Global Warming vs Sydney Surf

[macca202]

I know I've got a useless memory but I would guess that at least 50% of this years winter swells were from the e/ne where as others years I would guess it'd be more like 10%

Anyone else agree/disagree?

And I'd think thats the biggest pointer to everything changing

wow, i must not have surfed as much as i thought i did. This winter every swell i surfed was from the south or thereabouts.
so im dissagreeing, but it doesn't mean all that much.

[snakes]

Anyways quakes dont worry me in sydney, a massive 3.4 might hit one day and knock a glass off my shelf...
I am more curious about the fact we are due for another planet f*cking asteroid to come ploughing into our planet!

Well hey... at least there would be waves then!!!
I wonder if there are any reefs that could handle waves of a couple of thousand feet?

Umm, NZ is on the edge of 2 plates & a major earthquake could send a tsunami headed our way. A rough estimate would be 3 hours notice. Hope your insurance policy is uptodate

snakes

[mad]

Global warming / climate change is knocking on our door now, and apparently the pundits are calling the effects we are experiencing currently as the results of our emissions 20 odd years ago.

Whilst we're bemoaning our winter weather patterns, what about the lack of any decent monsoonal activity in the past few years.

Coupled with that there is research and data that Tasman sea levels are warming and potentially rising. Google it for yourself, lot of science behind this. could mean a whole new shoreline for the east coast!

Can't complain about August swell in NNSW, sure there's been flat spells but punctuated by fairly consistent swells, the majority of which has been from the S/SE. Currently got a noice easterly swell running

[Bear]

Umm, NZ is on the edge of 2 plates & a major earthquake could send a tsunami headed our way. A rough estimate would be 3 hours notice. Hope your insurance policy is uptodate

Yeah I admitt that would suck, but I wonder what would happen to my house as the cliffs around Sydney would stop a lot of it. I would feel sorry for people in low lying areas though!!!

But I really dont care nor do I worry, as when its time to go, its time to go.

In heaven there is always solid swell!

[Laurie McGinness]

What we need is someone who has been keeping a surf diary for the last thirty years! Anyone know any likely suspects?

[munch]

What we need is someone who has been keeping a surf diary for the last thirty years! Anyone know any likely suspects?

Anyone got some acontact at mhl - you'd think they have a few years of data and I'd be happy to trawl it to get some stats

[thermalben]

You'd be wasting time using buoy data exclusively - the correlation between buoy data and surf conditions is not anywhere near as high as people seem to think. MHL have already done some long term studies on their buoy data, but its relevance to surfing conditions isn't conclusive by any stretch.

As for 30 years surf logs - this is something I've been working on for a while as part of a long term climate study into the seasonal variablility of surf conditions. However, it's an absolutely mammoth task - don't underestimate how much time it takes to obtain, enter, process and validate this kind of data.

[surfscracking]

There was an interesting piece written about the affects on the snow conditions as well. The snow line is moving towards the sky at a rapid rate, something we should be concerned about.

[Johnno]

More to do with the planet than just Sydney, a news story I received yesterday that you might want to look at.

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cf ... -05&cat=AN

[munch]

You'd be wasting time using buoy data exclusively - the correlation between buoy data and surf conditions is not anywhere near as high as people seem to think. MHL have already done some long term studies on their buoy data, but its relevance to surfing conditions isn't conclusive by any stretch.

Yeah agreed but I'd think it's the only data that is "easily" accesible and it might be the only data that is accessible at all, and it'd also already be in digital form so it'd be fairly easy to process.

I also think that "surfable" days isn't what we are after, I would think period/direction would show a better correlation with changing weather patterns which would mean you could ignore local variables such as wind and tide. And yes I agree with your theory that the buoys data misses out on important aspects of swells as another poster has pointed out, but if it's all we've got :?

[foamballpilotqueen]

It's clearly obvious that none of you (ben excused) have a grasp on how the weather works. Just incase you didn't know (seems most of you don't have a clue) weather is totally RANDOM - sure winter is regarded as the time of year NSW is meant to get swell, but just because we have had an August without swell doesn't mean global warming has anything to do with it. Maybe you don't remember Laurie but in May and June we pretty much had dream scenarios of SE swells pumping in with offshores blowing most of the time. Or perhaps you forget February with consistent 2-5 foot east swells with those crazy storms that came through and turned on epic waves. To say global warming is affecting Sydney's surf negatively is brave call, and one i will disregard.

[foamballpilotqueen]

There was an interesting piece written about the affects on the snow conditions as well. The snow line is moving towards the sky at a rapid rate, something we should be concerned about.

Im not sure about that one. Im afraid that alot of scientific studies make up alot of results. In recent times we have seen some extreme weather conditions - just recently snows down to levels never recorded before. But in the past 3 years I have been skiing in late November down to 1800 metres and last year on the 2 of December.
If this global warming theory is correct, i can only think of good things for Sydney surf - more northeast swells.

[vb]

Weather might be random but last year was an all-time high for Gulf of Mexico-landing hurricanes. If Katrina is an appetizer for this season, then God help them. Where's all that water that's sunk New Orleans come from? Is there some depression out there in the middle of the Atlantic?

[chris_010]

it came from the lake (esperance?) that sits higher than the actual city. Levee's broke etc.