Forget the gentle waves of a sunny day at the beach.
The ocean is a terrifying place, capable of displaying fantastical power.
Understanding the waves in the worlds largest bodies of water is as important as it is complex.
This wave might seem large, but that’s just because you don’t know physics.© Personnel of NOAA Ship DELAWARE II via Wikimedia Commons
Despite being widely studied, its still not entirely clear why waves break the way they do.
Water waves were frequently believed to be two-dimensional, moving in a single direction.
Their research built off a previous study, whichused the same wave tankto simulate theinfamous 1995 Draupner wave.
The FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility in Edinburgh, featuring an 82-feet (25-meter) circular basin capable of generating waves from multiple directions. Credit: The University of Edinburgh
The more spread out the converging waves were, the larger the combined wave became.
Unlike unidirectional waves, multidirectional waves can become twice as large before they break.
It gets even worse.
The scientists found that when multiple waves met, they could continue to grow even after breaking.
They calculated waves could, in theory, grow four times steeper than was previously thought possible.
But when a wave with a high directional spreading breaks, it can keep growing.
What still remains to be determined is how all this can play out in the real world.
They also noted that ocean waves are random, while their experiments were highly controlled.
With that knowledge now in your brain, give a shot to enjoy your next beach day.
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