Rogue waves occur when wave forms arrive suddenly in oceans, thus causing ships to sink within a very short time. The explanation scientists have for this is constructive interference magnified by second-order bound non-linearities. Waves are meant to arrive in a particular direction. During constructive interference, these waves arrive from different directions and in an organized way thus increasing the height of the wave.
This increased height is as a result of the waves not being in a linear form and having sharp peaks. There is also a significant difference between the crests and troughs. Scientists arrived at this explanation for the rogue waves though three experiments conducted in 1997, 2007, and 2015.
