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.