Secret to Towering Rogue Waves Revealed (waves can amplify instead of dissipating)

Live Science ^ | 08/04/08 | Charles Q. Choi

[TigerLikesRooster]

Secret to Towering Rogue Waves Revealed

Charles Q. Choi Special to LiveScience

LiveScience.com

Mon Aug 4, 11:41 AM ET

Deadly rogue waves 100 feet tall or higher could suddenly rise seemingly out of nowhere from the ocean, research now reveals.

Understanding how such monstrous waves form could lead to ways to predict when they might emerge or, potentially, even drive them at enemy vessels, scientists added.

For centuries these killer waves had been dismissed as myths - towering walls of water blamed for mysterious disappearances of ships. But on New Year's Day on 1995, a wave that reached more than 80 feet high was detected with scientific instruments at an oil platform in the North Sea, confirming the existence of these legends.

Since then, the European Union initiated Project MaxWave, which relied on imagery from European Space Agency radar satellites to spot what appeared to be rogue waves around the world. Now scientists are trying to uncover what causes these monsters.

[LADYAK]

My son just died from a rogue wave in Australia June 2008...read the newspaper articles on jeremyearnshaw.com

[sofaman]

I would .. how can I say this delicately? Crap my pants and then scream like a girl ... or the other way around ...

[sofaman]

sorry for your loss, Lady. I certainly don’t mean to make light of it. The though of something like this, I find totally frightening.

[TigerLikesRooster]

So young. Only 23. I am truly sorry for your loss.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[LADYAK]

Thanks for your thoughts...it was truly tragic...but Jeremy truly believed what he had written on his chest...Phillipians 1 verse 21 for me to live is Christ to die is gain. So we know he is in a better place...we are the ones here that grieve our loss. Anyway, thanks for your loss and go read the articles at the site his friends put up....jeremyearnshaw.com

[LADYAK]

Thanks for your thoughts...it was truly tragic...but Jeremy truly believed what he had written on his chest...Phillipians 1 verse 21 for me to live is Christ to die is gain. So we know he is in a better place...we are the ones here that grieve our loss. Anyway, thanks for your loss and go read the articles at the site his friends put up....jeremyearnshaw.com

[Riley]

Sticks in mind that we’ve had some discussion of this here before. It spurred my curiosity, and I did some further reading. Lusitania took one over the bridge that washed an apprentice out of the bridge and heaped him up on a railing- and Queen Mary, while trooping during the war took one abeam and we came within a few degrees of losing her and thousands of troops.

[Bon mots]

There are a lot of little ‘rogue’ waves on the Mediterranean. They seem to appear with greater frequency there for some reason.

I remember my first trip to the French Riviera. I went to the beach at Nice, France. I spent a lot of time on the beach that summer and it seemed that at least once each day, a wave much larger than all the rest would come ashore with a roar and soak all the people that were closest to the water.

I was laying in the sun for half a day the first time. Suddenly I heard a rushing sound from the sea and the next thing I knew, a huge wave had crashed right over me! It came out of nowhere, but you heard it first.

After that, I tried to stay further from the water’s edge, but still, an even bigger one got me the next time... but only up to my waist.

The people who frequent the beaches know to leap up and run when they hear the rumble of the sea! The newcomers all get soaked! :)

[Bon mots]

My condolences.
What a great guy he was. Selfless.

There must be a reason God takes the good ones.

[WellyP]

Been there and it was not fun!

[WOBBLY BOB]

and they’re banned in China...

The Wave: Banned in China?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2056789/posts

[grey_whiskers]

Courtesy *PING* to post 10 this thread...

[grey_whiskers]

My condolences.

[GregoryFul]

Only a dilettante, I've not seen a settled explanation, there may be many. It seems that a rogue wave, or train, robs energy from surrounding waves in unknown ways. A characteristic difference between a rogue wave and a soliton is that a soliton is transitionally moving water, while a wave is moving energy in water. Some reports of rouge waves sound like moving walls of water.

I would think that a soliton is formed by the interference of waves that somehow combines into a coherent bundle that persists for some time. Apparently they do occur in undersea internal waves.