Scientists, with the help of artificial intelligence tools, have managed to create a formula to be able to predict when rogue waves are likely to happen.
The researchers used data from 1 billion waves and nearly 700 hundred years’ worth of wave data.
The scientists hope their research can make international shipping safer from these monsters, which often strike with little warning and can have catastrophic consequences. While these waves have long been part of maritime lore, they were not formally acknowledged until 1995, when a 26m/85ft wave came out of nowhere and slammed into the Norwegian oil platform Draupner. The rig recorded the wave data showing the existence of these abnormal waves.
Thanks to the research conducted by scientists from the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, scientists can now predict the likelihood of being hit by a rogue wave at any time.
According to the first author of the study, Dion Hafner:
“Basically, it is just very bad luck when one of these giant waves hits. They are caused by a combination of many factors that, until now, have not been combined into a single risk estimate. In the study, we mapped the causal variables that create rogue waves and used artificial intelligence to gather them in a model which can calculate the probability of rogue wave formation.”
You can find the original research here.
