Rogue waves, killer waves, monster waves, freak waves—whatever you call them, these deadly oscillations of the sea can rise up eight times the height of surrounding calm waters to come crashing down onto an unwary vessel. Researchers at MIT developed an algorithm that they believe can give sailors 2 to 3 minutes warning before a rogue wave strikes. The program works by identifying groups of waves rather than considering every single one.

The open ocean contains many waves moving in seemingly random directions. Amongst that chaos, waves will occasionally flow close together and in the same direction. Researchers realized that these groups of waves are the telltale sign of a forming rogue wave.

Previous simulations tried to map every single wave surrounding a ship, but accounting for all those data points simply requires too much computing power for a laptop set up at sea. The new MIT algorithm searches for just groups of waves flowing in the same direction and then measures the height and length of the group. The team found that certain height and length combinations are more likely to form a rogue wave, and their program estimates the probability that a wave group will ultimately grow into a towering monster wave.

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"It's precise in the sense that it's telling us very accurately the location and the time that this rare event will happen," says Themis Sapsis, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. "We have a range of possibilities, and we can say that this will be a dangerous wave, and you'd better do something. That's really all you need."

Vessels will need to incorporate high-resolution scanning technologies such as radar and LIDAR to measure surrounding waves, allowing the algorithm to give them adequate warning of destructive waves. But these technologies are steadily becoming more and more available—self-driving cars use LIDAR, for example—and the algorithm does not require much computing power.

Once the technology finds its way onto commercial vessels, it can give you a 2- to 3-minute heads-up prior to a rare rogue wave. But it won't protect you from a raging storm, and you still have to scramble to prepare for the blow.

Source: MIT News

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