What are the three factors that affect ocean waves?

What are the three factors that affect ocean waves?

There are three main factors that affect wave formation: wind velocity, fetch, and duration.

What affects sea waves?

Surface Waves The faster the wind, the longer it blows, or the farther it can blow uninterrupted, the bigger the waves. Therefore, a wave’s size depends on wind speed, wind duration, and the area over which the wind is blowing (the fetch). This variability leads to waves of all shapes and sizes.

What are two things that cause ocean waves?

Most water waves are generated by wind moving over the water’s surface that creates fractional drag. The size of the resulting waves is dependent upon the wind velocity, wind duration, and the fetch (i.e., the area and distance over which the wind travels.

What causes waves to break?

Scientists have concluded that waves break when their amplitude reaches a critical level that causes large amounts of wave energy to be transformed into turbulent kinetic energy, like a ball rolling down the hill. Waves begin to break when the ratio of wave height/wavelength exceeds 1/7.

What factors affect the size of the waves?

Wave height is affected by wind speed, wind duration (or how long the wind blows), and fetch, which is the distance over water that the wind blows in a single direction.

What causes a wave to break at the shore?

When the Energy Meets the Ocean Floor As waves reach the shore, the energy in front of the wave slows down due to friction with the shallow bottom. The wave breaks, and it usually does so in water depth that is 1.3 times the wave height.

What causes tidal waves in the sea?

A tidal wave is a shallow water wave caused by the gravitational interactions between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. A tidal wave is a regularly reoccurring shallow water wave caused by effects of the gravitational interactions between the Sun, Moon, and Earth on the ocean.

What causes waves to rise up and break on the beach?

As the waves gets closer and closer to the coast the impact of friction grows, with the top of the wave moving faster than the base of the wave. Eventually a critical point is reached where the top of the wave (the CREST) curves over and creates a breaking wave.

What causes waves to rise in the ocean?

Friction from the ocean surface and the wind also causes ocean swells. The friction creates the waves to rise over the ocean water. The water deep inside the ocean will fuel the swell to travel over great distances.

How does wind speed affect the size of a wave?

The greater the wind velocity, the longer the fetch, and the greater duration the wind blows, then the more energy is converted to waves and the bigger the waves. However, if wind speed is slow, the resulting waves will be small, regardless of the fetch or duration. It takes all three factors acting together to create big waves.

When are there no large waves in the ocean?

If wind speed is slow, only small waves result, regardless of wind duration or fetch. If the wind speed is great but it only blows for a few minutes, no large waves will result even if the wind speed is strong and fetch is unlimited. Also, if strong winds blow for a long period of time but over a short fetch, no large waves form.

How does the wind speed affect ocean swells?

The wind speed affects ocean swells. When the speed of the wind is high, it is able to garner more strength to create a larger swells in the ocean. 2. Wind Strength Other than the speed of the wind, the strength of the wind is also important. It is a huge factor that determines the size of the swell that the ocean can form.