Forgive the weak pun but this is deep
I had no idea an average of ten supertanker-sized ships are lost per year.
Ship-Sinking Monster Waves Are Widespread -- ESA
Sat Jul 24, 2004 04:18 PM ET
PARIS (Reuters) - Rogue waves that rise as high as 10-story buildings and can sink large ships are far more common than previously thought, imagery from European Space Agency (ESA) satellites has shown.
As part of a scientific project initiated by the European Union in December 2000, two ESA satellites monitored the world's oceans to test the frequency of monster waves that were once dismissed as a nautical myth.
Three weeks of data from the early months of 2001 showed more than ten individual giant waves around the globe of over 80 feet in height.
Previously, ESA said, scientists believed that such large waves occurred only once every 10,000 years.
"Having proved they existed in higher numbers than anyone expected, the next step is to analyze if they can be forecasted," said Wolfgang Rosenthal, a scientist at the GKSS research center in Geesthacht, Germany. [P6: Not with the model you guys are working with…one per 10,000 years vs. some 170 per year?]
ESA said that severe weather had sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 650 feet in length over the past two decades and that rogue waves were believed to be a major cause of such accidents.
Current ships and off-shore platforms are built to withstand maximum wave heights of only 50 feet, ESA said.
