New Software Could Warn Sailors of Rogue Waves

Reservoir Hill writes "Sailors have been telling stories for centuries about monstrous ocean waves that tower over a hundred feet in the air and toss ships around like corks. While these were once dismissed as nautical myth, but a few years back synthetic aperture radar from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the existence of these 'rogue' waves and study their origins. Such waves were far more common than anyone had expected. Now a researcher in Madrid has developed software that can detect rogue waves from radar images, with the possibility of providing advance warning to ships at sea. The software uses a mathematical model to evaluate and process the spatial and temporal dimensions of waves inferred from the interaction between the radar's electromagnetic energy and the sea surface. The result is displayed in a color-coded image."

Comments

This is hardly new...

[3waygeek]

Rogue Wave Software has existed since 1989.

Re:This is hardly new...

[Gyppo]

Their software is crap. Their music is much better.

Re:This is hardly new...

[spectral]

Having had to deal with their stuff, I really wish something had been around to warn me back then.

Re:This is hardly new...

[aduzik]

And Rogue Wave is also a pretty badass band, too. I clicked on this post just to make this comment.

Tsunami

[Drakin020]

So this could help with tsunami warnings right?

Re:Tsunami

[RogueyWon]

Not necessarily.

Tsunamis and Rogue Waves are very different. If you'll forgive the generalisations; Tsunamis are mostly caused by events which result in the displacement of large quantities of water, such as earthquakes, landslides and asteroid impacts. They travel for hundreds, or even thousands of miles and cover a wide area of the sea. Their speed and height is heavily dependent upon the depth of the water - in deep water, they can travel at hundreds of miles per hour, but, crucially, may be no more than a few inches high. Ships can pass over them without ever realising they've done so. When they hit shallower water, the wave grows. However, what does the damage with tsunamis is not the height of the wave, per se, as the sheer amount of water behind it. The Boxing Day Tsumani that caused so much devastation a couple of years ago was only about 30 feet high when it hit land in many places - well within the range for a storm wave at the high end of the normal scale. However, the "wave" you see with a tsumani is just the front end of a huge body of water, with a vast amount of momentum. When a tsunami hits, it is as though the water level in the area affected has just jumped up to the height of the top of the incoming wave. This is obviously devastating, as it causes massive flooding and hugely powerful movements of water that can go miles inland.

Rogue waves, on the other hand, are essentially "surface" waves. The causes vary (winds running counter to currents is one cause, but there are others), but they have, in most respects, more in common with a storm wave than a tsunami. Their shape resembles that of a "breaking" wave when it hits the shore (although this is quite different from the "rolling" shape of a wave in the middle of the ocean) and there is no huge mass of water behind the wave itself. However, the height of a rogue wave is truly terrifying - essentially up to 100 feet - twice the size of the largest storm waves you could normally expect to encounter. Rogue waves are so dangerous to ships because their size and shape ensures that the pressure they exert on a ship they hit is way beyond what would normally be expected and designed for. However, they are rare and short-lived. The waves will usually be no more than a mile or two long and will run for about 10 miles or so on average.

The system discussed in TFA appears to be a radar based system. It works by picking up very, very large waves on radar and warning the crew of a ship caught in the path (giving them time to prepare and turn the ship to meet the wave). However, tsunamis would not show up on radar in mid-ocean and only the ultra-rare megatsunamis (which can occur either in an enclosed bay which suffers a massive land-slide, or on a broader scale when a truly massive asteroid impact or landslide occurs) would ever reach the height of a freak wave. Tsunami detection is likely better left to seismic monitoring and pressure sensors.

Re:Tsunami

[hedwards]

The system discussed in TFA appears to be a radar based system. It works by picking up very, very large waves on radar and warning the crew of a ship caught in the path (giving them time to prepare and turn the ship to meet the wave). However, tsunamis would not show up on radar in mid-ocean and only the ultra-rare megatsunamis (which can occur either in an enclosed bay which suffers a massive land-slide, or on a broader scale when a truly massive asteroid impact or landslide occurs) would ever reach the height of a freak wave. Tsunami detection is likely better left to seismic monitoring and pressure sensors. If I had the points, I would have modded you up.

It does surprise me that this would be news, if I understand correctly the Arthur Anderson identified 2 of them about the time that the Edmund Fitzgerald foundered, that was just over 30 years ago. Seems to me that this kind of thing should have been figured out and properly done years ago.

It does surprise me that the other products wouldn't have more or less been perfected in terms of identification.

Re:Tsunami

[ixtapa]

if there was ever a time for "ridiculously informative" moderation, this would be it.

Re:Tsunami

[Marcos Eliziario]

I just noticed your nickname is RogueyWon. Is it a coincidence?

Re:But can it Warn Sailors of icebergs?

[FireNWater]

Only rogue icebergs. . .

Yes, its called..

[eniac42]

Avasta, SP1, me mateys! Shiver me timbers, look at that wave! Arrrrr!

Eddie would go

[weighn]

Eddie Aikau - he's still out there you know. Riding those mutthas.

Ha! Ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

U r teh funny!!!!!!!!!11111oneone

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

These events occurred long before global climate change and have nothing to do with it. Tales of these date back to time of Columbus.

BTW, my job (field chemist) requires a SUV or truck, so please shut up and stop acting like you have any idea about peoples needs.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[W2k]

You are probably just a stupid troll, but I'll bite: these waves have nothing to do with climate change. Read the fscking article. Rogue waves like these have been sinking ships for centuries.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[4D6963]

In Soviet Russia... waves hit YOU.

In Soviet Russia, jokes make you sensible.

Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

The subtext of this article is amazing. Basically, sailors have been out there getting killed by giant waves for decades, but a bunch of scientists decreed that such waves could not exist, and therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed. During this entire time, numerous eye witness reports were ignored, and even the odd photograph was dismissed as a fluke.

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate, when, 2 ships a week have been sinking now for decades (on average), that, there's eyewitnesses that have said what caused these sinkings, and instead, ignored them. If there's a smoking gun that says that scientists find what they want to find, and its not necessarily the truth, then this is it, and the only way to save science is to demand that science must act scientific.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[theNote]

Obligatory rogue wave video from Deadliest Catch on Discovery channel:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=l_8hOai9hGQ

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[UbuntuDupe]

But isn't that exactly what happens everytime you complain about a problem to a doctor? "Nope, not possible, just diet and exercise."

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The scientists made their decisions on objective data but weren't convinced by anecdotal evidence. In other words science worked just as it's supposed to work.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Splab]

What about numerous UFO observations, Loch Ness etc? are you suggestion those should be regarded as proof of existence since there have been numerous observations and murky photographs? Science works by being skeptical, yes it can take decades for something to be acknowledged and that might be bad but taking every observation as proof would be worse.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Colin Smith]

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution Don't tell me. You're still younger than 25 years old.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Jarjarthejedi]

Last time I checked there aren't 2 deaths a year from UFOs, or reportedly from UFOs. Sure there's somewhat of a correlation, but when people are dying semi-commonly (I figure 2 deaths a year means 1 ship sunk every 5 years or so) that's when you should be looking into the subject, not simply ignoring it and saying it's not possible and that the photos are proof of nothing.

The scientists aren't fully to blame for the fact that these waves were so long thought impossible, but neither are they completely blameless, they were so set in their ways that they couldn't see any way such a wave could exist, and that's a problem. In other words it's not bad to say that these waves, or UFOs, probably don't exist, but it is a problem to say that there's no possible way such a phenomenon could happen. As Douglas Adams once postulated (paraphrasing a good amount) 'the difference between something that's unlikely and something that's impossible is that, when you find out the impossible thing can actually happen you look a lot worse than the statistically unlikely thing'

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Jarjarthejedi]

And yet at the same time science is supposed to investigate anecdotal matters, or at least that's where most of our scientific understanding has come from. Most leaps forward are not preceded by large quantities of statistical evidence, but rather one or two anecdotal happenings that someone gets curious about and decides to investigate. Sure, the scientists did all that was expected of them, they examined their evidence and found that these waves were impossible according to what they'd observed. However from what I've seen and heard this was treated as another case of one group of scientists saying something's impossible and other groups simply accepting their findings as fact without examining them or gathering their own data. As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but that doesn't mean the scientists shouldn't have studied the subject a little more before making their statements.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[eebra82]

[..] therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed. I think you're missing the point. It's not about altering ships to handle huge waves, but instead to warn them in advance. For instance, crew could get off the deck in time and the captain would have time to change its direction to match that of the wave.

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate, when, 2 ships a week have been sinking now for decades (on average), that, there's eyewitnesses that have said what caused these sinkings, and instead, ignored them. Ignored what exactly? The article states that "severe weather has sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length during the last two decades. There's no data on how many of these ships actually sunk from a super wave. In fact, the number could be so small that it's not even worth our time. More importantly, most of these accidents happen to really old boats.

Last but not least, there are many eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted UFOs, been exposed to abductions, seen the Loch Ness monster and whatnot. You need credible evidence before you start spending billions of dollars on altering ship designs.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[m2943]

Basically, sailors have been out there getting killed by giant waves for decades, but a bunch of scientists decreed that such waves could not exist, and therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed

Yes, engineering and safety standards are based on objective evidence, not anecdotal reports. That is the way it should be. Sometimes people's hunches and anecdotes are proven right in retrospect, often, they are proven wrong.

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate

I'm sorry you don't understand the purpose of academic or scientific institutions; you are not supposed to "trust" them, you are supposed to look at their evidence and conclusions and then rationally formulate a policy based on it.

If there's a smoking gun that says that scientists find what they want to find, and its not necessarily the truth

Of course, it's "not necessarily the truth". Scientists make hypotheses and inferences based on data, and those are always subject to change.

The best scientific evidence right now says that anthropogenic climate change is happening. That scientific hypothesis may turn out to be wrong, but no alternative hypothesis is even remotely as plausible.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[UbuntuDupe]

I'm sorry you don't understand the purpose of academic or scientific institutions; you are not supposed to "trust" them, you are supposed to look at their evidence and conclusions and then rationally formulate a policy based on it.

Yes, that's how it's supposed to work, but the GP is right that in practice, we are asked to base policies on our trust of them. Remember, people like Al Gore say, "Do this policy, because the scientific consensus in this area." He does not say,

"Do this policy, because this group of scientists has consistently been able to formulate correct, falsfiable, non-trivial, useful predictions, using a model that you can download at this website, and for which you can easily trace every assumption going into it, to its original scientific basis." (or any shorter version of that)

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Dunbal]

What about numerous UFO observations, Loch Ness etc? are you suggestion those should be regarded as proof of existence since there have been numerous observations and murky photographs? Science works by being skeptical, yes it can take decades for something to be acknowledged and that might be bad but taking every observation as proof would be worse.

      Especially since the original perpetrator of the "Loch Ness Monster" hoax publicly admitted to it about 20 years ago in the UK, just before dying. Along with his admission was an apology, and what made him cough up the truth was seeing all the boats gathered with sonar equipment to finally, once and for all, put this myth to rest. He said he was ashamed that so many people had invested so much money for this.

      But people love to believe bullshit, and even though this made the news in the UK at the time (I watched it), people still perpetrate the "Loch Ness Monster" BS. Don't even get me started on UFOs.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

who the hell modded him up? ships were not built to withstand giant waves because scientists said so? what, seriously? the global scientific conspiracy to appease poseidon? surely, there must have been at least one company that built those tank ships if the existence of these waves was as obvious to everyone as to you. did it ever occur to you that you don't build ships like tanks unless there's either an obvious need for it or you're rolling in money and severely lack imagination?* and how the fuck did you tie all this in with global warming? idiots jumping on science, whilst trolling on a huge worldwide network made only thanks to years of hard work of scientists, just make my day. *that's a rhetorical question, that you've already answered, btw.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about numerous UFO observations, Loch Ness etc? are you suggestion those should be regarded as proof of existence since there have been numerous observations and murky photographs?

Yes, I do believe that both unidentified flying objects and Loch Ness both exist. I think the scientific community is in agreement with me on this one.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[zippthorne]

My recollection may be poor, but I don't remember scientists actually saying rogue waves can't exist. I do remember they said they couldn't model them using the linearized CFD simulations that had become popular, and when processing power finally grew to the point where they could cross fewer terms off of the ol' Navier-Stokes equations, they found something that resembled rogue waves in the results.

I suspect this is a case where one group of scientists or engineers misinterpreted or exaggerated the results of another group of scientists and engineers.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Swampash]

Yeah, I can see the conversation.

Engineers: "The peak wave height ever recorded in the area is 15 metres, so we're going to design and build the platform to withstand 30-metre waves."

Beancounters: "Do you have any scientific basis for that recommendation?"

Engineers: "Well, no, but we heard this old sailor telling stories one day..."

Beancounters: "YOU'RE FIRED".

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[0xdeadbeef]

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate,

And don't forget evolution! Those scientists, with all their theories, undermining honest God-fearing values! Have they ever seen anything evolve? No!

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[ricree]

they were so set in their ways that they couldn't see any way such a wave could exit Except that scientists actually looked at the evidence and eventually found that they did exist. So how exactly were they "set in their waves". They did what they were supposed to do. They looked at a reported phenomenon and skeptically investigated it until they were able to determine one way or another whether it actually existed. Then once there was actually something to study, they set out to understanding what was actually going on. Please tell me what exactly they should have done differently here.

Would saying "ok, I believe you" without any evidence or understanding actually have saved any of the lives lost?

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Rakishi]

Yes, that's how it's supposed to work, but the GP is right that in practice, we are asked to base policies on our trust of them. Which is irrelevant, you fly on planes that you rarely understand the basic principles of much less the engineering. You drive on cars whose inner working are sometimes trade secrets. You eat food whose origin is a mystery in most cases and whose composition you never even try to check.

We trust a lot of things which means very little. Nothing is perfect and often there is a bloody good reason for that. Claiming something will make it better is usually how you make things much much worse.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[jcr]

Oh, my god. If I ever saw something like that at sea, I'd have a hard time facing a swimming pool after that.

-jcr

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[ozbird]

When you look at some of the flag-on-convenience rust buckets plying the oceans, the fact that some never make it isn't too hard to believe without invoking rogue waves, kraken etc. - Occam's razor.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[I'll Provide The War]

"During this entire time, numerous eye witness reports were ignored, and even the odd photograph was dismissed as a fluke."

I guarantee there are more eyewitness reports and photographs of alien abductions and lake monsters than rogue waves.

How can elitist scientists ignore this mountain of evidence at our peril? //sarcasm

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[mazarin5]

Listen here, Mister Smarty-Man...

Quick! Look behind you!

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

There was evidence though, it's just that no instrumentation had directly detected the waves until recently. There was a Discovery channel show "Killer Waves" or the like that showed pictures of massive damage to several huge ships but the sailor testimonies were ignored despite the type and scope of damage to the ship.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope those who are equating UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster with real ships that really sank because of real waves are not real scientists. Or, we're all screwed!

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[m2943]

Remember, people like Al Gore say, "Do this policy, because the scientific consensus in this area."

Yes, and Al Gore is correct. Saying "there is scientific consensus" doesn't mean "trust these people blindly", it means "you can check the results if you want to".

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[UbuntuDupe]

Except you can't, because the alternate statement isn't true. There is no such website; there is no such documented prediction trial of global climate metrics.

Oh, you can certainly look up the journal articles, which discuss how nasty the computer models say it will be ... but that's not the same thing.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[UbuntuDupe]

Which is irrelevant, you fly on planes that you rarely understand the basic principles of much less the engineering

It's certainly relevant to the point I was making. The antecedent of "them" in "our trust of them" was "the scientists proposing the theories." Airlines and cars are not built based on trust of scientists proposing these theories, but on rigorous real-world testing that confirms they hold true, and on insurers who put their own money on the line based on their estimates of the probabilistic safety of these science-driven devices.

These safeguards do not necessarily exist for the policies scientists advocate, however.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Watson Ladd]

So do you have another Earth we can use as a control?

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

There's no data on how many of these ships actually sunk from a super wave. In fact, the number could be so small that it's not even worth our time. More importantly, most of these accidents happen to really old boats.

Last but not least, there are many eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted UFOs, been exposed to abductions, seen the Loch Ness monster and whatnot. You need credible evidence before you start spending billions of dollars on altering ship designs..

I would think sailors would be credible. That's the thing. You put sailors into same camp as UFO believers, but really, they are subject matter experts when it comes to the water. Really, that someone never went and bothered to really check the sailor's claims of giant waves for decades just tells me that "credible evidence" as you call it is just an excuse for laziness in the discipline.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

Would saying "ok, I believe you" without any evidence or understanding actually have saved any of the lives lost?

Why do you need a scientist to prove something exists? Really, I would the burden on science would be to prove that it doesn't exist. That's one thing that's lost in this process. A scientist tells me that I didn't see a rogue wave, when I saw it, then, he needs to prove that it doesn't exist. Really, its the same sort of thinking over and over again... there's a theory, says something couldn't happen, and woops suddenly we find out that all of these people that were discredited were actually right.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

Beancounters: "Do you have any scientific basis for that recommendation?"

Engineers: "Well, no, but we heard this old sailor telling stories one day..."

Realistically, its more like this:

Sailor: "A giant wave knocked off the bow of my ship."
Engineer: "Sorry, but that wave couldn't have existed, because my computer model didn't predict it.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[zippthorne]

Speaking of those design changes, I've got to wonder exactly what changes you could make to make a 100 foot high wave survivable.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a poorly informed post. First, you mean millennia, not decades, and I'm completely at a loss as to why this didn't occur to you. Second, you try to frame this as experiment vs. theory and real world vs. academic when the majority of arguments against the existence of these waves were generated by sailors hundreds of years ago as naval dogma. Most sailors never saw such a wave, and because they were reluctant to believe in anything they hadn't seen, they insisted that giant waves must be exaggerations. Finally, "this proves that scientists are bad" is an outrageous fallacy which you haven't even attempted to prove in your post. One must wonder about the intelligence of those who modded this post "insightful."

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

And don't forget evolution! Those scientists, with all their theories, undermining honest God-fearing values! Have they ever seen anything evolve? No!

This isn't about saying that science should be replaced by religion. It is about saying that science should not become a religion, and, in this case, it was a religion about wave theory that hindered science. Had someone gotten off their ass, gotten onto a boat, and looked for some of these rogue waves, instead of just saying that it was impossible, then, we might have had something. The failure here is the same failure that science accusses religion of. You have a prescribed belief that is so overwhelming that no one even bothered to investigate a possible contradiction, dismissing it as so much sailor stories.

Ironically, it was those sailor's stories that described things disappearing over the horizon, that lent weight towards the idea of the earth being round, instead of flat.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[m2943]

Except you can't, because the alternate statement isn't true. There is no such website; there is no such documented prediction trial of global climate metrics.

You make no sense; all data and models have been published and discussed at length. If you disagree with any of them, publish a paper.

You also seem to be starting from the wrong assumption that the burden of proof is on people claiming that global warming is happening and carbon emissions are dangerous. Quite to the contrary: given the potential risks, the burden of proof is on people arguing that continued massive carbon emissions are safe.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[dotancohen]

the original perpetrator of the "Loch Ness Monster" hoax publicly admitted to it about 20 years ago in the UK, just before dying... The story of Nessie goes back hundreds of years. Even the researchers who proved that the photo you are referring to was a fake (one year before the admission) believe the monster to be real. More info here.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[syousef]

The subtext of this article is amazing. Basically, sailors have been out there getting killed by giant waves for decades, but a bunch of scientists decreed that such waves could not exist, and therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed. During this entire time, numerous eye witness reports were ignored, and even the odd photograph was dismissed as a fluke.

Note that once all you have to rely on is anecdotal evidence, it's very difficult to get specs to engineer to. These rogue waves haven't been killing people for "decades". More like since people took to the seas. Skepticism is a perfectly acceptable part of the scientific process. As more evidence build and cases are documented and recorded you start to take stories more seriously. It's a triumph for the sophistication and technology that we have that these events have now been recorded and there is no longer any doubt. Now as ocean going vessels have survived some of these monsters we've got more and more reliable data and can do something about it. More ships are surviving so obviously we've been very lucky OR the boats are getting better too.

Also you can't engineer for every possible situation. We know giant squids exists for instance but we don't go around squid monster proofing even small ocean going ships. Whales are seen every day but we don't whale proof our boats nearly enough. Why? The cost are prohibitive and the scenarios where engineering would make a difference are rare. At some point the risks have to be considered acceptable. Increasingly society is losing sight of that.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[thejuggler]

I used to be in the US Navy. I did face a wave like that and bigger. We took a 70+ foot wave, bow first thankfully, while riding the front of a massive January storm somewhere off the coast of Oregon. I was on an FFG which can handle a wave that size much better than a fishing boat, but it was still one heck of a ride.

A few years back I was watching an episode on one of the Discovery network channels about some oceanic researches. Their research ship was hit by a rouge wave. It was then when scientists actually got hit by one that they started thinking of sailors accounts of rouge waves as credible. Damn pointed head morons. It took slapping them in the face with a giant wave for them to believe they existed.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[yndrd1984]

You do realize that eyewitness accounts are among the least reliable types of evidence, right? And sometimes it takes a long time to do things the right way (with solid proof) as opposed to the easy way (believing what others tell you), especially when the evidence is so sparse.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[yndrd1984]

I agree with most of what you say, but:

You also seem to be starting from the wrong assumption that the burden of proof is on people claiming that global warming is happening and carbon emissions are dangerous. Quite to the contrary: given the potential risks, the burden of proof is on people arguing that continued massive carbon emissions are safe.

In science, the burden of proof always lies with the person making the claim. When global warming was just a new hypothesis, the burden of proof was on those saying it was a real phenomenon. Now that they have solid evidence for their claim the burden has shifted, but as long as we're talking only about science, where the biggest risk is isn't relevant.

Now, if we're talking about policy, we have to both weigh the risks as well as consequences. But, as far as I know, the phrase "burden of proof" only deals with probabilities and evidence, not how grave the consequences could be.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

You do realize that eyewitness accounts are among the least reliable types of evidence, right?

Science is nothing more than eyewitness accounts. You claim to witness something, then, I can witness it too. In the best and strongest case, you create a model that will allow others to predict what they will witness, then, below that, you can just give a set of procedures to witness something, and finally, you can say that you witnessed something and then make up a story about it.

Ultimately, the whole academic process exists to create a set of witnesses that are ethical, reliable, and knowledgable enough to describe what they have witnessed, and hopefully, insightful enough to do understand what others have witnessed. So, my criticism isn't to say that we should go back to (insert favorite holy book). It is to say that we need to monitor how good our science actually is, not by deluding ourselves into thinking that technological progress is the exclusive benchmark, but, as a function of, how much do we trust these people to be supreme witnesses. Right now, from the public perspective, its not as much as one might think, and that's really why superstition is making a comeback.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[flyingsquid]

Speaking as a scientist, and as a sailor with a couple decades worth of experience on the North Pacific, go to hell.

Yeah, science is pretty far from perfect. We scientists can be arrogant, quick to trust our theories and to disregard experience, and we make mistakes. We are, in other words, human. But scientists have also given us vastly improved navigational technology. Radar lets you see where the land is, through darkness, rain, and fog, to avoid hitting coasts and other ships. Loran, and now GPS, gave ships the ability to see precisely where they are. Ship-to-ship radio communication made it possible for ships to radio for help when they were in distress. EPIRBs (emergency position indicating radio beacon) allow ships to send distress calls over a satellite network to the Coast Guard and send precise information on their location.

The end result? Being on the water isn't safe, it never has been, and it never will be. The ocean is an unpredictable and dangerous thing. But thanks to these scientific advances, it's much, much safer today than it was just twenty or thirty years ago.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[moosesocks]

I would be very weary of any scientist that says "That's Impossible!" when referring to a system as large, complicated, and chaotic as the ocean.

Simply put, although I'd peg rogue waves as being extremely improbable, I could easily see how all of the factors could hypothetically lead to several waves constructively interfering to create a single massive wave. I *am* surprised, however, to see that these rogue waves are observed as frequently as they are, however.

To be fair, scientists have also admitted that turbulence is a massive grey area in our current understanding of classical dynamics.

'UFOs' I'd imagine are the result of either hoaxes, or some atmospheric phenomena that doesn't occur frequently enough, or stick around long enough to be studied properly. If you described the Aurora to a scientist who had never seen or heard of it, he'd probably ask you to have your head examined.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn, to, English, please.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[m2943]

In science, the burden of proof always lies with the person making the claim

Sure. And it's fine to say that you'd like more proof for the claim "Anthropogenic global warming is occurring." But that claim isn't relevant for policy decisions about carbon emissions. At best, it's relevant for identifying nations responsible for the consequences of global warming.

The claim that's relevant about carbon emissions is "Massive carbon emissions are safe for the environment and climate.", and that claim is largely unsupported (and, in fact, there's evidence against it).

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

HARD EVIDENCE ... 3 Top UFO Documentaries 31 Dec 2006

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=8285709939745631584

  ^-- As a skeptic as myself, I've got to say that his is *good* stuf --^

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[eebra82]

I would think sailors would be credible. That's the thing. You put sailors into same camp as UFO believers, but really, they are subject matter experts when it comes to the water. Really, that someone never went and bothered to really check the sailor's claims of giant waves for decades just tells me that "credible evidence" as you call it is just an excuse for laziness in the discipline. You don't have to be an expert to know that you're being probed anally by an alien. Same goes for enormous waves - you'd have to be pretty stupid not to recognize that a 100 foot wave is something out of the ordinary. My point is, sailors should be trusted as much as UFO believers until there is credible evidence. And by credible evidence, I am not saying eyewitnesses, but documented facts and material to analyze. For example, we must know how often they occur, where they occur, how fast they travel, how far, how wide they can get, etcetera. Without this knowledge, it's basically idiotic to alter any ship design, because for all we know, it could be like making all clothes in Italy volcano proof; an eruption happens every now and then, but it's so rare that it's silly to think you need to protect yourself from it.

Last but not least, I assure you that out of the millions of sailors out there, some of them are morons, compulsive liars and mentally insane. Of course, that statement goes for everyone else too. Point is, how can you as a scientist tell who's who? Therefore, eyewitnesses aren't very credible. Oh, and I'm definitely not saying that I doubt the existence of such waves. I just think that the post that I made my first reply to wasn't very insightful.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[ultranova]

The scientists made their decisions on objective data but weren't convinced by anecdotal evidence. In other words science worked just as it's supposed to work.

Dismissing observations - any observations - because they don't fit the current model is not scientific. This is especially true when the observed phenomenom is so rare that systematic scientific study is not possible.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[jcr]

Thank you for your service, sailor. Glad you made it home in one piece.

My grandfather worked at the shipyard at Sparrows' Point in Baltimore. He told me about one repair job they had where the bow of a Navy ship, (I forget what type exactly; not a battleship but bigger than a destroyer) had been bent by a wave. A smaller vessel would have pitch-poled, but this one basically got the bow crunched down several feet. The shipyard cut the bow off and replaced it.

-jcr

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[sponga]

Here is a nice one also of a million dollar yacht and luckily the crew doesn't get swept off the bow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WbLVc9_a5M&feature=related

It is not always the first wave that gets you,it is when you start heading down the back of it and go into this deep valley of water.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Scotsman; I believe in the Loch Ness Monster as if parts of my tourist industry depended on it.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[smoker2]

I think you're the one missing the point. The idea of this software is to warn of these massive waves, but there is also scope for improving ship design, now that the very existence of such waves is accepted. And turning the ship to face the wave is not a solution. google MV Derbyshire for such a story. The ship is so long that it bridges the waves and leaves the middle section unsupported, and the effect is to break the ship in half. You can't take a massive wave broadside or you'll capsize. And BTW, the Derbyshire was only 4 years old when it sank. No there is no proof that a massive wave caused the sinking, but there is no proof that anything else was the cause either. You have to deal with probabilities, and the existence of possible 100 foot waves changes the calculations somewhat.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Alan Partridge]

What's the problem with UFOs? They are simply UNIDENTIFIED - there's nothing unscientific about not being able to identify something and saying so. The term UFO doesn't imply anything other-worldy or impossible. I myself have seen a couple of UFOs - the first was probably some kind of static discharge from a cloud, ball lightning ,or something similar. The second was almost certainly a meteor of some sort (and yes, I've seen lots of them as an amateur astronomer), but this one flared in a different way, more slowly and the trail was very long - perhaps it grazed the atmosphere rather than burning up.

UFOs are a legitimate area of study, though I'm sure that 90% of sightings are perfectly explicable.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[bogjobber]

What about numerous UFO observations, Loch Ness etc? are you suggestion those should be regarded as proof of existence since there have been numerous observations and murky photographs?

Those are different in that it's usually one person alone, and can be accounted for by other effects.

Rogue waves are much different. Most ships on the open ocean have large crews. Even if it's only four or five people that's enough to move it out of the "crackpot with severe mental issues" category. And these are/were reported *constantly*. We're talking multiple ships in multiple places of the world at a pretty steady pace. That's enough that people should consider the possibility *something* is going on and adjust their experiments to try and find that something instead of blindly dismissing it as a myth.

Yes, science works by being skeptical, but it also works by assuming anything that hasn't been disproven is possible. It's easy to get in a position of being too skeptical, just because most theories are false. But it's just as vital to science that we keep an open mind and not dismiss something as impossible that hasn't been disproven. Call it the Carl Sagan principle.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

Point is, how can you as a scientist tell who's who?

Your argument has the premise that scientists are the people whose job it is to separate fact from fiction. By allowing them to accept or reject what the sailors say, you argue that scientists should be in a position to judge the credibility of other people, and, in fact, in today's society, they are. However, what's happened here is that you have two groups of people, scientists and sailors, and ultimately, the sailors were right, and the scientists wrong. Thus, in the public eyes, the eyes of everyone else, your very claim that scientists have this job of distilling knowledge is severely undermined. Were this an isolated case, sure, scientists would probably not be hurting too much. However, the person lay reported exception to the opinion of the academic community is increasingly the normal event, thus, its reasonable in the eyes of the world to not trust scientists at all, except in the very narrow role of producers of "better" consumer products.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[securityfolk]

You're right! I recommend that we immediately stop believing the Earth is round, that planets orbit around the Sun, and that oxygen is real (we can't see it, so it must not exist).

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[yndrd1984]

Science is nothing more than eyewitness accounts.

You're using the word 'witness' in a much broader sense than I was. People that see rare events, and are unprepared for them, very often perceive things quite differently than more objective observers. As things get more systematic and repeatable, things do get better, as you pointed out.

Right now, from the public perspective, its not as much as one might think, and that's really why superstition is making a comeback.

That I have to agree with.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Frozen Void]

Mainstream science,is very conservative and defends its dogmas and knowledge with near-religious zeal.This is not surprising.
E.g. meteors before 1833 were considered a meteorological event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonids
And only a strong Leonid meteor shower changed it.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[stridebird]

Horrific! They were lucky.

But the crew should have seen that coming. You can see the wave breaking in the distance.

That's not also a particularly large vessel : I'd say it's around 30m. And it looks like a gin palace cruiser. Probably not designed to ride a big sea, primarily.

Memo to self: always use safety harness at sea.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[stridebird]

I *am* surprised, however, to see that these rogue waves are observed as frequently as they are

How frequently observed is it? A wave must pass by a boat at sea every 10 or 15 seconds, depending on speed and direction of travel. Waves are observed literally thousands of times a day by people at sea in boats...that's a pretty big sample space. From my experience: let's say a million waves : no rogues yet.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[eebra82]

Your argument has the premise that scientists are the people whose job it is to separate fact from fiction. By allowing them to accept or reject what the sailors say, you argue that scientists should be in a position to judge the credibility of other people, and, in fact, in today's society, they are. You seem to ignore what I'm saying and merely reduce all my points to "how can you tell who's who". It's not easy to debate with someone who chooses to see what he wishes to see, but here goes.

Science comes from the Latin scientia, knowledge. If you cannot separate fact from fiction, your job as a scientist is sort of pointless. Let's say that you're a scientist who is developing a new car. If you put it your way, the scientist is supposed to - at least in some cases - go for fictional "facts". Maybe he's heard that alien abductions can be avoided if only the hull of the car's roof is twice as thick. After all, there are quite a few pilots with high authority who have claimed to have seen UFOs (read: like sailors on the seas). See, there's no reason for the scientist to alter the design of the car, because he has no knowledge of what this UFO (read: wave) performs like.

I have never stated that scientists ignore the sailors' claims. In fact, this very article proves that there are scientists who work with this issue to gain knowledge on the subject. By doing this, they disprove its fictional status by making it a fact.

Your last sentence in my quote is rather mystifying to me. Of course they should be in a position to judge people. As are you. As am I. As is everyone else. Is your boss not judging people? Is the judge not judging people? Are you never judging people? Did your mother never tell you to not hang around "them boys" at school? By doing so, did he not judge them? Judging is, aside from being a pure essentiality of science, is also a human action.

So when you indicate that scientists should not be in position to judge the credibility of people, who should? Do you now suggest that scientists should believe that God exists, solely because a lot of people with credibility do so? Or that aliens exist, because some pilots and a bunch of other folks say so? And as a scientist, would you actually consider to allow yourself not to judge people when you're doing your job? Explain to us all how that would work, because I am curious.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Trogre]

Where I live we recently had a bad rainstorm where much of the citys drainage infrastructure failed resulting in flooding. But it's okay, we don't need better drainage systems because this was a freakish 1 in 150 year event.

The problem?

We've had one of these every year for the past three years.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Tom]

Basically, sailors have been out there getting killed by giant waves for decades, but a bunch of scientists decreed that such waves could not exist, [...] I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, What's amazing about that? Mankind has been working that way for thousands of years, only worse. Millions upon millions of people have died because the church said diseases were a punishment from god and praying, not hygiene or medicine, was the proper way to do something about it. Same with almost everything else that kills people. As a species we've been living on the "someone important said it, so it must be true" meme for most of our existence, and are only very slowly struggling to free ourselves from it.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Elky Elk]

I think it's fair to say UFO's do exist, but to suggest the causes of these unidentified things are aliens is the crazy bit...

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[UbuntuDupe]

You make no sense; all data and models have been published and discussed at length. If you disagree with any of them, publish a paper.

"You make no sense; all astrological analysis has been published and discussed at length. If you disagree with any of their predictions, public a paper in any leading astrological journal."

The whole point of science (as opposed to groupthink) is that it's robust against individual bias. If you're saying someone can only contest a "scientific" claim if he can convince an elite circle to publish his argument (which of course would required over 10 years of study from those very same people in that field), then you don't understand science. I could make the exact same defense you just did of astrology.

You also seem to be starting from the wrong assumption that the burden of proof is on people claiming that global warming is happening and carbon emissions are dangerous. Quite to the contrary: given the potential risks, the burden of proof is on people arguing that continued massive carbon emissions are safe.

Replace "carbon emissions" with anything that has happened for more than the past 1000 years to see exactly how much you're asserting.

In fact that's a great way to gain perspective. Imagine that the scientific consensus among deerologists is that if human consumption of deer meat continues at present rates, the earth will explode in ten years. They have published, peer-reviewed papers in their field, mathematical models, etc. All top deerologists strongly endorse this hypothesis.

a) Who has the burden of proof? Of what?
b) What is the minimum evidence you would require to reject that claim? (i.e., must the general public accept this hypothesis until those same deerologists admit papers that argue otherwise?)

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

So when you indicate that scientists should not be in position to judge the credibility of people, who should? Do you now suggest that scientists should believe that God exists, solely because a lot of people with credibility do so? Or that aliens exist, because some pilots and a bunch of other folks say so? And as a scientist, would you actually consider to allow yourself not to judge people when you're doing your job? Explain to us all how that would work, because I am curious.

Maybe the pilots did see a UFO? They were in the plane. The scientists weren't. That's how the public sees it. Plus, at least in terms of early NASA UFO sightings, the astronauts WERE scientists. They were all guys with Phds, for the most part. So...what do you do then?

Aliens can't be falsified, so scientists shouldn't even be weighing in on that, any more than they should weigh in on God or Ghosts. Sure, you could technically be right, but, if a UFO or God ever did show up, you'd be wrong, so, why even risk the hit. Stick to what can actually be measured, instead of trying to argue against something simply because it can't.

The correct answer, for scientists is, "Aliens, God, Bigfoot, I think its all ridiculous, and, if someone showed me an alien or a bigfoot or God, I might believe, but, I don't. However, with that said, I can't say that someone who saw a bigfoot didn't, because, I wasn't there." Then you can lead off with, well, Bigfoot might have cured Joe's cancer, but, I'm working on a cure for everyone that will cost $2. Or, whatever. The benefit of science is its utility, and I've found that Bigfoot isn't very useful.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[eebra82]

Please read my posts all over again. I don't think you're reading the same page as I am because you're messing things up. For example, you've previously stated that scientists ignored the sailors' experiences with giant waves. Then you go on by saying that they should "stick to what can actually be measured, instead of trying to argue against something simply because it can't". Point is, they haven't been able to measure it because all they've had was stories about giant waves and no data.

Then you go on by saying that I "could technically be right, but, if a UFO or God ever did show up, you'd be wrong, so, why even risk the hit". What exactly are you referring to here? When was anyone predicting anything on UFOs and Gods and what do you mean about risk the hit? Maybe the pilots did see a UFO? They were in the plane. The scientists weren't. That's how the public sees it. Plus, at least in terms of early NASA UFO sightings, the astronauts WERE scientists. They were all guys with Phds, for the most part. That is my point. Regardless of who you are, whatever you saw or experienced holds no scientific value because it has to be proven and fact based before scientists can do anything about it. I'm not really sure why you brought this up.

Your last paragraph is a mystery to me. I don't even know what to reply to that, but all I've been struggling with here, is that I've tried to explain to you that scientists need data, facts and knowledge to process in order to make changes. Words from anyone is worth squat because regardless of who he or she is, it can't be proven unless there's data, facts or knowledge. The only reason that I explained this to you was because your prior posts suggested otherwise. Now you're suddenly trying to explain to me what I've been explaining to you.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[Vthornheart]

Who was saying it was climate change? I didn't see anyone saying that. It seems more like a harmonic resonance issue to me.

But there's a couple basic gotchas

[Ancient_Hacker]

But there's a couple basic gotchas with any scheme to detect rare phenoms:

• Even a small ( 1% ) false positive rate is waaay too large, it swamps the real ones.
• It's really boring to debug software when the relevant data only comes in every once in a long while.

Re:But there's a couple basic gotchas

[Ignis Flatus]

Even a small ( 1% ) false positive rate is waaay too large, it swamps the real ones.

i'll take those odds. the thing about a rouge wave detector is that if it works, and you avoid the wave, you may never see it. you don't really know what the false-positive rate is. but if only 1% of your avoidance maneuvers (for a rare event) are for naught, there's not much time or fuel being wasted. the way you can determine if it works or not is if the number of lost ships decreases, or eyewitness accounts start matching the predictions of your system.

Re:But there's a couple basic gotchas

[atomico]

That "1% false positive rate" is a not too well defined figure. 1% of what? Of "potential rogue waves, as detected by the radar algorithms"? Anyway, false positives can destroy confidence in the system: imagine you are commanding a huge supertanker where each maneuver costs big $$$ in fuel and time. Each two days, a warning comes telling you to change course because a rogue wave might be coming. I bet you would be disabling the 'rogue wave warning appliance' in a few weeks.
Another problem is that you cannot guess, by looking at current weather conditions, whether a rogue wave warning might be a false positive or not, rogue waves being so unpredictable.

so basically

[screamphilling]

"attention cargo ship... an incoming rogue wave is fast approaching. we just thought we'd warn you of impending doom, rather than have it sudden."

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Vthornheart]

In Soviet Russia, intentionally non-humorous statements are considered their own brand of humor. ;)

Not really, ships have survived them

[SmallFurryCreature]

The entire trick to surviving these waves seems to be not catch them from the side. If this warning comes in enough time to turn the ship to face the wave at the safest angle then the ship stands a better chance.

Even if the ship is destined to sink, this might give the crew more time to get to the liveboats, some modern ones are almost like subs so that no matter the wave, they can survive because they always right themselves and are closed so they can't fill with water and are to small to be broken up.

I have no idea exactly how much warning a ship can get with this, but as you can see from the pictures supplied and the stories in the article these waves can be survived. Perhaps a person with some experience can tell if the sudden sinkings could be down to the ship catching the wave at the wrong angle.

Re:Not really, ships have survived them

[Sanat]

When I lived in Sydney, Australia area, i visited a friend in Lower Templestow near Melbourne and she and i and about five or six others went with a friend in a large cabin cruiser out past the breakwall at Portsea into the near ocean area and we were laughing, drinking and doing some fishing and all of a sudden a wall of high water was coming at us. Fortunately the engines were on and the captain immediately turned into the wave as well as he could do in the few seconds we had.

We were picked up and tossed about and then dropped into a hole of air at least several feet in depth. Fortunately no one was thrown overboard but we were all pretty shook up and the party seemed to end about then.

The captain put it to vote on whether to stay out or go back to port. Most chose to go back and the Captain wanted to verify that no damage had weakened the structure so he was obviously pleased with this choice.

And this is my small happening with a rogue wave.

Re:Not really, ships have survived them

[ManxStef]

Indeed, even a small wave can sink a vessel if it hits it on the beam (side on). The general guideline is that a wave that's over the height of the ship's beam (its width) can capsize it if it hits side on.

I'm sure there are careers dedicated to stability in ship design, but most sailors would do well to learn the basics of the Angle of Vanishing Stability (AVS - the higher the better), which is what's taught on the RYA Yachmaster course:
http://www.sailtrain.co.uk/stability/vanishing_stability.htm

Manufacturers usually provide righting moment curves which will show the stability characteristics of their vessels. Powerboats (often called yachts in the US) have a much lower AVS that yachts (US: sailboats) due to a higher centre of gravity. Yachts tend to have a long keel with a big lump of lead on, and I know which one I'd rather go to sea in! Also, many powerboats don't have any protection on their engine air intakes, so will flood if they reach a certain angle. This was probably one of the downfalls of the unfortunate people that died recently off Whitby in their 25ft cabin cruiser, a 30ft swell in a small boat is very dangerous indeed, they'd have been better off heading straight into it rather than trying to turn around:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/7109495.stm

There are also different types of sailing vessels. Light displacement, wide, high volume hulls with shallow draughts will have a lower AVS than heavy displacement, deep draught, narrow boats with low volume hulls. You'll see the differences in hull design between boats that are meant for coastal sailing and racing round buoys (Beneteau, Sunseeker, etc.) and ocean-going yachts like Contessas, Moodys, Amels and suchlike.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[W2k]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to halt the global climate change that's causing catastrophic seaward events like these?

First line of the comment I replied to, emphasis mine. You were saying?

Surfing

[jnguy]

Yay for better surf forecast!

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[tompaulco]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to halt the global climate change that's causing catastrophic seaward events like these?
I realize you are trolling, but to answer your question: No. It is a lot easier to write software to detect rogue waves than it is to halt global climate change.

I survived one that hit shore.

[JimMarch(equalccw)]

More people get killed along the Pacific NorthWest coast by rogue waves than by sharks.

I was 12, picking mussels along the coast about 20 miles south of San Francisco - "Sail Rock" just south of San Francisco. It was a very low tide and a smaller rock just off the main one was accessible when the water flowed out between major waves. This smaller rock was about 2ft wide, 10ft long and about 10ft high, and the top 4ft was bone dry, higher than even the spray patterns let alone wave action.

My dad and kid brother (age 8) were on the main rock. I had made it out to the smaller rock and was filling a bucket with the biggest mussels I'd ever handled. I had my bucket mostly full when I glanced up.

I'd been warned about these things and I knew the 20-ft tall wall of water coming at me was a killer. They pick people up, smash 'em on the rocks behind them then drag them out to sea unconscious...or sometimes grab people right off sandy beaches.

My dad spotted it around the same time and pulled my kid brother further up the main rock (about 70ft tall). I don't know how far up they made it - my dad got seriously wet and had to cling to my brother while assuming I was toast.

My only chance was to straddle the smaller rock like a jockey on a horse and hand on. I remember thinking about options while the whole world slowed down, and then doing the straddle and grab number. When the wave hit it was like being flushed down a giant toilet. The water peaked out around 4ft over my head. As it washed out, my dad said the sight of me doing my best imitation of a big funny-lookin' barnacle was the best sight he'd ever seen.

It dragged the glasses off my face, never saw that bucket or hammer again, hands were cut up but I made it.

That thing was well over 10x the size of the normal waves coming in.

My dad wasn't upset with me. He knew I'd thought I was going to die and knew I'd always, always keep an eyeball on that ocean when near it.

Heh. It was my mom that freaked out worse when we got home but she too understood I'd had enough problems.

Re:I survived one that hit shore.

[MtViewGuy]

If I remember correctly, rogue waves often happen when there is really bad weather in the ocean or when you have a really strong current near the shoreline. Given that the North American west coast is on the east end of the North Pacific Drift current splitting to the Alaska Current and California Current, that's why there are many reports of rogue waves up and down this coast from Mexico all the way up to the Aleutian Islands.

A particularly bad place for rogue waves is the so-called Bermuda Triangle, where the Antilles Current curves sharply into the start of the Gulf Stream current. Because of that, the weather inside the "Triangle" can suddenly become very bad quickly, and as a result you see a lot of airplanes and boats just "vanish" because of the sudden change in weather. This bad weather can often generate a lot of rogue waves, which may explain a number of lost ships in this area.

Re:I survived one that hit shore.

[JimMarch(equalccw)]

That's pretty much true - but it still underscores the idea that these turkeys aren't just being seen way out at sea, they're hitting shore often enough to around half a dozen people a year. Not that many, granted, but it's enough to bring 'em out of the "fable" category. As an aside: I meant to say that Sail Rock is just south of Pacifica, at the north end of the section of Highway One known as "Devil's Slide". Jim

Re:I survived one that hit shore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to ruin a good story, but TFA mentions 'rogue waves' are the ones that exceed the 15 meters ships are built to withstand. A 20' wave is less than half the size of other non-rogue waves.

Re:I survived one that hit shore.

[gujo-odori]

I live in San Bruno, we were just down past there today. Beautiful drive. I'll make sure to stay off the rocks.

Overlords

[CriminalNerd]

I for one, welcome our new rogue tsunami overlords. May they forever bless us with their water.

Re:Overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these ... oh, never mind.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Who was saying it was climate change? I didn't see anyone saying that. It seems more like a harmonic resonance issue to me

The toplevel AC:

"Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to halt the global climate change that's causing catastrophic seaward events like these?"

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

no! nO! NO!

In Soylent Russia, sensible makes YOU joke!

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[harves]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to halt the global climate change ... ? Whoa, slow down AC. Large waves like this have nothing to do with global climate change. As the summary says, random reports of these waves have been trickling in for centuries. Noone is suggesting (yet) that these waves have become more severe or more common in recent years - just that the scientific community finally took the reports seriously and did some analysis.

My experience with a rouge wave

[lancejjj]

I was about 18 years old when I was putt-putting around in a small 20-foot motor boat in Narragansett Bay of off Rhode Island with some friends.

We were fishing and otherwise having a good time, when I noticed a large wave coming towards us in otherwise calm waters. In panic, I quickly pointed it out my friend Bruce who was piloting the craft. "No problem", he said, who calmly started to turn the boat into the wave. I don't think he quite understood how huge the wave was - maybe he was thinking it was the wake from another boat.... clearly its size didn't register with him.

But I sure did recognize the size of this wave, and it was considerably higher than 10 feet. I ducked and covered and held on for dear life, but it was faster or closer than I thought.

Before I was ready for it, the wave threw up the boat and slammed it back down at an unnatural angle. We were all knocked around. I was thrown from the bow to the stern of the boat, getting my body knocked on the windshield, my friends, and the seats (in that order). Bruce landed in the water, and someone helped him back on board.

The boat was flooded, but no one was seriously hurt. We checked out our bloody scrapes, put equipment back in place, and mopped up all the water in the boat.

It was weird - just this one big wave in a calm bay on a calm summer morning.

Re:My experience with a rouge wave

[lancejjj]

Oh, one more thing, before anyone replies. It wasn't actually rouge. It was pretty much the same color as any other part of the ocean.

Friggin' spell check doesn't check MY spelling, damn it.

Re:My experience with a rouge wave

[flyingfsck]

This happens frequently in bays, since waves diffract around the capes and then you get constructive interference between the normal waves and the two diffractions, causing occasional waves 3 times taller than normal.

Re:My experience with a rouge wave

[sponga]

That is pretty gnarly and I would have body surfed it in.

rogue

[odo graphic]

There are no rogue waves, only Chuck Norris swimming laps.

For those actually interested,

[Anonymous Coward]

Wiki has a good article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave_(oceanography)

For the entirety of my career (33 years) scientists have accepted the existance of rogue waves. The problem is that there were few measurements. That is remarkable given the number of instruments we put into the water every year. As the Wiki article points out there are several competing theories of how the waves happen. It is possible that more than one of these theories is correct depending on local conditions. For instance, in the middle of the ocean, such waves might be caused when waves coming from several directions all achieve maximum amplitude at the same place and time. Nearer to shore, they may be caused by the shoreline focusing waves like a parabolic reflector.

I'm not a scientist but I have spent a lot of time working with them and I have never heard one deny the existance of rogue waves.

To whomever tagged this article "idontcare"...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I hope you drown.

oh come on

[barocco]

just use STL already!

Betrayed

[b4upoo]

Certain oceans are a lot more prone to rogue waves than others. What bothers me is that the US Navy surely had a lot of information concerning
  rogue waves and that information was not shared with commercial shipping or with yachtsmen around the world. One rogue wave actually ripped the end of
  the flight deck off of an aircraft carrier and those decks are quite far above the waters surface.
          So just why was the world kept in the dark over these waves? Apparently a few of these things actually reach 150 feet in height.

My father can...Thought I would share this story

[mindaktiviti]

"Tsunami in the middle of the pacific"...this is THE story my dad has. Every dad has one, the one story he'll tell his kids and grandkids...and this one is his.

Fresh out of Politechnika Gdaska (Gdansk University of Technology) my dad took a job as a communication's officer on a fishing boat that did fishing in the pacific, and they were away for 18 months.

In 1978 between November 10th & 17th, about 60 miles west of Vancouver island, a rogue wave hit my dad's 150m(524') fishing ship. The wave came from the north (the direction they were facing) and it was about 60m (200') big. They were in a bad storm for about a week and on the last night of the storm the wave hit them. Luckily they were facing it and it wasn't one that was rolling over itself (don't know the correct terminology), but it was just this huge mass of water rolling towards them.

It was the ship captain, the first officer, ship's engineer, and himself - ship's communication officer that were inside the top part where you steer the boat (once again, not sure of proper terminology). They weren't expecting it but essentially what happened was their ship was going sort of up and down with the regular waves, but with this one it just went up...and up...and up...and the engine started sputtering very loudly, almost choking, and the entire ship was just on this impossible angle for an impossible amount of time. And then the wave passed and the ship went back down. What they saw was essentially a wall of water rolling towards them that was about the size of an apartment building.

When this happened several crew members went above and they were just white like ghosts because the sensations they felt were so unnatural. The ship's engineer who had over 30 years of sea experience said that never in his life has he ever gone through anything like that. And yes...if they were facing sideways when they met the wave, I wouldn't be here because my father would have perished. No one believed what they said, including a lot of the crew on the actual ship! It was just something that wasn't possible for them.

I highly doubt that what he told me was bullshit because of the amount of detail he used and also the fact that he didn't even know what they were (i.e. the name "Rogue Wave"), and also because he told me this story many years ago.

Re: Betrayed - scientists ignored us too

[thejuggler]

I was in the US Navy and did experience a rogue wave back when these things didn't exist according to scientists. Those pointed head morons didn't want to listen to us either.

How about the person that tagged it "apple"?

[denzacar]

Its clearly oranges.

General information on waves

[mclearn]

All of the comments I'm seeing about first-hand experiences with rogue waves all seem to have a common thread: they happen within a few hundred metres near shore. This *might* imply that these waves are being affected by ground features, coral formations, etc. Look, even the article discusses rogue waves that were ONLY seen during periods of weather stress: a large wave during a hurricane? No shit! A large wave near South Africa -- this isn't news -- the cape of SA is a known dangerous spot as is the Cape Horn in South America.

I've done a lot of open ocean sailing -- this is sailing where you are 9 days from the nearest land mass. When you are at the mercy of waves 24 hours a day for more than a week at a time, you quickly learn what makes them tick.

First off, waves need wind. Without wind, there are no waves. A large high pressure system will quickly quiet the waves such that the ocean resembles a pane of glass (this is when you play "spot the flot(sam)"). It is only during periods of high wind where you get increasingly higher and higher waves. These waves can be created in a few hours and sustain themselves for long distances (thousands of kilometers).

The *only* times that waves collide, resonate, and otherwise interrupt themselves is if there is another external force (think Newton's Laws). *HOWEVER, as soon as the wave is larger than the wind can support it, it will collapse*. Coral reefs, submerged volcanoes, high spots (yes, they exist in the middle of nowhere), earthquakes, alternating wind currents, and ocean currents will all contribute. I would be EXTREMELY sceptical about rogue waves appearing OUTSIDE of areas that are known volcanic lines, reef areas, etc. It would be interesting to cross-reference all experiences of these rogue waves with lat/lon and map them according to these phenomenon.

Just finished reading the article and here's the bit that probably everyone is missing:

So far some patterns have already been found. Rogue waves are often associated with sites where ordinary waves encounter ocean currents and eddies. The strength of the current concentrates the wave energy, forming larger waves - Lehner compares it to an optical lens, concentrating energy in a small area. This is especially true in the case of the notoriously dangerous Agulhas current off the east coast of South Africa, but rogue wave associations are also found with other currents such as the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic, interacting with waves coming down from the Labrador Sea.

However the data show rogue waves also occur well away from currents, often occurring in the vicinity of weather fronts and lows. Sustained winds from long-lived storms exceeding 12 hours may enlarge waves moving at an optimum speed in sync with the wind - too quickly and they'd move ahead of the storm and dissipate, too slowly and they would fall behind.

I am forced to conclude that no new information on rogue waves has been discerned: it's still common sense to me.

Re:My father can...Thought I would share this stor

[dbcad7]

one that was rolling over itself... breaking wave
top part where you steer the boat... bridge or pilot house

If the wave hit them from the side, there would be an extreme danger of rolling over (capsizing)
Facing a wave head on also has a danger of flipping.
An angle as opposed to head-on or from the side probably has the best chance of riding through it.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[Calinous]

Tales of these date back to time of Columbus, only because men didn't really encountered them before (or had no chance of survival, or nobody told the stories, or losses at sea were much too common).
      This kind of waves are just as normal as torrential rains. I doubt global warming started by the time Noah build his ship

The same shiat went down w/ Bigfoot

[Anonymous Coward]

Video evidence admission: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/10/1450205 Original footprints: http://www.lorencoleman.com/is_bigfoot_dead.html But people still want to believe... there's a certain allure to being scared/excited/afraid/on the edge of the unknown. There was more to that poster in Mulder's office than at first glance. I'd say it's the same way w/ religion... we just want to know there's something more out there. Without it, we have to acknowledge that our future is our own hands.

The "hubris" of the Titanic.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen, brother!

Human-haters of all stripes like to point out the "hubris" of the Titanic, making light of its "unsinkable" claim and going on about the "smallness" of mankind against nature (except when they go on about global warming, in which case suddenly we are more powerful than the Sun.)

But they never seem to acknowledge that, thanks to technological improvements spurred on by that disaster, there hasn't been a single ship lost to icebergs since!