New Software Could Warn Sailors of Rogue Waves

Reservoir Hill writes "Sailors have been telling stories for centuries about monstrous ocean waves that tower over a hundred feet in the air and toss ships around like corks. While these were once dismissed as nautical myth, but a few years back synthetic aperture radar from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the existence of these 'rogue' waves and study their origins. Such waves were far more common than anyone had expected. Now a researcher in Madrid has developed software that can detect rogue waves from radar images, with the possibility of providing advance warning to ships at sea. The software uses a mathematical model to evaluate and process the spatial and temporal dimensions of waves inferred from the interaction between the radar's electromagnetic energy and the sea surface. The result is displayed in a color-coded image."

Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[tjstork]

The subtext of this article is amazing. Basically, sailors have been out there getting killed by giant waves for decades, but a bunch of scientists decreed that such waves could not exist, and therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed. During this entire time, numerous eye witness reports were ignored, and even the odd photograph was dismissed as a fluke.

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate, when, 2 ships a week have been sinking now for decades (on average), that, there's eyewitnesses that have said what caused these sinkings, and instead, ignored them. If there's a smoking gun that says that scientists find what they want to find, and its not necessarily the truth, then this is it, and the only way to save science is to demand that science must act scientific.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The scientists made their decisions on objective data but weren't convinced by anecdotal evidence. In other words science worked just as it's supposed to work.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Splab]

What about numerous UFO observations, Loch Ness etc? are you suggestion those should be regarded as proof of existence since there have been numerous observations and murky photographs? Science works by being skeptical, yes it can take decades for something to be acknowledged and that might be bad but taking every observation as proof would be worse.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[tompaulco]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to halt the global climate change that's causing catastrophic seaward events like these?
I realize you are trolling, but to answer your question: No. It is a lot easier to write software to detect rogue waves than it is to halt global climate change.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Colin Smith]

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution

Don't tell me. You're still younger than 25 years old.

 

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Jarjarthejedi]

Last time I checked there aren't 2 deaths a year from UFOs, or reportedly from UFOs. Sure there's somewhat of a correlation, but when people are dying semi-commonly (I figure 2 deaths a year means 1 ship sunk every 5 years or so) that's when you should be looking into the subject, not simply ignoring it and saying it's not possible and that the photos are proof of nothing.

The scientists aren't fully to blame for the fact that these waves were so long thought impossible, but neither are they completely blameless, they were so set in their ways that they couldn't see any way such a wave could exist, and that's a problem. In other words it's not bad to say that these waves, or UFOs, probably don't exist, but it is a problem to say that there's no possible way such a phenomenon could happen. As Douglas Adams once postulated (paraphrasing a good amount) 'the difference between something that's unlikely and something that's impossible is that, when you find out the impossible thing can actually happen you look a lot worse than the statistically unlikely thing'

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Jarjarthejedi]

And yet at the same time science is supposed to investigate anecdotal matters, or at least that's where most of our scientific understanding has come from. Most leaps forward are not preceded by large quantities of statistical evidence, but rather one or two anecdotal happenings that someone gets curious about and decides to investigate. Sure, the scientists did all that was expected of them, they examined their evidence and found that these waves were impossible according to what they'd observed. However from what I've seen and heard this was treated as another case of one group of scientists saying something's impossible and other groups simply accepting their findings as fact without examining them or gathering their own data. As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but that doesn't mean the scientists shouldn't have studied the subject a little more before making their statements.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[eebra82]

[..] therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed.

I think you're missing the point. It's not about altering ships to handle huge waves, but instead to warn them in advance. For instance, crew could get off the deck in time and the captain would have time to change its direction to match that of the wave.

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate, when, 2 ships a week have been sinking now for decades (on average), that, there's eyewitnesses that have said what caused these sinkings, and instead, ignored them.

Ignored what exactly? The article states that "severe weather has sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length during the last two decades. There's no data on how many of these ships actually sunk from a super wave. In fact, the number could be so small that it's not even worth our time. More importantly, most of these accidents happen to really old boats.

Last but not least, there are many eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted UFOs, been exposed to abductions, seen the Loch Ness monster and whatnot. You need credible evidence before you start spending billions of dollars on altering ship designs.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[m2943]

Basically, sailors have been out there getting killed by giant waves for decades, but a bunch of scientists decreed that such waves could not exist, and therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed

Yes, engineering and safety standards are based on objective evidence, not anecdotal reports. That is the way it should be. Sometimes people's hunches and anecdotes are proven right in retrospect, often, they are proven wrong.

I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate

I'm sorry you don't understand the purpose of academic or scientific institutions; you are not supposed to "trust" them, you are supposed to look at their evidence and conclusions and then rationally formulate a policy based on it.

If there's a smoking gun that says that scientists find what they want to find, and its not necessarily the truth

Of course, it's "not necessarily the truth". Scientists make hypotheses and inferences based on data, and those are always subject to change.

The best scientific evidence right now says that anthropogenic climate change is happening. That scientific hypothesis may turn out to be wrong, but no alternative hypothesis is even remotely as plausible.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[UbuntuDupe]

I'm sorry you don't understand the purpose of academic or scientific institutions; you are not supposed to "trust" them, you are supposed to look at their evidence and conclusions and then rationally formulate a policy based on it.

Yes, that's how it's supposed to work, but the GP is right that in practice, we are asked to base policies on our trust of them. Remember, people like Al Gore say, "Do this policy, because the scientific consensus in this area." He does not say,

"Do this policy, because this group of scientists has consistently been able to formulate correct, falsfiable, non-trivial, useful predictions, using a model that you can download at this website, and for which you can easily trace every assumption going into it, to its original scientific basis." (or any shorter version of that)

Re:Not really, ships have survived them

[Sanat]

When I lived in Sydney, Australia area, i visited a friend in Lower Templestow near Melbourne and she and i and about five or six others went with a friend in a large cabin cruiser out past the breakwall at Portsea into the near ocean area and we were laughing, drinking and doing some fishing and all of a sudden a wall of high water was coming at us. Fortunately the engines were on and the captain immediately turned into the wave as well as he could do in the few seconds we had.

We were picked up and tossed about and then dropped into a hole of air at least several feet in depth. Fortunately no one was thrown overboard but we were all pretty shook up and the party seemed to end about then.

The captain put it to vote on whether to stay out or go back to port. Most chose to go back and the Captain wanted to verify that no damage had weakened the structure so he was obviously pleased with this choice.

And this is my small happening with a rogue wave.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[harves]

Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to halt the global climate change ... ?

Whoa, slow down AC. Large waves like this have nothing to do with global climate change. As the summary says, random reports of these waves have been trickling in for centuries. Noone is suggesting (yet) that these waves have become more severe or more common in recent years - just that the scientific community finally took the reports seriously and did some analysis.

To whomever tagged this article "idontcare"...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I hope you drown.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[eebra82]

I would think sailors would be credible. That's the thing. You put sailors into same camp as UFO believers, but really, they are subject matter experts when it comes to the water. Really, that someone never went and bothered to really check the sailor's claims of giant waves for decades just tells me that "credible evidence" as you call it is just an excuse for laziness in the discipline.

You don't have to be an expert to know that you're being probed anally by an alien. Same goes for enormous waves - you'd have to be pretty stupid not to recognize that a 100 foot wave is something out of the ordinary. My point is, sailors should be trusted as much as UFO believers until there is credible evidence. And by credible evidence, I am not saying eyewitnesses, but documented facts and material to analyze. For example, we must know how often they occur, where they occur, how fast they travel, how far, how wide they can get, etcetera. Without this knowledge, it's basically idiotic to alter any ship design, because for all we know, it could be like making all clothes in Italy volcano proof; an eruption happens every now and then, but it's so rare that it's silly to think you need to protect yourself from it.

Last but not least, I assure you that out of the millions of sailors out there, some of them are morons, compulsive liars and mentally insane. Of course, that statement goes for everyone else too. Point is, how can you as a scientist tell who's who? Therefore, eyewitnesses aren't very credible. Oh, and I'm definitely not saying that I doubt the existence of such waves. I just think that the post that I made my first reply to wasn't very insightful.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[ultranova]

The scientists made their decisions on objective data but weren't convinced by anecdotal evidence. In other words science worked just as it's supposed to work.

Dismissing observations - any observations - because they don't fit the current model is not scientific. This is especially true when the observed phenomenom is so rare that systematic scientific study is not possible.

Re:Stoopid scientists get sailors killed.

[Alan Partridge]

What's the problem with UFOs? They are simply UNIDENTIFIED - there's nothing unscientific about not being able to identify something and saying so. The term UFO doesn't imply anything other-worldy or impossible. I myself have seen a couple of UFOs - the first was probably some kind of static discharge from a cloud, ball lightning ,or something similar. The second was almost certainly a meteor of some sort (and yes, I've seen lots of them as an amateur astronomer), but this one flared in a different way, more slowly and the trail was very long - perhaps it grazed the atmosphere rather than burning up.

UFOs are a legitimate area of study, though I'm sure that 90% of sightings are perfectly explicable.