Extreme wave statistics from radar data sets

The objective of this paper is the identification of areas of extreme wave events, in which rogue waves of exceptional height and shape do occur. These extreme waves are dangerous for navigation safety, as well as the operability on board offshore platforms. An explanation for the existence of groups of high waves based on the superposition of wave systems that form a solution of the linear wave equation is given. Synthetic Aperture Radar wave mode images from the ERS an ENVISAT satellites are investigated. These images are acquired every 200 to 100 km along the satellite orbit and thus yield global coverage. For ERS these images had to be specially reprocessed from radar raw data, for ENVISAT the imagettes are now available as a standard ESA product. High wave groups were found in situations of storm systems moving with the group speed of the ocean waves. The highest waves occurred near the center of the lows in the region of high wind speed