Rogue waves were well recorded off the East coast of South Africa. They were, as noted, because of the superposistion of waves from different directions in the strong, fast Aghulus current and opposing winds. It is believed this may have been the cause of the sinking of the SS Waratah in July 1909 which disappeared without a trace. She was a 9000 ton ship with a capacity for 700 passengers!
Your conclusions may be correct but appropriate action may be impossible to determine without hard data, and may be very expensive. Hard data may be required to determine and justify action. It would not make economic sense to take possibly inappropriate and expensive action based on every widely reported but poorly captured phenomenon.
I think this is a cautionary tale about dismissing out-of-model data rather than about taking precautions speculatively.
If we had been more open to the possibility of rogue waves, hard data could have been intentionally sought earlier. Instead, there wasn’t an update until a gas platform incidentally captured a rogue wave.
The central limit theorem states that with enough independent inputs, the output will converge to a normal distribution. So under this model, yes, you could get very unlucky and get a huge wave occasionally, but they should be extremely rare.
In practice, huge waves are uncommon, but not once-in-10,000 years rare; they are measured on Earth multiple times per day. This is because ocean waves are not independent because they transfer energy to one another, and a normal distribution is unrepresentative.
To be fair, by the late 70's, wave tank research was demonstrating higher possible wave heights. However, it looks like opinions didn't shift until real-world data was gathered.
From what I can tell, the Gaussian distribution seems to be taken from radio wave noise theory. However, radio waves don't couple and transfer energy to one another, so it was an inappropriate analogy.
Yes! I considered using that anecdote instead of the Columbus one, but Columbus is better known, and the area around the Southern Ocean is known for its rough seas, so it may seem less "rogue."
Rogue waves were well recorded off the East coast of South Africa. They were, as noted, because of the superposistion of waves from different directions in the strong, fast Aghulus current and opposing winds. It is believed this may have been the cause of the sinking of the SS Waratah in July 1909 which disappeared without a trace. She was a 9000 ton ship with a capacity for 700 passengers!
Scientists believe in green energy, global warming, statins, and COVID. They are stupid just like most of society.
You are hilarious
Your conclusions may be correct but appropriate action may be impossible to determine without hard data, and may be very expensive. Hard data may be required to determine and justify action. It would not make economic sense to take possibly inappropriate and expensive action based on every widely reported but poorly captured phenomenon.
I think this is a cautionary tale about dismissing out-of-model data rather than about taking precautions speculatively.
If we had been more open to the possibility of rogue waves, hard data could have been intentionally sought earlier. Instead, there wasn’t an update until a gas platform incidentally captured a rogue wave.
seems obvious that if you have any amount of wave motion you will get events where the peaks will be combined to significantly higher waves
The central limit theorem states that with enough independent inputs, the output will converge to a normal distribution. So under this model, yes, you could get very unlucky and get a huge wave occasionally, but they should be extremely rare.
In practice, huge waves are uncommon, but not once-in-10,000 years rare; they are measured on Earth multiple times per day. This is because ocean waves are not independent because they transfer energy to one another, and a normal distribution is unrepresentative.
Yeah I was thinking rogue waves sound like constructive interference, especially after that wave plot
Wave superposition theory basically doesn’t have an upper limit to worst case wave height. Where did that Gaussian distribution assumption come from?
Glick’s bestseller on chaos theory came out in 87. What was with not applying to waves in 95!
To be fair, by the late 70's, wave tank research was demonstrating higher possible wave heights. However, it looks like opinions didn't shift until real-world data was gathered.
From what I can tell, the Gaussian distribution seems to be taken from radio wave noise theory. However, radio waves don't couple and transfer energy to one another, so it was an inappropriate analogy.
Yes! I considered using that anecdote instead of the Columbus one, but Columbus is better known, and the area around the Southern Ocean is known for its rough seas, so it may seem less "rogue."