This Wave Happens Once in 10,000 Years, Scientists Have Finally Captured It

On December 7, 1978, the MS Moonkin, a German container shipping ship, departed the port of Bremer

have

n bound for Savannah, Georgia. This would be her 60-second voyage across the North Atlantic, practically routine for the crew aboard her, but tragically she never arrived or was seen. Once again, something claimed

this

ship, something huge, something deadly, something that was

once

believed to occur only

once

every ten thousand

years

and, horrifyingly, it is something that is still out there to

this

day. For perspective, the MS moonkin was a massive 857 foot long ship that carried 83 ships. Using containers known as lighters, along with 28 members of an experienced crew, at their maximum speed of 18 knots, the voyage from Germany to America covered just under 5,000 nautical miles and would take them about 11 days at sea.

However, a violent storm had been raging across the ocean since November, but the challenging

wave

s and winds were no match for the mooncan's exceptional buoyancy capabilities, so she continued with her journey. Suddenly, at 3 a.m. on December 12, the ship sent out a distress call sent in Morse code, only fragments of the call were received. by the surrounding ships, but before they could respond, the mooncan fell silent, assuming the worst rescue efforts would begin immediately. From time to time, fragments of automated messages and calls would be received from the ship. There was still hope despite the strong winds and difficult conditions.

The search continued. More than 100 ships and 16 planes scoured the area around the ship's last known coordinates day and night until

finally

, on December 14, they found something: a life raft near where the mooncan had sent its original heartbreaking distress call, but it was horribly empty. The mooncan life rafts that had been bolted together. to the ship 66 feet above the water did not appear to

have

been lowered by the crew, they had been torn from the stern of the ship by some terrifying force and thrown into the ocean according to records of the time there was no

wave

in history big enough or powerful to have done this to, not to a ship as big and sturdy as the mooncan, it was almost as if some sort of sea monster had risen up and ripped it off as the days went by, into more damaged life rafts and three lighters belonging The mooncans were discovered in the water, all empty, on December 20, after the Last Hope was extinguished, the search for the MS Munchkin was called off and its 28 crew members were considered lost to the waves or otherwise. was hiding within them, researchers and oceanographers were left confused and scared about what could have done this, but old sailors and experienced sailors knew very well what it was for centuries, they had exchanged stories and passed on rumors of events in the sea ​​defying science and belief, and although very few actually believed them.

Ancient tales about towering waves more than 100 feet high that surged out of the ocean and swallowed entire ships suddenly seemed to be more true than glue, but

scientists

remained skeptical, the idea of ​​supersized waves a few hundred feet high rolling Rogue around the ocean sounded crazy and without any data they dismissed it as a bunch of nonsense, but with the turn of the century came the arrival of double-bay steel ships that replaced their wooden predecessors with ships of greater structural integrity that otherwise they would have sunk and began returning from the sea damaged beyond belief. Survivors described nightmarish visions of gigantic waves appearing randomly in the ocean and crashing into them with such force that large chunks of them were easily torn off.

However,

scientists

still denied the existence of such deadly waves, but why were they so adamant that the waves could only reach? a certain height in the first place, well, it's because water doesn't actually travel in waves, but energy travels in waves. Now you may think I'm fooling you, as we've all definitely seen waves of water crashing onto the shore, but have you? Have I ever seen a boat or buoy floating in the ocean, they move up and down in a rising and falling pattern. This is not the ocean moving on its own, but rather its waves of energy moving through the water that displace it on the surface.

Transferred to the ocean through friction caused by wind blowing along the surface, as well as by the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon on Earth, this energy travels through the water like a wave until it is

finally

broken by an obstacle or hits the shore. now to be more peaceful, sorry, specific scientists originally thought that these energy waves were linear waves, any musician observing them could recognize them as harmonic waves where the height of the crest is equal to the depth of its valley, the size of these waves can be calculated predictably with some simple math, so scientists thought, based on their calculations, that ocean waves could only reach a maximum height of 30 feet high.

Many waves larger than that were thought impossible until an event on New Year's Day in 1995 changed everything, while the rest of the world was suffering from a hangover that morning, the oil facility crew was trying to hold firm in the water. rough, turbulent waters of the Norwegian North Sea, a relatively shallow body of water that is only 328 feet deep, while the Pacific Ocean extends over six and a half miles deep due to the shallowness of the North Sea. North, is full of rough and violent waters and this turbulent nature of the North Sea is the reason why structures such as oil platforms have to be anchored to the ground to prevent them from being swept away by the water.

These facilities harvest. the rich supply of crude oil and natural gas located beneath the Earth's crust to survive this hellish expanse of water, the launch pad was equipped with a downward-pointing laser to track the surrounding C-state around it. What the crew didn't know was that this device soon made a surprising discovery because on this day the platform's laser measured a gigantic 85-foot wave surging out of the ocean, irrefutable proof of a rogue wave had finally been

captured

that not only Not only did it eclipse all scientific estimates of a wave's maximum height, it was also more than twice the size of the other waves surrounding the platform, which only reached 38 feet.

This fits the textbook definition of a rogue wave, defined as a wave that is at least twice as high as the surrounding waves in that stretch of sea. The large freak wave was named the dropner wave and remains the highest measured rogue wave of all time. It was finally established beyond a doubt that the rogue waves were real, well, as if the ocean wasn't scary enough now, with the maritime myth proven. Investigators actually reviewed reports of ships that had disappeared under unexplained circumstances like the MS mooncan and have since determined that rogue waves likely claimed a catastrophic 22 supertankers, damaging many others and taking more than 500 lives on the island alone. second half of the 20th century.

That said, the number of lives claimed by rogue waves in recent centuries is unknown but believed to be in the thousands, but even though the existence of rogue waves had been proven, scientists still believed they were rare due to its great size. and the amount of energy needed to create one, some oceanographers and mechanical engineers estimated they would only occur once every 10,000

years

. I can finally book my cruise vacation, but it turns out that this timeline was incredibly optimistic - in fact, a scientific research group dedicated to studying the rogue waves known as the Max wave studied 30,000 satellite photographs from around the world taken by the Agency European Space Survey in 2001.

They discovered that in just a three-week period more than 10 rogue waves swelled in the ocean and those were just the ones they could detect. is terribly average, in which case I'll probably skip that cruise vacation, especially given what happened to Norwegian Dawn. The three-year-old cruise ship was carrying more than 2,200 passengers on a cruise through the Bahamas in 2005 when a rogue appeared out of nowhere. The wave crashed into the side, the wave reached the tenth deck of the huge ship, breaking two windows, flooding 62 cabins and injuring four people. Some reports estimated the wave to be more than 70 feet high, or the same height as a seven-story building.

If I saw a wave that big approaching the boat I was on I think it would pre-flood the compartment if you know what I mean, meanwhile, along the treacherous south-east coast of South Africa, rogue waves have the ominous nickname of holes in the ocean , it seems strange to call it shaking a hole is because the ships that appear behind these waves literally disappear as if they have been swallowed by a hole. In 1992, it was estimated that between 80 and 100 ships capsized in this area alone where the 30 foot waves would come out of nowhere and drag smaller ships under, but Sydney, Australia, in 2017 is not the only place where this

happens

. , sailors aboard the manly Ferry

captured

harrowing images of giant waves crashing against the Fairy's stern, tossing her in all directions.

It was so big that the boats were briefly swallowed by the waves, but manly fairies are designed to take a beating and very few were canceled despite the bad weather, sadly the same cannot be said for all those off the South African coast and if that were so. or quite terrifying waves can also arise in the form of literal walls of water. A famous example of this occurred in Daytona Beach, Florida, back in 1991, where giant waves about 18 feet high and 27 miles long ripped through the calm sea and crashed onto the coast, the Rogue Wave converted 100 parked cars. on the beach in submarines and initial reports stated that 75 people were treated for minor injuries, but buoys collecting data near Cape Canaveral had detected nothing.

Some people suggested it was caused by a tsunami, but no. Coincident seismic activity was identified anywhere, an underwater landslide displacing a large amount of water at once, perhaps a meteorite hit causing a large outward wave, seemed potentially plausible, but there was no activity to support any of these ideas and, what is even more curious, nothing like that has happened. Since its root cause remains a mystery to this day, these tales make me nervous, but not as much as seeing a rogue wave in action like this one, before being captured in 2008, the MV Metzeborg was traveling across the North Atlantic when it was hit by a wave approximately 98 feet high considering the ship was 442 feet long but only 55 feet wide if it had been much higher and at a slightly different angle it could have rolled the ship but how did it They form rogue waves like this in the ocean in the First of all, the answer is that no one knows.

Their unpredictability makes them incredibly difficult to study. Furthermore, they are mainly found in the open sea, which is one of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the entire planet. So based on what scientists know, propose two theories: the first is the simplest and starts with the observation that waves travel at different speeds and occasionally these wave peaks can overlap combining energy and resulting in a wave. rebel twice the size of all other waves, this is known as The theory of linear wave summation, the alternative theory is known as theory of nonlinear focus and is based on the idea that when waves interact, they can steal each other energy to each other effectively, if multiple waves transfer their energy to a singular wave, then this can amplify the wave. in a gigantic mountain of water, at this point you may be thinking that rogue waves are like tsunamis, after all, both types of waves are massive, fast and incredibly destructive, but there is a clear difference since rogue waves occur in the random ocean, while tsunamis are direct.

The outcome of tectonic collisions in the Earth's crust that shift the ocean above tsunamis can be accurately predicted, while rogue waves can appear suddenly even in calm seas, but before you give up surfing for Life, wait while Scientists are working on a device to predict rogue waves, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is developing a system that can forecast potentially dangerous areas of the ocean every hour using a program appropriately called Wave Watch 3. The latest version released in 2019 uses a probability formula to predict conditionsextremes in the ocean at a specific location and Although this is a life-saving tool and could help sailors stay away from unpredictable and dangerous seas, however, rogue waves can form in just under 10 to 15 seconds in seas rough, meaning rogue wave surges can form faster than the Wave Watch program can predict, so ships are not yet safe from random rogue wave attacks to be able to successfully predict a rogue wave, Scientists would need to invent a radar system that could continuously measure waves near the ship, this data would need to be fed into a computer model that could predict how waves form over the next few minutes, giving a warning of any incoming rogue waves.

However, this technology has not been created yet. I hope scientists start working on this as soon as possible. I really want to take that cruise now that the rogue waves aren't the only crazy wave. formations out there, but before you get into those troubled waters, why not hit the like and subscribe buttons below? Everything is very good now. Let's paddle out further and see what other amazing waves there are. Three strikes and you're outside the Canada-US border. 5,525 miles across North America and Ryan Reynolds isn't the only dual citizen here. Canada and the US also share ownership of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world.

It puts to shame other lakes that stretch 350 miles from east to west and 160 miles from north to south, placing it in the Canadian province of Ontario and the three United States of Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. At this size, it is more appropriate to think of Lake Superior as a landlocked sea. No, in reality, this gigantic body of water is so large that it generates its own weather patterns during the summer. The wind blows across the surface creating a cool breeze over the region, but in winter the lake releases thermal energy into the atmosphere. which absorbed during the hot summer, creating an insulating effect of hot air in the lake basin, this accumulation of hot air then fuels turbulent winter storms and these storms can generate waves the size of houses, for example in 2018, a winter storm with winds of 86 miles per hour resulted in 25- Waves crashing into the lake shore but found within Lake Superior are something even scarier than winter storms, as they are also home to a unique wave phenomenon known as the three sisters.

Unlike Olsen's brood, this is a deadly trio you'd never want to meet. This is because it is a formation of three imposing rogue waves that follow one another consecutively and it is almost impossible to escape since the three sisters follow each other very closely if a boat is hit by the first wave and cannot recover and get rid of the excess of water before. Hit again and again, this triple bombardment can cause ships to rock dangerously and is believed to have caused multiple shipwrecks, as in the case of the Edmond Fitzgerald. The Fitzgerald was a 730-foot-long Laker boat designed to cross large bodies of water such as the lake.

Superior however on November 10, 1975 after leaving Wisconsin the ship was caught in a storm and a severe storm in which hurricane winds of about 60 miles per hour agitated the surface of the lake and waves were reported reaching 10 feet high. When suddenly the Fitzgerald was hit by three sisters, towering waves between 30 and 35 feet high, unable to steer Away In Time, the Fitzgerald capsized and tragically sank, taking with it all 29 crew members and still unknown what exactly causes the three sisters waves to form. It is speculated to be the result of wave energy bouncing off underwater shoals or cliffs in a pattern that results in the trio of rogue waves forming on the surface.

Fortunately, Lake Superior only has an average depth of 483 feet, meaning the three sister waves are limited in how. in size, they can reach a limit of around 30 to 40 feet, still, it is about the same size as a four-story building, but it is relatively small considering that rogue waves in the ocean can grow to be more than hundred feet, all things considered. Would you rather deal with a 100-foot-high wave of water or the triple threat of the three sisters? Just asking that question made me reach for my water wings. Runaway Beach there is nothing more exciting than a trip to the beach swimming, sunbathing, sandcastles to But have you ever gone to the beach and realized that all the sand has been stolen?

I know this sounds like a hypothetical question, but I'm very serious because all over the world famous sandy beaches have disappeared overnight, leaving only Pebbles and Rocks in their wake. They're not exactly the comfortable place to drink. the sun unless you're a stone-cold masochist, but how could an entire beach disappear in a matter of hours? Well, this strange event occurred on a cold island off the west coast of Ireland, Duog Beach. A 650-foot stretch of sand suddenly disappeared after a winter storm passed through the area in 1984. Now, to understand how an entire beach can be stolen, we must examine how beaches are formed.

First, beaches are usually made of fine mineral sand. The particles that come from largely come from rocks that have been ground and churned through the ocean like a big blue blender. This loose sediment accumulates in the sea with the tides dumping it onto the bedrock along the coast. Layers of sediment accumulate, sculpted by waves. until finally there is a large sandy beach ready for tourists, but just as the ocean creates our beaches, it can also easily wash them away. Tides crashing into the shore exert intense forces that can liquidate sand particles and even splinter chunks of rock that can easily be swept away by a single wave.

Loose sediment and bedrock wear away in a process known as coastal erosion and during a storm all of these erosion processes are turned up to 11. Storm winds can create supercharged waves that scatter beaches and wash away tons of sand. This is the exact scenario that occurred in duog in 1984, when harsh winter storms churned up the ocean so much that they swept up the coast and washed away the entire beach, all that was left were rocks, but what is even stranger is that 34 years later , the beach suddenly reappeared like a bound monster Around Easter 2017 hundreds of tons of sand were dumped on the shore to restore the beach.

Tourists flocked to the area eager to see Houdini Beach for themselves and 79 new jobs were created to cater for the 70 percent increase in visitors to the island, but it turned out that The Ocean was only affecting one cold island. , since once again in 2019 the beach was washed away. Poseidon's practical joke crippled the tourism industry and put huge pressure on locals, so before booking your next holiday, check that the beaches still have waves. waves What if the biggest waves in the world were the ones you couldn't see? Sounds like a terrible tagline for an inspirational Instagram post, right?

It lives up to the hashtag live, laughter, love. I mean, don't worry, although this is how it is. For influencers but for physicists, internal waves are some of the largest waves in the ocean, but they are totally invisible to the naked eye. This is because they form below the surface of the ocean. You might think that the ocean is just a giant pool for whales, but in reality it is made up of different layers, a bit like a cake, a very moist cake, the top layer of water is warmer and less salty and the deeper The deeper you go, the denser the layers become and the more saturated with saline as the colder water sinks to the bottom and between these layers of the ocean waves can form, these internal waves can range in size from 30 feet to a staggering height of 550 feet.

These enormous 500-foot waves are generated in the Luzon Strait in the South China Sea, however, at the surface, while being able to detect are alternating subtle bands of turbulent and smooth water. We've finally found some giant waves that won't turn the ships into a Titanic tribute act. These internal waves are created when water moving in a layer encounters an obstacle such as a submarine. Ridge or reef: This displaces the water and creates an internal wave that passes between the ocean layers. The existence of internal waves is vital for the cycling of nutrients through the ocean, ensuring that nutrient-rich waters reach the coast and provide for the ecosystem.

Internal waves also play a vital role. role in the transfer of heat around the planet, so it turns out that the most important waves are those hidden deep inside man. I should really start charging for these cheesy fake philosophical quotes planetary waves now, when I say planetary waves, you'd be forgiven for thinking I was I'm talking about that scene from Christopher Nolan's sci-fi epic Interstellar, but we're actually dealing with something much closer to home, in fact, we are still on Earth. Keep in mind that this concept is even more complicated to follow than the blood in that movie.

I'm going to do my best to make it easier for us to understand. You are with me? Okay, here goes nothing. Planetary waves are literally waves that move the oceans and atmosphere around the planet. Scientifically, they are known as husky waves, as opposed to white waves. breaking waves you may be thinking of Rossby waves are enormous rolling movements of the ocean and atmosphere that extend horizontally across the planet for hundreds of miles. They are so massive that they can alter the earth's climatic conditions. How long it takes an oceanic Rosby wave to complete its journey is determined by its proximity to the equator.

Rossby waves that form near the equator can take a few months to a year to cross the ocean, while waves that form farther from the equator can take 10 to 20 years to complete their journey across the planet. , not that you notice that these waves pass by as if they were undetectable to the human eye and have only been discovered by NASA satellites that monitor the Earth. The reason the pink waves cannot be observed with the naked eye is because the vertical movement above the surface is small, the water usually only moves 3.9 inches, but that is because all the action

happens

below, as that the vertical movement below the surface is 1000 times greater than above, so while the water at the surface only moves a few centimeters downward, the water is changing. for 300 feet, wow, that's an epic wave, but they don't come out of nowhere.

Rough waves are generated by our planet's rotation when you are standing at the equator, you and the ground beneath your feet rotating east about 1,030 miles. per hour and the closer you get to either pole, the slower you rotate because there is less distance to travel as our planet rotates. Eastward inertia takes hold, which has a special effect on fluids. Imagine that you have a glass of water and you swirl the water around with it. It moves to the right, but if you simply turn the glass there is hardly any movement and the water appears static. A similar effect happens to all the fluids on Earth, which in bodies of water create a series of endless ocean waves, but the closer to the equator they are the faster they travel, okay, that's too simple a way to explain it and I bet any physicist is staring or screaming at their screens right now, but what's important to know is that because of this, rough ocean waves form in the west direction and travel faster at the equator and slower. towards the poles affecting climates around the world occasionally causing high tides and coastal flooding, well that's pretty incredible for a wave that is older than most people watching this video, what do you think the wave formation was? most incredible and which wave would you find the most terrifying to try? and browse, let me know in the comments below and thanks for watching the foreigner.