Rogue waves are waves in open water that are much larger than surrounding waves. More precisely, rogue waves have a height which is more than twice the significant wave height (Hs or SWH). They can be caused when currents or winds cause waves to travel at different speeds, and the waves merge to create a single large wave; or when nonlinear effects cause energy to move between waves to create a single extremely large wave.

Once considered mythical and lacking hard evidence, rogue waves are now proven to exist and are known to be natural ocean phenomena. Eyewitness accounts from mariners and damage inflicted on ships have long suggested they occur. Still, the first scientific evidence of their existence came with the recording of a rogue wave by the Gorm platform in the central North Sea in 1984. A stand-out wave was detected with a wave height of 11 m (36 ft) in a relatively low sea state. However, what caught the attention of the scientific community was the digital measurement of a rogue wave at the Draupner platform in the North Sea on January 1, 1995; called the "Draupner wave", it had a recorded maximum wave height of 25.6 m (84 ft) and peak elevation of 18.5 m (61 ft). During that event, minor damage was inflicted on the platform far above sea level, confirming the accuracy of the wave-height reading made by a downwards pointing laser sensor.

The existence of rogue waves has since been confirmed by video and photographs, satellite imagery, radar of the ocean surface, stereo wave imaging systems, pressure transducers on the sea-floor, and oceanographic research vessels. In February 2000, a British oceanographic research vessel, the RRS Discovery, sailing in the Rockall Trough west of Scotland, encountered the largest waves ever recorded by any scientific instruments in the open ocean, with an SWH of 18.5 metres (61 ft) and individual waves up to 29.1 metres (95 ft). In 2004, scientists using three weeks of radar images from European Space Agency satellites found ten rogue waves, each 25 metres (82 ft) or higher.

A rogue wave is a natural ocean phenomenon that is not caused by land movement, only lasts briefly, occurs in a limited location, and most often happens far out at sea. Rogue waves are considered rare, but potentially very dangerous, since they can involve the spontaneous formation of massive waves far beyond the usual expectations of ship designers, and can overwhelm the usual capabilities of ocean-going vessels which are not designed for such encounters. Rogue waves are, therefore, distinct from tsunamis. Tsunamis are caused by a massive displacement of water, often resulting from sudden movements of the ocean floor, after which they propagate at high speed over a wide area. They are nearly unnoticeable i…

Read more on Wikipedia

On 17 November 2020, a buoy moored in 45 metres (148 ft) of water on Amphitrite Bank in the Pacific Ocean 7 kilometres (4.3 mi; 3.8 nmi) off Ucluelet, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, at 48°54′N 125°36′W / 48.9°N 125.6°W recorded a lone 17.6-metre (58 ft) tall wave among surrounding waves about 6 metres (20 ft) in height. The wave exceeded the surrounding significant wave heights by a factor of 2.93. When the wave's detection was revealed to the public in February 2022, one scientific paper and many news outlets christened the event as "the most extreme rogue wave event ever recorded" and a "once-in-a-millennium" event, claiming that at about three times the height of the waves around it, the Ucluelet wave set a record as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded at the time in terms of its height in proportion to surrounding waves, and that a wave three times the height of those around it was estimated to occur on average only once every 1,300 years worldwide.

The Ucluelet event generated controversy. Analysis of scientific papers dealing with rogue wave events since 2005 revealed the claims for the record-setting nature and rarity of the wave to be incorrect. The paper Oceanic rogue waves by Dysthe, Krogstad and Muller reports on an event in the Black Sea in 2004 which was far more extreme than the Ucluelet wave, where the Datawell Waverider buoy reported a wave whose height was 10.32 metres (33.86 ft) higher and 3.91 times the significant wave height, as detailed in the paper. Thorough inspection of the buoy after the recording revealed no malfunction. The authors of the paper that reported the Black Sea event assessed the wave as "anomalous" and suggested several theories on how such an extreme wave may have arisen. The Black Sea event differs in the fact that it, unlike the Ucluelet wave, was recorded with a high-precision instrument. The Oceanic rogue waves paper also reports even more extreme waves from a different source, but these were possibly overestimated, as assessed by the data's own authors. The Black Sea wave occurred in relatively calm weather.

Furthermore, a paper by I. Nikolkina and I. Didenkulova also reveals waves more extreme than the Ucluelet wave. In the paper, they infer that in 2006 a 21-metre (69 ft) wave appeared in the Pacific Ocean off the Port of Coos Bay, Oregon, with a significant wave height of 3.9 metres (13 ft). The ratio is 5.38, almost twice that of the Ucluelet wave. The paper also reveals the MV Pont-Aven incident as marginally more extreme than the Ucluelet event. The paper also assesses a report of an 11-metre (36 ft) wave in a significant wave height of 1.9 metres (6 ft 3 in), but the authors cast doubt on that claim. A paper written by Craig B. Smith in 2007 reported on an incident in the North Atlantic, in which the submarine Grouper was hit by a 30-meter wave in calm seas.

Because the phenomenon of rogue waves is still a matter of active research, clearly stating what the most common causes are or whether they vary from place to place is premature. The areas of highest predictable risk appear to be where a strong current runs counter to the primary direction of travel of the waves; the area near Cape Agulhas off the southern tip of Africa is one such area. The warm Agulhas Current runs to the southwest, while the dominant winds are westerlies, but since this thesis does not explain the existence of all waves that have been detected, several different mechanisms are likely, with localized variation. Suggested mechanisms for freak waves include:

Diffractive focusing According to this hypothesis, coast shape or seabed shape directs several small waves to meet in phase. Their crest heights combine to create a freak wave.

Focusing by currents Waves from one current are driven into an opposing current. This results in shortening of wavelength, causing shoaling (i.e., increase in wave height), and oncoming wave trains to compress together into a rogue wave. This happens off the South African coast, where the Agulhas Current is countered by westerlies.

Nonlinear effects (modulational instability) A rogue wave may occur by natural, nonlinear processes from a random background of smaller waves. In such a case, it is hypothesized, an unusual, unstable wave type may form, which "sucks" energy from other waves, growing to a near-vertical monster itself, before becoming too unstable and collapsing shortly thereafter. One simple model for this is a wave equation known as the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLS), in which a normal and perfectly accountable (by the standard linear model) wave begins to "soak" energy from the waves immediately fore and aft, reducing them to minor ripples compared to other waves. The NLS can be used in deep-water conditions. In shallow water, waves are described by the Korteweg–de Vries equation or the Boussinesq equation. These equations also have nonlinear contributions and show solitary-wave solutions. The terms soliton (a type of self-reinforcing wave) and breather (a wave where energy concentrates in a localized and oscillatory fashion) are used for some of these waves, including the well-studied Peregrine soliton. Studies show that nonlinear effects could arise in bodies of water. A small-scale rogue wave consistent with the NLS on (the Peregrine soliton) was produced in a laboratory water-wave tank in 2011.

Normal part of the wave spectrum Some studies argue that many waves classified as rogue waves (with the sole condition that they exceed twice the SWH) are not freaks but just rare, random samples of the wave height distribution, and are, as such, statistically expected to occur at a rate of about one rogue wave every 28 hours. This is commonly discussed as the question "Freak Waves: Rare Realizations of a Typical Population Or Typical Realizations of a Rare Population?" According to this hypothesis, most real-world encounters with huge waves can be explained by linear wave theory (or weakly nonlinear modifications thereof), without the need for special mechanisms like the modulational instability. Recent studies analyzing billions of wave measurements by wave buoys demonstrate that rogue wave occurre…

Read more on Wikipedia