#WaveWatchingWednesday
It’s #WaveWatchingWednesday, and this is actually my 75th post in this series, recapping my wave watching pics from my Insta @fascinocean_kiel! For all of you new readers on my blog…
Tag: wave watching
“Evaluating shallow water waves by observing Mach cones on the beach” — guest post by Felipe Veloso on his recent #WaveWatching article!
Super excited to share a guest post today: Felipe is writing about his recent #WaveWatching article on “Evaluating shallow water waves by observing Mach cones on the beach”. I came across…
The ultimate guide to #WaveWatching, gooseling edition
I’ve been fascinated by gooselings recently, mainly because they are super cute. But I can tell you about what makes wave watching special when the waves are made by geese…
#WaveWatching as “transformative experience”? (Based on articles by Pugh et al. 2019, 2011, 2010)
I was reading an article on “active learning” by Lombardi et al. (2021), when the sentence “In undergraduate geoscience, Pugh et al. (2019) found that students who made observations of…
An iEarth teaching conversation with Kjersti Daae and Torgny Roxå on #WaveWatching
iEarth is currently establishing the new-to-me format of “teaching conversations”, where two or more people meet to discuss specific aspects of one person’s teaching in a “critical friend” setting. Obviously…
Fun #WaveWatching today! Reflections all the way….and then the boundary suddenly ends!
You might remember this edge here and the reflection situation. More details in this recent post, but in a nutshell: The wave crests marked in red are approaching the beach…
When you meet a hard boundary, the reflection starts
When I look at the picture above, I see basically three different zones on the surface of the lake. The yellow zone, which is under the direct influence of the…
DIY #WaveWatching “fortune teller” on #WaveWatchingWednesday
(Download in English || Download in Spanish; thanks to Felipe Veloso for translating!) How about a little wave watching game to celebrate #WaveWatchingWednesday? The minute I saw Andrea Lopez Lang’s…
#WaveWatchingWednesday
Even though I haven’t done a #WaveWatchingWednesday in a looong time, there has of course been a lot of wave watching going on. But the longer I wait with copying…
7 years of blogging! Celebratory wave watching with A LOT OF #friendlywaves
It doesn’t feel like it, but today marks the 7-year-anniversary of my first blog post on my “Adventures in Oceanography and Teaching”! To celebrate, I sent out this call to…
#WaveWatchingWednesday
A week’s worth of #WaveWatching pictures for you. Enjoy! Starting off strong: I love living in Kiel! Totally different vibe the next morning, looking very winter-y somehow. And then another…
Birds make for super interesting wave watching!
My perfect Saturdays start like this: Early morning walk along the water, followed by coffee while blogging about waves. Today’s focus: The cool waves that birds make! First, let’s look…
Recap of my #WaveWatching Insta for #WaveWatchingWednesday
Yay! Another recap of my wave watching Insta! The year started off in the very best company — watching ships and waves and flowers with Astrid! But of course there…
Wave watching in a bucket
On the GEOF105 student cruise that I was lucky enough to join like I did last year, I happened to observe what you see in the picture above: Standing waves…
#WaveWatching in Strande (supported by a seagull!)
Even though I’ve been looking at waves for years now, wave watching is still full of surprises. Yesterday I showed you capillary waves that a jellyfish made, and today I’m…
Fantastic wave and current watching at Piel Island
We saw Piel Island with a very cool castle ruin across the bay when visiting the South Walney Nature Reserve the other day, and were intrigued by it. Depending on…
Wave watching in and around Arnside
Arnside is a beautiful little town on the banks of the river Kent, and Astrid and I went on a nice hike along the shores of the estuary a little…
Watching the tides cause an hydraulic jump in the Irish Sea!
Looking at the picture above, taken in the South Walney Island Nature Reserve on our walk yesterday, what is the first thing you notice? For me, it is not the…
Astrid sent me a #friendlywaves from Whitstable for remote #wavewatching
Astrid, #wavewatching supporter from Day 1, sent me these pictures for a #friendlywaves post. Today, I want to start with a spoiler picture (or, rather, I did start with a…
A #friendlywaves from Tampa, Florida
Anyone who might be new to my blog because of yesterday’s presentation at #SiPManc — please don’t be scared and run away, this is the most complicated #friendlywaves I have…
Some #friendlywaves from Berlin
My friend Alice is currently in Berlin, and as one does when visiting Germany’s capital city: She’s wave watching! I can only say: I approve! That’s what I always do…
Experimenting with Insta stories for my wave watching scicomm
Inspired by the absolutely brilliant job that Kati is doing for my project GEO-Tag der Natur, I have recently started experimenting with “Insta stories” on the topic of wave watching.…
A pilot ship making waves, and what happens to the waves over time
This is the story of a pilot ship, merrily sailing along on a beautiful day, making waves. Since it’s windy and Kiel fjord is a little choppy, the waves break…
Wave watching on Schwentine river
Surprise! I did some wave watching yesterday! Ok, let’s start with something simple to warm you up: A duck’s wake. And wind waves (coming in from the top right) hitting…
Wave watching on Brodowinsee
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…
Wave watching in Kleinwaabs — and my first real Insta story!
So today (and tomorrow and the day after) is the big event that I have been working towards all year in my not-so-new-anymore job: The GEO-Tag der Natur! If you…
Watching a V-shaped wave widen over time
Yesterday we looked at a very cool wake that Nena sent in as a #friendlywaves, today I have a nice gif for you to illustrate one of the points that…
Nena sent me some #friendlywaves from Lago Maggiore
This is a #friendlywaves challenge, where I try to explain other people’s wave photos and they tell me how I did. I love it when my friends see waves, think…
GEO-Tag der Natur making waves on Parsteiner See.
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…
Feathery wake approaching! #WaveWatching in Kiel Holtenau
A week ago already, Frauke and I went on an evening walk in Kiel Holtenau. Beautiful wave watching to be done there as always! Here you see the one side…
On #WorldOceansDay, revisiting one of my favourite places to wave-watch: a broken wave power plant
Anyone who has ever read my blog, seen my Instagram, or met me in person knows: The ocean is hugely important for me. The ocean is important for my mental…
Wave watching in an end moraine lake in Brodowin
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…
Observing a breeze making waves on Parsteiner See
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,…
Wave watching in front of the Reichstag. That’s my kind of sightseeing!
Did you notice that most tourist ships on the Spree in Berlin don’t actually have nice bow waves? Luckily I found one that does! (see above) Because what then happens…
Atmospheric & water wave watching
What I find really fascinating about watching waves in the atmosphere rather than on water is that all the waves that become visible are not surface waves like on water,…
Wind-driven waves in natural flumes for #flumefriday
On a bike tour with my friend Frauke in Greetsiel two or three weeks ago, she pointed out how well one could see that the waves on the puddles left…
Some port of Kiel #wavewatching: A feathery wake getting fanned out and bunched together!
Wakes are always interesting to watch. But usually, I am showing wakes of ships going straight ahead. So today, I have something cool for you: The wake of a ship…
Sunday #wavewatching. Shallow water waves, deep water waves, #wakewatching, reflections, refractions, and more.
This is the blogpost I wanted to write today before I got distracted by all the adventures on MS Stadt Kiel with sightseeing and swing dancing and all the good stuff…
Gravity waves and capillary waves on Kiel fjord
Yesterday, I took some pretty pictures of a red balloon floating on Kiel fjord, some seagulls swimming close to it, and — of course, most importantly — the seagull’s waves.…
A #friendlywaves from Cyprus
My friend Alice (of the awesome Instagram @scied_alice and the equally awesome blog, which you should totally follow) sent me a #friendlywaves from her trip to Cyprus. She said that this was a…
When commuting is actually enjoyable. #wavewatching
What I love about my job (in addition to the awesome job itself, obviously)? That my office is located in pretty much the coolest spot in Hamburg when it comes to…
Hijacking other people’s “good morning!” tweets to talk about a duck’s wake
A beautiful picture: the pink sky, purple clouds, a peaceful channel flowing in between lush greens that the calm water surface mirrors back, a bridge somewhere in the background, connecting…
Spotting both the V-shaped and turbulent wake of a faraway ship on a calm day
The title says it all, I guess ;-) In the picture above, you can still see the ship on the left, and having seen the ship, I am sure you…
Determining the slope of sea surface via the reflection of a structure
(Disclaimer: The physics the title refers to are somewhere in the second half of the blog post when I am done rambling) In case you are wondering why I am…
The wonders of a Wadden Sea. Or what someone addicted to #wavewatching thinks they are
As someone living on the German Baltic Sea coast, I don’t spend a lot of time on the North Sea coast (except, actually, my week-long vacation after Easter with my…
Influence of wind and water depth on a wave field (or: a beach vacation in Dornumersiel)
I took the selfie above mainly to send to my mom from my vacation in Dornumersiel on the German North Sea coast. But then when looking through the hundreds of…
Reflections in waves
After doing a #friendlywaves post from a Norwegian fjord yesterday, let’s do another one from somewhere south of Bergen, by my friend Arnt. Very different mood today! What I find…
A #friendlywaves from a field trip in a Norwegian fjord
The other day, my friend and co-author Pierré sent me pictures he took during fieldwork in a Norwegian fjord. As I, sadly, wasn’t there, all I can do now is…
Same beach, different waves. Why?
Here is a puzzle for you. Walking along a beach, first, the waves looked like this: One wave breaking at a time. That’s the situation you also see in the…
Early morning wave watching. Nothing quite like it :-)
Occasionally working from home is awesome for many reasons, but mainly because I can use the time usually spent on commuting on … wait for it … wave watching. With…
Sightseeing in Berlin? Any excuse for a #wavewatching trip!
Berlin is full of interesting history to discover … for example that of ships that have gone past on the Spree! :-D Let’s start with some easy wave watching. In…
You are watching seals? I am watching waves!
On a recent evening stroll with a friend, the seal basin looked like this: “Do you think there are any seals in there today?” she asked. “Why yes, of course,…
Wake comparisons: Row boat and motor boat
I just love this picture: The two boats in the front are going at the same speed (the trainer is driving right next to the person in the row boat…
Night swimming… or at least night-time wave watching
Looking at Kiel fjord in the picture below, it is quite obvious from the shape of the waves that those waves are some ship’s wake. Why is that obvious? Because…
Roll waves in the sand dunes? Observing erosion
On our trip to the west coast yesterday, I observed something really cool: Sand roll waves (I think!) in the sand dunes! But before I get to that, this is the…
Wave watching from a train
You know how they say that the journey is the destination? That was certainly the case for my spontaneous mini-vacation yesterday (and how awesome is it that my #BestTravelBuddy is…
A different kind of drop photography today…
After all the professional drop photography I talked about yesterday, here is some of my own from a walk that I took after the amazing and slightly overwhelming experience of…
Intriguing interference pattern of waves
Do you see those weird traces going away from us, perpendicular to the wave crests, but in parallel to the bright stripes on the sea floor (I talked about those…
Wave watching by proxy — looking at how waves focus light on the sea floor
What is it that we actually look at when we go wave watching? Water is pretty much clear (or at least it is in the spots where I like to…
Wave watching at the locks in Kiel Holtenau
Yes, we are back to wake watching! Today I went to a new-to-me wave watching spot: The bridge across Kiel canal close to the Holtenau locks, which you see in…
Wakes by birds, a row boat, and a SUP board
After talking a lot about turbulent wakes this week, here are two pictures of different kinds of wakes. They are of course turbulent, too, but on a very different scale.…
Visiting my friend’s office for some #wavewatching
Since we seem to be on the topic of wake watching these days, here are some pictures I took when visiting my friend Liz at the European Cruise Service’s offices…
#wakewatching seems to become a thing for me
Usually I look at wakes when ships are long gone, or at least leaving. Today, let’s look at one where the ship is coming towards us and we see how…
Is #wakewatching the new and improved #wavewatching?
It all began when I spotted a wake (the feathery, dark line going across the water behind that boat house) and decided I needed to show the world how cool…
Reflecting waves, reflected and refracted light, and a Fata Morgana
How much physics can you spot in a single picture? What I see here: Waves and their reflection on the sea wall (Do you see the two main fields? One…
Long-distance wave watching during sunset
Have you ever noticed how much you can observe when you look at water from a distance? For example in these pictures, you see the tracks of ships that are…
Fascinating how the same body of water can show up in so many different colors at once!
Stupid as it sounds, one of my favourite wave watching spots in Bergen is a busy bridge with a view onto another busy bridge. But the bridge goes across a…
#wavewatching in the sky
On Elin’s student cruise (read more about that here) very nice wave watching was to be had, both on the water as well as in the sky. In the picture…
Commissioned wave watching: Eckernförde edition on a beautiful calm and sunny Sunday!
Recently, more and more of my friends send me pictures of waves they spotted when walking along a lake side or taking a ferry ride. I love how contagious wave watching…
Forget about big waves, today we are focussing on the details!
Today we are focussing on tiny waves right near the shore inside the sheltered harbor. See how below there are two wave fields, one with longer waves with crests that…
More wave watching, this time in Kiel
Beautiful morning arriving back in Kiel… Looking downwind, the weather might seem pleasant (especially when focussing on the sunrise). But looking upwind however, the wind rows on the water as…
Sunset wave watching in Gothenburg. Wakes under different light conditions!
Wave watching from high up gives you a whole new perspective on wakes, and depending on the lighting, features in the wave field become more prominent or fade away. See…
Wave watching on Kiel Canal: Bulbous bows and how they shape the wave field
Even when I fully intend to just go for a Saturday afternoon walk to catch up with a friend, this is what happens… I get distracted by waves. Like the…
Ferry sailed past, wake perpendicular to wind. Cool interference pattern!
Guess the title says it all today ;-) Just kidding. Below you see a movie of a neat interference pattern I observed this morning. The situation is similar to yesterday in…
When the ferry has long sailed past and the waves start appearing out of the fog…
Ending 2018 in style and exactly the way I want to continue in 2019: wave watching and dipping into Kiel fjord! 2018 has been an exciting year and a lot…
Same wind, different waves, or: the influence of fetch length on the size of waves
I just found this picture that I took back in May near my friend Elin’s cabin on an island in western Norway, and it’s a really nice illustration of how…
Wave watching as official part of the program of a conference on chemistry and physics education!
Yes, you read that correctly. The German Society for Chemistry and Physics Education (GDCP)’s annual conference started out with a 2 hour cruise on Kiel fjord, during which the participants…
Reading the water — a new mystery picture for you! Today: Kiel Holtenau edition
Do you sometimes like to play detective when looking at water and figure out who or what caused certain pattern on the surface? Then I’ve got a nice riddle for…