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Surf's up as Pacific waves grow

3 February 2010

GOOD news surfers: waves in the north-east Pacific are getting taller, and the height of the most extreme “100-year” waves is increasing fastest.

Previous data had shown wave height to be increasing in the north-east Pacific and north Atlantic since the late 1980s. Now measurements from a moored off the Oregon coast since the mid-1970s indicate that the “100-year” waves – the monster waves with a 1 per cent chance of occurring in any given year – could be 40 per cent larger than previous estimates, at 14 metres high.

of Oregon State University, who carried out…

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