’Freak’ ocean waves hit without warning, new research shows

Mariners have long spoken of 'walls of water' appearing from nowhere in the open seas. But oceanographers have generally disregarded such stories and suggested that rogue waves - enormous surface waves that have attained a near-mythical status over the centuries - build up gradually and have relatively narrow crests. New research from the University of Oxford in collaboration with the University of Western Australia, however, shows that the anecdotal evidence may not be so far from the truth. Rather than coming at the end of a series of increasingly large waves, rogue (or freak) waves emerge suddenly, being preceded by much smaller waves. The mathematical modelling also demonstrates that the crests of these rogue waves are longer than the smaller waves that surround them. The research is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A . Professor Thomas Adcock, of Oxford's Department of Engineering Science, said: 'The waves we're dealing with here occur in deep water in the open ocean - very different from the waves you'll see if you go to the beach, which is what most people are familiar with.