What determines the form, height, and length of ocean waves?
I'm doing a science essay and one of the questions is the one I posted above. Thank you .
Referencing wind-blown waves, I assume?
Three things:
(1) Strength/speed
(2) Time/duration
(3) Fetch
*** Strength/speed is probably obvious. The stronger the wind, the higher and more energetic a wave will be.
*** Time/duration is also probably obvious. This is like the idea of "impulse" in physics. The longer that you put in energy (strength of wind), the larger your waves will be, because they have... more energy.
*** Fetch is the scientific word for "area over which the wind blows." The larger the area, the more powerful and distributed the waves will be.
But there is actually one more thing, and it might actually be my favorite. That thing? Constructive and destructive wave interference. Let's say that you have two different groups of waves moving toward each other from different directions. They aren't the same, and they aren't running together. So when they meet, they have to interact with each other. A crest meets a crest and makes a BIG crest. Trough meets trough makes DEEP trough. Crest meets trough, ocean goes flat.
Now go out on a boat and look at the ocean. It's a mess of random bumps and ditches and troughs and peaks, all created by winds that may have birthed the waves hundreds of miles away, and coming from every direction, and hitting each other over the whole surface... hence, (1), (2), (3) + constructive/destructive wave interference.
Hope that helps!
If you want tsunami waves, they are a completely different phenomenon.
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