10.5 NOTES
What are ocean waves?
Objective: Identify the properties of an ocean wave
Waves are formed from wind. A wave is a regular up-and-down movement of
water.
A wave has a high point and a low point. The highest point of a wave is the crest,
and the lowest point is the trough. The wave height is the distance between
these two points. When a wave gets too high, it topples over and forms a white
cap. As waves move across the water, you can see one crest following another.
The distance between two crests is called wavelength.
In deep water,
only the energy in
a wave moves
forward. As a
result, floating
objects appear to
be moving up and
down in the same
place. As a wave
moves across the
ocean, water
particles in the
wave move in
circles.
As a wave moves along through deep water, they are not greatly affected by the
water’s depth.
However, the closer
they come to the
shoreline and the
shallower the water,
the slower they
become. The height
rises to a certain
point, breaks, and
then advances up the
shore as a sheet of
water.