Page 40 - Ocean Currents News Today

We need to do is run a line back up and see where the potential track was. if its gone across indonesia sovereign territory, there must be some primordial trace we can look at. >> theyre taking any possible debris, if that is the case, who knows where it is. its traveling such huge distances. >> thats a great point. my specialty isnt about the way the ocean currents move but i know enough to know if the aircraft crashed over two weeks ago, now were looking at something two weeks on, that is a bi...

Prevailing ocean currents and the counter clock wise currents. and you would think that the general direction of the debris would move east and north. but that is not the case. there are small whirlpools that can form. and they can have a bigger circulation as well. if you have aircraft or ships moving in, they could have a problem getting out there and then the weather. another storm system moving in the region overnight. and then a period of calmer weather and another one moving in on wednesda...

To the south. >> thats just a long way. but even if it is debris from the plane, how can the searchers figure out the location of the other pieces, if there is a wreckage there? >> yes. first of all, they have to see if that debris is from the aircraft. then you have -- we have a pretty good idea of where the aircraft went down, just on the timing when the fuel would run out. and then we use the ocean currents from observation satellite observations and from models to work our way backwards from...

You will, satellite imagery. how fast and how far can the oceans currents actually move debris, and how does that really complicate this search? >> yes. now, its not just the ocean currents, interesting enough. as i said, over a period of a week or two, the currents would move the debris towards the east. over a period of a few days, there could be a lot of north-south movement, too, from the eddies. however, there is also waves. if this is floating at the surface, and you have strong waves in t...

With planes and ships all converging in that area, attention turning to exactly how theyll look for a trace of the missing plane and white caps and tides and winds, and one answer might be satellite tracked buoys that can help. well get a live demonstration here tonight. luka, great to be with you. show us what youre doing. these are satellite buoys? how do they work? >> right. so what we have here is what we call a drifter. and this instrument is designed to do basically three things. we have a...

And the ocean currents and the wind, they can change considerably over distances of tens of miles. so it may move a little bit and another object which was nearby may move much more. and thats why we put all the information together to understand how the debris can disburse. >> okay. so, tom, let me ask you because were also hearing this morning that some pilots spotted other debris out there like a wooden pallet, some smaller debris is how they characterized it. that was not, as we understand i...

As a piece of a plane. but, it could be something as small as a seat cushion or a life vest. finding wreckage is like finding the needle in the hay stack. if only they could find the hay stack. >> thats a sonar buoy. >> correct. >> reporter: these devices are deployed in the indian ocean to monitor sounds and map the wind and ocean currents in hopes of narrowing down the search area. it has to fly in straight lines at 1,000 feet. at this height, a fishing boat can be obscured. this boat is about...

On the surface. very carefully back on how the currents might have taken it and so forth. see if you can find the main body of wreckage, and down there with that would be the so-called black boxes. but then youve got to locate them precisely, so you need sonar, if the pinger is still going. and eventually, youre going to have to have unmanned subs, if they ever do locate them, unmanned subs that go down and cameras show, and when they spot them, they can bring them up. a tedious job. >> one of t...

They are also contending with ocean currents and weather conditions. i want to quickly turn to our chad myers focusing on that. its morning there off the coast of western australia. what is the weather like at the search area right now? early this morning when we were on the air they were talking about low visibility, moderate conditions. whats it like now? >> reporter: the low visibility where kyung lah that little thunderstorm complex right there. 1500 miles from that area to the search area a...

Racing for answers, through pretty nasty weather against deadlines driven by shifting ocean currents and approaching storm systems to the remaining juice in the batteries of the boeing 777s data recorders. were learning new information tonight about what got investigators so interested in this particular debris and why tonight some analysts now have greater confidence that this time, after so many false leads, this could be the real thing. first to kyung lah in australia. what is the latest righ...