Tag Archives: GEO-Tag der Natur

Wave watching on Brodowinsee

Leave a reply

What do you do the night before the most important three days of your whole work year? Yep — some wave watching with friends!

On Thursday night, we went to cool down and relax after preparing for GEO-Tag der Natur all day long. Don’t these images make you feel much more calm instantly?

And look at the waves in the atmosphere that only become visible because, as air is moved up and down by the waves, conditions change such that clouds form in the troughs but disappear at the peaks of the waves. Contemplating these things is so relaxing to me! Especially when looking at them both in the sky and in their reflection on the water.

And if you look carefully at the picture above, you see tiny little wave rings in the lower right corner. That’s small fish touching the lake’s surface from below, creating disturbances that propagate away from where the surface was deformed.

Other things make similar pattern, albeit on a larger scale. My colleagues K and K, for example, are creating wave rings, too. Theirs are much larger and propagate all the way across the lake!

And thanks to K&K’s waves, the reflections of the atmospheric waves on the water becomes even more interesting as they are deformed by surface waves on the lake.

Is there any better way to calm down any worries you might have?

And, btw, the GEO-Tag der Natur turned out a blast. I’ll update you on that once I’ve had A LOT OF SLEEP! Until then — go and do some wave watching! :-)

Algae as tracers for currents in Parsteiner See

Leave a reply

Remember how I described a breeze creating a wave field on Parchsteiner See?

Well, it did not only cause a wave field, it also set up a circulation! Which I might not have noticed, had nit not also started deforming the algae patches! At first, it looked like above, and we could walk into the lake without having to wade into the green, like so.

But then a little later, there were algae everywhere, and you could see the swirls in the current traced out in green! Pretty cool passive current tracer, aren’t they?

GEO-Tag der Natur making waves on Parsteiner See.

Leave a reply

Remember I did this for work?

We ended up with pretty cool pictures, like this one:

And as I was standing in the water, guess what I was doing? Taking pictures of the ring waves propagating away from my feet! :D

And I find it so amazing how you can start a wave train moving away from you, and then just have it grow bigger and bigger and completely calm in the middle.

That’s the stuff that makes me happy :-)

One last picture, because it’s just sooooo beautiful!

Wave watching in an end moraine lake in Brodowin

Leave a reply

On our work trip to Brodowin to prepare the GEO-Tag der Natur (which will take place here only  a little more than a week from now! Crazy!), I had the chance to do some cool wave watching on different lakes.

Above, for example, you see wind waves coming in from the right, and their very distinct reflection on the left row boat.

Below, at the stern of the left row boat, you see a sudden gust of wind, causing lots of capillary waves, and thus high surface roughness.

And below, what would you guess is the secret to the ring waves radiating away from the end of the pier? It’s a surf board, bobbing up and down in the incoming wind waves!

I just love looking at water, it has such a calming effect on me, even in 35 degrees heat (which I am really not good with).

I love to see how the more lively wave field offshore gets calmed down as only longer wave lengths make it through the water lily frequency filter! And how the wave crests get bend as they reach the shallow shore.

Now, different lake. This one is 38 m deep! Would you have guessed that?

Here you see that we are standing on the downwind side of the lake: Smooth water on the other edge in the lee of the land, then, after sufficiently large fetch, waves that grow more and more the further they have progressed over the lake.

Same lake, same phenomenon, different view.

And the last bit of the lake just to give you an impression of the glacial landscape it is situated in, explaining the very steep slopes and the 38 m depth.

This would be such a lovely place to sit at and enjoy the view, if only there was a little shade…

I find it fascinating how the shape of the waves doesn’t change as they approach the shore. That’s because the shore is so steep that when, at last, the waves start feeling the bottom, they have already reached the edge of the lake and didn’t have time to change their shape.

Same phenomenon, different view.

Water is just so amazing :-)

Observing a breeze making waves on Parsteiner See

1 Reply

Yesterday, I happened to be at Parsteiner See for work.

At first, the sea was completely calm and the only waves were the ones we made doing our photo shoots, like so:

Other than that, the lake was completely calm.

But then suddenly, I spotted a breeze going over the lake. It becomes visible in the dark areas with higher surface roughness, where capillary waves have formed.

As the wind keeps blowing over the capillary wave area, those waves grow and then at some point become “regular” gravity waves, that travel out of the region where they are directly forced by the wind. See below: In the background you still see the area with higher surface roughness, whereas in the foreground gravity waves are coming towards the shore.

As the wind keeps blowing over the surface, forming capillary waves over larger and larger areas, those areas all show up as darker and rougher.

And the cute little waves keep coming to the shore :-)