Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Much like mermaids, the kraken, or the hafgufa, rogue waves have been regarded as a maritime myth. These waves do not always leave a lot of data behind, making it feel as if they spring up from the depths out of nowhere. However, one monster wave did leave data behind for scientists. On January 1, 1995, a monstrous 80-foot wave slammed into the Draupner oil platform in the North Sea.

This study evaluates the potential of generative models, trained on historical ERA5 reanalysis data, for simulating windstorms over the UK. Four generative models, including a standard GAN, a WGAN-GP, a U-net diffusion model, and a diffusion-GAN were assessed based on their ability to replicate spatial and statistical characteristics of windstorms. Different models have distinct strengths and limitations. The standard GAN displayed broader variability and limited alignment on the PCA dimensions. The WGAN-GP had a more balanced performance but occasionally misrepresented extreme events. The U-net diffusion model produced high-quality spatial patterns but consistently underestimated windstorm intensities. The diffusion-GAN performed better than the other models in general but overestimated extremes. An ensemble approach combining the strengths of these models could potentially improve their overall reliability. This study provides a foundation for such generative models in meteorological research and could potentially be applied in windstorm analysis and risk assessment.

Almost six billion tonnes of sand and other sediment are extracted from the world's seas and oceans every year on average, according to the United Nations. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned on Tuesday of the devastating toll on biodiversity and coastal communities, adding that the scale of dredging was growing, with dire consequences. "The scale of environmental impacts of shallow sea mining activities and dredging is alarming," said Pascal Peduzzi, who heads UNEP's analytics centre GRID-Geneva. He pointed to the effects on biodiversity, as well as on water turbidity, and noise effects on marine mammals. The UNEP launched a global data platform on sediment extraction in marine environments, Marine Sand Watch, which uses artificial intelligence to track and monitor dredging activities of sand, clay, silt, gravel and rock in the world's marine environment.

COVID-19, a low oil price and an industry facing increased environmental scrutiny has resulted in a turbulent 2020 for the oil and gas sector. As many North Sea fields reach maturity, stakeholders will be carefully considering their options including decommissioning and diversifying the energy mix. The National Decommissioning Centre (NDC) (a partnership between the University of Aberdeen, the Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC), and industry) has said that efficient late-life management and decommissioning of assets is a "societal and economic necessity". Emerging tech and artificial intelligence (AI) can help achieve this. However, the contribution AI and new technology could have on decommissioning cannot be considered in isolation.

The maritime and scientific communities have set themselves the ambitious target of 2030 to map Earth's entire ocean floor. You can argue about the numbers but it's in the region of 80% of the global seafloor that's either completely unknown or has had no modern measurement applied to it. The international GEBCO 2030 project was set up to close the data gap and has announced a number of initiatives to get it done. What's clear, however, is that much of this work will have to leverage new technologies or at the very least max the existing ones. Which makes the news from Ocean Infinity - that it's creating a fleet of ocean-going robots - all the more interesting. US-based OI is a relatively new exploration and survey company.

When you think of canine-inspired robots, your brain probably conjures up images of Boston Dynamics' celebrated dog robot, Spot. Swiss robotics company Anybotics has also created its own audacious, quadruped robot. The size of a large dog and weighing a little under 80 pounds, Anymal aims to be the gold standard in dog-bots. It's capable of autonomously walking, running, and climbing, and can even get back on its feet if it falls over. Although Spot will go on sale for the first time later this year, this gleaming robotic beast is already on the market in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.

Autonomous Robotics, a subsidiary of listed company Thalassa, is to collaborate with Robert Gordon University to conduct research on swarm technology of autonomous underwater vehicles in the North Sea. The work is supported by the Oil & Gas Innovation Centre. The purpose of this research is to further enhance the capability of the'flying node' system and further reduce the cost and time for ocean bottom seismic surveys. The Swarm Technology research will be performed by Dr Wai-keung Fung and Mr Adham Sabra, who are with the Communications and Autonomous Systems Group within the School of Engineering, with results are expected within 12 months. Chairman Dave Grant said: "ARL are working with RGU to research and create a practical localisation system for the flying node system which will allow the flying nodes to operate in a swarm and move from their initial seabed position to a new seabed location.

An autonomous robot will be deployed to an offshore oil and gas platform in the North Sea later this year, in a first for the sector. The £4m project's backers said the move was designed to take humans out of dangerous and dull jobs, and reinvent oil and gas as an industry of the future. Under the pilot scheme, the robot will initially be deployed at the French oil firm Total's gas plant on Shetland before being sent to join the 120 workers on the company's Alwyn platform, 440km north-east of Aberdeen. The machine, made by Austrian firm Taurob and supported on the software side by German university TU Darmstadt, will be used for visual inspections and detecting gas leaks. Rebecca Allison, asset integrity solution centre manager at the publicly-funded Oil and Gas Technology Centre, insisted autonomous robots would not be used to cut the wage burden of offshore workers who are paid a premium for working in tough, remote conditions.