Tag: wind

We are still in the “interesting weather” period here in Kiel. Feels more like April than like September, but I am not complaining. I love the rapid change between dark clouds and blue skies and sunshine! Also I like how much more interesting wave pattern get if the wind comes in gusts rather than blowing […]

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 are curious about what’s going on there, check out our Instagram account @geo.tag.der.natur that Kati is doing an amazing job with! As you can imagine, […]

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 up for a cross country trip on a day’s notice?). We went all the way from the east coast to the west coast — which […]

I hope by now you have heard about my pet project of the moment: #scicommchall! For #scicommchall, I give myself (and quite a few other people by now) monthly challenges related to trying out new science communication formats. And this month, we are doing science communication books for kids! (For more instructions, see #scicommchall’s post. […]

As you know we are currently preparing for future wave riddles. So this afternoon I went out for a wave hunt again and found something beautiful for you! The ship coming out of the Kiel-Holtenau locks into the Kiel Canal is making waves, but although those are pretty exciting, too, there are more things going […]

What keeps you entertained at conference dinners is probably different for different people, but we quite enjoyed watching how the candles placed closer to the door to the balcony burned a lot faster (and a lot more messy) than those on other tables…

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea…

Last week, we ran an “expedition learning” course for 17-year olds. They were separated into several groups, working on different topics, and mine (unsurprisingly) worked on waves. You can see here what kind of stuff we observed when first testing the stretch of coastline we wanted to do our expedition to. And now you’ll get […]

Yes, I am really that fascinated by sand that this is the second post in a week about it. And I still think the picture below looks like the place in Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found!

Sometimes stormy beaches are just as interesting as stormy seas. Can you spot the prevalent wind direction below? ;-)

Another boundary layer experience last week: On my way from work I stopped to take pictures of flags that were outside my university’s main building and that very nicely visualised the wind field (as flags tend to do). If you just look at the flags, they look weird — they wind field was clearly not changing over […]

Shelter from the storm, no, shelter from the breeze. But we clearly see the sheltering effect of that boat shed on the wind waves… Same thing below. And wasn’t that a beautiful day :-)

No matter how often I’ve seen it, I still find it absolutely fascinating how the tiniest structures can have a really visible effect on the downwind wave field. Like for example that pier below, leading to the little hut at the end. There is probably a meter and a half between the water surface and […]

I recently started looking at waves in “urban environments” (in contrast to “on the sea”) with a new found fascination. The reason why will be revealed soon, but for now just know that there are more waves coming up on this blog! Today, let’s start by looking at more waves on Store Lungegårdsvannet, like we […]

The most awesome thing about being on vacation is that I have the time to stare at water as much as I like. For example the other day, I walked around Lille Lungegårdsvannet on a windy day. Looking downwind, one sees a very smooth surface right in front of us, and then waves start developing further […]

The other day I was waiting for my friend and her daughter and noticed a weird stripe-y pattern in the distribution of algae. As I kept watching, the pattern started to change.At first I thought that maybe the algae were collecting in nodes of standing waves that were reflected from the sea wall (ok, lake […]

Attempt at mechanistic understanding of Langmuir circulation. After  complaining about how I didn’t have mechanistic understanding of Langmuir circulation recently, and how I was too lazy to do a real literature search on it, my friend Kristin sent me a paper that might shed light on the issue. And it did! So here is what I […]

We think we observed Langmuir circulation, but we don’t understand the mechanism causing it. Recently, my friend Leela came to visit Bergen and we went on a fjord cruise to make the most of a sunny October day. We observed foam streaks on the fjord. The structures were long and persistent, and being the oceanographers […]