* Height (from trough to crest) * Wavelength (from crest to crest) * Period (time interval between arrival of consecutive crests at a stationary point)

WAVE TYPES: * Spilling, or rolling: safest; found in relatively sheltered areas.

* Plunging, or dumping: break suddenly with great force. Strong winds can cause; also be found where there is a sudden rise in the sea floor.

* Surging: never actually break as they approach the water's edge.

In the context of sediment transport on beachs, ocean surface waves can also be classified as either constructive or destructive:

* Constructive waves tend to be low in height (under 1 metre), and therefore low in energy. As they approach the beach, the wave front steepens only slowly, gently spilling on the beach surface. Swash rapidly loses volume and energy as water percolates through the beach material. This tends to give a weak backwash that has insufficient force to pull

sediment off the beach or to impede swash from the next wave. As a consequence, material is slowly, but constantly, moved up the beach, leading to the formation of ridges

(or berms).

* Destructive waves are tall, toppling waves carrying a lot of energy. As they approach the beach, they rapidly steepen, and when breaking they plunge down and scour the beach. This creates a powerful backwash, as a significant amount of the energy of the wave has not dissipated during breaking and runup. The backwash inhibits the swash from the next wave. Very little material is moved up the beach, leaving the backwash to

pull material away. Destructive waves are commonly associated with steeper beach profiles. The force of each wave may project some shingle well towards the rear of the

beach where it forms a large ridge known as the storm beach.

http://www.coastal.udel.edu/faculty/rad/linearplot.html

Refraction

* Waves slow down when they come in contact with bottom * If waves arrive at an angle different of 90°, the near-shore part ‘feels’ bottom first and slows down * Thereby, wave fronts turn towards the coast and all waves arrive 90°

Ocean Currents (simple, right?)

All winds and weather are ultimately driven by heating from the sun. Winds are also affected by the Coriolis effect, which is due to the fact that the earth is a rotating sphere. Without going into a detailed explanation, suffice it to say that because of Coriolis forces,

all air flows in the northern hemisphere will be deflected to the right

Pictured above is the East Coast of the United States, in grey, with the Gulf Stream, in orange, revealed through Sea Surface Temperature data (SST), made from the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensor carried on a NOAA satellite. In this image, purple and blue represent the coldest temperatures (between 0-15 °C) and orange and red represents the warmest temperatures (between 22-32°C). The Gulf Stream is easily visible as the warmest water in the image. Credit: Gulf Stream Tutorial.