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Rogue Wave Strikes Cruise Ship, Killing a Passenger and Injuring 4 Others

The passengers were hurt after a large, unpredictable wave hit the ship, which was traveling toward the Antarctic, Viking Cruises said.

By Amanda Holpuch

A passenger died and four others were injured after a large, unexpected wave hit a cruise ship traveling toward a popular launching point for expeditions to Antarctica, Viking Cruises said.

The ship, the Viking Polaris, was struck by a “rogue wave” on Tuesday at 10:40 p.m. local time while traveling toward Ushuaia, Argentina, which is on the southern tip of South America, Viking Cruises said in a statement .

Viking Cruises did not say how the passenger was killed or provide the passenger’s name. The four passengers who were injured were treated by onboard medical staff and had non-life-threatening injuries, Viking Cruises said.

A State Department official said that a U.S. citizen died and that the department was offering consular assistance to the person’s family.

Rogue waves are unpredictable, typically twice the size of surrounding waves and often come from a different direction than the surrounding wind and waves, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . Scientists are still trying to figure out how and when these uncommon waves form.

Ann Mah, of Topeka, Kan., told the news station WIBW that she and her husband were on the ship when it was hit by the wave and that it was “just like your whole house got shook really hard.”

“I mean, it was just a thud,” Ms. Mah said.

The Viking Polaris was launched this year and was designed for travel to remote destinations such as the Antarctic Peninsula. The ship is 665 feet long and can carry 378 passengers and 256 crew members.

The ship sustained “limited damage” from the wave and arrived in Ushuaia the day after it was struck, Viking Cruises said.

The cruise company canceled the Viking Polaris’s next scheduled trip, a 13-day cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula.

“We are investigating the facts surrounding this incident and will offer our support to the relevant authorities,” the company said.

Tourism to the Antarctic has steadily increased in the last 30 years, with 74,401 people traveling there in the 2019-20 season, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. Roughly 6,700 people traveled there in the 1992-93 season, according to the association.

In recent years, some observers have warned that the increase in tourism may not be sustainable and that it could threaten visitor safety or disrupt the fragile environment, which is already straining under the effects of climate change.

It is the beginning of the Antarctic tourism season, which coincides with its summer, beginning in late October or early November and usually lasting until March.

The death on the Viking Cruises ship this week comes after the death of two other cruise ship passengers in the Antarctic last month. Two Quark Expeditions cruise ship passengers died after one of the ship’s heavy duty inflatable Zodiac boats overturned near shore, Seatrade Cruise News reported .

Amanda Holpuch is a general assignment reporter. More about Amanda Holpuch

Continuing Coverage

US Citizen Killed When ‘Rogue' Wave Hit Viking Cruise Ship in Antarctic

The 62-year-old woman was hit by broken glass when the wave broke cabin windows late tuesday during a storm, argentine authorities said, by ap and staff • published december 2, 2022 • updated on december 4, 2022 at 10:34 am.

A U.S. woman was killed and four other passengers injured when a massive wave struck the Viking Polaris cruise ship while it was sailing toward the port of Ushuaia in southern Argentina on an Antarctic cruise, authorities said.

The 62-year-old woman was hit by broken glass when the wave broke cabin windows late Tuesday during a storm, Argentine authorities said. The ship suffered limited damage and arrived in Ushuaia, 1,926 miles south of Buenos Aires, the next day.

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“It is with great sadness that we confirmed a guest passed away following the incident," Viking said in a statement. “We have notified the guest’s family and shared our deepest sympathies.”

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Neither the statement nor the Argentine Naval Prefecture identified the woman or her hometown.

Viking called it a “rogue wave incident” and said the four other passengers' injuries were non-life threatening.

A North Carolina couple aboard the ship told NBC affiliate WRAL that they thought "we hit an iceberg" when the wave crashed into the cruise ship.

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"There are no icebergs out here, but that's how it felt," Suzie Gooding said.

Gooding told the news station that the impact was "shocking" because it happened so suddenly.

"We didn't know if we should get our gear ready for abandoning ship," she added.

The cruise ship was anchored near Ushuaia, where a federal court has opened a case to determine what happened.

NOAA's National Ocean Service describes these "rogue" waves as "walls of water" that are often steep-sided with unusually deep troughs.

"Rogues, called 'extreme storm waves' by scientists, are those waves which are greater than twice the size of surrounding waves, are very unpredictable, and often come unexpectedly from directions other than prevailing wind and waves," the agency explains.

The company indicated on its website that to explore remote regions of the world they have “two purpose-built, state-of-the-art small expedition-class ships: Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris.”

The Viking Polaris, a vessel that has luxury facilities and was built in 2022, has capacity for 378 passengers and 256 crew members.

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Rogue Wave Kills Passenger, Injures 4 on Antarctic Cruise Ship: 'We Wondered if We Hit an Iceberg'

Viking Cruises offered its support to the victim's family and canceled an upcoming departure after its ship was damaged by the rare and mysterious phenomenon known as a rogue wave

One person is dead and four others were injured after a rogue wave crashed into a Antarctic cruise ship on Tuesday.

The incident happened on the Viking Polaris as it was sailing toward Ushuaia, Argentina, at the southernmost tip of the continent during a voyage to Antarctica, according to a statement on the company's website .

Four guests were treated for non-life threatening injuries by the ship's medical staff. The cruise ship company did not identify the passenger who died, but said it has notified their family and offered condolences as well as "our full support to the family in the hours and days ahead."

Suzie Gooding, a North Carolina woman who was on the cruise, told local news station WRAL that they felt the impact of the huge wave on the ship.

" We wondered if we hit an iceberg ," she said. "And there are no icebergs out here, but that's how it felt."

She said the wave was completely unexpected. "Everything was fine until the rogue wave hit, and it was just sudden. Shocking," Gooding said. "We didn't know if we should get our gear ready for abandoning ship."

Viking Cruises said the vessel — which just joined its fleet in September — "sustained limited damage."

Images of the ship appear to show broken windows on its lower level.

The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines a "rogue wave " as a one that is "greater than twice the size of surrounding waves."

The waves, which can look like "walls of water," are "very unpredictable, and often come unexpectedly from directions other than prevailing wind and waves," according to the agency.

NOAA says "exactly how and when rogue waves form is still under investigation," adding that because they are so uncommon and can form unexpectedly and disappear quickly, "measurements and analysis of this phenomenon is extremely rare."

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Viking Cruises said it is investigating the incident and "will offer our support" to authorities.

"We have made the difficult decision to cancel the ship's next scheduled departure," the company said in its statement, adding that "all impacted guests and their travel advisors have been notified directly by Viking Customer Relations."

"Our focus remains on the safety and wellbeing of our guests and crew," the company said in a statement . "We are working directly with them to arrange return travel."

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US passenger killed when big wave hits Antarctic cruise ship

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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A U.S. woman was killed and four other passengers injured when a massive wave struck the Viking Polaris cruise ship while it was sailing toward the port of Ushuaia in southern Argentina on an Antarctic cruise, authorities said.

The 62-year-old woman was hit by broken glass when the wave broke cabin windows late Tuesday during a storm, Argentine authorities said. The ship suffered limited damage and arrived in Ushuaia, 1,926 miles (3100 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires, the next day.

“It is with great sadness that we confirmed a guest passed away following the incident,” Viking said in statement. “We have notified the guest’s family and shared our deepest sympathies.”

Neither the statement nor the Argentine Naval Prefecture identified the woman or her hometown.

Viking called it a “rogue wave incident” and said the four other passengers’ injuries were non-life threatening.

The cruise ship was anchored near Ushuaia, where a federal court has opened a case to determine what happened.

The company indicated on its website that to explore remote regions of the world they have “two purpose-built, state-of-the-art small expedition-class ships: Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris.”

The Viking Polaris, a vessel that has luxury facilities and was built in 2022, has capacity for 378 passengers and 256 crew members.

They were rocked by blast and rogue wave during Antarctic cruise. They share their story.

One second, Pam Trusdale was sitting in a heavy-duty inflatable boat happily taking video of penguins in Antarctica.

The next, the Topeka woman was thrown into the air by an explosion .

Two other passengers also went airborne after the blast beneath the boat's floor.

One woman suffered a badly broken leg.

The other passenger spent perhaps two minutes in the water before he was pulled back onto the boat.

Trusdale, her husband, Tom, and the boat's other occupants subsequently learned that the Viking Polaris, the ship on which they were taking a cruise, wasn't capable of providing the medical attention the woman needed.

So the cruise ship headed north through gale-force winds and rough waters toward South America. En route, it was struck by a giant rogue wave , which killed one passenger and injured four others.

Trusdale shared that account of her experiences Friday in a telephone interview with The Topeka Capital-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, from Ushuaia, Argentina, where she and her husband were waiting to return to the United States.

"We've had a little bit of excitement that we hadn't anticipated," she said.

'Trip of a lifetime'

The trip to Antarctica was the eighth on Viking Cruise Lines for the Trusdales, who are retired and have been married for 10 years.

"We've seen a lot of the world," Pam Trusdale said.

She is the widow of Col. Mike O'Toole, wing commander of the 190th Air Refueling Wing of the Kansas Air National Guard, who died in 2003 in a plane crash on takeoff from a private airport in northeast Shawnee County. Pam Trusdale and their adult daughter, Shannon O'Toole Mason, survived after being hospitalized for injuries suffered in that crash.

After her husband died, Pam reconnected with Tom Trusdale, her high school sweetheart. They've enjoyed numerous adventures, including climbing Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro.

Pam Trusdale said she had been particularly excited about the couple's cruise to Antarctica.

The Trusdales booked passage on the Viking Polaris, identified on  Viking Cruise Lines' website as a 665-foot-long cruise ship that was built this year and has the capacity to house 256 crew members and 378 guests.

"It was kind of our 'trip of a lifetime,'" Pam Trusdale said.

Though the Trusdales hadn't known it, others on the Antarctica cruise included Shawnee County Treasurer Larry Mah and his wife, Ann Mah , a member of the Kansas State Board of Education.

The couples spent time together on the cruise, though the Mahs weren't with the Trusdales on the excursion that turned dangerous.

'We dragged him in on his back'

The Trusdales were among three couples who made plans to ride Monday morning in a small, yellow submarine. Neither of the other couples were from Kansas.

They all got into a heavy-duty inflatable boat known as a Zodiac.

The weather was nice for Antarctica, with overcast skies and temperatures around 30 degrees, as the Zodiac's pilot took the three couples to the area where they were to board the submarine, Pam Trusdale said.

They learned they would have to wait 20 minutes, and the driver started "cruising around," she said.

At the time, Pam Trusdale was sitting at the front of the Zodiac, with her husband next to her.

As she was holding onto a rope attached to the boat with one hand and taking cell phone video of penguins with the other, she said, a "pretty significant explosion" took place beneath the floor between the front two passengers.

Watch:  'Heroic' mother comes to the rescue after raccoon attacks 5-year-old daughter, video shows

'It could have been so much worse'

The woman sitting directly across from Trusdale took the brunt of the impact, suffering a badly broken leg.

Another passenger on that side was thrown from the boat.

Pam Trusdale managed to hold onto her phone. She and her husband crossed over to the other side and helped to stop the boat. Tom Trusdale, another male passenger and the Zodiac pilot pulled the man back into the Zodiac on his back, Pam Trusdale said.

"Tom knew exactly what to do," she said. "I just stayed on the floor and waited for help."

Meanwhile, a woman who was sitting on the opposite side of the boat moved over to the side the Trusdales had been sitting on to make sure it remained balanced.

"We couldn't have been with better people, because everyone was calm under pressure," Pam Trusdale said. "Everything was under control."

The Zodiac pilot responded calmly and professionally, and Viking got them all the help they needed immediately, she said.

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'It was just so scary'

Pam Trusdale was wearing an ankle brace Friday because of minor injuries suffered in the accident.

"It just hurts to walk, because I bruised my heel," she said. "My left leg is worse than my right."

Pam Trusdale said while she feels lucky to be alive, she never felt the experience was life-threatening.

"It was just scary," she said. "It could have been so much worse."

The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.

A rogue wave hit the cruise ship during a storm

Ann Mah wrote on her Facebook page about the blast and its aftermath.

"They couldn’t helicopter (the woman) out in the weather, and she needs attention the boat can’t provide," she said. "So we are headed back to Ushuaia, Argentina."

The Drake passage, the body of water that lies between South America's Cape Horn, Chile, and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica, was mentioned in a message Larry Mah put Tuesday on his Facebook page.

"Evacuation options are limited, and the weather is deteriorating," he said. "So, we are returning to Ushuaia (Argentina) at top speed. The Drake Channel has gale force winds (30-60 MPH) with waves 15-20 feet high. The next 600 miles is going to be a very rough ride!!"

The cruise ship was bound for Ushuaia Tuesday when it was struck during a storm by a giant "rogue wave," which killed one person and injured four, USA TODAY reported .

"The rogue wave hit the side of the ship where our cabin is, but it mainly impacted Deck 2 at the front," Trusdale said. "We were on Deck 4 at the back."

Ann Mah said she and her husband were in bed in their room on Deck 4 at the front when the rogue wave struck.

"I understand water came in on 3, but nothing like 2," she said. "We had furniture get knocked over in our room, but no damage."

Viking released a statement confirming one of its guests had died.

"We have notified the guest's family and shared our deepest sympathies," it said, adding that four other passengers were treated for injuries that weren't life-threatening by the ship's onboard doctor and medical staff.

The ship "sustained limited damage during the incident," and arrived in Ushuaia on Wednesday afternoon, Viking added.

Trusdale said she learned afterward that if they hadn't been on the Polaris, which has "all the latest technology," the damage from the storm could have been much worse.

The damage from the storm caused Viking Cruise Lines to abandon its initial plans to cruise along the Chilean coast for a few days, and to instead drop off all its passengers at Ushuaia.

'This won't slow us down'

The Trusdales and Mahs remained in Ushuaia on Friday, and it wasn't clear when they might be able to fly back to Topeka.

Still, Pam Trusdale said Viking Cruise Lines has shown the "utmost professionalism" and done a good job of coping with what happened. She said she trusts the company to provide a refund for the trip.

Pam Trusdale added that she and her husband plan to make separate future trips with Viking to Norway and the Mekong Delta, after which they'll have traveled with that cruise line to every continent.

"This won't slow us down," she said.

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1 dead, 4 injured after 'rogue wave' strikes Antarctic cruise ship

The Viking Polaris ship was sailing toward Ushuaia, Argentina, at the time.

A passenger on an Antarctic cruise died and four others were injured after their Viking ship was struck by a "rogue wave," the cruise line said.

The incident happened on Tuesday around 10:40 p.m. local time while the Viking Polaris ship was sailing toward Ushuaia, Argentina, Viking said.

A guest died following the incident, Viking said, though did not share further details on the cause of death. The victim's family has been notified, the company said. The identity or nationality of the passenger was not released.

Four other guests sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the incident and were treated by the ship's doctor and medical staff, Viking said.

"We are investigating the facts surrounding this incident and will offer our support to the relevant authorities," Viking said in a statement Thursday. "Our focus remains on the safety and wellbeing of our guests and crew, and we are working directly with them to arrange return travel."

The ship sustained "limited damage" from the rogue wave and arrived in Ushuaia on Wednesday "without further incident," Viking said. Images taken of the docked ship showed several damaged windows.

Passengers on board the ship described choppy conditions leading up to the incident.

Californian Beverly Spiker told ABC News that a "huge smash" against the window of her and her husband's cabin caused her window frame to break.

"Clearly something big had happened," she said. "A lot of water came shooting in."

"Luckily, our windows did hold," she added, though said other rooms on their side of the ship were "washed out."

SEE ALSO: Cruise ship passenger who went overboard was 'dead set' on surviving during 20-hour wait for rescue

Spiker's cousin, Suzie Gooding, of North Carolina, told ABC News that at the time, the ship was going through the Drake Passage, "which is well-known for having turbulent seas."

Gooding said despite the conditions outside looking "horrible," the inside was "like a normal cruise ship" leading up to the incident. She said she felt a "sudden shudder" that caused cabinets to open.

"It was just unbelievable," she said. "At the time that it happened, we personally wondered if, you know, we knew that we weren't by any icebergs, but it's like, did we hit an iceberg? It just was so sudden."

Spiker said she and other passengers were "shook up" afterward.

"No matter what side of the boat you're on, it was felt throughout the ship that clearly something bad had happened," she said. "So everybody was pretty shook up."

The ship is docked as passengers await further travel plans from Viking, according to Gooding, who said that two other ships in their bay in Ushuaia were also damaged, possibly by rogue waves.

The Viking Polaris ship's next departure for the Antarctic, scheduled for Dec. 5, has been canceled "after careful consideration," the cruise line said.

Rogue, or extreme storm, waves are "greater than twice the size of surrounding waves" and are "very unpredictable," according to the National Ocean Service .

Ushuaia, at the southernmost tip of South America, is a common starting point for cruises to Antarctica.

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Deadly 'rogue wave' smashes into cruise ship near Antarctica — but where did it come from?

A suspected rogue wave recently crashed into a cruise ship near Antarctica killing one and injuring four others. Where did it come from?

A suspected "rogue wave" recently smashed into a cruise ship sailing from Antarctica to Argentina. The freak event killed one person and injured four others. But where do these freakishly tall waves come from? And is climate change expected to make them more common or extreme? 

On the night of Nov. 29, an unusually massive wave hit the cruise ship Viking Polaris as it was sailing through the Drake Passage in Antarctica's Southern Ocean toward Ushuaia, a port in Argentina where many Antarctic cruises start and end, French news agency AFP reported. 

The force of the massive wall of water sent passengers flying and smashed several exterior windows, which flooded some rooms and caused further structural damage inside. A 62-year-old American woman, Sheri Zhu, was killed by injuries sustained from the broken glass and four other people received non-life-threatening injuries, according to Australian news site ABC News . 

"This wave hit and came over and literally broke through windows and just washed into these rooms," Tom Trusdale, a passenger aboard the Viking Polaris when the incident happened, told ABC News. "Not only did it wash into the rooms, but it [also] broke walls down."

Related: What's the tallest wave ever recorded on Earth?

Viking, the travel company that owns the Viking Polaris, announced on Dec. 1 that the tragic event was a suspected "rogue wave incident." Upcoming cruises have been canceled until the ship can be fully repaired and a proper investigation into what happened has been carried out. 

What are rogue waves?

Rogue waves are freak waves that are at least twice as high as the surrounding sea state — the average height of the waves for a given area at a given time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The massive walls of water come from seemingly out of nowhere and without warning.

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The exact mechanisms behind the rogue waves are still unknown, but researchers think the freakish crests are formed when smaller waves merge into larger ones, either due to high surface winds or changes in ocean currents caused by storms, according to NOAA. 

It is currently unclear if the wave that hit the Viking Polaris qualifies as an official rogue wave because there is no accurate data on the wave height or the surrounding sea state. A storm was raging when the wave hit, CNN reported, which could have provided the necessary conditions for a rogue wave to form. But the Drake Passage is also a notoriously treacherous part of the Southern Ocean, with deep waters that are fed by the powerful Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which makes it capable of producing very large non-rogue waves as well, according to Britannica . 

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On Dec. 2, a passenger onboard another cruise ship in the Drake Passage shared a video of another massive, but less destructive, wave on Twitter .

The largest rogue wave ever recorded was the Draupner wave, an 84-foot-tall (25.6 meters) wave that was observed near Norway in 1995. However, the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded was the Ucluelet wave, a 58-foot-tall (17.7 m) wave that was detected by an ocean buoy off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia in November 2020. The Ucluelet wave is regarded as the most extreme rogue wave because it was around three times higher than surrounding waves, while the Draupner wave was only around twice as tall compared with the surrounding sea state.

In 2019, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports predicted that rogue waves could become less frequent but more extreme in the future due to the effects of human-caused climate change. 

Harry is a U.K.-based senior staff writer at Live Science. He studied marine biology at the University of Exeter before training to become a journalist. He covers a wide range of topics including space exploration, planetary science, space weather, climate change, animal behavior, evolution and paleontology. His feature on the upcoming solar maximum was shortlisted in the "top scoop" category at the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) Awards for Excellence in 2023. 

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Us woman killed when ‘rogue wave’ strikes antarctic cruise ship.

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An American woman died and four other passengers were injured when a “rogue wave” hit a Viking  cruise ship  sailing near the southernmost tip of South America on an Antarctic cruise, the company said Thursday. 

The unidentified 62-year-old woman was hit by broken glass when the wave broke cabin windows on the Viking Polaris ship late Tuesday during a storm, Argentine authorities said. The ship suffered limited damage and arrived in Ushuaia, 1,926 miles south of Buenos Aires, the next day.

“It is with great sadness that we confirmed a guest passed away following the incident,” Viking said in a statement. “We have notified the guest’s family and shared our deepest sympathies.”

The four passengers injured were treated onboard the ship by a doctor and medical staff for non-life-threatening injuries, the company said. 

The ship itself sustained “limited damage,” Viking said. 

“We are investigating the facts surrounding this incident and will offer our support to the relevant authorities,” the company said. “Our focus remains on the safety and wellbeing of our guests and crew, and we are working directly with them to arrange return travel.”

Rogue waves, also known as “extreme storm waves” by scientists, are greater than twice the size of surrounding waves and often come unexpectedly from directions other than prevailing wind and waves, according to the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .

Suzie Gooding, who was on the ship when the incident happened, told WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina, that it felt like the ship had struck an iceberg.

“Everything was fine until the rogue wave hit, and it was just sudden. Shocking,” she said. “We didn’t know if we should get our gear ready for abandoning ship.”

Viking said it has canceled the ship’s next scheduled departure, the Antarctic Explorer, slated to sail from Dec. 5-17. The Viking Polaris, a vessel that has luxury facilities and was built in 2022, has a capacity for 378 passengers and 256 crew members.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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American killed after "rogue wave" hits Antarctic cruise ship

Passengers aboard Antarctic ship speak out after 'rogue wave' incident

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Large waves hit glass of Antarctica cruise ship as it navigates the Drake Passage

One American woman was killed and four others injured after a rogue wave hit the cruise ship. (Credit: Ann Clark Mah)

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January 10, 2024

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A heat wave in Antarctica totally blew the minds of scientists. They set out to decipher it—and here are the results

by Dana M Bergstrom, The Conversation

Climate scientists don't like surprises. It means our deep understanding of how the climate works isn't quite as complete as we need. But unfortunately, as climate change worsens, surprises and unprecedented events keep happening.

In March 2022, Antarctica experienced an extraordinary heat wave. Large swathes of East Antarctica experienced temperatures up to 40°C (72°F) above normal, shattering temperature records. It was the most intense heat wave ever recorded anywhere in the world.

So shocking and rare was the event, it blew the minds of the Antarctic climate science community. A major global research project was launched to unravel the reasons behind it and the damage it caused. A team of 54 researchers, including me, delved into the intricacies of the phenomenon. The team was led by Swiss climatologist Jonathan Wille, and involved experts from 14 countries. The collaboration resulted in two groundbreaking papers published today.

The results are alarming. But they provide scientists a deeper understanding of the links between the tropics and Antarctica—and give the global community a chance to prepare for what a warmer world may bring.

Head-hurting complexity

The papers tell a complex story that began half a world away from Antarctica. Under La Niña conditions , tropical heat near Indonesia poured into the skies above the Indian Ocean. At the same time, repeated weather troughs pulsing eastwards were generating from southern Africa. These factors combined into a late, Indian Ocean tropical cyclone season.

Between late February and late March 2022, 12 tropical storms had brewed. Five storms revved up to become tropical cyclones, and heat and moisture from some of these cyclones mashed together. A meandering jet stream picked up this air and swiftly transported it vast distances across the planet to Antarctica.

Below Australia, this jet stream also contributed to blocking the eastward passage of a high pressure system. When the tropical air collided with this so-called "blocking high", it caused the most intense atmospheric river ever observed over East Antarctica. This propelled the tropical heat and moisture southward into the heart of the Antarctic continent.

Luck was on Antarctica's side

The event caused the vulnerable Conger Ice Shelf to finally collapse. But the impacts were otherwise not as bad as they could have been. That's because the heat wave struck in March, the month when Antarctica transitions to its dark, extremely cold winter. If a future heat wave arrives in summer—which is more likely under climate change—the results could be catastrophic.

Despite the heat wave, most inland temperatures stayed below zero. The spike included a new all-time temperature high of -9.4°C (15.1°F) on March 18 near Antarctica's Concordia Research Station. To understand the immensity of this, consider that the previous March maximum temperature at this location was -27.6°C (-17.68°F). At the heat wave's peak, 3.3 million square kilometers in East Antarctica—an area about the size of India—was affected by the heat wave.

The impacts included widespread rain and surface melt along coastal areas. But inland, the tropical moisture fell as snow—lots and lots of snow. Interestingly, the weight of the snow offset ice loss in Antarctica for the year. This delivered a temporary reprieve from Antarctica's contribution to global sea-level rise.

Learning from the results

So what are the lessons here? Let's begin with the nice bit. The study was made possible by international collaboration across Antarctica's scientific community, including the open sharing of datasets. This collaboration is a touchstone of the Antarctic Treaty. It serves as a testament to the significance of peaceful international cooperation and should be celebrated.

Less heartwarmingly, the extraordinary heat wave shows how compounding weather events in the tropics can affect the vast Antarctic ice sheet. The heat wave further reduced the extent of sea ice, which was already at record lows. This loss of sea ice was exacerbated this year resulting in the lowest summer and winter sea ice ever recorded. It shows how disturbances in one year can compound in later years.

The event also demonstrated how tropical heat can trigger the collapse of unstable ice shelves. Floating ice shelves don't contribute to global sea-level rise, but they acts as dams to the ice sheets behind them, which do contribute.

This research calculated that such temperature anomalies occur in Antarctica about once a century, but concluded that under climate change, they will occur more frequently.

The findings enable the global community to improve its planning for various scenarios. For example, if a heat wave of similar magnitude hit in summer, how much ice melt would there be? If an atmospheric river hit the Doomsday glacier in the West Antarctic, what rate of sea level rise would that trigger? And how can governments across the world prepare coastal communities for sea level rise greater than currently calculated?

This research contributes another piece to the complex jigsaw puzzle of climate change. And reminds us all, that delays to action on climate change will raise the price we pay.

Provided by The Conversation

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Cruise Ships Aren’t Ready for Instant Tsunamis

Landslides can cause sudden, powerful tsunamis—and no one really knows how to navigate them.

This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine .

In 2015, 76 million cubic meters of rock crashed from the rugged cliffs above a southeastern Alaska fjord and into the water below. The landslide sparked a nearly 200-meter-tall wave that roared down the narrow Taan Fiord and out into Icy Bay. No one witnessed the collapse, but a year later, the geologist Bretwood Higman was in the area taking detailed measurements of the tsunami’s effects. Looking up from his work, Higman saw a massive cruise ship crossing the fjord’s mouth. He was stunned.

“It’d never occurred to me that a cruise ship would go into Icy Bay,” Higman says. An image of tsunami-tossed ships trapped in the rocky passage filled his mind. “There are many ways in which that could work out really badly.” He couldn’t get the picture out of his head.

Landslide-generated tsunamis are low-probability, high-consequence events. But as rising temperatures cause glaciers to melt, the steep slopes of southeastern Alaska’s numerous fjords are becoming unstable . Once buttressed by ice, many exposed cliffs now stand unsupported and at risk of collapse as the glaciers that once held them up rapidly retreat. Heavy rains and thawing permafrost are further increasing the hazards. And with tourists flocking to Alaska’s rugged coast , “there are now these huge concentrations of people that are going right to the areas of highest risk,” Higman says. We’ve increased our vulnerability to disaster, and we’ve increased the probability, he says. This risk is rising in coastal regions around the world that share Alaska’s conditions, such as Greenland, Chile, Norway, and New Zealand.

Unlike tsunamis triggered by earthquakes far offshore, which take time to strike coastal communities, tsunamis triggered by coastal landslides appear suddenly and can cause significantly higher waves, Higman says. That poses a greater threat to people in boats.

Read: The lifesaving potential of underwater earthquake monitors

The growing threat has been gnawing at Amanda Bauer, who’s operated day cruises for 17 years, navigating the tight channels around Alaska’s Prince William Sound, including in the Barry Arm fjord, where a 500-million-cubic-meter slab of unstable terrain is teetering above the retreating Barry Glacier . “I think about it a lot when I’m up there—what would I do?” Bauer says. “Sometimes I’ll be sitting there, surrounded by ice; I couldn’t go more than two knots if I wanted to. That’s different than having open water where I can turn and burn if I see something happening.”

Concerned about how captains should respond to such an extreme threat, Higman dove into the existing scientific literature on how ships can ride out tsunami waves. Focusing only on research related to coastal landslide-triggered tsunamis, his search turned up little, save for some one-off case studies and eyewitness accounts of historical events, such as the time in 1958 when a wave nearly the height of Toronto’s CN Tower capsized two boats in Lituya Bay, Alaska, and killed five people. Scientific efforts to model landslide-generated tsunamis and their effects on vessels are just beginning, which means there are scant data to inform guidelines.

Higman found that the official guidance from the United States’ National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program is similarly lacking. That advice, informed by the effects of offshore tsunamis, essentially boils down to three bullet points: For docked vessels, abandon ship and head for high ground on foot. For vessels in deep water, go out to even deeper water. And for vessels near shore, choose to either beach the boat and run, or flee to deeper water. This one-size-fits-all advice is meant to apply to everything from fishing boats to 150-passenger day cruisers.

Landslide-generated tsunamis can strike before experts are able to detect them and issue warnings, and Higman says the captains he’s spoken with would never choose to beach—and potentially destroy—their vessel and attempt to evacuate with passengers and crew up a rugged Alaska shoreline without even knowing when the wave will arrive or how far it will run up the coast.

Although it’s currently difficult to predict the arrival time or size of a landslide-generated tsunami in advance, Higman says current guidelines could better explain how tsunamis generally work. Tsunami waves differ fundamentally from the wind waves mariners are used to navigating, he says, which can throw off a captain’s intuition. For one thing, tsunami waves pick up speed in deeper water and grow considerably taller in shallow water. The depths of Alaska’s fjords can vary widely, so a captain could think they have plenty of time to outrun a tsunami, only to have the wave catch up and break right on top of them.

Tsunamis confined to fjords also tend to slosh around like water in a bathtub, creating unpredictable currents in excess of 100 kilometers per hour. Those three bullet points of guidance don’t get into these nuances of tsunamis’ interactions with Alaska’s complex shoreline, Higman says. The current guidelines may also underestimate the expertise of vessel operators, he says, who are used to making quick decisions in hazardous conditions.

Elena Suleimani, a tsunami modeler for the Alaska Earthquake Center and co-author of the existing guidelines, admits that they’re imperfect. Although she’s created harbor-specific maps outlining where the water is deep enough for a ship to safely ride out a tsunami, Suleimani doesn’t feel comfortable giving advice to vessel operators: “I have no idea how to operate boats,” she says.

So, on a mission to give captains the best advice possible, Higman is running a workshop with the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council (RCAC) in Valdez, Alaska, this month. The event will bring together tsunami scientists and vessel operators to compile their knowledge and, hopefully, work out some more practicable recommendations.

At this point, Higman can’t say exactly what the proper guidance should be. But although the workshop will focus on improving advice for the captains of small craft, Chad Hults, a geologist with the National Park Service, says operators of larger vessels, such as cruise ships, need to consider the threat of landslide-generated tsunamis as well. Hults says the NPS is keen to begin talks with the cruise lines that frequent Glacier Bay, where a dozen slabs of land seem ready to slide at any moment.

During tourism season, Hults says, “we have 260 cruise ships—two cruise ships a day—going into Glacier Bay. There’s no other place in the park system where we have 4,000 people on a boat and a pretty obvious hazard that could cause some harm.”

Read: The tsunami effect

Similarly, says Alan Sorum, the maritime-operations project manager for the Prince William Sound RCAC, there are no official tsunami hazard guidelines for the oil tankers visiting Valdez, Alaska—the endpoint of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. “If you capsize a big vessel like that,” Sorum says, “it would be a big problem cleaning that up.”

So far, Alaska’s mariners have managed to avoid the worst. A tsunami hasn’t caused an oil spill or killed anyone aboard a boat in Alaska in 60 years. “With all my effort on this, there’s this voice in the back of my head that’s like, ‘Maybe it’s not a big deal; maybe I’m wasting my time,’” Higman says.

But then he thinks about Barry Arm, Lituya Bay, and the cruise ship he saw sailing past the mouth of Taan Fiord. He tallies the dozens of unstable slopes known to be lurking across Alaska, all waiting to collapse into bays and fjords. “And,” he says, “I do think that, at some point, [the situation] is going to explode.”