Posted on 07/24/2004 9:26:58 PM PDT by playball0
It appears that massive ship-sinking ocean waves - as high as 10-storey buildings - are far more common than scientists previously thought.
Oceanographers' conventional wisdom was that waves over 25 metres only occurred once every 10,000 years.
However, the European Space Agency says satellite data it collected over only three weeks in 2001 found more than 10 individual waves around the globe that swelled to more than 25 metres in height.
The news is significant because current ships and off-shore platforms are only built to withstand maximum wave heights of 15 metres.
Over the past two decades more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length have sunk around the world, with rogue waves believed to be a possible cause.
Senior scientist with the GKSS Forschungszentrum GmbH research centre, Wolfgang Rosenthal, says many ships have been lucky to survive giant waves.
"The same phenomenon could have sunk many less lucky vessels: two large ships sink every week on average, but the cause is never studied to the same detail as an air crash," he said.
"It simply gets put down to 'bad weather'."
Researchers are now examining the satellite data to see if the giant waves can be forecast.
Forget rogue waves. It's the rogue elephants I'm worried about.
WOW! El Rogue Waves... Thanks for posting!
We're all doomed!
Sh!t!
If this were the case how would any of the ancient mariners survived.
Scupper me sister!
Female and minority ships hardest hit.
"Female and minority ships hardest hit".
BTW, why one frequently encounters a ship being referred to as "she"? Wouldn't "it" be more appropriate?
I'm thinking that what the satellite detected are mostly longer wavelength waves - several hundred feet - that would not be perceived as a "wall of water", but a gradual swell.
I think they may be measuring these waves from the back, which would mean the face of the wave would be in the 100 foot plus range. Of course, if they are measuring the waves Hawaiian-style, where 3 foot waves would otherwise be described by us mainlanders as double-overhead, 25 meter waves could have 200 foot faces.
It was the middle of the night and nobody was on deck.
That wave was said to have originated in a storm/hurricane some hundreds of miles to the South.
I thoght it was more like trough to crest. This is much more meaningful.
Look, if anyone sensed the full fury of the ocean, it was the USN in October of '44.
Lot's of rough sailing (icluding one DD that supposedly went 'Turtle') but relatively little loss of life. There was one Essex class carrier that had its bow stoved in by an 80'+ swell, but who's counting.
This is the fault of Bush and SUVs'....and Ted Kennedy cherry bombing the Atlanitic.
The History Channel includes the two typhoons in the piece on Halsey.
Interesting interview of the commander of some destroyer that took a lot of damage.
The task force wanted him to catch up so that they could take a look at the damage. He wired them that it might be better
if he stayed where he was, picking up survivors. They wired back agreeing with the obvious, and sent back a couple
of destroyers to help. One survivor said he thought the ship was Japanese, since he didn't recognize it from the damage.
Halsey, I guess, barely escaped from being relieved of command, given the fact that he managed to hit two typhoons.
Can't recall the info about the weather reports, or lack thereof.
These waves were not observed before and therefore did not cause a problem.
Now that the waves have been observed, we're going to be affected by them.
"...one theory of what happened to the Edmund Fitzgerald"
Ah! I was thinking of that too reading this story. I watched a really interesting documentary on Discovery or something not too long ago. Really a shame about all those folks who were killed.
"These waves were not observed before and therefore did not cause a problem."
Now we'll have a rash of Schrödinger's catastrophes?.....:)
I'm ready now to join in with the big boys.
Sheila Jackson-Lee still hasn't got a hurricane named after her.
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