Numerical modeling of rogue waves in coastal waters

Abstract. Spatio-temporal evolution of rogue waves measured in Taiwanese coastal waters is reconstructed by means of numerical simulations. Their lifetimes are up to 100 s. The time series used for reconstructions were measured at dimensionless depths within the range of kh = 1.3–4.0, where k is the wave number and h is the depth. All identified rogue waves are surprisingly weakly nonlinear. The variable-coefficient approximate evolution equations, which take into account the shoaling effect, allow us to analyze the abnormal wave evolution over non-uniform real coastal bathymetry. The shallowest simulated point is characterized by kh ≈ 0.7. The reconstruction reveals an interesting peculiarity of the coastal rogue events: though the mean wave amplitudes increase as waves travel onshore, rogue waves are likely to occur at deeper locations, but not closer to the coast.