When waves

Ocean surface wave

In fluid dynamics, wind waves or, more precisely, wind-generated waves are surface waves that occur on the free surface of oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and canals or even on small puddles and ponds. They usually result from the wind blowing over a vast enough stretch of fluid surface. Waves in the...

 travel into areas of shallow water, they begin to be affected by the ocean

Ocean

An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...

 bottom. The free orbital motion of the water is disrupted, and water particles in orbital motion no longer return to their original position. As the water becomes shallower, the swell becomes higher and steeper, ultimately assuming the familiar sharp-crested wave shape. After the wave breaks

Breaking wave

In fluid dynamics, a breaking wave is a wave whose amplitude reaches a critical level at which some process can suddenly start to occur that causes large amounts of wave energy to be transformed into turbulent kinetic energy...

, it becomes a wave of translation and erosion of the ocean bottom intensifies.

See also

• Boussinesq equations (water waves)
• Mild-slope equation
  Mild-slope equation
  In fluid dynamics, the mild-slope equation describes the combined effects of diffraction and refraction for water waves propagating over bathymetry and due to lateral boundaries—like breakwaters and coastlines. It is an approximate model, deriving its name from being originally developed for wave...
  
  
• Shallow water equations
  Shallow water equations
  The shallow water equations are a set of hyperbolic partial differential equations that describe the flow below a pressure surface in a fluid .The equations are derived from depth-integrating the Navier–Stokes...
  
  
• Stokes drift
  Stokes drift
  For a pure wave motion in fluid dynamics, the Stokes drift velocity is the average velocity when following a specific fluid parcel as it travels with the fluid flow...
  
  
• Wave shoaling
  Wave shoaling
  In fluid dynamics, wave shoaling is the effect by which surface waves entering shallower water increase in wave height . It is caused by the fact that the group velocity, which is also the wave-energy transport velocity, decreases with the reduction of water depth...
  
  
• Ursell number
  Ursell number
  In fluid dynamics, the Ursell number indicates the nonlinearity of long surface gravity waves on a fluid layer. This dimensionless parameter is named after Fritz Ursell, who discussed its significance in 1953....
  
  
• Ballantine Scale
  Ballantine Scale
  The Ballantine Scale is a biologically defined scale for measuring the degree of exposure level of wave action on a rocky shore. Devised in 1961 by W. J...
  
  

External links

• Exploring the World Oceanhttp://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073016543/student_view0/chapter1/
• The Oceans lecture slides taught at UCSChttp://ic.ucsc.edu/~kudela/ocea1/Lectures/102607/Notes.dwt