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Wave characteristics. In fluid dynamics, the wave height of a surface wave is the difference between the elevations of a crest and a neighboring trough. [1] Wave height is a term used by mariners, as well as in coastal, ocean and naval engineering.
Undertow (water waves) – Return flow below nearshore water waves. Ursell number – Dimensionless number indicating the nonlinearity of long surface gravity waves on a fluid layer. Wave shoaling – Effect by which surface waves entering shallower water change in wave height
Significant wave height H 1/3, or H s or H sig, as determined in the time domain, directly from the time series of the surface elevation, is defined as the average height of that one-third of the N measured waves having the greatest heights: [5] / = = where H m represents the individual wave heights, sorted into descending order of height as m increases from 1 to N.
In oceanography, sea state is the general condition of the free surface on a large body of water—with respect to wind waves and swell—at a certain location and moment. A sea state is characterized by statistics, including the wave height, period, and spectrum. The sea state varies with time, as the wind and swell conditions change.
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 significant wave height. [2] The phases of an ocean surface wave: 1.
The Degree (D) value has an almost linear dependence on the square root of the average wave Height (H) above, i.e., +. Using linear regression on the table above, the coefficients can be calculated for the low Height values ( λ L = 2.3236 , β L = 1.2551 {\textstyle \lambda _{L}=2.3236,\beta _{L}=1.2551} ) and for the high Height values ( λ H ...
Propagation of shoaling long waves, showing the variation of wavelength and wave height with decreasing water depth.. In fluid dynamics, Green's law, named for 19th-century British mathematician George Green, is a conservation law describing the evolution of non-breaking, surface gravity waves propagating in shallow water of gradually varying depth and width.
In shallow water, with the water depth small compared to the wavelength, the individual waves break when their wave height H is larger than 0.8 times the water depth h, that is H > 0.8 h. [25] Waves can also break if the wind grows strong enough to blow the crest off the base of the wave.