A new theory that might be able to help predict them. (via Quanta)
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That skepticism changed on New Year’s Day in 1995, when a rogue wave struck the Draupner oil installation in the Norwegian North Sea. Equipped with a downward-pointing laser, the platform recorded a 26-meter wave spiking out of a sea filled with 11.8-meter waves — a nautical Bigfoot caught in a high-resolution snapshot. This hard evidence turned maritime myth into fact. Researchers have since determined that rogue waves probably claimed 22 supercarriers and more than 500 lives in the second half of the 20th century alone.
The Draupner wave spurred physicists to understand exactly how these solitary behemoths might arise. Researchers have since come up with two main theories. Each can describe how large waves form in laboratory wave pools. But debate rages as to which matters more in the ocean.
Now, a group of applied mathematicians reports that they’ve found a way to sidestep the fight over the specific mechanism and focus on predicting the outcome — paving the way for machinery that could, for instance, scan the ocean and notify ship captains that they face a 13% chance of running into a 30-meter wave in the next 15 minutes. The work implies that “impossible” waves of all flavors may share a unified fundamental character.
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