Progresses in the Research of Oceanic Freak Waves: Mechanism, Modeling, and Forecasting

In the 1990s, oceanographers realized that the freak waves posed realistic threats to offshore and marine engineering. Since then, tremendous efforts from both academia and industry have been made to reveal the physics of freak waves as well as their effects on structures. Despite the need for a uniform and robust definition and the ongoing discussion of the dominant mechanism, significant advances have been achieved in understanding freak waves in various aspects. As an emerging explanation of freak wave formation, the nonequilibrium dynamics has received much attention, as it provides insights into nonlinear focusing under complex changing environmental conditions. The new techniques for the generation or reproduction of freak waves are of higher efficiency and accuracy in terms of enhancing maximum wave height and controlling the focusing position and time. Besides, sidestepping the complex physical mechanisms, the machine learning, as a data-driven technique, provides an alternative approach for the investigation of freak waves. Tracking these new developments is the target of this review paper, the limitation of the current works and future perspectives are also discussed.