The Southern Ocean can be a cold, fierce and thoroughly inhospitable place, with waves that approach 25 metres in height: that’s the size of an eight storey building!
Oceanographer Peter McComb studies these giant waves of the Southern Ocean and the Ross Sea to make the region safer for fishing vessels, and for the ships of The Royal New Zealand Navy. The buoys he uses to take measurements are usually moored to the seafloor with huge 600 kilo anchors.
But with Australian researchers predicting just last week that a warming climate could make the waves in the region even bigger, one of the buoys has now broken free of its moorings in heavy seas, and is currently drifting eastwards towards South America!
