XPost: sci.misc

From the «tough news for sailors» department:
Title: Evidence Rogue Waves are Getting More Extreme
Author: chromas
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:32:00 -0400
Link: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/03/20/2132225&from=rss

martyb[1] writes:

Evidence Rogue Waves are Getting More Extreme[2]:

Research led by the University of Southampton (UK) suggests that 'rogue'
waves are occurring less often, but becoming more extreme.

Scientists have, for the first time, used long-term data from a wide expanse
of ocean to investigate how these rare, unexpected and hazardous ocean phenomena behave. Their findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Waves are classed as 'rogue' when they are over twice the height of the
average sea state around them. From trough to peak, past observations have
put some at over 30 metres high. The fiercest are capable of damaging or sinking ships, can wound or kill crew members and on occasions have swept people off the shoreline and out to sea.

A team of engineers and oceanographers from the University of Southampton, together with researchers from The National Oceanography Centre (NOC),
examined over 20 years of information (sourced between 1994-2016) from 15
buoys which provide surface data along the US western seaboard – stretching from Seattle in the north, to San Diego in the south.

The data showed instances of rogue waves vary greatly, depending on the area
of sea and time period focused on. On average though, the team found
instances of rogue waves (across the two decade window) fell slightly, but
that rogue wave size, relative to the background sea, increased.

[...] Around the world, rogue waves occur many times each day and are a major issue globally for the shipping industry. For example, a study in 2004 (ESA MaxWave), with a three week window, identified more than ten individual giant waves above 25 metres in height.

Imagine what it would be like to be on a ship and see a wall of water 25 meters (about 80 feet) tall coming at you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original Submission[3]

Read more of this story[4] at SoylentNews.

Links:
[1]: http://soylentnews.org/~martyb/ (link)
[2]: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-evidence-rogue-extreme.html (link)
[3]: http://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=32487 (link)
[4]: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/03/20/2132225&from=rss (link)

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