Faster FFT !?

The above is a graph accompanied an article in SciTechDaily a few days ago entitled  "New Algorithm Faster Than Fourier Transform."  It is a picture I believe all wave aficionados are familiar with.  The article attracted my attention because I think the title should be more accurately stated as "Faster than Fast Fourier Transform".  As one who was around as a bystander at the beginning of the FFT algorithm in the late 1960's and FFT became an integral part of wave data analysis -- long before the present day super computer / faster PC era.  Since everything is getting faster and faster noadays, it is really not surprising to see a Faster FFT -- will that be FFFT?!  But what going through my mind is what difference would that be made to our data analysis or daily life?  Can we really notice the difference in speed by any chance?  Or in other words, hasn't our technology advancement reached the stage of irrelevance?

John Tukey (1915-2000)

I still remember the excitement of FFT's early days, wall to wall papers about it in every conference, and the new household name of Cooley-Tukey -- even though no one knew or cared who Cooley really is!  Now after nearly 5 decades, it is just made faster! So?  It is going to be presented in Association for Computing Machinery’s Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA) this week.  Again, So?  I would be more interested in hearing what John Tukey (1915-2000) thinks about it.  Would he be excited?

A happy rescue story.

Here's a freaque wave encounter case with happy ending:

Marine Area Command rescue nine men - Broken Bay

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 05:46:45 PM

Nine men have been rescued after a rogue wave capsizing a diving vessel on the state’s Central Coast this afternoon.

About 1.30pm, (Wednesday 18 January, 2012), the men were travelling about one nautical mile offshore near East Reef, Broken Bay, when the incident occurred.

The crew activated an EPIRB emergency beacon immediately and emergency services responded.

Officers attached to the NSW Marine Area Command at Broken Bay attended the scene and all nine crew were rescued. The men were transported to Careel Bay.

As a result of the incident no one was injured and medical assistance was not required.

This case clearly underlines the importance of having EPIRB and super quick responsive emergency services. Thanks God that they have them.  By the way this news is reported by Australia NSW Police Force. Good news and good works certainly deserve to be widely publicized!

Convenient conclusion from inconvenience facts.

I saw this quote from a political blog:

People in politics, like people everywhere, often choose to believe conclusions that are convenient or reassuring and tend to ignore inconvenient facts and harder truths.

Strangely I find this quote is particularly applicable to today's science world.  Examples abound, I don't think I need to convince any one that this is the case nowadays.

It somehow also reminded me of a true story.  There was once a well-known young Ph.D. from a prestige university who was a rising star in the 1960/1970's.  The reason that he became well-known in his early career was because his Ph.D. research was doing wind waves experiments in a laboratory wave tank that were successfully verfied the theory of Miles and Phillips.  That's all fine and dandy of course.  What's not well-known is how he obtained those experimental results.  No one asked, probably not even his own mentor.  But one of his fellow graduate student had the same mentor from that same university at the same time told me his personal, first hand eye-witness account of this well-known scientist's secret of success.  It happened that he was truly a deligent worker, spent all his time in the lab, performed hundreds upon hundreds of experiments, as it can be expected, most of the results did not fit the theories, only a few have.  So he only brought those few "good" experiments to his professor and together they verified the theories.  Did they really?  So even in the science world, if one can conveniently provide favorable results no one really would fussy about how the results were obtained.  (May be that's why we have the "hide the decline" gangs in the climate world.)

So really, the important thing is a "convenient conclusion."  Once that is surfaced, who cares about the " inconvenient facts and harder truths" that are only minor annoyances to the convenient main issue?!

The Costa Concordia disaster

BBC News has this early report:

Three people are confirmed dead after a cruise ship carrying more than 4,000 people ran aground off Italy.

There were scenes of panic as the Costa Concordia hit a sandbar on Friday evening near the island of Giglio and listed about 20 degrees.

Most people reached land by lifeboats but some swam to shore.

At least 50 people have not yet been accounted for, Italian officials say, but they caution that the passenger list may not be fully up to date.

Coast guard vessels are combing the waters around the ship, while divers are searching the submerged decks.

The regional prefect's office said 4,165 out of 4,234 people on board had been accounted for, the Italian news agency Ansa reported.

It is clearly an unexpected disastrous happening that should never happen.  And this disaster is not in any way connected to waves,the sea was calm before, during, and after. Fortunately that uncomplicated the rescue efforts.

As the cause of the disaster is basically unknown at the moment, Sean Rayment of UK Telegraph reported this expert opinion according to Malcolm Latarche, the editor of the global shipping magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions:

. . . the ship was powered by a bank of six diesel-electric engines which effectively worked as an onboard power station designed to supply electricity to all parts of the vessel.

But like power stations on land, the engines are prone to electrical surges and troughs caused by “harmonic interference”.

Mr Latarche added: “From the reports I have seen it seems there was an explosion followed by a blackout, which could have been caused by a power surge. There are various back-up systems in place on all ships but they may have failed also."

Mr Latarche said it was possible the cruise ship experienced the same problem that saw the Queen Mary 2 (QM2) lose power in September 2010 as she was approaching Barcelona.

He continued: “Once you have a problem with the electric supply to the ship’s main propulsion motors that could lead to a problem with steering. Once you are in a position where you cannot control a ship's speed and direction you have a problem until you can get those systems back on line. It seems that this may have happened quite close to land, in shallow water. When you can’t steer you are going to run aground and hit rocks at some point.”

Once the ship had run aground on a sand bank, Mr Lartarche said, it was only a matter of time before it would begin to keel over.

He added: “A ship is designed to float in a certain depth of water. An ocean cruise ship is not designed to float in 20ft of water. It needs much more than that to remain upright. If it was in a dry dock it would be supported with blocks and supports to keep it upright. That situation doesn’t exist just off the coast. So unless the Costa Concordia was fortunate enough to be sitting on relatively flat ground, with very soft mud which would allow it to sink in and support the ship in some way, the vessel will have no alternative but to turn over on its side.

“If the captain had no steering or reduced steering it may have been that he had no choice where he was heading and that is why he ended up in shallow water but he also may have decided that he needed to head to safer waters so that he could use the lifeboats closer to land.

"This, afterall, was a passenger ship and there would have been lots of elderly and young people on board so evacuation in lifeboats is not ideal."

Mr Latarche's explanation of events fits in with comments made by Francesco Paolillo, a local coastguard commander, who said the accident occurred shortly after 10.30pm about three hours after the Concordia had begun its voyage from the port of Civitavecchia en route to its first port of call, Savona, in northwestern Italy.

So disasters can happen even without the encounter of freaque waves. Let's pray for the lost passengers and all of the ones onboard can be safely restoring their holiday venture.

What else is new?

When I saw this headline:  "The greater the wind speed, the higher the wave will be" I have to make certain that this is not a joke and then ask "Hey, what else is new?"

This is the title of an "opinion" article in The Tribune, SanLuisObispo.com, by John Lindsey, Published: Sunday, Jan 08, 2012.  After ascertained all these informations, I am still wondering when was this article really written.  Because the article started by talking about "During World War II " and alluded to HMS Queen Mary's encounter with a freaque wave that nearly capsized in eastern Atlantic in late 1942 -- which is a well publicized information.  But the next thing it described:

Later in the war, Adm. William “Bull” Halsey sailed his fleet right into the heart of a rapidly intensifying typhoon off the Philippines. Three destroyers — USS Hull, USS Monaghan and USS Spence — capsized and sank during this storm with the loss of 775 lives.

which is not well known, at least not to me which is not surprising. But the next paragraph:

Such disasters brought into sharp focus the dire need for accurate wave forecasting. The Department of War recruited two oceanographers at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, Harald Sverdrup and Walter Munk, to develop an accurate wave forecasting method. This eventually became the Sverdrup-Munk formula.

really becomes curious!  Because from reading Munk's many interviews I have always gathered that it was Munk in preparing for the Normandy Landing implemented the idea of doing some wave forecasting and invited Sverdrup to work jointly. Never heard there's this Phillippines connection.  I am familiar with the Sverdrup and Munk's approach, but have no idea exactly what in the world is "Sverdrup-Munk formula"?


What's even more curiouser is toward the end of the article, there's this:

Years after World War II, wave forecasting accuracy was further improved by the Pierson-Neumann- James method that incorporated wave spectrum data.

Now yes, indeed, there was competing approach developed by Pierson-Neumann-James but that was in the early part of the decade of 1950's nearly 60 years ago.  Here we are in the beginning of the 2nd decade of 21st Century, who exactly is still in need of reminding of this rather antiquated history of SMB vs. PNJ?


We have faced more wars than we care to count since WWII and gone through the explosive technology advancement in late 20th Century and all the excitement of the development of Wave Modeling (WAM!) Practically everyone can now do wave forecasting and hindcasting on the desk top, may even been hand-held. 


Really, what else is new?

Danger can come from any unexpected sources or places

Danger can come from any unexpected sources or places.  A case in point, this commonly used simple anchor shown in the picture can be terribly damaging:

as this New Zealand case reported here by Sam Boyer in Bayofplentytimes.co.nz :

Stephen Appleby, 28, from Hamilton was impaled when the grappling anchor he was carrying was thrown against him by a wave, piercing his abdomen.

It is hard to visualize and contemplate.  Details in the original article.  I'll just stop it here.  

But the good news is this:

A hospital spokeswoman said the man was in a stable condition this morning.

Thanks be to God!

Venture dangerous!

The above picture is from this article in Donegal Democrat by Sue Doherty showing onlookers watch Atlantic breakers crash against Creevy Pier, Ballyshannon during the recent storms. (Photo by Thomas Gallagher).  My first reaction is "Hey that's dangerous!" on seeing the two men leisurely standing there watching the waves splashing the pier. They can be swept into the ocean any time! Here's the beginning part of the article with appropriate warnings: 

Donegal continues to be hammered by the second severe storm to hit the county this week with flooding fears the latest concern.

Meteoroglists issued a weather alert for Donegal yesterday, warning that the severe winds and heavy rains are expected to last right through most of this morning and are likely to cause more damage.

Last night winds were predicted to reach storm force 10 in coastal areas off Donegal. Met Eireann’s Pat Clarke said gusts of up to 115kph were expected along the coast and in upland areas. He said trees that had already been weakened by the first storm might fall and structures could also be further damaged.

A sea area warning was also in force, due to heavy swells. Mr Clarke advised: “Walking along coastal areas is not a good idea, as there may well be freak waves.”

Not only walking along coastal areas is not a good idea, standing there without protection or a guard is not a good idea either!  Come to think of it, enjoy nature and watching large waves at a beach or anywhere else is just not a risk free venture!  

All in the minds?

Here's a freaque wave case hidden in an irrelevant article from the Health section.  It was a rather typical case of  freaque wave encounter and rescue, usually we expect a successful rescue leads to happily ever after.  That was just about what was expected here, except the experience led to a twist later in life which clearly stemmed from the encounter not always being reported.  Here's the freaque wave encounter part of the story in Express.co.uk written by Barbara Lantin entitled "All in the mind?":

WHEN William Murtha went for his regular cycle ride along the seafront at Dawlish in Devon one evening he little imagined the outing would change his life. 

A freak wave swept William, then 34, over the sea wall and into the icy water. For nearly two hours he battled to stay alive as hypothermia took hold and he drifted in and out of consciousness.

And he was

Miraculously saved when a young amateur astronomer spotted him with his telescope and called 999 . . .

Now being in the Health section this article is really not reporting a freaque wave case, rather it is about the victim's near death experience (NDE) -- when he was drifted in and out of consciousness.  I thought that might be of interest since that's also part of the freaque wave consequences. Here's what the article tells between his in and out  of consciousness and being rescued:

Close to death, he began to relive experiences from his life, sometimes from the perspective of other people involved such as the driver who knocked him down when he was 10, 

his alcoholic father and anxious mother.

The final sequence was a flash-forward to his wife and children receiving the news of his death.

“It was then I realised I had died and was in spirit and I had this overwhelming feeling of sadness. I had not achieved what I wanted to,” says William, now 46. 

“Suddenly I felt this wasn’t inevitable, it was an option. Part of me was saying you have to go back, you have too much to do. On the other hand, I had a feeling of love and connectedness that permeated through me. I wanted to drift into it and let go of life. The nanosecond I decided to return, all the images disappeared and I was back in the sea thrashing around in the dark and cold.”

Now this must be something every victim might have gone through but understandably seldom being reported in a freaque waves report. Please read the original article if interested. Hope no one should ever going through that kind of experience, but NDE is part of life nevertheless and what a freaque wave encounter might entail -- but not everyone believe or accept it any how!

When a weather buoy becomes wayward . . .

What would happen when a giant weather buoy choose to seek freedom in the ocean? Well, it would probably choose to visit another part of the ocean!  No one would ever know until this case happened:    

AN Irish “visitor” caused a stir on Monday when it was discovered washed up on Woolacombe beach.

The large buoy, part of Ireland’s marine weather buoy network, had broken free and drifted some 270 miles. It is normally chained to the seabed off the Emerald Isle south west coast and collects a range of data for weather and marine observation, including wave height, sea temperature, wind speed and direction.

Its owners, the Marine Institute in Ireland, told the Gazette they had lost contact with the M3 weather buoy more than three weeks ago.

“The buoy was torn from its mooring during severe weather on December 10, when it ceased transmitting,” a spokesperson said.

“Following efforts to re-establish communication, a radio navigational warning was issued. Nothing was found until Monday when the Argos system on the buoy began reporting positional information from Woolacombe Beach.”

A technician is travelling from Galway to assess the damage and the Marine Institute is working with Swansea Coastguard and beach owner Parkin Estates to recover the buoy.

The Irish Weather Buoy Network is funded by the Irish Government and run by the Institute in collaboration with Met Eireann and the UK Met Office.

It has taken a battering recently, with waves of eight to 10 metres plus a giant of 20.4 metres recorded on December 13.

Now here are some news photos of this Irish visitor:

This case has published in North Devon Gazette 24, written by Tony Gaussin.  What I am wondering is if the buoy can express her feelings what kind of a tale might she relate? Did she encounter freaque waves somewhere along the way? 

A happy ending story

Here's a scary story with a happy ending :

IN a freak occurrence, a pair of unmanned jet skis turned up on Lighthouse Beach 40 metres from each other – two days after they were washed out to sea 

Sydneysiders Paul Camilleri and Ken Hale were enjoying their holidays and, on Boxing Day, headed out on their jet skis for some fun on the Camden Haven River. 

The duo, with about 30 years of boating experience between them, was “mucking around” near the mouth of the river when Mr Hale fell from his ski. 

“I tried five times to circle back and pick him up,” the concerned Mr Camilleri said. “But, on the sixth attempt, I fell off too.” 

The two men were helpless against the current with Mr Hale eventually making it to the shore and scrambling to safety. 

Mr Camilleri’s fortune was not so great. 

He said he was caught in the water, struggling to stay afloat, for “about an hour”. 

“There were some really big waves,” Mr Camilleri admitted. “I was getting into a bit of a panic at one stage but eventually I managed to make it to shore.” 

The pair had all but lost hope for their water craft, which had also been dragged over the bar and out to sea. 

However, two days later and about 12 kilometres away from where they were last sighted, the two skis were found washed up on Lighthouse Beach. 

Both were submerged, and in a bad state, and needed towing from the scene. 

Mr Camilleri, a mechanic by trade, said the water skis were not insured but held out hope they were salvageable. 

“We thought they had sunk to tell you the truth,” Mr Camilleri said. "I’m going to have a go at fixing them but I don’t hold out too much hope, pretty much only the tips were visible when they were found.

The article in Port Macquarie News this morning, was written by Chris Ward, show that when things happen, experiences do count.  So let's just be happy with a happy ending story !

Lives lost at Faveaux Strait

According to Wikipedia, Foveaux Strait separates Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand's third largest island, from the South Island.  The stuff.co.nz reported this tragic news this morning: "Pair die in Foveaux Strait":

The bodies of two fishermen have been pulled from Foveaux Strait after a boat capsized last night.

Five were on board when the boat ran into trouble. At 10.40pm, police were alerted via fishermen's radio that three survivors were safely aboard a Bluff-based fishing boat and were being taken to Ruapuke Island, near where the capsizing happened.

No details from this report about what kind of trouble they encountered or whether or not freaque waves were the cause so one can only surmise.  But the article listed a series of troubled past cases on record going back to 1998.  In particular these:

* February, 9, 2003: A freak wave flips a boat near Escape Reef, off Centre Island, tossing its four passengers into the sea. A Riverton resident who was boating nearby rescued the four from the waters.

* November, 1, 2001: One man goes missing and two are plucked from Foveaux Strait after a rogue wave capsizes their 3.6m dinghy off Stirling Point.

* June 27, 1999: Four passengers on board the Foveaux Express are injured after being flung to the deck of the ferry by a freak wave during a crossing of Foveaux Strait.

in which freaque waves were clearly mentioned.  So while Foveaux Strait is home to the Bluff oyster fishery according to Wikipedia, it is clearly not a save place for fishermen by any means.  Let's pray for the lost souls in this case especially for their family and love ones. 

Freak waves are episodic!

Happy New Year!

Here we are entering the 6th calendar year of blogging "Freaque Waves".  Thanks to the Internet, we have been able to search online for news items about freaque waves around the world while they are happening.   Today I have just realized that the good old Google is starting searching archives.  I am not certain about the details, simply noticed that older archived articles are starting to appear.  For instance, here is a not previously known tragic case of all hands lost that had happened 35 years ago, reported in Lewiston Morning Tribune, shortly after the new year,  Jan 10, 1977, the article entitled "Freak waves believed cause of sinkings" was written by David Fairhall of Manchester Guardian:

LONDON -- The Panamanian tanker Grand Zenith, which appears to have sunk with all hands off the eastern seaboard of the United States, . . . 

What striking is this comment following the introduction:

There are a number of experts who believe there is at least a possible explanation -- the development of enormous freak waves in such areas -- that deserves more attention than it is getting.

Now that was 1977 a few years after Larry Draper's 1964 Freak waves paper, but still a number of years before the discovery of Draupner platform measurement of a freaque wave on 1995 New Year's day.  So even though it deserves and calls for attention, that was not forth coming -- especially not from the academic world yet -- not until after the Draupner wave profile was measured did it prompted the start of modern freaque wave studies in nonlinear physics.

I don't know who are the "experts" the author was referring to.  Clearly one of them was James Dawson, Spokesman for the Lloyd's Brokers Association on oceanographic matters who has written an interesting article in New Scientist around that time with a title of "Freak ocean waves are episodic".  This should be a must-read article for freaque wave aficionados, but wittingly or unwittingly, I have not ever seen anyone reference to this article in the academical circle yet!  I am very interested and fully concurred with these comment:

The South Africa Council for Scientific and Industrial Research have been studying killer waves in their waters for years.  To quote from a letter from an Assistant Director, "A study of reports from ships that have actually encountered these 'freak' conditions have been seriously hampered by the difficulty of finding these reports, and then being faced by doubts that the actual position of the vessel, particularly distance offshore, and the description of the conditions given are sufficiently accurate to use in a scientific assessment of the situation." If such experienced scientists, with phenomena to study at their door step, find accurate data impossible to collate, without  mounting a huge operation, there is little hope for other scientists and mathematicians to emulate or equal them.  Shipping must rely on the warnings of experienced seafarers and hydrographers. Admiralty Pilots have traditionally pointed out to navigators where episodic waves occur and in what conditions but constant use of a particular route during bland climatic conditions all too easily breeds over-confidence. Furthermore, the masters or navigators of many ships are quite ignorant of these warnings.

That has expressed many of my personal feelings but I was not able to articulate so eloquently. It just arrived at my door step on this New Year's day 2012, thanks to google search.  It will be a good year. Deo gratias!

Sean Collins (1952 - 2011), R. I. P.

According to this Los Angeles Times headline: "Sean Collins dies at 59; surfer created system to predict waves".

I don't know him. I have never heard or met him.  But seeing "created system to predict waves" one would immediately expect that he must be a scientist.  But that's not the case.  He is a surfer.  He may have worked with a couple of scientists, he himself is clearly not a scientist.  But the fabulous Surfline.com he created, which I have accessed from time to time without knowing him,  beats many of the wave sites available on the internet in terms of contents or scientific wave information.  He is someone to be admired.  And indeed he is admired by all professional and nonprofessional surfers worldwide.

The world lost Sean Collins (1952 - 2011) to an untimely heart attack.  What a loss!  He's only 59.  He could make countless many more contributions to surf as well science world in general

Mr. Sean Collins, R.I.P.

Happened near Sakhalin Island

Here's a tragic case happened in the Sea of Okhotsk north of the Pacific Ocean about a dozen days ago as reported by rt.com completed with this video report:

 Rescuers have saved 14 of the 67 people who were on board a floating oil rig which capsized in the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia’s Far East, according to latest reports.

Nine more dead bodies have been found in the freezing waters off Russia's Far East coast, where an oil rig capsized.

It brings the death toll to 16, with 37 still missing, more than a day after the tragedy happened.

The Kolskaya rig was being towed by an icebreaker and a tow boat to Sakhalin Island after finishing its drill mission when the disaster happened. A distress signal was sent from it on Sunday morning.

The rescuers have already found three lifeboats – all of them were empty. The chances of survival of those missing are now close to zero because these lifeboats were their only chance for survival in the freezing waters. The temperature on Sakhalin Island at present is -20 C.

“It means that the crew was not able to get down in the lifeboats. The boats were washed away with the flow of the water,” said the rescue operation co-ordinator, Veniamin Ivanychev.

Still, one lifeboat remains unaccounted for by search and rescue teams and it could potentially be found with survivors on board.

I only learned about the Sakhalin (庫頁) Island and Sea of Okhotsk way back in grade school geography in mainland China long time ago, I guess at some point in history they belonged to the Ching Dynasty.  Somehow I have always imagined it as a winter wonderland of some sort.  There was no clear indication on what had happened.  It was a large wave or waves of 15 to 20 m size. Not necessarily unexpected when there's winter storm. Anyway, let's pray for miracles even though hope for additional survivors have been dim.  May the Lord's blessing be with those lost and their families.

It was a either freaque or giant wave!

There whalers in this world and there are anti-whalers in this world also.  The whalers usually run, while the anti-whalers chase.  It's a serious matter.  Here's a news that involves freaque waves encountering entangled in this year end news that has already way over 100 articles written for it,  the follwoing is according to  The Tokyo Times that also showing the above picture:

A boat belonging to the anti-whaling activist group Sea Shepherd was damaged by a rogue wave in the Southern Ocean while chasing the Japanese whaling fleet about 1,500 miles south of Fremantle, Australia.
The boat, called Brigitte Bardot, was chasing the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru in six-meter waves. A wave hit and badly damaged one of its pontoons. The crack is enlarging, but a Sea Shepherd representative said he hoped it would stay afloat until a rescue ship will arrive.

"Right now the safety of my crew on the Brigitte Bardot is our priority and we intend to reach the crew and then do what we can to save our ship," said Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson.
It could take up to 20 hours to get to the damaged boat, he said.

Japan has been widely criticized for continuing to hunt whales despite the fact that commercial whaling has been banned for 25 years. Japan hunts about 1,000 whales every year during a program that it calls a scientific research, but which critics say it is actually disguised commercial whaling.

That pretty summed up what's happening.  As usual no details about the wave is available, only some news just calling it a giant wave.  I have no idea what would happen if a freaque waves hasn't interferred.  There wouldn't be any news, and probably one less known freaque wave on the record.  Was it really a freaque wave, or just a large, may be giant, wave?

I guess this article from The Australian provides a fiting commentary following the above story:

FEDERAL Environment Minister Tony Burke has warned that the Southern Ocean is "no place for risk-taking" after an anti-whaling Sea Shepherd scout ship was damaged while pursuing a Japanese vessel off the coast of Western Australia.         

As the opposition called for the government to deploy a patrol vessel in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, Mr Burke said Australia had no plans for further monitoring of exchanges between the Japanese whaling fleet and the Sea Shepherd activists.

"I would like to emphasise the Southern Ocean is not a place for risk-taking," Mr Burke told The Australian last night.

"The masters of all vessels should ensure safety is their highest priority."

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was forced to stage a mid-sea rescue yesterday after its high-speed vessel, the Brigitte Bardot, was hit by a huge wave in 6m swells late on Wednesday while in pursuit of the Japanese whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru.

Oh well, freaque waves are always part of the risk-taking business.  Let's have our commentary just stop at that point!

The new light is "light"? Huh?

About 10 days ago The Irish Times published an article by Claire O'Connell with the title "Deep blue sea", in the business section, that carried the above picture of a rather calm ocean surface.  The caption of the picture says: "A major effort has been ongoing to define what lives in all the oceans, and how these organisms are connected.  By last year, the Census of Marine Life had encountered 'an unanticipated riot of species''.  The article consists several sections of varied lengths, the first section, "Marine life" is a fairly long one, mainly about the work of the Census of Marine Life's works that " has seen about 540 expeditions chalk up roughly 9,000 days at sea, and more than 2,700 researchers from over 80 countries." An impressive operation somehow the program I have not yet heard of, probably it was overshadowed by the "overwhelming" amount of wasteful global warming news coverage nowadays in the science world.  The section concluded with comments by a Dr. Peter Heffernan Of Ireland's Marine Institute:

“We are probably standing in a period where we could see a revolution in the pace at which mankind could get the knowledge of the ocean that we need, to understand how the planet really works, to deal with climate change and to take advantage of the many commercial opportunities associated with the ocean, which include such things as renewable ocean energies and deeper water sites and developments for aquaculture, which are going to be absolutely essential if we are to feed the growing populations of this planet,” he says.

“It is a technological challenge, but if we focus our minds on it, and there are initiatives to do that, there will be huge dividends – it will pay back mankind many times over to unlock the potential of the oceans and wisely steward the resource we are endowed with.”

These are quite optimistic and encouraging, may be a little short of realism, scientists' wishful and fund seeking talks. If the "technological challenge" and the hope for "huge dividend" can generate available lucrative funding support, it will probably can only expect to allure hordes of hungry, fund seeking scientists who can promise the moon!

The next section is , surprisingly to me, "Rogue waves cast in a new light"! Aha! It was "light' indeed. It reports that ". . . a European Research Council-funded project is taking a new approach to figuring out these dangerous oddities. They are synthesised from light to study their behaviours and possibly work out how to predict them . . . " So the new light is in fact aiming at "figuring out" all about freaque waves by synthesized from "light"?  Huh?  How do you synthesize a jumbo cruise ship sailing through "light" and encountering a typhoon or hurricane?

The article stated:

Using laser-based experiments, the project will look at the conditions under which these freak waves can arise, and use the optical findings to work out what conditions at sea would foster such rogue patterns, and so improve shipping forecasts.

The project also hopes to build an optical “wave farm” to analyse the potential impacts rogue waves could have on wave energy-harnessing devices.

Wait a minute,  what are the conditions under which freaque waves can arise?  Does anyone know for certain?  Can they provide a viable definition of freaque wave in the first place?  Granted it's only a miserly "€1.8 million Multiwave study with optics" project.  But it is of interest to note that scientists can still promising, not really the moon, but a "wave farm"  in the "light"!  That is really not an encouraging approach  for freaque wave researchers to expect learning what is happening about freaque waves, but if you can amass funding for the research, all power to you.  Ability to amass funding, in this day and age, is really the name of the game!   What do the $'s or €'s mean to the funding providers?  Probably just some silly numbers from the suckers, umm,, taxpayers!

By the way, what kind of ocean waves does the light see?  Can the light see breaking waves?  Can a surfer surfs in the light? 

Watershed moment of a 90' surf wave.

ESPN columist Chris Jones has just published an interesting commentary with these headline: "Watershed moment: An unflinching big wave rider redefines what's possible for all of us."  It's about the 90 feet surf and the surfer Garrett McNamara, the case I blogged here.
Jones opened his article this way:

THE WAVE HAS NO IDEA it's famous: a 90-foot wall of water that, one day in November, rose out of an underwater canyon at Praia do Norte, near the tiny fishing village of Nazare, Portugal. So easily that rogue might have come and gone, this transient giant, just another one of the countless waves that roll onto our shores, one after another. Instead, a 44-year-old big wave pro named Garrett McNamara somehow survived surfing it -- catching it just in time, the only wave he would surf that day -- and that Portuguese monster became the biggest wave ever surfed.

He must have interviewed McNamara because he has this McNamara's comments about the wave:

"I didn't realize how big it was at first," McNamara says, speaking from his home in Hawaii mostly in the present tense, as though he's never left the face of that wave. "I hardly ever look back, but this time I look back, two or three times as the wave starts to grow. It's like this endless mountain. Every second is so crucial just then."

And Jones followed with this line:

Every second is so crucial because waves do two very different things -- they build and they crash -- presenting two distinct possibilities for the people who ride them. "You can go very quickly from heaven and find yourself in hell" is how McNamara puts it.

That's something rather refreshing.  But the concluding paragraph of the article is even more refreshing:

Sometimes the waves make language obsolete. Sometimes they give it back as a gift. They do different things to different people, and it's hard to know what, exactly, they'll do to you until you decide to go into the water. But they're out there. Right now they're out there waiting, each one a door to impossibility, so many millions of locks, so many millions of keys.

I have never thought about waves this way. To say "They do different things to different people" is effectively saying that every wave in the ocean is different, they are seldom the same.  That's pretty much summed up the essense of the ocean waves.  The surfers experencing them daily and that's the real world.  Now how do scientists cope with them?  The scientist s expect all waves behave according to a pre-assigned pattern -- only allowed nonlinearity to briefly deviate from it.  Even freaque waves have to obey the "scientific" prescription. Do the scientists know the ocean waves at all? 

My two thumbs up for this refreshing article by Mr. Chris Jones of ESPN for a thought provoking article.

Of man and mavericks??

"Of Men and Mavericks" is the title of a movie about a surfer at Mavericks currently being filmed at Mavericks, a famed Northern California surf break known for treacherous and high waves.  Mavericks is clearly not for surfers seeking entertainments that includes amateurs and movie actors alike. But the star of this movie being filmed just made news worldwide because in the process he was "being held underwater by some big waves" according this AP News in the Chicago Sun-Times today.  UKPA has a concise summarization:

Gerard Butler has reportedly had a brush with death after the filming of a surf stunt went badly wrong.

The Scottish heartthrob was shooting new movie Of Men And Mavericks - based on the life of surfer Jay Moriarity - when he was hit by a freak wave at the notorious San Francisco surf spot Mavericks this weekend, the Daily Mirror reported.

He was apparently battered by a series of huge waves and held underwater after going into the sea amid dangerous conditions to film a scene.

An onlooker told the newspaper Gerard "was washed through the rocks before he was finally plucked out... he had that 100-yard stare that surfers get after a near-death experience."

The star is understood to have spend the night at Stanford Medical Centre, but officials were tight-lipped about his condition.

He is O.K. Thank God.  I guess surfing is not something that can easily be "act" upon even by by an accomplished actor.  The article has an appropriate title for the story: "Butler 'cheats death' in surf stunt".  Death is not something can be cheated. No one should ever try it at any rate!

Measurements needed!

I just read a post a few month ago (15 Jun 11) in the Oxford Science Blog, entitled "On the crest of a freak wave", in which the blogger Pete Wilton interviewed a young scientist, Thomas Adcock, who had just published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A. coauthored with Paul Taylor.  What prompts me to do this item today is the final question of that short interview:

OSB: What further research is needed in this area?

TA: Whilst scientists understand the basic features of most sea-states fairly well, we do not really understand at a local level the physics when a sea-state changes rapidly – for example if the wind suddenly starts blowing in a different direction. What we really need is far more high quality measurements of individual large waves – without this we cannot know whether our theories are right.  (Bold face emphasize added.)

I am really impressed with this answer, since my impression of them was thinking of them in terms of theoretical modeling.  But they are research engineers, so it is not surprising that they have a healthy appreciation of what is really going on out there in the real ocean.  Now my question is that there are really more than just a handful practicing scientists and engineers who all agree that "high quality measurements of individual large waves" are needed, how come this need can not be duly recognized by the power that be in charge the research funding programs?

Eric Heller at TEDxCaltech

Here's a lecture video, 10:41minutes long, I just came across today.  It is not new, came out around February, 2011 earlier this year.  It is timeless, and it needs to be watched again to appreciate it:



For wave aficionados just seeing the name of "Eric Heller" with words "freak waves" would know immediately this must be a jackpot.  Just watch and listen you will know why that is the case!

Earlier this year, about the same time frame of this video, I had a post which I called "An impressive simulation of freaque waves in the ocean".   That young professor, Lev Kaplan, from Tulane who presented that simulation at a colloquium, is a close associate of Professor Heller.

I am not usually advocating pure theoretical studies.  But this is not purely theoretical studies.  Because theoreticians who have healthy respects for what was really happening out there in the real world, not just hiding behind equations, deserve healthy respects themselves for their most admirable works.

Scientiist or surfer?

Who knows waves more?  A research scientist on waves or a surfer?

This question is a no-brainer, the answer is the surfer, of course.  A research scientist on waves plays with equations and theories on waves in the office, while a surfer lives with real waves out there day in and day out. A research scientist on waves goes to research conferences on waves every year, year after year, presenting his or her, result on theoretical results, modified theoretical results, or modified of the modified results, . . ., etc.  A surfer, on the other hand, does not always get the kind of waves he or she wishes to surf.  For instance there is this event called  "'The Eddie'—the Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau at Waimea Bay" that started in 1985. But "the tournament has only been held eight times, due to a precondition that open-ocean swells reach a minimum of 20 feet (this translates to a wave face height of over 30 feet)" according to Wikipedia.

Now my ignorance caused me to ask: Who's Eddie Aikau?

Ah! Wikipedia again has the answer:

Life

Born in Kahului, Maui, Aikau was the third child of Solomon and Henrietta Aikau. Aikau first learned how to surf at Kahului Harbor on its shorebreak. He moved to Oʻahu with his family in 1959, and at the age of 16 left school and started working at the Dole pineapple cannery; The paycheck allowed Aikau to buy his first surfboard. In 1968, he became the first lifeguard hired by the City & County of Honolulu to work on the North Shore. The City & County of Honolulu gave Aikau the task of covering all of the beaches between Sunset and Haleiwa. Not one life was lost while he served as lifeguard of Waimea Bay, as he braved waves that often reached 30 feet (9.1 m) high or more.[4] In 1971, Aikau was named Lifeguard of the Year.

Lost at sea

In 1978, the Polynesian Voyaging Society was seeking volunteers for a 30 day, 2,500-mile (4,000 km) journey to follow the ancient route of the Polynesian migration between the Hawaiian and Tahitian island chains. At 31 years of age, Aikau joined the voyage as a crew member. The Hokule'a left the Hawaiian islands on March 16, 1978. The double-hulled voyaging canoe developed a leak in one of the hulls and later capsized about twelve miles (19 km) south of the island of Molokai. In an attempt to get help, Aikau paddled toward Lanai on his surfboard.[6] Although the rest of the crew was later rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Cape Corwin, Aikau was never seen again. He removed his lifejacket since it was hindering his paddling of the surfboard. The ensuing search for Aikau was the largest air-sea search in Hawaii history.

So Eddie Aikau is a surfer, a heroic one, not a scientist.  He is well deserved to have a surfing tournament named in his honor.  Come to think of it, there has not been a research conference on ocean waves that has named in some research scientist's honor!  (Hey, not for lack of trying.  Once upon a time there was a guy who was the director of a research laboratory.  He then found a better paying job or something, before he took off, he named the Laboratory library in his own honor.  That's no longer the case not long affter he left!)

For me personally, I have been trying to be a research scientist on waves but never, ever, a surfer!

Let there be waves!

I was intrigued by the "Wave watch on" part of this UPI article "Wave watch on for Aikau surf tournament".  My immediate reaction was questioning in my mind: Can it be done?

HALEIWA, Hawaii, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The wait for waves began Friday for the Eddie Aikau, the penultimate tournament for big-wave surfers on Hawaii's North Shore.

Surf at the fame Waimea Bay was running 6-10 feet Friday, about half of the minimum 20-foot height required to get the competition under way.

So the "wait" is really a wishful expectation as the required 20 -foot minimum height for the event is not at all a certainty -- not something we know it's really going to happen, just as what I thought.

Kelly Slater and defending champion Greg Long lead the elite roster of surfers invited to the event, which is formally known as the Quicksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau but is known in surfing circles as "The Eddie." 

The Eddie has been held only eight times in the past 27 years and will run from Dec. 1 to Feb. 29, depending on conditions.

That "only eight times in the past 27 years", a little more than one in three, is about the chance the nature will allow it to happen:

A Hawaiian priest presided over Thursday's opening ceremony. Billy Mitchell told the crowd gathered on the sand the spirit of Aikau, who was lost at sea in 1978, remains an inspiration and predicted "there will be waves."

Now that "there will be waves" may be from the nature's point of view is "Let there be 20' waves!" -- whatever the expectation might be it is just about about a 33 percent probability.  This probability for the Eddie took 27 years to establish.  Come to the regard of freaque waves, however, we still have no way of establishing a probability for the phenomenon right now -- because no one seems to be interested in consciously to establish one right now. 

Wave - and human judgement -

The title of this post comes from this article from the Insurance News.  It's about a case I happened to have blogged not long ago: an unsuccessful rescue case in which the two rescuer were also encountered a freaque wave and injured.  This new article seems to assign fault to the rescuers because the rescue operation could have "postponed".

I find that kind of mentality extremely unwise and irresponsible.  The fact that this is being discussed as an insurance news item clearly stem from some one who's not willing to pay for the damage incurred.  It is understandably the human nature, of course.

But  for heaven's sake, this is search and rescue, some human life could be on the line -- and that can be "postponed"?

I think the two rescuing officers should be commended for willing to go out during bad weather doing the rescue and got themselves injured, now some one is questioning their judgement by splitting hair on some regulations.

Human nature as it is, this dollar and sense hair splitting stuff is certainly not surprising, only sad and pitiful!  Does anyone really think that it is justified for a rescuing officer to consulting regulating book first to decide the rescue should be postponed because the waves out there were 6 feet not 8 feet as regulation specified?  What if the people waiting to be rescued could be one of your love ones -- are you still expect the officer should make a regulation-correct judgement?

25-foot waves in pitch black

This case happened about a week ago, here's a good summary:

RESCUERS from the Llŷn spoke this week of “walls of water 25 feet high” as they tried to save the crew of a sunken cargo ship 10 miles off Bardsey Island.

Five of the eight crew members of the Russian ship Swanland are still unaccounted for after it was struck by a freak wave in a ferocious storm during the early hours of Sunday morning. Two sailors were plucked to safety by a helicopter being co-piloted by Prince William. The body of a third man has been recovered. Lifeboat and coastguard crews from Porthdinllaen, Abersoch and Pwllheli rushed into action in the early hours of Sunday morning and this week spoke of some of the worst conditions they have ever experienced. Robat Jones, Second Coxwain of the Porthdinllaen Lifeboat said:

“Conditions were horrendous. It was blowing a gale force 9-10 at times, with regular 20 foot waves crashing against us. It took us around two hours to reach the scene through some of the worst sea conditions I’ve seen. And when we arrived the place was horrendous. “There were 25-foot waves and it was pitch black. These were walls of water coming against us, and we tried our best with search lights all night.

Another vessel was there as well, and they had seen the liferaft, and were directing the helicopter to where she was.”

The title "25-foot waves in pitch black" pretty much tells the whole story.  The worst happened in the worst possible situation.  A tragic case of freaque wave with one dead and 5 missing and rescue effort was called off.  Let's pray for divine help to still save those missing souls.  Another freaque wave encounter, another tragedy.  When can we minize this kinf of cases from happrning over and over again?