Who pulled the drain plug?

March 15, 2007 10:46 AM

A massive whirlpool, has a appeared off the coast of Sydney, Australia. I wonder if it spins counterclockwise?
posted by xmattxfx (45 comments total)

Scientists are baffled by the powerful cold-water eddy, which is invisible to the human eye but can be tracked through satellite images.

I'm so getting this tattooed on my face.
posted by eddydamascene at 10:55 AM on March 15, 2007

The East Australian Current has been forced to divert around the eddy, which takes one week to do a full rotation in a clockwise direction.

There goes that theory.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:01 AM on March 15, 2007

OH NO, WE'RE ALL GONNA...wait..."invisible to the human eye"? Pff. Next.
posted by DU at 11:09 AM on March 15, 2007

< fark> EVERYBODY PANIC! < /fark>
posted by LordSludge at 11:09 AM on March 15, 2007

Eees-eet.... an emergen-cee? *pit pat pit pat pit pat pit pat*
posted by phaedon at 11:10 AM on March 15, 2007

There was a swirling mass of water that lived in a quiet pond
It asked permission from its master to visit the lands beyond
And its master allowed it to fly
So the wind swept the whirlpool across the sky
The whirlpool's mother wore a jacket she'd sewn out of dental floss
It was stolen by a monkey that sold it to an albatross
And it had the idea to fly
so the wind swept the whirlpool across the sky
There was a swirling mass of water that lived in a quiet pond
It asked permission from its master to visit the lands beyond
And its master allowed it to fly
So the wind swept the whirlpool across the sky
And it had the idea to fly
so the wind swept the whirlpool across the sky
posted by psmealey at 11:10 AM on March 15, 2007

I don't see how it can be a huge whirlpool if there are no awesome photos of it.
posted by smackfu at 11:14 AM on March 15, 2007

Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.
posted by jouke at 11:19 AM on March 15, 2007 [2 favorites]

The Maelstrom isn't it?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:24 AM on March 15, 2007

duh duh duhhh
posted by carter at 11:25 AM on March 15, 2007

yep
posted by jouke at 11:41 AM on March 15, 2007

They better hope this is not a harbinger of things to come; cold waters offshore suck precipitation out of air masses, and lead to (worse) droughts on land.

If this cold water somehow originates from the increased melting of Antarctica, watch out.
posted by jamjam at 12:05 PM on March 15, 2007

This doesn't have anything to do with that part of the Earth's crust that's missing, does it?

Pretty soon we'll all be able to hunt whales with a tire iron and a pickup truck.
posted by CynicalKnight at 12:06 PM on March 15, 2007 [2 favorites]

Massive whirlpools are supposed to spin clockwise (viewed from above) in the southern hemisphere.
posted by MtDewd at 12:08 PM on March 15, 2007

Actually, large-scale geostrophic eddies (ones which are so large that a balance exists between the coriolis effect and the pressure gradient) can spin either clockwise or counter-clockwise; clockwise for the cold ones, and counter-clockwise for the warm ones (in the southern hemisphere).
posted by freedryk at 12:24 PM on March 15, 2007 [2 favorites]

posted by MtDewd Massive whirlpools are supposed to spin clockwise (viewed from above) in the southern hemisphere.

Boy howdy, if I was Australian, I'd be demanding my money back right now.
posted by fandango_matt at 12:30 PM on March 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Maybe the "Great Ocean Conveyor Belt Stream" is changing...
pictures: one, two
It's often said that the Gulf stream might "flip", why limit the theory to the Gulf stream
posted by umop-apisdn at 12:44 PM on March 15, 2007

Does this mean Dennis Quaid and Donnie Darko are going to save us from the killer frost?
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 12:54 PM on March 15, 2007

Clearly it's Cthulhu awaking. Let's hope he hits his eldritch snooze button.
posted by brundlefly at 1:07 PM on March 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

"Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."
"Ah," nodded Arthur, "is he? Is he?" He pushed his hands into the pocket of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
"What?" said Ford.
"Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy, then, exactly?"
posted by scalefree at 1:13 PM on March 15, 2007

Bill O'Reilly could fix it.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:23 PM on March 15, 2007

I feel sorry for people who actually try to make intelligent comments in threads like this.
posted by spock at 1:34 PM on March 15, 2007

They say 'viewed from above', but we all know Americans are upside-down.
posted by pompomtom at 1:35 PM on March 15, 2007

Doubt it.
posted by econous at 2:19 PM on March 15, 2007

Here, I thought Cold Water Eddy was in the hoosegow.
posted by dhartung at 2:48 PM on March 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

Goddammit, whoever has the plug needs to put it back.
posted by hob at 2:56 PM on March 15, 2007

It's those damn whales again. First they start attacking the arctic shelf with blowtorches to raise the sea-level and get themselves some of our primo real estate, and now they're swimming round in circles off Australia, lowering the sea temperature and being a danger to shipping in some perverted form of water-conditioning because they think it's a tad warm for their blubbery arses. Betcha they're baleen whales, too. They're the worst. For god's sake - go to an orthodontist already.
posted by Sparx at 3:08 PM on March 15, 2007

Whirlpool...or aquatic crop circle?
posted by Midnight Creeper at 3:18 PM on March 15, 2007 [4 favorites]

I suck.

Do you know why I suck?

Because I thought jouke's comment was talking about motherfucking draglonlance.
posted by tehloki at 3:18 PM on March 15, 2007

I don't know what dragonlance is, or how it comes to be motherfucking.

But to be perfectly clear: it's from Descent into the Maelstrom by Edgar Allen Poe.
posted by jouke at 3:26 PM on March 15, 2007

Oceanographers noticed the eddy forming in January.

Thanks a lot Science!
posted by inconsequentialist at 3:34 PM on March 15, 2007

brundlefly : Clearly it's Cthulhu awaking. Let's hope he hits his eldritch snooze button.

It's not cthulhu, it's Leviathan. Though I'm not sure if that is any better.
posted by quin at 4:50 PM on March 15, 2007

"The cooler water can bring down the temperature at Sydney's beaches by several degrees."

I know I can't be the only one who thought this: bummer for the balls of the Bondi boys.

(oh wait, maybe I am.)
posted by squasha at 5:04 PM on March 15, 2007

Bummer for the balls? Not really, if the drop only brings the water temperature down to a lovely 22 degrees celsius.

No shrinkage in the budgie-smuggers in Bondi, mate!
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:45 PM on March 15, 2007

budgie smugglers
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:45 PM on March 15, 2007

For those who care about the science, the Sargasso Sea is a similar phenomenon: a wide expanse of ocean that rotates due to the surrounding currents, with interesting effects on the sea itself and the life it supports.
posted by SPrintF at 7:17 PM on March 15, 2007

Nonsense, UbuRoivas! If it's alliterative, it must be true!
posted by brundlefly at 7:20 PM on March 15, 2007

Yo, pimp dis crib!
posted by rob511 at 8:46 PM on March 15, 2007

You guys are completely missing the point. They're talking about the East Australian Current. It's painfully obvious that this is a special effects stunt by the guys at Disney. They're filming the sequel to Finding Nemo. It's called Finding Dory, and she's the reason the East Australian Current is now going whacko with cold water eddies. This'll make perfect sense when you see the behind the scenes footage on the DVD.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:25 PM on March 15, 2007

Beaverhating Bush blows Bondi boys - bare bottoms & blue balls abound ("blue being best" being Bush's belief).
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:55 PM on March 15, 2007

Wow, a mega-whirlpool. Weird.
posted by nickyskye at 10:29 PM on March 15, 2007

http://islamicsydney.com/images/user/whirlpool.jpg :D
posted by borq at 2:42 AM on March 16, 2007

sorry, again but linked
posted by borq at 2:43 AM on March 16, 2007

It's not cthulhu, it's Leviathan.

What makes you think they're two separate beings? Have you ever seen Cthulhu and Leviathan together?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:28 PM on March 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I thought this was going to be the Australian equivalent of the "Old Sow".

That said, nothing like a little physical oceanography review.

Navier-Stokes equations anyone? No? No...ok.
posted by nekton at 7:18 PM on March 16, 2007