(CH Notes) Wind Wave, Wave Generation and Wave Transformation

Wind wave
Coastal currents are intricately tied to winds, waves, and land formations.
Winds that blow along the shoreline—longshore winds—affect waves and,
therefore, currents.
Before one can understand any type of surface current, one must understand
how wind and waves operate. 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. 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. Large
waves occur only when all three factors combine (Duxbury, et al, 2002.)
As wind-driven waves approach the shore, friction between the sea floor and
the water causes the water to form increasingly steep angles. Waves that
become too steep and unstable are termed “breakers” or “breaking waves.”
In fluid dynamics, wind waves, or wind-generated waves, are water surface
waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water. They result from
the wind blowing over a fluid surface, where the contact distance in the
direction of the wind is known as the fetch. Waves in the oceans can travel
thousands of miles before reaching land. Wind waves on Earth range in size
from small ripples, to waves over 100 ft (30 m) high, being limited by wind
speed, duration, fetch, and water depth.
When directly generated and affected by local waters, a wind wave system is
called a wind sea (or wind waves). Wind waves in the ocean are also called
ocean surface waves, and are mainly gravity waves.
Wind waves have a certain amount of randomness: subsequent waves differ in
height, duration, and shape with limited predictability. They can be described as
a stochastic process, in combination with the physics governing their
generation, growth, propagation, and decay – as well as governing the
interdependence between flow quantities such as: the water
surface movements, flow velocities and water pressure. The key statistics of
wind waves (both seas and swells) in evolving sea states can be predicted
with wind wave models.
Formation
The great majority of large breakers seen at a beach result from distant winds.
Five factors influence the formation of the flow structures in wind waves:[5]
1. Wind speed or strength relative to wave speed – the wind must be

moving faster than the wave crest for energy transfer
2. The uninterrupted distance of open water over which the wind
blows without significant change in direction (called the fetch)
3. Width of area affected by fetch (at right angle to the distance)
4. Wind duration – the time for which the wind has blown over the
water.
5. Water depth
All of these factors work together to determine the size of the water waves and
the structure of the flow within them.
The main dimensions associated with waves are:
 Wave height (vertical distance from trough to crest)

 Wave length (distance from crest to crest in the direction of
propagation)
 Wave period (time interval between arrival of consecutive crests at a
stationary point)
 Wave propagation direction
For weather reporting and for scientific analysis of wind wave statistics, their
characteristic height over a period of time is usually expressed as significant
wave height. This figure represents an average height of the highest one-third of
the waves in a given time period (usually chosen somewhere in the range from
20 minutes to twelve hours), or in a specific wave or storm system. The
significant wave height is also the value a "trained observer" (e.g. from a ship's
crew) would estimate from visual observation of a sea state. Given the
variability of wave height, the largest individual waves are likely to be
somewhat less than twice the reported significant wave height for a particular
day or storm.
Types
Three different types of wind waves develop over time:
 Capillary waves, or ripples, dominated by surface tension effects.

 Gravity waves, dominated by gravitational and inertial forces.
o Seas, raised locally by the wind.
 Swells, which have travelled away from where they were raised by
wind, and have to a greater or lesser extent dispersed.
Wave generation
Wind waves are generated as a result of the action of the wind on the surface of
the water. The wave height, wave period, propagation direction and duration of
the wave field at a certain location depend on:
1. The wind field (speed, direction and duration)

2. The fetch of the wind field (meteorological fetch) or the water area
(geographical fetch)
3. The water depth over the wave generation area.
Swell is, as previously stated, wind waves generated elsewhere but transformed
as they propagate away from the generation area. The dissipation processes,
such as wave-breaking, attenuate the short period much more than the long
period components. This process acts as a filter, whereby the resulting long-
crested swell will consist of relatively long (wavelength) waves with moderate
wave height.
Wave Transformation
Depth-refraction is the turning of the direction of wave propagation when
the wave fronts travel at an angle with the depth contours at shallow water.
The refraction is caused by the fact that the waves propagate more slowly
in shallow water than in deep water.
When deep-water waves move into shallow water, they change into breaking
waves.

(CH Notes) Wind Wave, Wave Generation and Wave Transformation

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(CH Notes) Wind Wave, Wave Generation and Wave Transformation

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Wind wave

1. Wind speed or strength relative to wave speed – the wind must be

 Wave height (vertical distance from trough to crest)

 Capillary waves, or ripples, dominated by surface tension effects.

1. The wind field (speed, direction and duration)

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