The paper is dedicated to freak wave accidents which happened in the world ocean in 2005–2021 and that were described in mass media sources. The database accounts for 429 events, all of which resulted in ship or coastal and offshore structure damage and/or human losses. In agreement with each freak wave event, we put background wave and wind conditions extracted from the climate reanalysis ERA5. We analyse their statistics and discuss the favourable conditions for freak wave occurrence.

The Baltic Earth Assessment Reports summarise the current state of knowledge on Earth system science in the Baltic Sea region. The 10 review articles focus on the regional water, biogeochemical and carbon cycles; extremes and natural hazards; sea-level dynamics and coastal erosion; marine ecosystems; coupled Earth system models; scenario simulations for the regional atmosphere and the Baltic Sea; and climate change and impacts of human use. Some highlights of the results are presented here.

This work is based on the authors' idea that asymmetry of a tsunami wave gained during its propagation in the ocean should also influence its run-up height on the slope. This was previously analytically shown by the authors for sinusoidal waves. In the paper, this idea is elaborated for single waves using both semi-analytical and numerical methods. The corresponding formula for the maximum run-up height which takes into account the wave front steepness is proposed.

Parametric excitation of edge waves with a frequency 2 times less than the frequency of surface waves propagating perpendicular to the inclined bottom are investigated in laboratory experiments. The domain of instability on the plane of surface wave parameters (amplitude–frequency) is found. The subcritical instability is observed in the system of parametrically excited edge waves. It is shown that breaking of surface waves initiates turbulent effects and can suppress the parametric generation.