Freak Waves at Campos Basin, Brazil

Abstract

Freak waves occur abundantly in Campos Basin, located on the northeast coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the South Atlantic Ocean. This surprising and unexpected discovery was made from a search of the time-series data of wave measurements recorded in the Campos Basin from 1991 to 1995. In a study on the occurrence of freak waves and their relevant properties, we have also found that freak waves are not of rare occurrence as conventionally presumed, and they occur not only during storm conditions but also during fair weather states as well. While the conventional approach of spectrum analysis provides some weak inference of freak wave effects, the basically stationary random process approach is clearly incapable of contending with the localized non-stationary process of freak wave occurrences.