Jim Thomson is principal oceanographer at the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington. He studies ocean surface waves and coastal processes.
Tuesday, Oct. 9
42.3 degrees north latitude, 144.9 degrees west longitude
Time is a strange thing at sea. Things blur together in the daily ritual of meals and watch changes. We keep a detailed log because we are constantly saying, "was that yesterday, or the day before?" Days of the week are gone, forgotten.
It is ironic, but time out here is also precious. We have to turn back toward San Diego soon. Although I would already count this trip a big success, I want to find some more storm conditions — some strong winds and big waves — to measure before we are done.
Shortly after finishing the mooring work at Station P, the ship's captain laid it out plain: it will take at least seven days to get back, and that leaves two days remaining for scientific work. Precious time, indeed. I have been addicted to the weather and wave forecasts — the very same forecasts our research aims to improve — and weighing options to spend these hours well.
On Saturday, we decide to leave Station P and chase a storm that was forecast to the south. On Monday, the gamble paid off. The winds got up to 30 knots, the seas got frothy, and we got data. About 80 GB of data, to put a number on it, and every byte well-earned.
The simplest things are tricky when the ship is rolling 30 degrees in a swell coming at right angles to the wind. The deck was awash while we worked the balloon and the buoys. The lab was a constant racket of shifting tools, electronics and coffee mugs. The radio tracking on the buoys faded, lost in the trough of each wave.
In the end, everything held and we had a good bit of fun measuring the wind and the waves.
Now we begin the long transit back to San Diego. We may get a few more hours of data on the way in, but otherwise it's slow and steady ahead. Suddenly, we have time again. Time that we can use to look at the new data.
Already, there are a few hints. Monday's breaking, though visually spectacular, was not very strong relative to the even stronger wind that was forcing it. That means the waves were growing, just as the buoy data shows. The details are in which waves were growing and which waves were breaking. That's what changes the wave spectrum — and that's going to take a bit more time to figure out.
A version of this article appeared in print on 10/16/2012, on page D4 of the NewYork edition with the headline: A Chance to Ride the Waves and Study Them, Too.
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