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Waves can occur on the thermocline, causing the depth of the thermocline as measured at a single location to oscillate (usually as a form of seiche). Alternately, the waves may be induced by flow over a raised bottom, producing a thermocline wave which does not change with time, but varies in depth as one moves into or against the flow.
Rip currents can form by the coasts of oceans, seas, and large lakes, whenever there are waves of sufficient energy. Rip currents often occur on a gradually shelving shore, where breaking waves approach the shore parallel to it, or where underwater topography encourages outflow at one specific area.
The wave pattern seen in the image is not from large ocean waves, however. The pattern is of atmospheric gravity waves above the surface of the ocean. They form when buoyancy pushes air up, and gravity pulls it back down. On its descent into the low-point of the wave (the trough), the air touches the surface of the ocean, roughening the water ...
When waves travel into areas of shallow water, they begin to be affected by the ocean bottom. [1] 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 ...
Stratus and stratocumulus can form at the top of a marine layer in the presence of these conditions. A marine layer can often be dispersed by sufficiently strong winds, which essentially blow it away. The sun can also evaporate the marine layer, as it warms air and land which decreases the relative humidity and causes marine layer clouds to ...
An "undertow" is a steady, offshore-directed compensation flow, which occurs below waves near the shore. Physically, nearshore, the wave-induced mass flux between wave crest and trough is onshore directed. This mass transport is localized in the upper part of the water column, i.e. above the wave troughs.
A subsurface ocean current is an oceanic current that runs beneath surface currents. [1] Examples include the Equatorial Undercurrents of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, the California Undercurrent, [ 2 ] and the Agulhas Undercurrent, [ 3 ] the deep thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic, and bottom gravity currents near Antarctica.
For an observer traveling with the wave, the coastal boundary (maximum amplitude) is always to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere (i.e. these waves move equatorward – negative phase speed – at the western side of an ocean and poleward – positive phase speed – at the eastern boundary; the ...