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Breaking of water surface waves may occur anywhere that the amplitude is sufficient, including in mid-ocean. However, it is particularly common on beaches because wave heights are amplified in the region of shallower water (because the group velocity is lower there). See also waves and shallow water. There are four basic types of breaking 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 ...
Breaking swell waves at Hermosa Beach, California. A swell, also sometimes referred to as ground swell, in the context of an ocean, sea or lake, is a series of mechanical waves that propagate along the interface between water and air under the predominating influence of gravity, and thus are often referred to as surface gravity waves.
This can be formulated as a shoaling coefficient relative to the wave height in deep water. [5] [4] For shallow water, when the wavelength is much larger than the water depth – in case of a constant ray distance (i.e. perpendicular wave incidence on a coast with parallel depth contours) – wave shoaling satisfies Green's law:
In shallow water, the group velocity is equal to the shallow-water phase velocity. This is because shallow water waves are not dispersive. In deep water, the group velocity is equal to half the phase velocity: {{math|c g = 1 / 2 c p. [7] The group velocity also turns out to be the energy transport velocity.
The surf zone or breaker zone is the nearshore part of a body of open water between the line at which the waves break and the shore. As ocean surface waves approach a shore, they interact with the bottom, get taller and steeper, and break, forming the foamy surface called surf. The region of breaking waves defines the surf zone.
A wave breaks when it runs into shallow water, or when two wave systems oppose and combine forces. When the slope, or steepness ratio, of a wave, is too great, breaking is inevitable. Individual waves in deep water break when the wave steepness—the ratio of the wave height H to the wavelength λ—exceeds about 0.17, so for H > 0.17 λ.
where ξ is the Iribarren number, is the angle of the seaward slope of a structure, H is the wave height, L 0 is the deep-water wavelength, T is the period and g is the gravitational acceleration. Depending on the application, different definitions of H and T are used, for example: for periodic waves the wave height H 0 at deep water or the ...