Physicists have found an explanation for rogue waves in the ocean and hope their theory will lead to devices to warn ships and save lives.

Merchant ship laboring in heavy seas as a huge wave looms ahead. Source: Wikipedia"A device on the mast of a ship analyzing the surface of the sea could perhaps give a minute's warning that a rogue wave is developing," says Professor Nail Akhmediev, leader of the research at The Australian National University (ANU).

Rogue ocean waves develop apparently out of nowhere over the course of about a minute and grow to as much as 40 meters in height before disappearing as quickly as they appeared.

Ships unlucky enough to be where rogue waves appear can capsize or be seriously damaged, as happened in the Mediterranean Sea to the Cypriot ship Louis Majesty, which was struck by a rogue wave in 2010 that left two passengers dead and 14 injured.

The research is published in Proceedings of Royal Society A.

Akhmediev says that there are about 10 rogue waves in the world's oceans at any moment.

The theory also explains freak waves that wash away people from beaches, as rogue waves can sometimes transform into travelling waves known as solitons, which travel through the ocean like mini-tsunamis until they hit the coastline.

The rogue wave is a special solution of the non-linear Schrodinger equation that is localized in time and space. The solutions were derived by adding terms to cover dispersion to the non-linear Schrodinger equation, forming the Hirota equations. The researchers’ next plan is to add more terms to account for the influence of the wind on waves.

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