Surf's up! But why?

Every summer, the California surfing community enjoys the arrival of a long, regular swell from the southwest. The origin of the swell is in the winter storms of the southern hemisphere, some in the Indian Ocean, half way around the Earth.

In the latest program from Birch Aquarium’s Perspectives on Ocean Science series, join internationally renowned Scripps professor Walter Munk to learn how World War II and measurements of Guadalupe Island led to this discovery and what it means for surfers today.

Watch “Where the Swell Begins” tonight (Dec. 12) at 8pm on UCSD-TV, or online now.

Join the interested millions…..

How many viewers would you say have downloaded the Perspectives on Ocean Science series from the Birch Aquarium at Scripps? 50,000? 100,000? Ok, let’s go way out, how about 500,000? Keep going…. Over 2,500,000. That stunned even me…. Over 2 and a half million downloads. That isn’t clicks. That’s viewers saving the programs so they […]

How many viewers would you say have downloaded the Perspectives on Ocean Science series from the Birch Aquarium at Scripps? 50,000? 100,000? Ok, let’s go way out, how about 500,000? Keep going….

Over 2,500,000. That stunned even me….

Over 2 and a half million downloads. That isn’t clicks. That’s viewers saving the programs so they can be watched online or on the go with a mobile media device. Now, of course, that isn’t a blip compared to that Superbowl wardrobe failure, or even that owl cam….but it is the most reputable, relevant and current information available on a wide variety of ocean science topics, straight from the source — unadulterated, unabridged, un-spun.

So you can join in and see what’s so interesting to so many of your fellow viewers, we’ve prepared a summer long line-up of the most frequently downloaded programs. Every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday night from June through August you can find a Perspectives on Ocean Science program airing on UCSD-TV. And don’t forget, you can always view the programs on-line, or download them and take them with you….and join the interested millions who already have.

Science Programs to Watch on UCSD-TV

TeacherTECH: Earthquake Teaching Tools

The next program in our new series TeacherTECH, from the San Diego Supercomputer Center airs Wednesday March 24 and features the irrepressible Debi Kilb, Science Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Visualization Center. Debi’s specialties are the underlying physics of earthquakes, and getting other people really enthused about it. She’s going to show you many readily accessible sources on the internet where you can find a wide range of information on seismic activity, both in the past and as it happens. And don’t miss physics guru Phil Blanco’s TeacherTECH presentation on Newton’s Laws and Gravity on March 31. Visit UCSDTV’s TeacherTECH page for other programs in the series, and more resources and information from the presenters.

Building It Better

In keeping with the theme of seismicity, Debi’s TeacherTECH presentation is followed by Building It Better, a chronicle of the most massive outdoor real-time seismic test ever conducted. You’ll get an inside view of the western hemisphere’s largest shake-table at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering’s Englekirk Structural Engineering Center. The shake table is the only of its kind in North America, and you’ll see the amazing ingenuity and technology that is required to conduct a test of this scale.