The world's most powerful tidal current
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- Near Bodø in Norway, there's the strongest tidal current in the world: Saltstraumen Maelstrom, a constantly-changing rush of whirlpools, boils and vortices. It might not be quite the whirlpools of myth and legend, but it's still an impressive sight to see.
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Tom Scott Amazing Places: The Maginot Line.
The best four words anyone could ever say!
Can always count on Tom to give us the most current content.
He should've done a live "stream" there.
I don't understand. Water you two talking about?
I sea you're up to no good again.
I'm gonna turn your tide.
Also, this seems a bit "fish"-y.
The Severn Bore on the spring tide is something to behold. An entire river slows, then proceeds to go backwards at such a velocity that surfers can ride the crest of the wave upstream.
Yes but the scale and speed is tiny compared to this although you get the wawe up river and here we dont.
I grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada, where the some of the largest tides in the world happen twice her day on the Bay of Fundy.
Very muddy tides, by the way.
Talbot Bay Western Australia: *FIGHT ME*
Such clear water and the fish look very happy!
I bet there's a super unique tidal species thriving here that you won't find anywhere else.
I live in Norway! A youtuber as big as you talking bout my small country made me happy
Ty just the info i needed without 2 hours of bs.
There is a place where the tidal current may be faster even.
Nakwato Rapids in British Columbia, Canada.
Currents there reach 18 knots.
It is a similar situation. Three big inlets (fjords) all choke through an area just as narrow as Saltstrumen
Is it weird that I want to try and swim in it, just to see how strong it is.
That depends. If you welcome death, then no, it's not weird at all.
You would join a long list of people who have met cold, wet, swift deaths in the same spot. The water will be so cold that it'll send your muscles and respiratory system into shock, making it exceptionally hard to swim or even just tread water, but on top of that it's extremely turbulent... you'd be dragged under within seconds, and not even have the strength to try and claw your way back to the surface, assuming you could still tell which way was up.
So, yeah... it's maybe not weird, but it is extremely ill-advised.
Call of the void
Look up tidal waves Talbot Bay Western Australia. Another great example.
Thanks mate👍
10 mtr tides there make that look tame
Maelstrom ... one of the coolest words ever.
Fascinating. Thank you.
"Tide goes in, Tide goes out"
*Splatoon music starts*
It reminds me of the Simpsons where homer's like bed goes up bed goes down😀
Thank you Tom! I never knew about this!
the energy that could be taken from that is limitless
Yes Slarty did a good job on this one 😁
Have a look at the vertical waterfalls on western Australia coast.
Skookumchuck Narrows, equally amazing.
imagine how much power they could generate with this water!!
imagine how much of the required power of the country is covered by green energy: 100% on the mainland!
"most of us don't think much"
Yeah, that is indeed the problem ;-)
That's why religion exists
I fear the day that Deathwing erupts from the maelstrom and causes the cataclysm
I just farted and it made my cat run away... 😳
A more powerful maelstrom is the Horizontal waterfall in Talbot bay in Western Australia with an 11m tide.
John Kern Google skookumchuk rapids in British Columbia BC Canada. Way more violent than this.
that wouldnt be a water fall if it doesnt fall right?? but im gunna look that up now cause the world is crazy like that..
k i checked it out and yes very cool, but it certainly doesnt live up to its name.. the flow isnt anymore impressive then a thousand rivers around the world, just the one small gap that you can see the water being a couple feet higher then the other side..
And check out the huge tides on the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, Canada.
S Codrington rapids as in river?? That’s not tidal then, is it?
I remember I got caught in an Eddie when water rafting through the bitterroot river in Montana and it was the worst physical feeling of my life
I got caught in a rip tide off the Californian coast, and saved myself by skimming back to shore on the water surface like a waterbug, with breast stroke/frog kick in the top five inches of water. I was too scared to be terrified.
Looks like a good green energy source.
LOOKS LIKE FREE ,CLEAN ENERGY 2 ME
Here from three body problem
I think I read about something like this in a edgar allan poe
Maelstorm reminds me of Star Wars
And you can dive there going with the flow.
Did that, 25 years ago.....
Not just the Sun, the Moon, too.....
My ass living right next to it
Why don't you make use of such an amazing resource? For generating electricity, for example?
Financial and technical challenges. There are more profitable projects
Is there any discussion about using it as tidal power??
But how many knots is the current doing?
I live 2-3 hours away from there 😃 it 's a, nice place🙂 if you ever need a please to stay. Then you're wery welcome to come visit us.🙂
Could it be used in a hydroelectric dam?
Bread goes in, toast comes out.
Can't explain that.
Romanski God dunnit
Checkmate, atheists.
Romanski Yeah but when Toast goes in, some guy named Chris and a lot of denial come out.
Food goes in poop comes out, you can't explain that!
Chickens go in, pies come out.
Why does this guy look old and young at the same time?
Wisdom, perhaps?
its the effect of premature balding when it starts in your 20s.
You can end up with a baby face alongside the hairline of a 40-50 year old, creating a maelstorm of mismatched old/young features.
Alcohol abuse
@NESHMETAL r/13or30
Very steve martin
no matter what you binge on UA-cam, you'll always end up in Tom Scott videos
Currently living this reality
It's just what happened to me today. Are you an oracle? How come you know it?😧
@@Kenan-Z i am inside your CPU
Me as well!!!!!!! Are we trapped?
"Most of us don't think much"
Could have just stopped there really.
*Me:* "Wow that's deadly"
*Brain:* "Swim"
*Me:* "What?"
*Brain:* "You gotta"
Good luck
dont
Do it
yes do it
Dew it Anakin. Mwehehe.
The tides have turned.
stop
They do that twice a day. Your point?
HOW QUICKLY THE TIDE TURNS
sounds epic right
Well well well How the turn tides
Tom, the Scookumchuck narrows here in BC on the west coast of Canada is similar. We see 760m cubic meters flow with a 3m tide change. Amazing to see. They practice surfing and kayaking on a 2m waterfall caused by it during extreme tide changes of 5m. Love your channel, thanks
I knew there'd be another coaster in here.
It would be interesting to know what the maximum flows actually are. The Wikipedia entry for Saltstraumen Maelstrom says the official numbers, from the Norwegian Pilot, are less than 10 kts, which is a lot less than Skookumchuck and other places on the BC coast where currents often run into the teens.
Can't tell if you're 15 or 48
Depends on the tide
Fun fact: Scuba divers often take a dip when the current is at its strongest outwards (towards the ocean), to be flung underwater at high speeds just for shits and giggles. They then end up hundreds of meters out in the ocean and get picked up either by boat or helicopter ^_^
is it possible to swim against the current...?
or just swim towards the shore when you are flung hundreds of meters since its weaker there?
Or Shark
chickentandoori87 - what about sharks that get caught in the current and then get tossed straight at you???
Fun fact: no one enters this part of the fjord, its restricted.
Sounds fun
This is one of the greatest channels on UA-cam! Thanks for all you do!
Pun intended
If you like this guy you will probably like veritasium as well
@@codyfisher9972Goated creators. Mark Rober is awesome too, different stuff though
How to prove tides are an illusion
Scientists incorrectly believe that tides are caused by the moon's gravitational pull on seawater, causing it to bulge and move around the Earth.
The truth is that tides are an illusion of shorelines moving through the ocean, caused by periodic solar orbiting rays that cause thermal expansion of the Earth's crust.
To prove that tides are an illusion, a laser beam was set up on a pier at the eastern end of the Bay of Fundy, parallel to sea level and pointing westward to a fixed land mark away from the shore. This target was observed at high and low tide. If the tide is a change in sea level, then the target matches. Otherwise, the tide is an illusion of the coastal seabed moving across the flat ocean due to periodic thermal expansion of the earth's crust.
What if you were to put some sort of generator there? Or is that inefficient?
Would be pretty ok, but there are a lot of rivers where the amount of water is way higher. And you would also have to deal with the tide switching directions every 6 hours
No, just use waterfalls instead with high fall distances, there are plenty of those in norway anyways
As Jonathanje said, it would be ok but I'd like to add that the mealstrom also creates very turbulent water that could rip it apart if it's not built sturdy enough.
+CrazyGaming You can do it, there's a experimental power plant in New York producing power from the stream of the river there with underwater turbines, nothing stopping us from doing the same here.
The issue is just that that there's a *lot* of wear and tear on something like that...
+slawterer And then all the blended fish matter (which mostly consists of ground up bones and meat) would clog up the generator, requiring it to be taken offline and cleaned, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone willing to clean up that bloody mess.
Fun fact: "Saltstraumen" means "The salt current"
No, "Salt-" comes from Norse "salpt" meaning current.
Arathos no it really means «the salt current»
@@CobraTeamGuys Can you back that claim up?
I sense some salt in this comment thread....
@@gnuling296 Nobody knows for sure since the name is so old but salt does mean current in old Norse and it's a part of the name of several other Norwegian tidal currents too, such as as the twin Nordsalten (North current) and Sørsalten (South current)
How does Tom come up with all these fascinating phenomena? Well done Tom. Tremendous amount of research
i know this isnt at all what you meant, but the idea that tom personally creates everything he shows us and is a god funny
If you weren’t aware. Tom is just a spokesperson.(he is very intelligent) But he’s just invited to these phenomena to present it to his audience.
As ever Tom, brilliant. Keep up the great content but don't burn out, looking after yourself is the number one priority.
He needs to get a girlfriend before the stress turns him into Steve Carell or worse, or maybe Herbert Hoover if he has an anonymous LiveLeak account.
He might do already, he doesn't like to talk too much about his personal life. I'd consider it but I'm a lesbian so...
LeahAmelia1 whoa
Just let him be. Leave Tom alone! 😂
"This never happens" flashing on the screen!
Subtle, love the Hitchiker's Guide references in this one :)
and the lovely crinkly edges :)
I just realised that Tom may have based his whole youtube persona on the Book.
@@ThreadBomb Nah, I think that's just every Brit
Horizontal falls in Western Australia's Kimberly has 11meter tides (33ft) that pass through a narrow passage
The Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia also experiences super high tides.
In fact, people surf the tidal wave with the incoming tides cause it does come in that fast.
And another: Deception Pass, Whidby Island, Washington State.
Skookumchuck narrows near Egmont BC Canada draws river kayakers to shoot it's rapids during peak tide season.
@@Saugaverse if you surf the the horizontal falls in the Kimberley in Australia and you fell off you get eaten bye sharks and crocs
Talbot bay WA.10m tides passing through a 20m wide gap then through a 10m wide gap further in, creating a horizontal water fall that is spectacular. Tom,you ain't seen nothing till you've seen that,makes that maelstrom look like a trickle.
It's insane how similar this looks to tsunami footage from for example the 2011 tsunami in Japan. Makes you appreciate why the term 'tidal wave' is so often used for tsunamis.
This didn't age well.
Would this be a good place to dump a body? Just asking for a friend. 🤔
Yes and no. I live in the area, and have heard a million stories about people falling into the sea and disappearing, never to be found again. Believe it or not though, it's an extremely popular diving spot, where divers can go down underwater at the weakest point of the day. These divers sometimes find rests of bodies at the sea bottom (but they're mostly from suicides, as the huge-ass Saltstraumen bridge above Tom in the video is a 'popular' suicide spot as well).
Steve Trump [VR] this fjord is restricted from all divers so no, bodies don’t get found
@@Alucard-gt1zf completely wrong. I literally work at the local campsite, which works together with the diving center "Saltstraumen Dykkecamp". Search it up if you don't believe me. It's a thing, it's legal, and it happens.
Or "Saltstraumen Diving Camp", I guess in English.
If you're looking to dump a body, the best place to do so is out in the Everglades in any remote gator infested mud hole that has a depth of more than twenty feet. But you will need a trusted friend with a helicopter, because you have to drop the body with some velocity for it to punch through the mud and get sucked to the bottom. It's gotta be that deep black mud too, and without deep standing water on top. Gots to have that quick sand surface layer otherwise standing water could prevent proper submersion and give ya a floater. Or so I was told by a friend, who I had asked for a friend of a friend.
you might want to take a look at the Corryvreckan whirlpool between Jura and Scarba in Scotland. Bit of a trek to get to, but when it's running it's amazing. You can hear the roar for quite a distance. Thereare standing waves and more. It was once described unnavigable, although modern boats and ships can handle it now.
Been there, it was fascinating to see. I'd love you to do a comparison with the horizontal waterfall in NW Australia.
Yep, doesn't seem to compare with Horizontal Falls in Western Australia
0:02 Bill O'Reilly confirmed
You can't explain that.
Never a miscommunication.
All hail Harry Potter, the holy deity of all that is true. If it weren't for his wizardly spells of water movement, there would be no tide.
What?
Sidney W, some years ago on the O'Reilley Factor, an atheist was interviewed by O'Reilley, who gave the stunning argument for a (/his) gods' existence: The tides. Himself unaware of why the tides "never miscommunicat[ed]", he claimed that "you [atheists] can't explain that" *. Of course, that's pure bollocks, as we can explain it and have been able to for centuries, but O'Reilley seeing it was the perfect argument for his god of a gap, seized upon it.
Naturally it became a meme within a few days, and has since survived for when we already know all necessary information to explain a phenomenon, yet uneducated fraudsters still try to claim we know nothing so as to make room for their god.
*IIRC, the atheist was so dumbstruck that he couldn't answer straight away, which made O'Reilley repeat the claim several times. It was good fun; look it up.
Tide goes in tide goes out. You can't explain that.
😂😂😂
Thanks Donald
Explains Jesus according to Bill O'Reilly 🙄🙄🙄
Tom, visit the Stonewall Jackson Hotel in Staunton, Virginia. There's an underground tunnel that leads TO WASHINGTON D.C.!!!
Catpirate what
Wyatt Fenlason It's true
The fourth longest water tunnel are in Skåne, Sweden. Give fresh water to Malmö region.
He's right. It is true. I'm not far from there at all. Maybe 2 hours
Is anyone liable to travel through the tunnel?
As someone who lives near and visits the bay very often (Long Island, NY which is usually known for strong currents) I can't even fathom the speed of that current visually alone. Makes my bay seem stagnant in comparison. It's almost surreal. I had to rewind to hear what Tom was even saying because I was stunned at the immensely powerful speed of the flow was. Really neat stuff.
What about Skookumchuck Narrows, near Sechelt, BC, Canada?
0:26 "Lovely crinkly edges."
Yes, they give a country a lovely Baroque feel, don't they?
"Salt-straumen" = "Salt Stream", whereby "Salten" is here (confusingly) the area, not the water.
And what is "Maelstorm"?
"Most of us don't think much..."
You should've just ended the video there Tom.
Why dont we build a Hydro Electric Power station there to harness this energy?
The strait to be open for boat traffic
We don’t want to destroy nature
GriZz _UK you better use rivers for that, they don't change their direction every 6 hrs
It's also really remote. Not a lot of people living in the far north of Norway.
It's not possible on a place area that, you will need an elevation, which causes the hydro machine (Turbine) to generate electricity.
Can't explain that.
Get back to making poops
Gah
Come on, or else JoeySnowey will beat you again.
Tom Scott for Prime Minister!
drcadillac pink floyd.
Mad Cap'n Tom for Prime Minister!
It would actually be called the Saltstraum Maelstrom, because the "en" at the end of the word would mean the same as the english word "the" before the word.
Source: am norwegian
@@tardigrade9493 rip
Saltstraumen is the name of the locality and so the Saltstraumen Maelstrom is the correct name for the tidal current. It is, after all, the 'maelstrom at Saltstraumen'.
Hey Tom! I love your videos, always amazing! I also find it so cool that you find ways to impart profound messages into videos like this, I think that's part of what separates you from typical science and explanation UA-cam channels!
Wow, over 4 years later and this is still current
Pun intended?
You should go to Horizontal Falls in the Kimberley, Western Australia. Also up Cape Leveque there is some strong currents.
Yep. 5m tide through a 12m inlet.
@@mabamabam How about the bay of Fundy in Canada, it has a nearly 20 meter tidal difference, and there's actually a place where the water rushes past an island in the middle of the inlet with such ferocity that it makes the entire island vibrate. Even without that island it already has the biggest tidal difference in the world, but that island increases it even more and so drastically that the water level drops up to 2 meter in height difference in less than a few dozen meters of distance.
Check our Reversing Falls Rapids in Saint John New Brunswick. I think that takes the cake.
Just think of the geological unit "Sverdrup" that is used to measure and scale oceanic currents.
1Sv equals 1 million cubic meters of water EACH DAMN SECOND!!! No human can imagine that.
Now the Golfstream is estimated to some 150 or more Sv.
I need somebody who can explain me 150 million cubic meters of water per second with an example or so.
Not bad, but check out the Horizontal's at Talbot Bay in the Kimberley's, Western Australia, now that is amazing.
I think faster as well, plus the drop in water levels either side
Seems like a great place for a hydro power dam
physics question: where/how would energy be lost if you harvested the energy in this current with like water turbines?
in the end the energy comes from the moons orbit
South Puget Sound has a tidal swing of 12-13 (sometimes up to 19) feet in an area of 1,020 sq. miles. All of that water has to go in and out at the Tacoma Narrows between Gig Harbor and Tacoma. That water is in a constant boil.
I'd love to see a time lapse video of the tide changing here. Watching the water flow in and back out in minutes.
Some of Slartibartfast's best work!
I love your channel Tom, it's always about such interesting and new things to me! Thanks for showing us parts of the world we'd NEVER get to see otherwise!! Keep it up! ^_^
You should do a video about the Öresund bridge while you're in Scandinavia.
Who else came here from Edgar Allan Poe's "A Descent Into Maelstrom"?
I will totally not point out that thing on Toms mouth. Yeah. :)
FrontalBeep Yep. There it is. Beat me to it.
Love the HHGttG references, especially to the old BBC sites
Are you sure? This is more powerful than the vertical waterfalls which form in northern Australia where the title excursion is more like 6 m?
"Tide goes in, tide goes out. We can quite accurately explain that"
-Albert Hawking (2020)
What about our year?!
This reminds me a lot of the tides and currents where I'm from, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. We're on the coast of the Bay Of Fundy which holds the record for the highest tides in the world, 15 metres between low tide and high tide. We're also famous for the Reversing Falls where water from the river and water from the bay meet and flow into each other causing rapids, whirlpools and a look that resembles falls going in reverse, hence the name Reversing Falls. If you're ever in Canada, specifically the East Coast it is definitly worth checking out.
I was thinking of the whirlpool in Saint John watching this, even has the bridge above it.
For those of us in the New World, the Bay of Fundy has an amazing tidal bore - including at least one big whirlpool (been out in a boat - that felt way too small - to look at it).
If the sun and moon are pulling the water, then why aren't other objects being pulled????
Loved the "this never happens" reference!
My favourite hitchhikers quote is:
(when discussing hyperspace travel)
"its like being drunk"
"that doesn't sound too bad"
"tell that to a pint of lager"
I think it was "a glass of water".
I'll never be cruel to a gin & tonic again...
This must be Thursday. I never could quite get the hang of Thursdays.
How does this compare to the tides in the Bay of Fundy?
Michael Lewis I wanna know too! :)
The interesting thing about Tom's videos is the fact that you don't realize how interesting the subject is before you've heard about it.
This guy does a fair David Burke impersonation.
Imagine how much hydroelectric power that could generate.
Is Norway a nice place to travel to?
i would say so, i could reccomend going to somewhere near the sea, probably up north, because in the north you can often see the northern lights, and they are beautiful. there are also hundreds of tourist attractions scattered around the whole country, and i would highly reccomend you check out some of them. (tips coming from someone who actually come from norway :D)
It's expensive, so bear that in mind.
If you're into nature and wildlife it's good.
Lofoten
Eh, I assumed he meant country.
Justin Chan yes definitely
this is the one water current that always kills you in Hungry Shark Evolution
There was a white thing stuck to your lip, Tom. I was captivated by the subject matter of this video, but once I saw that, I couldn't see or hear anything else. Literally like the mole scene from Austin Powers.