Welcome
to Wavechasers, led by Prof. Matthew Alford. You know the 20'-30' waves we see and surf on beaches
like Pipeline and Jaws? Piddling! The waves we study are beneath the sea
surface, 1000's of meters down, and can be as large as 300 m (1000')
high (think: underwater waves as large as skyscrapers).
More interesting
still, they travel all the way across oceans, and eventually break just
like surface waves do. Finally, consider that these waves can cause submarines to hit
the bottom or breach the surface, and the heat moved around by the
breaking has profound implications for the oceans' circulation - which
in turn impacts the climate. So we build instruments in our lab to
monitor and better understand their propagation and breaking, spend
about 1-2 months a year traveling all over the world deploying the
systems and trying to understand the data.
Our mission is to use all the tools available to track these subsea monsters across the globe. We try to do the best possible science, educate as many people as possible about the oceans, and have as much fun as possible along the way.
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The best way to find out about us is to watch the pilot created by Wide Eye Productions or the story in Ocean Currents. Then go tell all your friends at Discovery Channel that they should have made this into a documentary special!
Check out our blog archive to get a feel for the kinds of things we do.
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What's New
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Earth Day cruise
We are preparing for our exciting cruise wherein we will re-deploy the NEMO moorings, track internal waves, survey mixing in a submarine canyon, and look for marine debris. We ...
Posted Apr 17, 2013, 9:58 AM by Matthew Alford
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Wavechasers featured in Ocean Currents
Check out the article at http://www.ocean.washington.edu/story/Wavechasers.
Posted Apr 4, 2013, 8:21 AM by Matthew Alford
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WaveChasers in comical form
The research of WaveChasers graduate student Andy Pickering was recently featured on a great science/comic blog by UW graduate student Michelle Wray: http://www.michw.com/2013/03/surfs ...
Posted Apr 3, 2013, 5:53 PM by Matthew Alford
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Two new Wavechasers!
We're excited to add two new talented and enthusiastic Wavechasers to the team: Derek Martin a junior ME student, and Sam Fletcher a senior in Oceanography. Welcome!
Posted Feb 27, 2013, 9:00 AM by WaveChasers APL
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Cha-ba and NEMO-subsurface moorings successfully recovered
John Mickett and the Wavechasers team successfully recovered the Cha-Ba mooring yesterday from Thompson on her first scientific cruise since the Z-drive failure. All went smoothly. Cha-ba ...
Posted Feb 1, 2013, 10:29 AM by John Mickett
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In the News
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Alford quoted in Science
Alford was quoted in a recent article by Eli Kintisch, "A Sea Change for U.S. Oceanography," on the current status and future of oceanography.
Posted Apr 3, 2013, 6:11 PM by Matthew Alford
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Former wave chaser puts internal waves on the bloggo- and tweeto-spheres
Kim Martini, the first PhD student from the Wavechasers group, has moved on to a postdoc with Harper Simmons at University of Alaska Fairbanks, but is still finding time to ...
Posted Aug 9, 2012, 8:33 PM by WaveChasers APL
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Wavechasers and R/V Revelle top story in Samoa
The Revelle hosted visits from two groups of Samoan scientists and students as well as two news teams while were loading the ship (photos here at the US embassy site ...
Posted Jul 21, 2012, 8:13 PM by WaveChasers APL
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HOT deployment cruise rescued by US Coast Guard
See the announcement. This was the top story at Honolulu's KHON.Check out the original story at KHON, CNN and ABC.
Posted Jan 9, 2012, 8:38 AM by Matthew Alford
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Crushing Gummi Bears
We had hoped that developing a "crush cam" would provide a point of interest for sharing our research with non-scientists----but we were still stunned by the interest. Here ...
Posted Dec 14, 2011, 1:47 PM by WaveChasers APL
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