Rogue Waves:

Statistical Behavior & Prediction

Qiuchen Guo
Louis A. Couston
Reza Alam

TAFLab
University of California, Berkeley
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 Rogue waves: true story

CAPT RONALD WARWI CK (Queen Eliza bet h 2) : Out of the darkness came t his great wa ll of wat er. I
have never seen a wave as big as t his in my whole life.

CAPT BARRY PECK: You hit solid water and it is like running into a brick wa ll. The entire bridge was
wrecked.

CAPT DAI DAVI ES (Sm it Marine South Africa) : Horrif ic, monstrous. You fee l as if t he en d of the world
has come.

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 The New Year Wave
[Walker et cl 2004]

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COSL Innovator rig accident Louis Majesty accident

[Offshore Energy Today]
Bahamas-registered passenger vessel Norwegian Dawn

16.7 m above the mean surface

[Cavaleri et al. 2012]

› Rogue waves are very large amplitude waves in the ocean

› Definition: 𝐻𝑟
𝐻𝑟
≥2
𝐻𝑠
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Outline
› Interesting aspects

› Problem formulation

› Shapes in spatial and temporal domain

› Prediction of rare events

› Conclusions

› Future work
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Interesting aspects
› Rogue waves (or freak waves, monster waves, extreme waves) are
short lived very large amplitude waves

› Rare enough that very few measured cases have been documented

› Frequent enough that cause damage to ships and offshore

structures every year

› What mechanism(s) lead to the formation of rogue waves is yet a

matter of dispute

› What does rogue wave looks like on average and how to predict
them are two central questions
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Why study rogue wave shapes?
Design of offshore structures Parametric rolling of ship occurs when
𝐿𝑝 = 𝜆 𝑤

Wave-in-deck loading design

[worldmaritimenews]
 Experimental study
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New year wave in experiment Averaged profile in time

[Clauss et al. 2008]

Satellite images

𝑡/𝑇𝑝
[Christou & Ewans 2014]

Spatial profile of new year wave

[Melville et al. 2005]

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Problem Formulation
Assumption: incompressible and homogeneous fluid, inviscid and irrotational
flow, ignore surface tension, wave field represented by JONSWAP spectrum
𝜂𝑡 + 𝜂𝑥 𝜙𝑥 − 𝜙𝑧 = 0 for z=𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡
1
𝜙𝑡 + 2 𝜙𝑥2 + 𝜙𝑧2 + 𝑔𝜂 = 0 for z=𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡

1
𝜙𝑡𝑡 + 𝑔𝜙𝑧 + 𝜕t + 2 𝛻𝜙 ⋅ 𝛻 𝛻𝜙 ⋅ 𝛻𝜙 =0 for z=𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡

z
𝜂
𝛻 2 𝜙=0 for -h< 𝑧 < 𝜂

ℎ 𝜌, 𝜙 𝜙 − velocity potential
𝜂 − surface wave elevation
ℎ − mean depth
x
seabed 𝜙𝑧 = 0 for z= −ℎ
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Initial condition: a broadband spectrum of propagating
waves with their energy defined by JONSWAP spectrum

𝑆 𝜔 → 𝑆 𝑘 = 𝐶𝑔 (𝜔)𝑆 𝜔 → 𝜂 = 2∫ 𝑆 𝑘 𝑑𝑘

𝑆 𝜔 − frequency spectrum density

𝑆 𝑘 − wave number spectrum density
𝐶𝑔 (𝜔) − group velocity

Rogue wave data

Sea state 𝑯𝒔 (m) 𝑻𝒑 (s)
› We run more than 2000
simulations in total
Five 3.25 9.7 Rough
› We screened rogue waves
𝐻𝑠 −significant wave height › Study their statistical
𝑇𝑝 − significant wave period properties
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Approach
𝜂
𝜂= Average
𝐻𝑠 the peak-
𝑥 Standard
Approach 1: 𝑥= centered deviation σ
𝜆𝑝 waves

𝜂
𝜂= Average
𝐻𝑠 the peak-
𝑥
𝑥= centered Standard
Approach 2: 𝜆𝑝 deviation σ
waves
 Validation with field measurements

Numerical
Field measurements
Simulations
[Christou & Ewans 2014]

Averaged profile ± standard deviation

› Field rogue waves are measured in different locations

› Numerical simulations: Hs = 3.25m, Tp = 9.7s and Depth=300m.
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Averaged temporal profile
Approach 1 Approach 2

Standard Deviation Succeeding v.s. Preceding

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Averaged spatial profile
Approach 1 Approach 2

Standard Deviation Succeeding v.s. Preceding

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 Effect of nonlinearity

M: order of nonlinearity

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Prediction of rogue waves
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Measure current sea surfaces
Satellite images

Radars on aircraft [Bulatov 2003]

› Direct large scale numerical

simulation
› Expensive
› Hard to predict in real time
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Predictions through other characteristics
Spectrum shape

Wave group detection [Akhmediev, 2011]

[Cousins and Sapsis, JFM 2016]

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Approach: Track Energy Flux in Space
z
𝜂

Energy flux
across the
vertical
plane
x +

Energy Across the Vertical

Plane

𝜕𝜙 𝜂 Criterion on energy flux:

𝑃 𝑡 = −𝜌 𝜙𝑥 𝑑𝑧
−ℎ 𝜕𝑡 𝐻𝑒
>𝛽
𝑃𝑎𝑣𝑒
𝑃: Processed energy flux
𝑃𝑎𝑣𝑒 : Average of energy flux in the whole fluid domain
𝐻𝑒 : Maximum crest to trough height of 𝑃
View of energy concentration

3 minutes before rogue wave occurs

𝑯𝒓/𝑯𝒔 = 1.75 𝑯𝒓/𝑯𝒔 = 2.5

› Energy concentrates before rogue wave occurs

› Wave height increases in very short time

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Results

› Predictions are made O(10)𝑇𝑝 ahead of

rogue wave occurrences
Concluding
Remarks
› Rogue wave profile is spatially
asymmetric and consist of a sharp
narrow crest either proceeded by
succeeded by a relatively mild trough

› The temporal profile is relatively

symmetric respect to the main crest

› Prediction through tracking energy

concentration is essentially much
cheaper than solving the wave
evolution equations

› Predictions can be made several

minutes ahead
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Future work: effect of bottom topography

H1=1.8m
H2=0.7m

Hs=0.5m,
Tp=8.8s

Wave Generator: Gaussian Waves

𝛻 2 𝜙=0 for -h< 𝑧 < 𝜂

𝜂𝑡 = −𝜙𝑥 𝜂𝑥 + 𝜙𝑧 at z=𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡
1 𝑃 𝑃
𝜙𝑡 = − 𝜙𝑥2 + 𝜙𝑧2 − 𝑔𝜂 + 𝐹 − 𝐷 at z=𝜂 𝑥, 𝑡
2 𝜌 𝜌
𝜙𝑧 = 𝜂𝑏,𝑥 𝜙𝑥 for z= −ℎ + 𝜂𝑏
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Future work: effect of bottom topography
Statistic Parameters:
1
2 2
𝜂𝑠𝑡𝑑 = 𝜂− 𝜂

𝜆3 = 𝜂 − 𝜂 3 /𝜂 3
𝑠𝑡𝑑

Time average
of wave
elevation

Gaussian waves:
Skewness = 0
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Future work:
› Include the effect of bottom topography in studying rogue
wave statistical properties

› Extend current work to three dimensional framework

› Get higher prediction accuracy by using wavelet

transformation and wavelet energy spectrum