While the "9 m, what's that in English" was pretty idiotic, I think something was wrong with that buoy. Except right near the Chilean coast, NOAA's calculations show under 40 cm for most of the ocean and more like 20 cm near Hawaii (color bands so no way to read precisely)
http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/chile20100227/fmaxamp.png Tsunamis are long wavelength, low height waves in deep water, but they can build up in alarming fashion as they run into shallow water. A real 9 m tsunami in deep water would have been a catastrophe. I'm not claiming that Sanchez was smart enough to question the data, but I'm a little disturbed his scientist was dumb enough not to. ________________________________ From: Phil Chernack <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 1:24:48 PM Subject: [USMA:46809] The Daily Show segment w/Rick Sanchez of CNN Pretty funny. Wait for Jon Stewart's retort to "9 meters, what's that in English?" http://www.hulu.com/watch/131441/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-the-uninformant#s-p2-sr-i1 Then, the Moment of Zen: "The metric system is English" http://www.hulu.com/watch/131448/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-moment-of-zen-metric-system-is-english#s-p1-sr-i1 Phil
