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Giant waves seen from space - able to sink ships

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Originally posted by: raanemaan
Two a week may not be a high percentage but still makes you think.
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Yes it does... my house overlooks a large port so out of all the ships I've seen I'm sure quite a few have sunk.
 
I read about this. They're rogue waves right. When a bunch of wavefront just happen to meet and create some freak of a wave.
 
I guess it makes sense if you know anything about physics. It's bound to occur every once-in-awhile. A bunch of waves will meet with just the right harmonics to be additive.
 
The BBC viewed a documentary on this last year. I think the initial interest in the subject was triggered by abnormally large waves being detected hitting oil rigs. It was highly technical in places and sparked my imagination as it was proposing correlations between these wave formations and a particular mathematical function, which I can't for the life of me remember. Not that many of you would be intereted I guess. I used to do research in pattern matching in the human voice, so it grabbed my attention.
 
Originally posted by: smilingcrow
The BBC viewed a documentary on this last year. I think the initial interest in the subject was triggered by abnormally large waves being detected hitting oil rigs. It was highly technical in places and sparked my imagination as it was proposing correlations between these wave formations and a particular mathematical function, which I can't for the life of me remember. Not that many of you would be intereted I guess. I used to do research in pattern matching in the human voice, so it grabbed my attention.
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Link to show summary/ transcripts.
 
Originally posted by: smilingcrow
The BBC viewed a documentary on this last year. I think the initial interest in the subject was triggered by abnormally large waves being detected hitting oil rigs. It was highly technical in places and sparked my imagination as it was proposing correlations between these wave formations and a particular mathematical function, which I can't for the life of me remember. Not that many of you would be intereted I guess. I used to do research in pattern matching in the human voice, so it grabbed my attention.
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your right

I also saw that documentary. Oil rigs in the North Sea were frequently hit by huge waves

interesting stuff
 
No current could have created such huge waves. There is none in that part of the Atlantic. Clearly, there was another effect investigators needed to find. Except someone already had: it existed (on paper at least) in the world of quantum physics. Al Osborne is a wave mathematician with 30 years experience devising equations to describe open ocean wave patterns. Quantum physics has at its heart a concept called the Schrodinger Equation, a way of expressing the probability of something happening that is far more complex than the simple linear model. Al's theory is based on the notion that in certain unstable conditions, waves can steal energy from their neighbours. Adjacent waves shrink while the one at the focus can grow to an enormous size. His modified Schrodinger Equation had been rejected in the past as implausible, but with research attention centred on analysing these rogue waves - including global satellite radar surveillance by the new European Remote Sensing Satellite - data began to emerge backing his case. When Al came across the New Year's Day 1985 wave profiles from the Draupner oil rig, he saw his mathematical model played out in the real world.

Al's work - if correct - suggests that there are two kinds of waves out on the high seas; the classical undulating type described by the linear model and an unstable non-linear monster - a wave that at any time can start sucking up energy from waves around it to become a towering freak. The consequences for ship design could be stark.

Currently the biggest wave factored into most ship design is smooth, undulating and 15m high. A freak wave is not only far bigger, it is so steep it is almost breaking. This near-vertical wall of water is almost impossible to ride over - the wave just breaks over the ship. According to accident investigator, Rod Rainey, such a wave would exert a pressure of 100 tonnes per square metre on a ship, far greater than the 15 tonnes that ships are designed to withstand without damage. It's no wonder that even ships the size of the huge freighter München can sink without trace.
 
let me mark "trans-oceanic ship crossing" off my list of things to do before I die.

I wonder why the waves never hit land masses?
 
Originally posted by: Stark
let me mark "trans-oceanic ship crossing" off my list of things to do before I die.

I wonder why the waves never hit land masses?
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I was wondering the same thing.
 
There was a discovery show about mega tsunamis. There was one in an Alaskan Bay that was 500-1000 feet high, and wiped out an entire forest and erroded the soil away from the mountain it ran into. Happened in the late 50's. It was caused by a land slide.
 
Originally posted by: MadCowDisease
Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
Funny how our Navy never loses ships to these waves.
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Total # of ships in US Navy < Total number of ships at sea
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yeah, but you'd think that you might hear about maybe ONE ship going down in the past few decades...
 
Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
There was a discovery show about mega tsunamis. There was one in an Alaskan Bay that was 500-1000 feet high, and wiped out an entire forest and erroded the soil away from the mountain it ran into. Happened in the late 50's. It was caused by a land slide.
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These are different from a tsunami, though.
 
Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
Funny how our Navy never loses ships to these waves.
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Would they tell anyone if they did? Doubt it...the only thing they can't cover up is if something like a carrier went down, and considering how few of those they have (and that they're much more unsinkable than your average merchanter)...
 
Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
There was a discovery show about mega tsunamis. There was one in an Alaskan Bay that was 500-1000 feet high, and wiped out an entire forest and erroded the soil away from the mountain it ran into. Happened in the late 50's. It was caused by a land slide.
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Talk about hugely oversimplified! The 1950's wave you are discussing was a landslide that hit a freshwater lake and bounced the lake into the ocean over the landmass that contained the freshwater lake (the landmass containing it was something like 300ft wide. The interesting part about that story is the two guys in the fishing boat that were in the lake when the landslide hit it, if I remember correctly, they ended up 2 miles out to sea and completely unharmed.

Tsunamis are almost always triggered by two events, an underwater landslide, or an earthquake that involves a dramatic shift in elevation on the sea floor.
 
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