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Updated: May 10, 2026

Measurements of Waves in a Wind-wave Tank Under Steady and Time-varying Wind Forcing
Published on: February 13, 2018
Excitation of rogue waves in a variable medium: an experimental study on the interaction of water waves and currents
Abstract:
We show experimentally that a stable wave propagating into a region characterized by an opposite current may become modulationally unstable. Experiments have been performed in two independent wave tank facilities; both of them are equipped with a wavemaker and a pump for generating a current propagating in the opposite direction with respect to the waves. The experimental results support a recent conjecture based on a current-modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation which establishes that rogue waves can be triggered by a nonhomogeneous current characterized by a negative horizontal velocity gradient.
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