pacific

Row, row, row (and row and row) your boat across the Pacific

Summertime. It's the time of year when some heed the call to hit the open road, like CNET News.com's Daniel Terdiman. (Follow him on Road Trip 2007 as he travels through the Southwest, testing gadgets and taking in scientific and natural wonders along the way.)

For one woman, it's the open ocean that beckons. This time, it's the Pacific. And she's going to row. By herself. Roz Savage, a 39-year-old Brit, plans to set off from San Francisco next week in a 24-foot boat to row across the ocean in three stages, her first … Read more

Mavericks: High surf is more than just what's on the surface

Hang onto your boards, there's a big one coming--next winter. In lieu of some serious Mavericks surf, you can check out the latest science findings on how these high waves are formed. A whole raft of government and educational groups combined efforts to map the Pacific Ocean floor, track the incoming waves, measure the currents, and generally scope out the Mavericks wave-making machinery.

They found "the abrupt topography of the bedrock reef at Mavericks causes wave energy to converge...causing the wave to rapidly slow down, shorten in length and substantially increase in height." Makes a surfer'… Read more

See Tuvalu while it lasts

Tuvalu is one of several Pacific island nations closely watching predictions about rising ocean levels. It's 700 miles north of Fiji. Residents there say the months of highest tides are already worse and wetter than historically. Homes and precious farm land have been lost. Well water is becoming salty. The CIA summary on Tuvalu states it succinctly. "Tuvalu is concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten the country's underground water table."

Tuvalu and its 12,000 residents have been promised admission to New Zealand if the the nation's nine atolls become uninhabitable. … Read more