waves in the world

Waves In the World

Waves are created by wind! Yep that's right, wind. Believe it or not there is an actual transfer of energy from the energy in the wind to the water. This is why wind advisories are important! Now what exactly goes on in the water and what determines the heights of those waves? Well, what happens is, the shape of the wave is energy but what determines the amplitude of that wave is the depth at which the water particles have to orbit. As the water gets deeper the orbits get smaller and peter out thus enabling them to move faster, but when the orbits get closer to shore they start to hit the bottom and slow the wave down. 

The picture above is an example of when the wind has just transferred energy into the water and a wave is being created, as you can see, the crest is starting to curl. This is also an example of the energy pushing the water to a shallow area where the orbits get closer thus slowing the wave and actually making the wave steeper. 

Wave Superposition

Wave Superposition

Wave Superposition: the total amplitude caused by two or more waves extending across the same space is the same as the sum of the amplitudes which would have been produced by the individual waves. Basically, the wave superposition definition I just gave is a long fancy way of explaining what a ripple is. In the picture above you can see that because of the fact that these ducks are in the water creating energy to surge through the water over an extended area, you can also see that the various waves being formed, when the waves converge they create one large wave that ripples out over the circumference of this pond. 

Waves

Waves: a disturbance or oscillation that travels through space and matter, accompanied by a transfer of energy. In other words, a wave is basically a transfer of energy that is generated from different oscillations or disturbances that travels through space and matter.
The picture above, although it is hard to see, is an example of some waves on the north shore. The different parts of the wave are the trough: which is the bottom of the wave, the crest: which is the top of the wave, wavelength: which is the distance between the two crests, amplitude: which is the distance from the trough to the crest. The wavelength and amplitude are used to measure the size of the waves for surf advisories.