Page 33 - Ocean Currents News Today

Dropping those specific s sonobuoys. >> obvious, there are pings. you havent seen any debris. >> its a very, very, very challenging search. its a very large area. day 35 of the search. a lot of time has passed. and that brings its own challenges in terms of where the event happened. the drift from the ocean currents so far. so in some respects, its not surprising that its so difficult to find debris on the surface. its also very, very deep. four and a half kilometers deep. it will take some time...

Effort. so thats still a long way here, so to speak. >> and you say the air search is about the size of the state of west virginia. is that what youre saying? >> every day the several area that they search is about the size of west virginia. so its a sizeable search area and that search area continues to either be refined, due to the ocean currents or the movement of that search and the potential debris field or as youve alluded to, the more information that we get, we can refine and go to the v...

Get a number of more pings. >> the air search is the size of west virginia, looking for debris approximately in the size of west virginia. miles, the four pings that they discovered, thats in an area that is two or four miles deep but 17 miles across. thats a lot smaller than west virginia. its the size of lower ha manhattan. >> the size that they are honing down on is where the pings are, thats a smaller area. and then the larger area is the debris. its a complete mystery to those of us who hav...

That those pings you heard were coming from black boxes under water? >> i wouldnt say 100% certainty but extremely confident that they were man-made and they are consistent with what our product does. i think they want to wait for visual confirmation but we believe these are the boxes. >> so one set of sounds are in one area of the search area. the other set of sounds are like 16 miles away. why would that be? >> well, im at aircraft, the 777. you actually have two black boxes. you have the cock...

>> the other curious thing is they are looking for debris. they want to find some debris so they can further pinpoint where exactly the plane went down. why do you think they are not finding in debris? >> probably, most of it has sank or the ocean currents have moved it out of that area. again, the black boxes arent going to locate the debris. they are going to locate the boxes and hopefully from there, they will be able to see the debris. >> once they send the submersibles down, once they pinpo...

...theres a lot of buyers for a house like yours. (dad) thats good to know. (mom) im so excited. im errol barnett, with rosemary church. >> now, the head of the australian-led search effort announced that two more underwater ping signals have been heard in the southern indian ocean. they are the first audio signals detected since two were heard on saturday. the latest pulses were picked up on tuesday by the australian vessel, the ocean shield. well, we have an expert on ocean currents with us ...

That means roughly another 10 to 12 days or so. jake? >> thanks, rene. the pings have not been heard in days, but that does not mean that the batteries are absolutely out of juice. lets bring in fred hagg. fred, you have 30 years experience in designing underwater instruments like this. you say the location of the ship when it heard these ships could actually be miles from the actual source? how is that? >> yeah. thats correct, jake. what happens is, its just like if you were towing your -- trol...

Direction. is that also your assumption? >> so what were basically looking at now is effectively two different types of search. the one that is going on under the surface, as youve discussed with respect to the detection of the black boxes and also trying to locate a debris field as well. as part of the search operations that have been going on for the last few weeks, a number of aircraft have been dropping marker beacons. now, anything that is sitting at the bottom of the ocean will be subject ...

It is flowing downwards, rather than if you have looking at nigeria or in peru, where these currents are moving upwards. these two currents are going together and flowing down along the west australian coastline. were talking -- thats more part of the african/asian monsoonal rate to be able to better predict ocean currents, where they are going, how they affect the climate, temperature of those upper boundary currents of the ocean. so, its a very complex structure over there. thats why there is ...

Aviation correspondent, i should say, richard quest. are you happy now that i said 777? >> very happy. >> earlier he said, stop saying 777, say triple 7. first question from mark. is it possible what the chinese heard could be a submarine? michael, go. >> i dont think it could be a submarine. i think theres lots of background choice. i think it could be something natural. it doesnt have a hitter. the hydroplane doesnt have a filter on it. its incredibly difficult to know what it is. submarine, p...