The Science of Ocean Waves by J. B. Zirker

Author:J. B. Zirker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2013-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

A Celebrity Rogue Wave

The most famous wave in maritime history was recorded by instruments on the Draupner oil rig in the North Sea off Norway on January 1, 1995. This wave is notable not only for its size but also for the fact that for the first time an objective instrument made the measurement.

A severe storm had been raging for several days. A down-pointing laser wave gauge, mounted at one of the corners of the platform of the oil rig, was recording continuously during 20 minutes out of every hour during the storm. The time series shows that the significant wave heights—the mean wave height, trough to crest, of the highest third of the waves—were generally around 11–12m during the entire afternoon of January 1. From standard statistical arguments one could expect the maximum wave height (crest to trough) would be about 20m.

Then at 3:30 p.m. a single wave spiked in the records with a maximum height (crest to trough) close to 26m—about 85 feet! Not the biggest ever reported, but the source was unassailable, and the fact of being single makes this wave unique. Moreover, one would not expect a wave this tall to appear in a sea of 11-m waves very often. At the time, Paul Taylor, a scientist at Oxford University, estimated the chance of a recurrence was 1 out of 200,000 waves, or one wave in 10,000 years.

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