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Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to dive into the vault. This time we're doing

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Speaker 1: an episode that originally aired on May nineteen. This one

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Speaker 1: was called The Great Wave. It was about giant waves,

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Speaker 1: rogue waves. I remember this episode being very interesting, especially

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Speaker 1: because in preparing for it, it was when I, uh,

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Speaker 1: I learned about the the incredible survival by sea voyage

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Speaker 1: of was it the Shackleton Expedition? Yes, I believe so. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this one, this one is filled with aquatic peril

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Speaker 1: and uh and I seem to recall there's a fair

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Speaker 1: amount of sort of looking at at historical accounts and

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Speaker 1: people weighing in on exactly what kind of wave we

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Speaker 1: were talking about. Here, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: A production of I Heart Radios has to work. Hey, you,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and I'm want to

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Speaker 1: kick off this episode by talking about a piece of art.

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Speaker 1: And it's a piece of art that I imagine a

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Speaker 1: lot of you have seen and if you haven't seen it.

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Speaker 1: You can, and you're not driving a vehicle or anything

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Speaker 1: right now, you can easily look it up and you

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Speaker 1: can certainly find it for the landing page for this episode.

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Speaker 1: It's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. It is

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Speaker 1: a Japanese print. It is a title the Great Wave

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Speaker 1: off Kanagawa, and it's a nineteenth century Edo period would

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Speaker 1: block print by Katsushika Hokusai, and it depicts a great

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Speaker 1: wave endangering ships off the coast of Kanagawa. And it

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Speaker 1: was once thought to depict a tsunami, but now most

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Speaker 1: commentators think that it actually depicts a rogue wave. UM. Now,

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Speaker 1: the the artist here, he explored this subject matter many

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Speaker 1: times in his career, so if you look at other

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Speaker 1: images he created, there are plenty of other waves, but

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Speaker 1: this particular print is considered the peak the culmination of

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Speaker 1: sixty years in the arts. UM And since it's a

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Speaker 1: woodblock print and not a painting, you can actually find

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Speaker 1: it in numerous museums around the world, thus increasing the

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Speaker 1: odds that you have seen this image, if not online

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Speaker 1: and perhaps in purpose in person. But I think one

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Speaker 1: of the great things about it is that it captures

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Speaker 1: a sense of the majesty of a great wave. The

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Speaker 1: idea that it's it's there's like a topography of the

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Speaker 1: ocean visible, the ocean surface visible in this picture. That

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Speaker 1: that reminds us that a wave can be a mountain. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the wave in the in the woodblock even what

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Speaker 1: do you call it a print or a painting when

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Speaker 1: it's the painting whatever it is on this image, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the wave resembles the mountain in the background, and the

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Speaker 1: mountain and the backgrounds has sort of a blue gray,

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Speaker 1: uh slope, and then the white peak of course covered

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Speaker 1: in snow. The waves are much like that with these

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Speaker 1: uh the white surging foam at the top. But in

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Speaker 1: the painting, the foam as these like hooks that almost

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Speaker 1: looked like eagles talents reaching out of the top of

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Speaker 1: this wall of water. And there's there's a way that

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Speaker 1: I at least often look to this painting without even

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Speaker 1: realizing they were supposed to be boats represented at the bottom. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of easy to miss the boats. They're they're

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Speaker 1: swallowed up by what's going on all around. It's a

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Speaker 1: beautiful piece of art. And I don't know why, but

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Speaker 1: I've always when I've looked at it before thought of

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Speaker 1: it as somehow calming or like a picture of sort

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Speaker 1: of like serene nature, which is hilarious because it's depicting

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Speaker 1: a scene of utter chaos and destruction and terror, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's spoken like a true landsman, right when

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Speaker 1: clearly like this is a product of of an island

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Speaker 1: culture that it was very you know, very aware of

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Speaker 1: the dangers posed by the by the ocean. And uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I probably am in the same same boat. Uh No.

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Speaker 1: Pun intended with you is that when I've seen the

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Speaker 1: image in the past, it was just I was like, ah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: serene nature. But no, this is a cresting mountain of

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Speaker 1: oceanic destruction, or at least potential destruction in terms of

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Speaker 1: human activities on or near the ocean the mountain that flows.

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Speaker 1: So speaking of the dangers of the ocean, I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are many of them, and we know what many

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Speaker 1: of them are. But we often discuss ancient beastiaries and

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Speaker 1: records of monsters and strange creatures from the ancient world,

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Speaker 1: and of course some of the best ones, even through

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Speaker 1: like the medieval period, are of sea monsters. So you've

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Speaker 1: got these stories about lizards that kill with the gaze

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Speaker 1: or giant sea monsters that suck entire ships into their mouths,

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Speaker 1: And they can be funny to read about now, especially

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Speaker 1: with the certainty that ancient writers had when they talked

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Speaker 1: about these subjects. But one point I've made before and

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Speaker 1: that I want to echo again is I think it

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Speaker 1: was not at all stupid or irrational for ancient people's

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Speaker 1: to believe in sea monsters. I think it was a

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Speaker 1: perfectly reasonable and rap channel thing for them to assume.

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Speaker 1: And there are a few reasons for this. We've touched

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Speaker 1: on some of them on the show before. Number one,

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Speaker 1: there actually are sea monsters in a way. We just

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Speaker 1: call them by different names now, like you know the

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Speaker 1: sperm whale, blue whale, giant squid, the sunfish, the lion's

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Speaker 1: main jellyfish. These are all giant, magnificent, all inspiring creatures.

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Speaker 1: But what's changed is that we've fit them into a

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Speaker 1: standard evolutionary taxonomy. We think of them as animals that

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Speaker 1: have common origins with the other animals. But when ancient

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Speaker 1: sailors told stories of these giant beasts out in the ocean, meany,

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Speaker 1: we're probably telling the truth to the best of their ability.

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Speaker 1: They saw something huge and strange and terrifying, and they're

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Speaker 1: trying to remember and describe what it was. And then

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Speaker 1: on top of that, you're dealing with it with just

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Speaker 1: a culture and a legacy um of of danger upon

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Speaker 1: the sea and beneath the sea. Yes, so there were

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Speaker 1: those two things come together. I mean, here there'll be monsters,

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Speaker 1: right exactly. And because the sea, you know, a life

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Speaker 1: at sea has long I think, been associated with the

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Speaker 1: kind of with a kind of daring and bravado. Right.

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Speaker 1: But also I think there's another reason it was sort

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Speaker 1: of rational to believe in giant krakens that could pull

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Speaker 1: ships down to their doom. And it's that Poseidon is

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Speaker 1: one of the cruelest and most fickle of the gods.

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Speaker 1: That that's not an accident that the Greek myths are

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Speaker 1: like that it is not at all uncommon for ships

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Speaker 1: to set sail on the high seas and then just vanish,

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Speaker 1: leaving behind no trace. At all. Other times you might

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Speaker 1: find a giant, sturdy ship wrecked with no apparent cause,

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Speaker 1: like it's masked and rigging, smashed bits, with giant holes

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Speaker 1: blown in its solid hull. And when when you see

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Speaker 1: rex like this, uh, In fact, some of the Rex

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Speaker 1: I was looking at in preparation for this episode. It

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Speaker 1: calls to mind, uh, I was thinking about that poem

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Speaker 1: we've talked about on the show before, Alfred Lord Tennyson's

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Speaker 1: The Kraken, where you know, there's this beast battening upon

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Speaker 1: huge sea worms in his sleep until the latter fire

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Speaker 1: shall heat the deep and he comes up to the surface.

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Speaker 1: And of course in the poem he dies. But what's

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Speaker 1: more likely, say, he's actually gonna like punch a hole

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Speaker 1: right in the middle of your ship. Now, obviously there

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Speaker 1: are many ways for ships to wreck and sync causing

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Speaker 1: them to vanish without a trace. They can hit rocks,

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Speaker 1: they can hit hidden reefs, they can capsize and take

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Speaker 1: on water. But there is one particular phenomenon that sailors

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Speaker 1: have long been telling these dark, majestically terrifying stories about,

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Speaker 1: and it's something that could explain many sudden disappearances of

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Speaker 1: seagoing vessels if it was anything more than a fantasy.

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Speaker 1: And it's what you mentioned about the woodblock painting earlier.

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Speaker 1: The monster wave, the rogue wave also known as a

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Speaker 1: freak wave, which I like because it sounds like either

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Speaker 1: a musical subgenre or some sort of like misfit style

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Speaker 1: punk band, you know, freak wave. It's a genre that

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Speaker 1: mixes punk music with carnival music and circus music. No,

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Speaker 1: I you know, I say that, but I bet that's

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Speaker 1: actually a genre somewhere. Probably at this point all sub

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Speaker 1: genres exist. But so, yeah, the the idea of a

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Speaker 1: rogue wave or a monster waves, so we're not just

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Speaker 1: talking about rough seas in general, but a single gigantic wave,

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Speaker 1: an unbelievably high a wall of water that appears as

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Speaker 1: if out of nowhere and crashes over your ship like

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Speaker 1: a hammer of the sea gods, and so sailors have

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Speaker 1: talked about this, and we want to ask today, could

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Speaker 1: these tales be true? Do we now know whether they're true?

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Speaker 1: And could they explain many of histories vanished ships and

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Speaker 1: hulls broken like toys. Now at this point, I do

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Speaker 1: want to mention that in our research, I think we'd

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Speaker 1: hope to maybe throw in more like a giant wave myths,

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Speaker 1: more accounts from say, ancient histories of of giant waves

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Speaker 1: as opposed to organic sea monsters. And I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: they don't exist. They may very well exist. But I

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Speaker 1: had trouble finding them, and we're discussing why that might be.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we could go back to what you said earlier,

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Speaker 1: how a ship disappears at sea, perhaps caused by a

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Speaker 1: giant wave, and the story is about a sea monster,

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Speaker 1: or it becomes about an organic sea monster. Yes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And one point of parallel here is that obviously even

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Speaker 1: the ancient people's knew about the idea that the ship

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Speaker 1: could encounter, say, bad weather while I was out at sea,

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Speaker 1: and be wrecked and and all that. So it's not

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Speaker 1: like there was no other way for ships to sink.

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Speaker 1: But the way in which a rogue wave as a

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Speaker 1: concept resembles a sea monster is is that it's unexpected,

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Speaker 1: you know that, that it reaches up out of the deep,

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Speaker 1: that it's much higher than all the other waves in

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Speaker 1: the in the ocean, and it just takes you completely

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Speaker 1: by surprise. And that's key here. It's not a situation

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Speaker 1: of like, oh, suddenly all the waves were enormous. No,

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Speaker 1: suddenly one wave stands vastly um above all the others,

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Speaker 1: much like the mountain of a wave in the print

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Speaker 1: we were discussing at the top of the episode. Now,

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Speaker 1: obviously lots of ships in history of encountered rough seas,

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Speaker 1: like certain regions of the ocean and certain weather patterns

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Speaker 1: can generate lots of chop and high waves. But ships

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Speaker 1: are usually made to withstand bad weather. That's part of

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Speaker 1: what ship design is for. You know, you say, okay,

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Speaker 1: might encounter this kind of weather, so we need to

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Speaker 1: make it this amounts strong to withstand it. Right, Like,

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Speaker 1: if you know you're going around the cape, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: you're gonna build and sail vessels designed for for rough seas. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and these wave patterns have long been understood to be

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Speaker 1: predictable within certain parameters. You make a ship strong and

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Speaker 1: she'll hold. But what we're talking about with these monster

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Speaker 1: waves stories is a wave that suddenly appears without warning

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Speaker 1: and is at least twice as high as all the

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Speaker 1: other waves in the sea. And of course, when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about a wave of water that's twice as high

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Speaker 1: as the other waves around it, uh, it's something where

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Speaker 1: you know, the power and destructiveness of it doesn't just

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Speaker 1: scale linearly. You know, it becomes a new kind of

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Speaker 1: phenomenon you're dealing with. Now, I want to be I

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Speaker 1: want to be clear here that we're talking about true

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Speaker 1: rogue waves or monster waves, freak waves, etcetera. Here, Uh,

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Speaker 1: that do seem to come out of nowhere. And they're

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Speaker 1: not to be confused with giant waves generated by seismic activity,

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Speaker 1: right like underwater volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, or cascades like riding,

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Speaker 1: though those can be incredible and I mean, just for

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Speaker 1: an example, um, I was reading about the earthquake generated

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Speaker 1: tsunami in Alaska's LaToya Bay, which, according to Discover magazine,

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Speaker 1: was a four hundred feet taller than the Empire State Building. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're they're people have done like illustrations of this online.

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Speaker 1: You can find where it's It's just staggering like it

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Speaker 1: it created this. I think it was supposed to be

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Speaker 1: like seventeen hundred feet roughly. Yeah. According to the University

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Speaker 1: of Alaska Fairbanks quote, the earthquake shook loose millions of

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Speaker 1: cubic yards of dirt and rocks from a forty degree

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Speaker 1: slope in the northeast corner of the bay. The rock

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Speaker 1: mass displaced a large body of water, causing both of

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Speaker 1: the splash wave that rose to one thousand, seven hundred

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Speaker 1: forty feet and a gravity wave that was one fifty

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Speaker 1: feet high. At the head of the bay. The waves

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Speaker 1: sheared and stripped the bark from thousands of trees, some

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Speaker 1: of them four ft in diameter, just clear cut the

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Speaker 1: land next to the bay. Yeah, and this occurred in

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Speaker 1: night again, but they seem seemingly something like it occurred

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Speaker 1: at the same area in thirty six and also in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties and eighteen seventy four as well. So

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Speaker 1: that's just a taste of the destructive possibilities of seismically

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Speaker 1: generated waves in shallow coastal areas. Yeah, and of course

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Speaker 1: so we've got tsunamis as well. Tsunamis happen when something

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Speaker 1: happens out in the ocean. Uh, there's like an earthquake,

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Speaker 1: you know, shift in the sea floor and eruptions something

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Speaker 1: like that, and then there's a pressure wave that goes

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Speaker 1: throughout the water column towards the shore. As it nears

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Speaker 1: the shore. Of course, as it enters the shallow waters,

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Speaker 1: that's when it becomes really destructive because that mass of

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Speaker 1: pressure it rises up out of the water and it

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Speaker 1: you know, keeps coming and flooding against the shore, taking

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Speaker 1: whatever is on the shore along with it. Yeah. No, No, obviously,

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Speaker 1: atmospheric conditions are complicated, as we've discussed on the show before,

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Speaker 1: the complex systems, a lot of forces conversion together, it

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Speaker 1: becomes very difficult to predict atmospheric conditions and weather conditions

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Speaker 1: increasingly far in the future. And of course we have

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Speaker 1: a very similar situation with the movement of the fluids

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Speaker 1: in the ocean. But uh, but but with these cases,

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Speaker 1: they make a lot more sense to us, right, the tsunami,

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Speaker 1: the earthquake generated tsunami, because we can we can easily say, well,

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Speaker 1: this is the thing, this is the great event that

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Speaker 1: caused the great wave. And the idea of a wave

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Speaker 1: just coming out seemingly out of nowhere the sources as

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Speaker 1: is seeming a little more elusive, like it seems to

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Speaker 1: be emerging from the complex interplay of different storm patterns

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Speaker 1: and occurrents. Yeah, you might be just out in a

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Speaker 1: storm with waves that are pretty regular, certain height, coming

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Speaker 1: and going and going and going and going, and then

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Speaker 1: there's one suddenly the mountain arrives, or so the stories

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Speaker 1: tell us. Right, So the question is wind sailors tell

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Speaker 1: these stories? Are they true? And so I thought maybe

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Speaker 1: we should look at a couple of first hand accounts.

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Speaker 1: You ready, Robert, let's do it. Who's our first adventure? Well,

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Speaker 1: I thought we should turn to one first hand account

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Speaker 1: from the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, which came for the

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Speaker 1: famous voyage of the James Cared. Now, this voyage was

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Speaker 1: one part of the overall survival journey after the failure

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Speaker 1: of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition in a ship called the Endurance

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Speaker 1: that started in nineteen fourteen. And this is an absolutely

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Speaker 1: astounding survival story that is worth looking up if you've

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Speaker 1: never read it. And this is this is only one

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Speaker 1: part of the story, um, but the short version of

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Speaker 1: the context here was a nineteen fourteen Shackleton and crew

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Speaker 1: set out for Antarctica in this ship, the Endurance. But

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Speaker 1: the ship became trapped in ice in the wet El Sea,

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Speaker 1: and the ship eventually sank. And of course this was

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Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen or fifteen. You're in Antarctica that you know,

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Speaker 1: your ship sinking is sort of a death sentence. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean even today, it's very bad news. So the

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Speaker 1: crew made their way, you know, they're out there stranded,

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Speaker 1: and the crew made their way to an uninhabited island

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Speaker 1: known as Elephant Island. From after where the ship sank,

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Speaker 1: and Shackleton reasoned that their only hope of survival was

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Speaker 1: seeking help and enforcement from the island of South Georgia,

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Speaker 1: where he knew that there was a whaling station. So

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Speaker 1: if they got to where the people were at the

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Speaker 1: whaling station there, they could, you know, come back for

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Speaker 1: rescue with the bigger ship. But South Georgia was about

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Speaker 1: eight hundred miles or hundred kilometers away over terrible seas.

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Speaker 1: You know the seas around Antarctica are you know, there's

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Speaker 1: they're icy, there's rough, bad weather. It's not a place

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Speaker 1: to be sailing in an unreinforced vessel. And the only

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Speaker 1: viable vessel they had for making the voyage because remember

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Speaker 1: their ships, saying that the best thing they had to

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Speaker 1: use was a twenty two foot or about six and

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Speaker 1: a half meter lifeboat called the James Care. So Shackleton

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Speaker 1: and a few others that they left the rest of

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Speaker 1: the crew sheltered at Elephant Island, and they set out

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Speaker 1: on this brutal journey to get a rescue party, during

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Speaker 1: which they encountered ice and bad weather. The story is

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Speaker 1: harrowing and amazing. They talked about how you know ice

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Speaker 1: would keep building up on the boat because it's freezing,

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Speaker 1: and they'd be soaked by all these horrible waves that

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Speaker 1: are pounding on Them's freezing weather, and they'd have to

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Speaker 1: keep constantly chipping the ice off of the boat because

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Speaker 1: the ice would weigh the boat down and start to

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Speaker 1: make it sink um. And you know, this is a

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Speaker 1: this is like a multi week journey. And at one point,

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Speaker 1: while Shackleton was at the tiller of the boat, uh so,

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Speaker 1: there had been very bad weather, of course, and then

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Speaker 1: he's at the tiller one time and he thinks he

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Speaker 1: sees the clouds breaking and a clear sky up ahead.

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Speaker 1: And then I want to quote from Shackleton's own account, quote,

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Speaker 1: I called to the other men that the sky was clearing.

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Speaker 1: And then a moment later I realized that what I

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Speaker 1: had seen was not a rift in the clouds, but

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Speaker 1: the white crest of an enormous wave. During twenty six

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Speaker 1: years experience of the ocean, in all its moods, I

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Speaker 1: had not encountered a wave of so gigantic. It was

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Speaker 1: a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart

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Speaker 1: from the big, white capped seas that had been our

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Speaker 1: tireless enemies. For many days, I shouted, for God's sake,

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Speaker 1: hold on, it's got us. Then came a moment of

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Speaker 1: suspense that seemed drawn out into hours. White surge the

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Speaker 1: foam of the breaking sea around us. We felt our

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Speaker 1: boat lifted and flung forward like a cork and breaking surf.

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Speaker 1: We were in a seething chaos of tortured water, but

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Speaker 1: somehow the boat lived through it, half full of water,

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Speaker 1: sagging to the dead weight and shuddering under the blow.

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Speaker 1: We bailed with the energy of men fighting for life,

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Speaker 1: flinging the water over the sides, with every receptacle that

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Speaker 1: came to our hands, and after ten minutes of uncertainty,

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Speaker 1: we felt the boat renew her life beneath us. So

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Speaker 1: the fact that this giant wave did not sink or

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Speaker 1: just completely smash their tiny boat to pieces is one

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Speaker 1: of the many bizarre miracles of this unbelievable journey. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, you always have to wonder, like how things

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Speaker 1: like that happened, But apparently it did according to Shackleton's telling,

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Speaker 1: and the crew actually did manage to reach South Georgia.

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Speaker 1: According to an account by Gary Pearson, though after they

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Speaker 1: got ashore, in South Georgia. Quote at two am on

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Speaker 1: the first night ashore, Shackleton Oak, everyone shouting, look out boys,

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Speaker 1: hold on, it's going to break on us. It was

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Speaker 1: a nightmare. Shackleton thought that the black snow crested cliff

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Speaker 1: above them was a giant wave. Yeah. That that is

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Speaker 1: an impressive telling. And but yet at the same time,

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Speaker 1: you can easily go either way on it. Right, you

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Speaker 1: can say, well, all right, Shackleton is a trustworthy source

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Speaker 1: of information and this is what he saw. But then

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, we have to say he was

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Speaker 1: in an extreme situation. I mean, we've spoken before in

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Speaker 1: the show about how extreme conditionings can lead to seemingly

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Speaker 1: paranormal encounters. You know, if you've been awake for a

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Speaker 1: long time, if you're fighting for your survival, etcetera. And

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Speaker 1: all of those elements are are here. Yeah, and there

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Speaker 1: are problems with the plausibility of the story. I mean,

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Speaker 1: how did this wave not sink and kill them? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So whatever happened obviously made an impression. Like this consummate

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Speaker 1: survivor had nightmares not of sea monsters in the deep,

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Speaker 1: but of a lone killer wave rolling up out of

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Speaker 1: the ocean as high as a mountain side. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: so one thing about giant waves like this is that

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Speaker 1: if they exist, we shouldn't have necessarily expected to hear

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Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts of them all that often in history because

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Speaker 1: of a couple of things. Number one, of course, if

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Speaker 1: they do exist, for a long time people thought them

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Speaker 1: to be very rare. But on top of that, if

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Speaker 1: sailors in the wooden ships of olden days encountered a

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Speaker 1: wave like this, uh, there was not a good chance

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Speaker 1: of them living to tell about it. Right. The goliath

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Speaker 1: wave would just arise, suddenly, kill everyone, sink the ship,

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Speaker 1: and then melt back into the sea without a trace.

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Speaker 1: How would you how would you even know it had happened. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it would be like asking for eyewitness accounts of the

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Speaker 1: Grim Reaper. Yeah, because if if, if the reapers showing up,

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Speaker 1: But then it's probably doing its job. Yeah. But the

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Speaker 1: of course, Uh, Shackleton's story is not the only one.

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Speaker 1: There actually were a lot of stories like this. Many

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Speaker 1: mariners told these tales of a giant killer wave. In

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Speaker 1: the book Oceanography in the Days of Sale by Ian

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Speaker 1: Jones and Joyce Jones, the author is right about the

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Speaker 1: French naval explorer and scientists Dumont d'Urville and his his

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Speaker 1: disputes with the French scientists Francois Arago about the upper

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Speaker 1: limits of wave height quote when the astrolabe and that

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Speaker 1: was Derville ship. When the astrolabe in eighteen twenty six

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Speaker 1: was making its way across the southern stretches of the

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Speaker 1: Indian Ocean, it encountered a gale with mountainous seas in

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Speaker 1: which a man was lost overboard. Dumont d'Urville, in his narrative,

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Speaker 1: expressed the opinion that the waves reached a height of

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Speaker 1: at least eighty to a hundred feet in an era

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Speaker 1: when opinions were being expressed that no wave would exceed

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Speaker 1: thirty feet. Dumont d'urville's estimations were received, it seemed, with

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Speaker 1: some skepticism and France, while Arago rejected and even ridiculed

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Speaker 1: Derville's claim. Basically, you know this is just a semen's fancy. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He referred in writing to the quote truly prodigious waves

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Speaker 1: with which the lively imagination of certain navigators delights in

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Speaker 1: covering the seas. That sounded like a burn. That was

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Speaker 1: a bit of a burn. I think Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: he was being a bit dismissive here, but maybe we

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Speaker 1: should take a break and then we come back. We

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Speaker 1: can talk about some physical evidence that actually points to

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Speaker 1: the existence of waves like this. Thank alright, we're back.

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Speaker 1: We've we've discussed accounts anecdotal evidence of giant waves, of

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Speaker 1: freak waves, of rogue waves. But now we're going to

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Speaker 1: get into what the science has to say. What what

402
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:30,600
Speaker 1: kind of proof is there, if any, to substantiate these claims, Right,

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00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: you'd want some kind of physical evidence other than just

404
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Speaker 1: people saying they saw a giant wave, because people say

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Speaker 1: they saw all sorts of things. But uh, you know, ultimately,

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Speaker 1: this is why we have science. This is why we

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Speaker 1: have a recording equipment. This is so we can actually

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00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 1: validate that that waves of this nature exists. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so we talked about the French scientists France while Rago

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Speaker 1: being severely doubting that waves like this existed. And from

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Speaker 1: a scientific point of view, there had long been reason

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Speaker 1: to doubt these accounts of gigantic monster or waves. Not

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Speaker 1: that it was impossible for a giant wave to exist,

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Speaker 1: but that monstrous waves of the kind reported by mariners,

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Speaker 1: you know, the kind that would cause some of the

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Speaker 1: damage attributed to them. They were thought to only come

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Speaker 1: about on the scale of maybe once in hundreds or

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Speaker 1: thousands of years. You know, it's like the thousand year

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Speaker 1: storm kind of thing. So like every thousand years a

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Speaker 1: wave like this might occur, but then then just might

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Speaker 1: not be people around to see it. Yeah, exactly. So

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Speaker 1: you know, you've got this question where Shackleton and all

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Speaker 1: these others exaggerating, hallucinating misremembering was this the was the

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Speaker 1: mountain that flows like a mermaid or something. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, you have that argument, right that maybe

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Speaker 1: they're just not occurring enough for anyone to ever see them.

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Speaker 1: So it doesn't seem right that we have numerous accounts

428
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 1: um where where people say they witnessed them. But of

429
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: course we also have to consider that, you know the

430
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 1: fact that ships and seamen again have always gone missing

431
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 1: like this. You look to the uh, the sheer number

432
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: of shipwrecks, you look to accounts of human activities on

433
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:01,160
Speaker 1: the sea. Ships have always sunctions, have always encountered bad

434
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 1: weather or various other uh, you know, things that would

435
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:08,960
Speaker 1: cause them to perish. Yeah, and another thing we should

436
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:12,199
Speaker 1: think about is that ships sink and disappear at a

437
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 1: rate that would absolutely set our hair on fire if

438
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 1: it was like airplanes or something. You know, if there's

439
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:21,640
Speaker 1: like one major airline crash, people freak out, but ships

440
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: go missing or sink all the time. Yeah, I was

441
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: looking around for some stats on this and today and again,

442
00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 1: as humans command the sea more than ever before, more

443
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: ships are on the sea than than at any point

444
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: in human history, and we're looking at a loss of

445
00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 1: something like a hundred large vessels every year. Yeah, it's

446
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 1: about an average. Yeah, Yeah, I've seen it all since.

447
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 1: The stat also thrown out there that it basically amounts

448
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 1: to two vessels per week, and that's just large vessels.

449
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: When you add in smaller vessels, it's even more. Yeah.

450
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: And now, and of course, some of these are gonna

451
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,239
Speaker 1: be clear cases right where they say, oh, you know

452
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: this was the ships sunk because you know, it ran

453
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: aground here, some sort of a collision here, etcetera. But

454
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 1: in other cases it could inevitably remain a mystery. Is

455
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 1: just you know, a case by case scenario. So we

456
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:08,239
Speaker 1: have to ask these cases of the mysterious cases, uh,

457
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 1: the very sort of case that may have led to

458
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:14,639
Speaker 1: various nautical superstitions like the Bermuda triangle. Uh and then

459
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: an olden times sea monsters. Could these be due to

460
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: some manner of rogue wave? Yeah, exactly. And so to

461
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: answer that question, I think one good thing, just one

462
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:27,920
Speaker 1: good place to start, and where people did look for

463
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: a long time was for physical evidence of damage caused

464
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: by rogue waves. Yeah and uh. And for the longest

465
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: we simply didn't have any solid evidence and we didn't

466
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 1: have any evidence of them, a solid evidence of them occurring.

467
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: We didn't have footage or anything. Uh. So all we

468
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:46,919
Speaker 1: still had were just those, um those various bits of

469
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:51,399
Speaker 1: anecdotal and from anecdotal evidence and then experts weighing in

470
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:54,160
Speaker 1: on what seemed possible and likely. But of course, if

471
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: waves like this were occurring, they should in some ways

472
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 1: cause damage that we should be able to see and

473
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 1: detect act because, I mean, what water is amazingly powerful. People,

474
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: we do not have good intuitions about the physical power

475
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: of moving water. Uh. This may come from our experience,

476
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 1: like swimming for pleasure or splashing in a bathtub. You know,

477
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: we're moving water just glides gently and gracefully around the body,

478
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: causing no harm at all. But our intuitions about water

479
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: really fail when we encounter large masses of fast moving fluids.

480
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: Like the way people behave in flash floods is a

481
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:30,680
Speaker 1: great example of this. You will a lot of times

482
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 1: see people who appear to think they can just wade

483
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: through knee high moving floodwaters, only to discover tragically that

484
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 1: it just washes you away instantly, or in any case

485
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 1: they think they can drive through. Oh yeah, and and

486
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: it's tragic, but it it's It reflects the fact that

487
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 1: our intuitions about the power of moving water are not good.

488
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: We underestimate it. Likewise with giant waves. You know, we

489
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:55,679
Speaker 1: may be used to playing in the surf on a

490
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: beach vacation or something where the waves are harmless. They're fun,

491
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: you can glide with pleasure or over each peak and trough.

492
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: But sufficiently huge walls of moving water that are moving

493
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 1: fast can act more or less like huge walls of

494
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: concrete smashing right into you at speed, just like tsunamis

495
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 1: can you know, tear down solid buildings and trees. A

496
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: giant wave of crashing into a ship or a structure

497
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: can cause devastating physical damage. It hits, it moves, it

498
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: twists the structure. I mean it, it's like a hand

499
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: of a god indeed, and besides a heavy hitter. Yeah.

500
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: So if you ask, was there ever physical damage that

501
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: would indicate the existence of seemingly impossible rogue waves, like

502
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: before we had direct records of one, I think the

503
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: answer is yes, there were. There were some very chilling

504
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: and mysterious clues left in the wreckage of battered ships

505
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: and structures in or near the water. Uh. There there

506
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: are stories going way back to like waves crashing against

507
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: lighthouses that that are so far up off the water

508
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: it seems impossible that like a wave could have damaged them.

509
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: You know, lighthouses more than a hundred feet up off

510
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: the normal waterline, with windows smashed out and stuff like that,

511
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,160
Speaker 1: and you'd be like, how did that happen? In N two,

512
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: the mobile offshore drilling platform, the Ocean Ranger, was apparently

513
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: damaged by a giant wave off the coast of Canada.

514
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: Its sustained damage to its ballast control room, which only

515
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: could have happened if there was an extremely high wave,

516
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: and this led to a chain reaction of events that

517
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: caused the platform to sink and tragically all eighty four

518
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: crew members died. Everyone aboard died when this thing sank.

519
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: But there were also there there have been stories all

520
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: throughout the twentieth century of like ocean liners about you know,

521
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: passenger vessels and cargo vessels and naval vessels that would

522
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 1: report being suddenly hit by a giant wave that the

523
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 1: just ricked havoc upon the ship. You know, it would

524
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 1: damage the bridge, it would rip off the mast and rigging.

525
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 1: Sometimes it would rip away lifeboats that were like you know,

526
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: had steel bolts holding them in place. Things that wouldn't

527
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: make sense if it was just rocking in normal bad weather.

528
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: But even with all this physical evidence of of structures

529
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: and ships being hit by these powerful events, it will

530
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: still be hard to meassure and confirm the existence of

531
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: these giant rogue waves firsthand, because number one, you can't

532
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: predict in advance when one will appear, Like there are

533
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 1: obviously better places and times to look for them, but

534
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: you can't know when one's going to happen or where.

535
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: And then if when one does show up, you suddenly

536
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: have a number of priorities, yeah, exactly ahead of perhaps

537
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: recording it. And that being said, we are increasingly in

538
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: an age of just ubiquitous recording equipment. So who knows

539
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: what the very near future will bring. Yeah, and so

540
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: when one does appear that there's generally not time to

541
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:41,800
Speaker 1: react and track and observe it, like you're saying, it's

542
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: just there, and then within a few seconds you will

543
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: very possibly be dead. So the key here really is

544
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: to to not, of course, not just depend on eyewitness accounts,

545
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: which we already had, and of course there's an inherent

546
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: problem there, uh, and we can't go looking for them,

547
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: uh per se because their difficulties there. What you need

548
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: are essentially machine recordings, passive detections, some sort of detection

549
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: system that that will say, it will tell you like

550
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: what what sort of wave activity is occurring near a

551
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: given vessel or a near a given offshore platform and

552
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: one that is lucky or unlucky enough to catch one

553
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: in the act. And so the history of rogue wave

554
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: of science I think really changed in nine right, because

555
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: that's when we finally did get this this sort of evidence.

556
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: So it was January one in the North Sea, uh,

557
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: the North Sea platform drop Ner, which is a gas platform.

558
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: This is built in nineteen eighty four and it consists

559
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 1: of seven risers and even today it's an important complex

560
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: in the Norwegian oil industry. So this would be situated

561
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: like in the North Sea between Norway and Scotland. Basically, yeah,

562
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: so what's your you know, this is like these are

563
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 1: rough seas. Yeah, But on this particular day, equipment aboard

564
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: the platform, namely a downward look laser recorded a monster

565
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: of a wave, so significant wave height in the area.

566
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: This is just like the average sort of wave height

567
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: that was occurring was already twelve meters or thirty nine

568
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: point thirty seven feet. Okay, so everything was already like really,

569
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: that's that sounds horrible. I would not I wouldn't want

570
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 1: to be anywhere near that. You know, you don't want

571
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: to take your James Carrot out on that, right. But then,

572
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: according to the data, a wave rolled in that was

573
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: twenty five point six meters high or a three point

574
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: nine feet Now, as is often the case, you you

575
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: might just hear a number and it might not mean

576
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: anything to you, but do your best to stop for

577
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: a second here and picture it. Yeah, we're talking a

578
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: seven story building of a wave and uh, and it's

579
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: coming at the platform and indeed the platform sustained Uh,

580
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: minor damage, luckily, but that damage was enough to to

581
00:30:57,360 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: verify the reality of the wave. So, in other words,

582
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: showing that this wasn't just a recording anomaly where you know,

583
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: the laser went wonky or something a seagull flew undwritten

584
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,239
Speaker 1: or whatever would cause it to to to produce some

585
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: sort of an anomaly. Uh No, we also have the

586
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: physical damage to the structure to back up what happened. Yeah,

587
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: so they've got the they've got the accurate scientific reading

588
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: from this instrument, and they've got corroborating evidence. So it

589
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 1: wasn't just a freak measurement. It was in fact a

590
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: freak wave, a rogue wave. And so in the first

591
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: day of the new year, we entered an era in

592
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: which the rogue wave was no longer purely a myth.

593
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: It was a reality. And from there we enter the

594
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:43,479
Speaker 1: decades of figuring out, well, what's the frequency, what's the cause,

595
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: and ultimately what is the risk. Yeah, now, so you

596
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 1: might ask the question, Okay, we've just been talking about

597
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: big waves, what is a rogue wave? Technically I think

598
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: I alluded to this earlier, but a rogue wave is

599
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: defined in relative terms, right, So it's a wave that's

600
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: greater than twice the size of all the other waves

601
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: in the same area at the same time. Uh. And yes,

602
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 1: a rogue waves do occur even in the context of

603
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: very powerful regular wave patterns. So even in places where

604
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: the waves are unusually high and choppy, you can get

605
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: these things that stand out that are more than twice

606
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: as tall as the other waves around them. Because again

607
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: this North Sea example, like, those were some pretty tall waves.

608
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: I mean, what are we talking earlier about, um in

609
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: about earlier experts thinking that like thirty feet was more

610
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: or less the limited. Yeah, that that was long believed

611
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: to be about where waves capped off at least in

612
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: the kind of conditions you'd expect every year. Right, and

613
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: so the the just the ambient wave height in the

614
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: in the area was already uh, in excess of that. Now,

615
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:45,959
Speaker 1: I guess maybe we should talk about how rogue waves

616
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: exactly cause damage to ships, right, because there there are

617
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: multiple waves that being hit by this flowing mountain, this

618
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: giant wall of water can sink you and destroy you.

619
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: Of course, any time a ship is hit by a wave,

620
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: it's physical structure can just be directly damaged by like

621
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: the force of the impact and this is this is

622
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: especially relevant to the superstructure of a ship's superstructure is

623
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: what you call all that stuff that's sticking up off

624
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: the top of the hull, like the mast, the rigging,

625
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 1: the bridge, the lifeboats. It can all be smashed two

626
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: bits or ripped apart. And of course a lake's worth

627
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: of water is going to wash over the top of

628
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: the vessel. And if there's a wave for the vessel

629
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: to take this water on, it very well can do that.

630
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,479
Speaker 1: So that's your first problem. And I think that's an

631
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: easy one to miss because again, like you said, we

632
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: we just we often don't think about just the sheer

633
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: punch of that water, especially when it is like a

634
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: fist the size of of of lake's worth of water. Yeah. Well,

635
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: just imagine you are standing in the bridge of the

636
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: ship and this wall of water comes across you. So

637
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,720
Speaker 1: it washes over the hull, it washes over the deck,

638
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: and it smashes into the bridge. And what what very

639
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: well could happen there is if you know, if the

640
00:33:57,560 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: bridge is not in some significant way destroyed, it may

641
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: well smashed through all the windows and throw all that

642
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: glass at you and wash into the bridge. But so

643
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 1: if it hits a ship laterally, like hits a ship

644
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: on the side, the ship can be capsized to buy

645
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,919
Speaker 1: a rogue wave, flipped over on its side or upside down,

646
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: which of course can lead to foundering. You don't want

647
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 1: your ship sideways, um if it gets If a ship

648
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: gets hit head on by a rogue wave, this can

649
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: also harm. It caused major problems. It can lead to

650
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: the bow or the stern or the ship being lifted

651
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,399
Speaker 1: in an angle up out of the water. And if

652
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 1: it's a large ship, this can be really dangerous because Robert,

653
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: you remember that scene in Titanic, you know where the

654
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:40,280
Speaker 1: ship starts sinking from the bow in and the stern

655
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 1: of the boat is lifted up at an angle in

656
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: the air. Shipholes are extremely heavy and they're not designed

657
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: to withstand sheer stresses on the hull of that immensity,

658
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: Like the structure can't support half of the way to

659
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: the ship hanging up in the air. So the Titanic,

660
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: of course kind of cracked like a celery stalk. I

661
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: think I was reading that. The main theory now is

662
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: that the crack started at the bottom at a week

663
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: point along the base of the ship, and then it

664
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: just cracked off, and then the bow sank, and then

665
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:12,879
Speaker 1: the stern bobbed for a bit and then sank as well.

666
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 1: But of course giant waves can cause other large ships

667
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: to do the same. So if the wave washes over you,

668
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: you can end up with one end of the ship

669
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:24,359
Speaker 1: sort of lifted poking up out of the water as

670
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: it comes out of this wave motion, and that stress

671
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,279
Speaker 1: can crack or or otherwise significantly damaged the hull, which

672
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: of course again can make you sink. So there there

673
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: are a lot of ways that a giant wave can

674
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: mess you up. You just don't want them at all.

675
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take one more break. When we

676
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 1: come back, we're gonna discuss some of the causes for

677
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: rogue waves and also a very recent paper that explored

678
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: the question just how often are these occurring and how

679
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:54,359
Speaker 1: powerful are they? All Right, we're back. So we're looking

680
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: at the question first of what causes rogue waves, and

681
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 1: this is not a fully settled question. I think that

682
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:03,840
Speaker 1: there are some, uh some competing and not necessarily mutually

683
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: exclusive hypotheses here, right, So first let's go back to

684
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 1: the dropping or wave for a moment. According to the

685
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: European Center for Medium range weather forecasts, high resolution retrospective forecasts, forecasts,

686
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: I mean's going backwards in time retrocasts. UM. Quote suggests

687
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: that waves driven by a southward moving polar low interacted

688
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:30,840
Speaker 1: with a substantial local wind generated wave system to produce

689
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: the conditions conducive to the observed large rogue wave. And

690
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: that's from work by Bitlow at all. Okay, so that's

691
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 1: saying that there are there were conflicting wave patterns that

692
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 1: that came together in a way that they think created

693
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: this massive wave. It was something about the way that

694
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:52,439
Speaker 1: these two different patterns interacted when they when they crashed together. Right.

695
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: And you know, again storm systems, weather and the movement

696
00:36:56,560 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 1: to the ocean. These are complex systems that are often

697
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 1: difficult force to understand. I think we can all understand

698
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: the power of convergence, you know, when you have have

699
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: I mean, we see this is something that's understandable about whether, right,

700
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: we have two fronts coming together. Um, you know, we

701
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: realize that can be bad news. Um and uh, and

702
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: so it's seemingly we've had a similar situation here. Um,

703
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: there's two energetic systems coming together and it creates conditions

704
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: that are optimal for this extra large wave to rise

705
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: up out of the sea. And I'll talk more about

706
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: stuff like that in just a minute. They also point

707
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: to the work of cavalry at all from and they

708
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: point out that also that we shouldn't think of rogue

709
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: waves as ultrawere altra rare once a generation occurrences. Rather quote,

710
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: such waves are a regular part of large storms and

711
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: coming across them is just a matter of probability, depending

712
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: on the spatial and temporal scales considered. So the dropping

713
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: a wave was probably a result of these two crossing

714
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: low frequency wave systems, and it's it's, it's and it

715
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: may be more calm than we initially thought, especially with

716
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: fast moving storms. Yeah, so what exactly is like the

717
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 1: physical mechanism that causes them in these situations, Well, that's

718
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: still being investigated. But there do appear to be several

719
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: potential causes and explanations. Like I said, I think these

720
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: are not mutually exclusive, like some might explain some rogue

721
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: waves and others might explain others. According to the n

722
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: o A, A picks out a couple of main ones

723
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: that it identifies as as the primary candidates. One is

724
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: wave interference. So when you study the propagation of waves,

725
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 1: and this is not just waves in water. This is

726
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: waves of all kinds like electromagnetic radiation waves, sound waves,

727
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: waves through matter like like you see in water. When

728
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 1: you see these uh, when you look at the propagation

729
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: of these types of waves, you begin to see that

730
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:49,280
Speaker 1: when patterns of waves come into contact with one another,

731
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: they create an interference pattern. And this means that waves can,

732
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: for example, sort of cancel each other out. This is

733
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: also known as destructive interference. You might have seen a

734
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 1: demonstration of this with like speakers. If you take like

735
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: sound speakers and you place them at just the perfect

736
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: distance apart away from you, the sound waves can actually

737
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: cancel each other out, and suddenly you're not hearing the

738
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: sound they're making anymore. But if you turn off one

739
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 1: of the speakers, then you can hear it again because

740
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: they're not canceling each other out anymore. So that's destructive interference.

741
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 1: When the peaks and the troughs are um are alternating

742
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,479
Speaker 1: canceling each other out. But peaks and troughs can also

743
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: line up to multiply one another into giant waves, and

744
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: this is known as constructive interference. Ironically, it's the constructive

745
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: interference that is destructive to our stuff, our ships, and

746
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: our structures. Uh. So that's one thing, just the normal

747
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: kinds of wave wave interference patterns. Another thing sounds like

748
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: it taps into the explanation we were just discussing, and

749
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 1: that's the interaction of water currents with wave patterns created

750
00:39:56,880 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: by storms. Essentially, when the current is flowing one way

751
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:04,919
Speaker 1: and storm winds are pushing surface waves the opposite way,

752
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: this can cause an interaction that shortens the frequency of waves,

753
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: and this sometimes leads to waves joining together and forming

754
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:16,319
Speaker 1: these gigantic rogue waves. But there's one other major proposed

755
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,319
Speaker 1: mechanism or proposed explanation I was reading about two. Uh,

756
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 1: and this is a hypothesis that deals with nonlinear effects.

757
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 1: So the details of this are far over my head,

758
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: but I'll do my best. Basically, some research shows that

759
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 1: you can actually predict the formation of rogue waves if

760
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:37,799
Speaker 1: you model ocean waves with reference to to a nonlinear

761
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: version of the Shreddinger equation, which of course we normally

762
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: would use to model the behavior of objects at the

763
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: quantum scale, such as individual atoms. But the the interesting

764
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 1: thing about matter about objects at the quantum scale, like

765
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: atoms or electrons or photons. Is that in many ways

766
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: they seem to behave like waves. You know, that's one

767
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 1: of the great paradoxes of quantum mechanics, is well, how

768
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: can a particle behave like a wave pattern? But the

769
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: shredding your equation and it's highly predictive. It tells us yes,

770
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: they do in fact behave like a wave pattern, and

771
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 1: you need to model them like a wave pattern or

772
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 1: you can't predict what they're gonna do. So the shredding

773
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: your equation is is useful at modeling and predicting these

774
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 1: behavior of these wave patterns. But but also apparently the

775
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: non linear version of it is relevant to predicting the

776
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: behavior of waves at large scale, like waves in the ocean.

777
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: And the mathematical functions underlying this explanation, Like I said,

778
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: they're way over my head. But essentially it's a model

779
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: that shows how normal interacting wave patterns, just you know,

780
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:41,399
Speaker 1: standard waves going back and forth in the ocean can

781
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 1: sometimes become unstable and result in one wave, one wave

782
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 1: peak leaching or sucking energy from the surrounding wave peaks,

783
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: reducing the surrounding waves, and this one wave becoming huge

784
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: in the process, so that that's another proposed explanation. So

785
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,240
Speaker 1: where are we earlier or in our understanding of rogue waves.

786
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,319
Speaker 1: That's probably the next logical question to get to, because

787
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: if we've discussed already, it's like we we've we we

788
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,439
Speaker 1: haven't known for sure they exist for too terribly long,

789
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: and we're still we're still competing or multiple scenarios that

790
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: may explain how they're occurring. Well, I looked to a

791
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen research paper from the University of Southampton

792
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: in the UK, and basically what they did is they

793
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: looked at that they decided to take. Instead of like

794
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 1: a global look at the data, they tried to isolate it. Uh.

795
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 1: They looked to fifteen different buoys on the US West

796
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,280
Speaker 1: then cboard, and they looked at a twenty year window,

797
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: So we're looking at ninety four through as being the

798
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: window of data that they were looking at isolated to

799
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: this this region. And uh, this study revealed the following. So,

800
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,120
Speaker 1: first of all, rogue waves vary greatly depending on the

801
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: area of sea and the time period focused on the

802
00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: first part of that I think makes sense because we

803
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: discussed it just needs to be twice as big as

804
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 1: the as the waves in the area. And also this

805
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: is very key. Across to the two decade windows studied,

806
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,800
Speaker 1: instances of rogue waves fell slightly, while the size of

807
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: the individual waves increased. Okay, so there's less of them,

808
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: but they're more powerful when you do get them right.

809
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: Kind of a good news, bad day situation, right. Uh.

810
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: They also found found that you know, rogue waves are

811
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: more prevalent, prevalent and uh and severe in winter months,

812
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: and they're they're happening with increasing frequency within calmer background seas.

813
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. Now we know from previous just first

814
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: of all, from anecdotes, you know, common sailor's knowledge, but

815
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 1: also I think from more recent research that there are

816
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: rogue wave hot spots in the world where there's particularly

817
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 1: dangerous sorts of interaction between ocean currents and weather. I know,

818
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: for example, one place that's believed to be a rogue

819
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 1: wave of hot spot is like the southern Cape of Africa.

820
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: You know, if you're you're going around the Cape of

821
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: Good Hope, it's long been understood as treacherous waters. Yeah,

822
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: but you know, it long believed to be a place

823
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: of bad weather, but also apparently a place of rogue waves,

824
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:13,240
Speaker 1: So everyone's probably wondering, well, how often are these things occurring? Again,

825
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 1: there was once this idea that these were once in

826
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: a lifetime events that it was it was like seeing

827
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 1: a unicorn on the high seas. But it looks like

828
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,720
Speaker 1: now we're talking many times per day in the global

829
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: ocean um and then you know, that's a ship. That's

830
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 1: a concern for ships at sea, not only you know,

831
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: the global shipping industry, but other vessels as well. H

832
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: A two thousand four study identified more than ten giant

833
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 1: waves above the twenty five meter or eighty two footmark

834
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 1: uh during a near three week window. Yeah, it's one

835
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: of those things that makes you thankful that the ocean

836
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: is big and we're not on most of it most

837
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:53,359
Speaker 1: of the time. But there's a lot of us out

838
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: there and a lot of our stuff out there at

839
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:57,839
Speaker 1: any given time. Also, again, yeah we're there. There's more

840
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: human activity on the oceans than every or before. Uh.

841
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 1: Just to give everyone a taste of just that the

842
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: shipping industry alone, because because the shipping industry is huge,

843
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: it's easy to take for granted, but it is how uh,

844
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: most of the goods make their way around the world.

845
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: They're not traveling by airplane, they're traveling via ships. Uh.

846
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: Quin I found some good stats on this from the

847
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: International Chamber of Shipping. So, first of all, the international

848
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: shipping industry is responsible for the carriage of around nine

849
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: of world trade, and a given ship shipping vessel, we're

850
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: talking of a two hundred million dollar investment. Like that's

851
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: the when when you see these ships that are laden

852
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 1: with shipping containers, Uh, that's a two hundred million dollar vessel.

853
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:40,760
Speaker 1: You're probably looking at the operation of merchant ships generates

854
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: an estimated annual income of over half a trillion US

855
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:48,239
Speaker 1: dollars and freight rates. They're over fifty thousand merchant ships

856
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: trading internationally, transporting every kind of cargo. And the world

857
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 1: fleet and shipping is it's in over a hundred and

858
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 1: fifty nations and manned by over a million seafares of

859
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:04,319
Speaker 1: virtually every nationality. So it's it's immense and there's more

860
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 1: of it than ever before. And then we have these

861
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,399
Speaker 1: waves out there. Yeah, and so the idea that these

862
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:14,280
Speaker 1: waves could be increasing in intensity or becoming more dangerous,

863
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: that's pretty scary because it doesn't just mean like it's

864
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,439
Speaker 1: scarier for people who physically go out on the water.

865
00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: Of course, it certainly is, but it also represents a

866
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: threat to UH, to the world economy, you know, the

867
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: economics of goods moving back and forth. Um. And then

868
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: just some more data from this particular paper, the University

869
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: of Southampton paper UH, just considering the u s West Coast,

870
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 1: which was the focus of his study. They say that

871
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:44,840
Speaker 1: here you have of total US containerized trade and that

872
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: this is the largest u AS gateway for container vessels. UH.

873
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: And even when ships are not sunk or capsized by

874
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: a wave like this, there's still the risk of rogue

875
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: wave induced collisions. So you know, that's another thing to consider.

876
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 1: If you have two boats that are near each other, uh,

877
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,720
Speaker 1: and you have an enormous wave of disrupting the waters,

878
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: then there's a possibility that things could slam together, which

879
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: they're certainly not designed to do. Then, on top of that,

880
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:11,439
Speaker 1: this is a region where there's just a high volume

881
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: of tanker, bolt carrier, roll on, roll off, passenger fishing ships, um.

882
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,280
Speaker 1: You know, all focused around the ports in the region.

883
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 1: And then of course you have a fair amount of

884
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 1: activity just to service offshore structures in the oil and

885
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: gas industry. Coming back to in our examples with oil platforms.

886
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 1: Earlier rogue waves have also swept people out to sea

887
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: in California and Oregon and uh And then one other point,

888
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: the researchers indicated the global climate change isn't necessarily a

889
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:44,440
Speaker 1: factor in all of this. Part of this is that

890
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: there's just a great deal of oscillation with with with

891
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: the size of these waves, and we're dealing with such

892
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 1: a complex system and we have only two decades of

893
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 1: rogue wave data to deal with here. But at the

894
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:58,439
Speaker 1: same time, they don't seem to be ruling it out.

895
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 1: I mean cause of increasing energy, right, if the sea

896
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: levels arising in the oceans are getting warmer and you're

897
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 1: getting more intense weather patterns. Yeah, So basically they're not

898
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 1: saying it's not the cause. You're just saying we were

899
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 1: not presenting that with this data. Ultimately, they again only

900
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: two decades worth of data to go on here. I

901
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:19,279
Speaker 1: was reading an interview from back in two thousand and

902
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:21,879
Speaker 1: ten with the author Susan Casey, who wrote a book

903
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 1: that I read a few years ago and I absolutely loved.

904
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 1: It's sort of a half memoir, half science book about

905
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 1: the Fara Lawn Islands off the off sort of around

906
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,280
Speaker 1: where San Francisco is um and and about great white sharks,

907
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: and that that book was called The Devil's Teeth. But

908
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: this interview was about another book she wrote, apparently a

909
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 1: book about giant waves called The Wave of published in

910
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, And in the interview she talks about

911
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:48,279
Speaker 1: how companies that right insurance policies for maritime voyages are

912
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,280
Speaker 1: concerned about increasing risk, and part of this risk seems

913
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: to be concerned about rogue waves. She says, quote Lloyd's

914
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: of London. Of course, you know, big maritime insurer Lloyd's

915
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 1: of London. Is that really quite concerned about cruise ships?

916
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:03,960
Speaker 1: One of the guys said to me, this is a

917
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: high concentration of risk. You've got five thousand people on

918
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: boats that are getting bigger and bigger, and they're going

919
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:13,319
Speaker 1: into gnarly or and gnarly or places. They're all over Antarctica. Now.

920
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 1: For example, recently one of the hardier cruise ships got

921
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 1: hit by a hundred foot rogue wave and all of

922
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: its navigation equipment got knocked out and the windows got broken.

923
00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:25,879
Speaker 1: During another recent cruise in Antarctica, all all the people

924
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,320
Speaker 1: ended up in the water, which isn't a good situation.

925
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:30,960
Speaker 1: By the grace of God, there was another boat nearby.

926
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: Now we're talking about big picture risk here. I just

927
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: want to stress that we're not true more in this episode.

928
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: We're not attempting to scare you out of your next

929
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: oceanic voyage, cruise or anything of that nature. Though I

930
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 1: think if that were our goal, we could do a

931
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 1: very good job of it. But well, no, that is

932
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:50,719
Speaker 1: not our goal. I mean, but yeah, there are obviously

933
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:55,920
Speaker 1: um going to be huge risks to ocean ocean voyages

934
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: of all kinds, and one of the biggest impacts that

935
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: would be there would obviously be trade. I do think

936
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: it's interesting that there are still, uh such mysterious, unresolved

937
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:10,720
Speaker 1: questions about the behavior of waves of waves in the ocean.

938
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:12,839
Speaker 1: I mean, this seems like something that people have been

939
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 1: aware of for a very long time, been studying for

940
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: a very long time. But it's one of those kind

941
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:20,760
Speaker 1: of chaotic and complex things that maybe we don't often

942
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:24,359
Speaker 1: stop to to appreciate the mystery and majesty of what's

943
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,320
Speaker 1: easy to just watch wave activity in the ocean, you know,

944
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: said on the beach or on the deck of a

945
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,399
Speaker 1: ship and watch the waves, and it's calming, and it's

946
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 1: it's rhythmic. There seems to be a I mean, there

947
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 1: is an order to it, but it seems to there

948
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,759
Speaker 1: seems to be an order that we can grasp, that

949
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 1: we can that we can understand from a human perspective.

950
00:50:43,239 --> 00:50:46,520
Speaker 1: And of course, really it's it's ultimately more the domain

951
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: of of increasingly complex um computer simulation programs, if not

952
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: the machinations of some sort of vengeful sea God. Well,

953
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons we're so tempted to

954
00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:01,840
Speaker 1: wish to think of the waves as regular as because

955
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 1: we can listen to them is because it's auditory. Because

956
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 1: it's auditory information instead of just being visual information. It

957
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:11,720
Speaker 1: assumes a kind of background rhythm whenever we're by the ocean,

958
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 1: or we hear something recorded by the ocean, or we're

959
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 1: on the ocean. Uh, you know, the the wave activity

960
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 1: becomes the steady, reliable percussion of our lives. And then

961
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,240
Speaker 1: the idea that one of these waves could suddenly reach

962
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:27,720
Speaker 1: out and be not like the others, be this angry

963
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 1: hand of God feels like a violation of what nature

964
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 1: has asked us to expect. Yeah, the white noise app

965
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 1: that I used to sleep every night. Never gives me

966
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: a rogue way. This is always just consistent calming oceanic activity.

967
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: You know what if it just suddenly screamed your name?

968
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: All right, well there you have it. You know, as

969
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:49,359
Speaker 1: as we've mentioned before, you know, we were both landsmen here,

970
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:51,840
Speaker 1: so we would love to hear from the sea folk

971
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: out there. Uh. If you have any anything to add

972
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:58,359
Speaker 1: on this, have you encountered uh sizeable waves or even

973
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,759
Speaker 1: if you have, you witnessed or seeing the handiwork of

974
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,400
Speaker 1: something that could be classified as a rogue wave, we

975
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,719
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. Absolutely. Ye. Please get

976
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: in touch. In the meantime. If you want to listen

977
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 1: to this episode or more episodes of Stuff to Blow

978
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:13,359
Speaker 1: your Mind, head on over to stuff to Blow your

979
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That's where you'll find the landing page

980
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: for this episode. Uh, and that also features the the

981
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: artwork the Great Wave off kind of God what. You

982
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: can see this image in case you're not sure you've

983
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,279
Speaker 1: seen it before, and if you want to interact with

984
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,400
Speaker 1: other listeners, be sure to head on over to the

985
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,280
Speaker 1: discussion module. It's called Stuff to Blow your Mind Discussion Module.

986
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 1: It is a Facebook group. Uh, it is. It's a

987
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:37,839
Speaker 1: pretty decent place as far as social media goes. Uh,

988
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:41,720
Speaker 1: one of my more one of my few preferred social

989
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:44,839
Speaker 1: media destinations these days. Literally the only reason I still

990
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:48,359
Speaker 1: have a Facebook account, So make it your reason as well,

991
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 1: and as always too, if you want to. If you

992
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 1: want to support our show, you know you can buy

993
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,319
Speaker 1: some merchandise through our T shirts store. That's always appreciated.

994
00:52:56,680 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 1: But the best thing you can do is just to

995
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: rate and review the show where you have the power

996
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 1: to do so, and tell a friend if an episode

997
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,399
Speaker 1: really resonated with you, share it with someone else. I mean, really,

998
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,760
Speaker 1: that's the That's the bread and butter of this show's appeal.

999
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 1: Big thank you as always to our excellent audio producer,

1000
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 1: Tor Harrison. If you would like to get in touch

1001
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 1: with us with feedback about this episode or any other,

1002
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

1003
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 1: say hello, tell us about rogue waves, tell us about

1004
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:26,280
Speaker 1: waves in general, tell us your stories of the high seas,

1005
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,799
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1006
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:41,600
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1007
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more

1008
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Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio, app,

1009
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Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

1010
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