IT MIGHT be good news for surfers, but it鈥檚 bad news for everyone else. Waves
are getting bigger, says Ingo Grevemeyer of the University of Bremen in Germany.
He and his colleagues analysed records of seismic activity from Hamburg between
1954 and 1998, looking at the faint background noise caused by the pounding of
ocean waves. After 1978, wave heights increased significantly, they found (
Nature, vol 408, p 349).
The changes correlate with more violent storms in the North Atlantic and a
rise in global temperatures during the same period. 鈥淲e now have additional data
that shows a profound climate change in the late seventies,鈥� Grevemeyer says.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a kind of warning for humankind.鈥�