even to large ships. It is not yet clear exactly how they form. Presumably, they are formed by the coincidence of slow and fast waves, combined with ocean currents.

Unlike waves and monster waves, tsunami waves develop after earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Tsunami waves can be devastating: In Japan, a ten-metre-high tsunami rolled over the country’s northern coast after a violent earthquake in March 2011. Thousands of people fell victim to the disaster.

Tsunami – devastating harbour wave

A wall of water as high as a house races towards the coast. Near the shore, the gigantic wave breaks and sweeps away everything in its path. Such giant waves, called tsunamis, can destroy entire coastal regions. Many people have already fallen victim to them. The tsunami disaster that devastated the coasts of Indonesia and Thailand in December 2004 is still a terrible memory for many. The same goes for the tsunami that hit the east coast of Japan in March 2011 and triggered the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Because Japan has a particularly large number of such giant waves, the word “tsunami” also comes from Japanese. It means “harbour wave” – which sounds quite harmless compared to its destructive power.

A tsunami is usually caused by earthquakes or landslides under water. The movement of the sea floor pushes the surrounding water, as it were. A huge wave is created. Far out at sea, this wave is not particularly high at first, but it can reach speeds of several hundred kilometres per hour. It becomes dangerous when such a wave rushes towards the coast. Because the sea becomes shallower and shallower near the shore, there is no room for the wave to swerve. Although the wave is slowed down somewhat in the direction of the land, it piles up many metres high.

Besides earthquakes and landslides, volcanic eruptions can also trigger a tsunami. The eruption of Krakatau in 1883, for example, caused a tsunami almost 40 metres high.

However, a tsunami does not hit the coast without warning: First, the water runs up further than usual onto the beach and stays there for a few minutes. Then the draining water recedes extremely far, the seabed becomes visible. Finally, the white foam of the tsunami appears on the horizon, approaching the coast at breakneck speed. Anyone who notices such signs should seek higher ground without hesitation in order to escape the giant wave.

Tsunamis are particularly frequent at the northwestern edge of the Pacific Plate. There, observation stations also warn the inhabitants of the coast. To predict a tsunami, they measure the seaquakes in the ocean. Since the earthquake waves are faster than the water waves, they always have a head start on the tsunami. That is why the further away the seaquake is from the coast, the more timely a warning is possible.

The world of the oceans

Many secrets still lie dormant in the depths of the oceans. Large parts of the world’s oceans are still completely unexplored. We even know the moon better than the deep sea. What we do know, however: Almost all the water on this earth – 97.5 per cent to be exact – laps in the five oceans.

The largest of all oceans is the Pacific. Its water surface measures a total of 180 million square kilometres! This means that it accounts for about half of all ocean surfaces. At the same time, this world ocean is home to the deepest place on earth: it descends up to 11,034 metres into the Witja Deep in the Mariana Trench, a deep-sea trench in the western Pacific.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest ocean. It was formed about 150 million years ago when the primeval continent of Pangaea broke apart. With its 106 million square kilometres, it covers one fifth of the earth’s surface.

Most of the Indian Ocean lies in the southern hemisphere. With an area of just under 75 million square kilometres, it is a good deal smaller than the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Its deepest point is called the Diamond Low, which lies 8,047 below sea level.

The Southern Ocean is also called the Southern or Antarctic Ocean. It includes all sea areas south of the 60th parallel in the southern hemisphere. Sailors consider it the stormiest of all seas. Typical of the Southern Ocean are also the large tabular icebergs that float in its waters. They have broken off from the ice shelf that has formed around the Antarctic continent.

Around the North Pole lies the Arctic Ocean, also known as the Arctic Ocean. It is the smallest of the five oceans. About two-thirds of the Arctic Ocean is covered with ice in winter. But its ice cover, like the ice of the Southern Ocean, continues to melt due to global warming.

Even if we live several hundred kilometres away from them: Oceans are of great importance to us. Their currents and the evaporation of seawater have an enormous influence on our weather. A large part of the air we breathe is also produced in the oceans: Algae that live here convert carbon dioxide into oxygen when exposed to sunlight.

Titanic rammed by iceberg

The passenger ship “Titanic” sinks in the night from 14 to 15 April 1912. A few hours earlier, the Titanic rams an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Around 1,500 people die in the shipwreck. Around 700 are rescued, most of them women and children.

It is the first voyage of the luxury steamer Titanic, which is praised as “unsinkable”. On 10 April, the huge ship leaves the port of Southampton in southern England. Its destination is New York, with 2,200 people on board. None of them suspects at this point that for many it will be their last voyage. Only four days later, on 14 April, the Titanic’s last hour has struck. At around 11:40 p.m., lookout Frederick Fleet sounds the alarm: “Iceberg dead ahead!”

The Titanic tries to turn away quickly, but the iceberg is already too close. At full speed, the Titanic rams into the colossus of ice. The front five of the sixteen watertight compartments are slit open and fill up. The bow of the Titanic plunges further and further into the water. Three quarters of an hour after midnight, the first lifeboat is launched. But there are far too few boats – after all, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. At 2:20 a.m., the hull of the ship can no longer withstand the forces of the water and breaks apart. The Titanic sinks, its wreckage hits the seabed at a depth of almost 4,000 metres. 1,500 people die in the shipwreck in the North Atlantic, including Captain Edward John Smith.

The survivors in the lifeboats are picked up about two hours after the sinking by the British passenger ship RMS Carpathia, which arrives in New York on 17 April.

Iceberg alert

Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, the “International Ice Patrol” was founded in 1914. 16 countries that operate shipping in the North Atlantic joined together to form this patrol. Their mission: to prevent accidents with icebergs.

From Newfoundland, the Ice Patrol regularly flies over the North Atlantic to locate and observe icebergs. Especially between January and July there is a lot of activity here: 40,000 icebergs break off Greenland’s glaciers every year and drift out to sea. There they pose a danger to ships and drilling platforms. That is why the experts of the Ice Patrol try to predict the course of the ice giants. And with great success: since the Ice Patrol has been in existence, no more accidents have occurred in this area.