Talk:Rogue wave (oceanography)

Freak/Rogue switching
I notice that this page has been moved to Rogue wave and back again. Let's not get in an edit war, so if someone has a justification for which of the two is correct (scientifically) then please let us know. It may be that 'freak' and 'rogue' are used for different things, but I note that a lot of the links posted switch randomly between the two. Also, use the proper page move mechanism, and correct all the links when you make the move. Noisy 08:36, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware the two terms are interchangeable, although I note that media and scientific links from the article refer to "freak" rather than "rogue".--Gene_poole 08:48, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've heard of this phenomenon many times, and it's called a "Rogue wave" everytime. So, I believe the correct term is "Rogue wave", not "Freak wave". "Rogue Wave" is used much more frequently, it is distinctive and unique and is the formal term (or at least it sounds formal). "Freak wave" sounds vague and informal. Watch the program on the history channel, and they use this terminology. There's a movie coming out in 2006 called Poseiden, about a cruise ship that is hit by one of these waves.

Mikiemike 00:57, 10 May 2006 (UTC)


 * As I noted above, the majority of the external sources describing the phonomenon - including scientific reports etc - refer to freak waves. Monster and rogue waves seem to be terms which are used with less frequency. --Gene_poole 05:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I think rogue might be one of those internet bias things. The most recent articles found on the internet use the term rogue wave but they mostly are all copying a single source. Most likely a press release about a new satellite system. --Gbleem 16:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Tsunami/tidal waves versus freak waves.
Although by reading both articles it is easy to establish that tsunami and freak wave are not the same thing (they have distinct causes), they are likely to be synonmous to the layman. Perhaps some more substantial cross-referencing (rather than just the see also) is in order? Pcb21| Pete 10:06, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * They are indeed quite different. Tsunami in mid-ocean are large-scale phenomena, with a rise in ocean height measured in centimetres, and present no danger to ships, whose crews will probably not notice the tsunami passing under them. The tsunami only becomes dangerous when it reaches the far shore, dumping its massive energy and momentum there. -- Karada 10:11, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * This is the kind of great stuff that should be spelt out in the articles. :) Pcb21| Pete 10:33, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The term "tidal waves" is wrong, but no more wrong than "tsunami" ("Harbor waves"). However, in science, "tidal waves" is obsolete. So, rather than distinguish "tidal waves" and "tsunami" according to correctness, it seems more appropriate to distinguish them according to when they were or are used.

Moving of the page
I agree with the move itself, but the histories of the two articles must be merged, just how the hell did it happen that we had two seperate edit histories? -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason   14:54, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)
 * I've looked at the histories of both. Freak wave was the original article. Rogue wave was created by User:Lir on 22JUL04, and grew a little over the succeeding hours.  User:Karada merged the two into Rogue wave towards the end of 22JUL04. The two histories are genuinely independent. User:Mozzerati made the move back into the well-established Freak wave page.  Lir could have done a bit more research before starting his page, but all's well that ends well.  Noisy 15:31, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ships which witnessed freak waves
Hi there, I notice that the Ocean Ranger accident has been included, with the inference that the Ranger was hit by a freak wave. I cannot find any reference to this in the official accident report released by the United States Coast Guard and feel that the Ocean Ranger has been included in this article for dramatic effect. When at an 80 foot draft (the draft of the Ranger at the time of the accident), the main deck of the rig is only 54 foot above sea level, with the ballast control room at 25 foot above sea level. The storm seas on the day of the accident were reported between 50 and 60 feet, so you can see that a freak wave is not required to be able to strike up to the main deck level. Further to this, the rig was not sunk nor damaged by this wave, beyond having a porthole broken at the 25 foot level, and remained afloat for another 8 hours before sinking due to ballast control problems. I recommend deleting the Ocean Ranger entry from this article unless further evidence can be provided.

Thanks, Vodkasim 20:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

To avoid an edit war, I'd like to explain why Norwegian Dawn links to the Wikipedia page on that ship. All of the ships listed in that section link to their Wikipedia page. I agree with the Wikipedians who began this convention, since most ships have information and history beyond their encounter with a freak wave. Making that link an external link about the incident makes the Norwegian Dawn listing different than the others listed, and accounts of the freak wave incident can be listed on the page for that ship. I am not sure why Gene Poole wants that one ship's listing different than the others, but perhaps some others can weigh in. Jokestress 23:40, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * The point of the article is to document the phenomenon of freak waves, and the point of the section in question is to document specific incidents of freak waves involving specific oceangoing vessels - not to simply provide links to articles about vessels involved in freak wave incidents. Removing links to media reports from that section is inappropriate, as its removal degrades the article content, so please stop doing it. I have modified the article so that both the links to the individual vessel articles as well as the recent news reports are retained.--Gene_poole 23:07, 1 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I would argue that media reports about specific ships should be listed under entries for those ships, which is what I did with the Norwegian Dawn reports. The general article should list external links of a general nature on the phenomenon, and the links to Wikipedia pages of ships involved in specific incidents are available for those who want more information and external links about those specific incidents. Jokestress 05:37, 2 May 2005 (UTC)


 * It is totally inappropriate to excise links to media reports about freak wave incidents from an article on the subject of freak waves. By all means add the media reports to the Norwegian Star and other ship articles - but in addition to - not instead of - keeping them on this page, which is where their primary relevance lies. --Gene_poole 06:18, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Dates in the "Possible causes of freak waves" section
The dates given need to have the months spelled out to avoid confusion.

Firearms analogy
Cut the crap with gun & cannon analogy. Not every reader of Wikipedia is from USA so we really cannot imagine how it feels being shot by a xy-mm round.

Naming
I've never heard of this as a "freak wave". Then again, I've only read Thurman and Segar, and only Thurman mentions it (as "rogue wave"). What do you guys think? --M1ss1ontom a rs2k4 (T 00:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)


 * See my comments above on this subject. The 2 terms seem to be used fairly interchangeably, although I note that "freak wave" seems to be somewhat more commonly used, particularly in the media.

Ship losses due to freak waves
After The Times repeated the story about "200 large ships lost to freak waves in the past two decades" (May 2006), I added a cautionary note to this page. After a few revisions (this been a busy page recently!), I have had to re-clarify the point. I sit next to the man who compiles the Lloyd's Register ship casualty database, and he can't find a single case where freak waves were a probable or even likely cause of a merchant ship sinking. To deflect an 'edit war' I would like to explain a couple of edits. 1) I took out the reference to 'urban myth'. I'm not sure how an urban myth differs from any other myth, but I couldn't see what was urban about it. Urban myths, however, do not generally start with respectable scientific institutions (see below). 2) It was suggested my claim had no evidence to back it up. It's a bit difficult to provide evidence that there is no evidence for something. 3) I have chased this 'statistic' as far back as I can, and the earliest reference seems to be in the press release by the European Space Agency (cited at the bottom of the page). They won't tell me where they got the number, but it was first quoted as "200 large ships of 600ft long or more in the past two decades sunk without trace". At the time the claim was made, there had only been 142 ships of that size lost at sea in the time frame. All had clear, proven causes. None were due to freak waves. The main culprits were the Iranian and Iraqi air forces in the 1980s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrick Neylan-Francis (talk • contribs)


 * The main issue here is that statements must be cited, and free from editor assumption where possible. A footnote to explain the above will be valuable. try this for an example:
 * FOOTNOTE: "The story that "200 large ships lost to freak waves in the past two decades" was published in The Times (May 2006). The earliest reference seems to be in the press release by the European Space Agency (cited at the bottom of the/that page), and first quoted as "200 large ships of 600ft long or more in the past two decades sunk without trace". At the time the claim was made, there had only been 142 ships of that size lost at sea in the time frame, all with clear, known causes (Source: Lloyds of London registry). The main culprits were the Iranian and Iraqi air forces in the 1980s."
 * Does that work? FT2 (Talk) 13:09, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I wanted to keep it uncluttered. I hadn't thought of a footnote; thanks. It is strange though, that people can write "it might be..." without any evidence, yet when I say "there's no evidence...", people shout "prove it!" Hey ho. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Patrick Neylan-Francis (talk • contribs)

To whoever updates this article: please stop pissing on the memories of the men lost in the Ocean Ranger accident. The sinking of the rig was not blamed on a rogue wave. There was no rogue wave reported. It was a storm. Seas were 60 feet. The accident was caused by failure to use protective covers on the portholes. Do some research, read the witness statements, read the accident analyses. And stop making statements which cannot be corroborated. Vodkasim 19:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

"Original research" moved from main article
The following is an interesting personal account, however, we can not leave this in the article, since it is an unsourced claim. mstroeck 10:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * About April 1984; BP's ESV Iolair - do see the Wikipedia article on this ship to see that she looks just a tiny little bit different to most ships afloat!; this was in the North Sea. There were three intense lows, maybe a hundred miles apart, passing to the north of the ship, which was in the Forties Field.  Each had a respectable wave-train.  When three troughs coincided, and the three following crests coincided, instead of 25' [8 metre] seas, we had something like a 70' [20+ metre] wall of water, with a very steep face.  The vessel was supposed to be able to ride the 'hundred year wave', but, as we told the naval architects who helicoptered out to the ship once the weather had eased, that's one very long, and high, wave, which almost anything floating could ride; this was three, rather short, waves, coming all together.  The vessel's flat bottom [see photo in Iolair ], which was probably about ten metres out of the water, was set up about 18 inches [0,5 metre] according to the Mate, who did a damage inspection; Alan Chamberlain, I believe.  There was breaking green water over the bridge, which was a further five decks [perhaps another 13-15 metres] up.  Fortunately, no injuries were reported.  I don't remember any other damages, such as to the forward lifeboats.  How big was that wave?  Certainly 70 feet [21 metres].  More - yes, quite probably, but not all that much more. How do I know?  I was on her, and on watch, when this happened. Geoff Hunt - not the maritime artist, or the squash player Geoff Hunt.

I just cut a big chunk of OR out too. Going to Lloyd's register, looking up a bunch of sinkings and drawing your own conclusions breaks WP:NOR. Dan100 (Talk) 10:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Rather presumptuous and high-handed of you, Dan. Yes, I looked up the list. Where it says a ship was 'bombed and sunk by Iraqi aircraft', it's hardly "drawing your own conclusions" to claim that it wasn't sunk by freak waves. Your objection on the grounds of Original Research is more problematic. I suppose using the database that way is original research and thus breaks the rules in a way that repeating the ESA's unsubstantiated assertions is not. But if I were (say) to look up FIFA's list of World Cup winners and conclude that "most of them weren't Belgium", that would, by your definition, be "original research" and could not be used when correcting an entry claiming that "Belgium has probably won the World Cup several times". As it is, I've no real problem with how the entry stands at the moment, but I'll have to be careful next time someone gets hold of the "200 supertankers" factoid and reinserts it into the article. Patrick Neylan 13:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)Patrick NeylanPatrick Neylan 13:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Primary sources are troublesome when we start to draw conclusions from them. We may not understand the way the data was collected or how to interpret it. There may be caveats or exceptions that we don't know about. It's always best to rely on secondary sources. If we do use primary sourcs, we should simply report what they say without inserting our own interpretations or conclusions. -Will Beback · † · 22:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Resummarising existing data into encyclopedic summary, is not usually OR. The choice how to present information that's credibly "out there" is a valid editorial choice, and it includes counting exceptions in it, and citing generalities from it. The limit I suppose comes when you can no longer put a footnote that substantiates and links the summary as stated, back to raw data. In other words its fine to say "according to Lloyds, most ships ((X))"... but if challenged one needs to be literally able to list the ships concerned, and sources, and show that "most" is appropriate, and ((X)) representative of the actual data. the moment you add interpretation to fill in facts and views that aren't inherent in the sources, it risks being OR. But this doesn't seem to be one of those cases. FT2 (Talk 02:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * See WP:OR: "Research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged… This is not "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." Patrick Neylan 14:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Naming 2
The term used in science is rogue waves (cf. the NWS, NOAA, MaxWave). I've personally never heard of these waves refered to as "freak" waves outside popular media. Dan100 (Talk) 10:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's misleading to say that the scientific term is a "rogue wave". A google scholar search for freak waves shows plenty of articles that include the term "freak wave" in the title, including some authors that are well respected and cited (for example, Sverre Haver). Given that it seems that both terms are used in scientific literature, and that the term "freak wave" is more common in popular media, should the article name be reverted?

More poor editorship and OR removed and reverted
FT2 (Talk 00:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * A reference was removed from the intro, leaving a cite later on which had no attached footnote.
 * Note of caution on interpretation of disappearances removed from intro, no real explanation
 * Remove OR Rouge waves are pretty common, usually happening at least once a week. This could partially explain the relatively high number of ships that have mysteriously gone missing. Sailors have tried to tell people that rogue waves actually happen, but no one would believe them because they thought they were exagerating. which replaced cited fact from the MaxWave oceanographic survey.

Page name
Why is this at Rogue wave (oceanography) rather than at rogue wave (with the page currently there moved to rogue wave (disambiguation))? WP:CN would seem to dictate the latter rather than the former.--chris.lawson 06:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

142 or 143?
Where 142 or 143 200ft ships lost between 1981 and 2001? Different parts of the articles had the different number - I made them both 143, as that seemed to be listed more confidently, but I don't know where on the Lloyd's Register website, if anywhere, to find the correct number. zafiroblue05 | Talk 07:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the number is 124, as reported in Fairplay Shipping Weekly on 24 Jan 2002. Extract follows:

Think before you sink ACROSS the newswires comes a frightening story. It seems that "near-vertical breaking seas up to 120 ft high… are thought to have sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships without trace during the past two decades." (Sunday Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, etc). Let’s see; that means about one every five weeks for 20 years. Before sacking our news editor for missing all these disasters, we decided to run a quick check. The Sunday Telegraph’s definition of a "super carrier" is a vessel over 182 metres long (600 ft in the quaint old measurements). According to the Lloyd's Register-Fairplay database, only 124 ships of such a size have been lost in the past two decades from all causes. Of these, most were lost through fires, explosions or groundings. Several vessels were indeed lost after suffering damage during heavy seas, but most of these sank while under tow or after the safe evacuation of the crew, and were hardly "sunk without trace". Indeed, more ships have been lost through military action (in the Iran-Iraq war or the Falklands) than by being suddenly engulfed by mountainous seas. Patrick Neylan 11:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

spoilers
There is a need to insert a 'spoiler' line before the popular culture section. The ending to at least one movie is revealed. Lucastheory 10:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Expansion requests
-- Beland 20:27, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There is one area of the world which is mentioned as likely being topographically more conducive to formation of rogue waves, but a recent documentary mentioned multiple such areas. Is this true?
 * Has anyone estimated the probability of an encounter with a rogue wave in any given area?
 * How wide are these waves, typically?
 * How far do these waves travel, typically?

There is an interesting article in the December 24,2007 edition of Electronic Engineering Times Magazine (EETIMES) (issue 1507) on page 14. The title of the article is "EEs working with optical fibers demystify 'roque wave' phenomenon". The two main researchers are Daniel Solli and Bahram Jalali at UCLA. The article is fairly superficial without too many details, but one interesting quote from the article is: "According to the researchers, rogue waves follow L-shaped statistics, as opposed to the more common Gaussian statistics.  This accounts for the seemingly out-of-bounds size of rogue waves." Link to the article is: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=1WYBMZUASM3QQQSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=204803618. (Type the articleID number in the Search window at EETimes if the link doesn't work.) Matagamasi (talk) 17:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I added the additional material before noticing the expansion request. The real shock of the EET article is not the analysis that Jalali and Solli are doing, but the fact that they are being funded by DARPA to characterise and possibly lay a foundation of knowledge to generate such waves. As a result, this addition went under the new heading Applications. Up to this point, such a concept has only been science fiction. Curious Violet (talk) 03:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Pressure head value
I dont understand how a wave height of 100 ft(30 m) would produce a pressure of 980 kpa.

For a head of 30 m, the static pressure = rho * g * h = 1000 (kg/m3) * 9.8 * 30 = 294 kPa. The pressure head = static head = 294 kpa. Total pressure = 488 kPa.

I dont know if I am missing something here, can someone help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.111.161.152 (talk) 02:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)