Testing confirming that rogue waves are scientific — not mythic — is gaining fresh attention online. By better understanding the threat, experts hope to be able to provide more forewarning to seafarers whose ships can be toppled by the swells.
Surfer reported on experiments wherein scientists reproduced a so-called Draupner wave in a lab. The first one was measured in 1995 at the North Sea Draupner gas platform, measuring at 83.9 feet high, according to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
The publication shared a YouTube clip, titled "Creating a Giant Freak Wave," showing a recreated Draupner.
It was made with paddles that set the stage for smaller waves to meet, forming a vertical upswell. Lab experiments, including ones conducted at the University of Oxford, recreated the convergence, the Oxford experts wrote in a report published by Phys.org.
"The measurement of the Draupner wave in 1995 was a seminal observation initiating many years of research into the physics of freak waves and shifting their standing from mere folklore to a credible real-world phenomenon," Mark McAllister said. "By recreating the Draupner wave in the lab, we have moved one step closer to understanding the potential mechanisms of this phenomenon."
The experts hope that with knowledge about how rogue waves form, they can begin to predict them. Their report referenced the "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," a woodblock print from the early 1800s thought to depict a Draupner wave. The lab-recreated versions also resembled photographs of the phenomenon taken in the ocean, they wrote.
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It's a scenario that elicited fear among clip viewers.
"Imagine seeing a skyscraper-size version of this at sea. Terrifying," one person wrote.
Another viewer seemed surprised that it took so long for these ocean freaks to be separated from the fictional world of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
"To think people have been sailing for thousands of years talking about these waves and it took until 1995 for them to be believed," they said.
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