Oceanic rogue waves
Rogue waves are transient giant waves, exceeding twice the significant wave height. They occur without warning and disappear quickly. Measuring up to 25 m and largely exceeding the predictions of usual Gaussian statistical distributions, they impact the dimensioning of ship structure, and therefore have an impact of their safety.
The mechanism at the root of the formation of rogue waves is still unclear. They are attributed to non-linearity and/or to the interference of fluctuating individual waves of smaller amplitude, and various frequencies. We work both numerically and experimentally to improve this understanding, especially in presence of wind.