ESCI 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Pycnocline, Standing Wave, Wave Base

• School: The Ville, MU
• Department: EARTH SCIENCE, GEOLOGY, METEOROLOGY, ENVIROMENTAL STUDIES, OCEAN SCIENCES AND COASTAL STUDIES
• Course: ESCI 104
• Professor: vaillancourt

Document Summary

In this chapter we study ocean waves, what produces them, and how they move across the ocean. We begin with an understanding of the anatomy of an ocean wave, and then put the wave into motion to study how it moves. The most surprising things about ocean waves are that they are really not moving water at all (except for breakers on the shore), but are merely energy moving through the medium of water. Also, ocean waves reach some distance beneath the surface, and this causes them to have a large impact on shaping shorelines (we get into this in chapter 10). In a lake, harbor, or estuary, a standing wave is called a seiche, usually created by storm winds piling up water at one end of the basin. If the period of the force matches the natural period of oscillation of the basin, resonance occurs, which causes waves to grow in size and possibly become destructive.