Waves are forward movement of fluid due to oscillation of particles caused by a force.
Despite a large amount of energy it may carry forward, there is little actual forward motion of individual water particles in a wave,
Waves can occur on the free surface of all water bodies.
Caused by gravity, wind, underwater volcanoes earthquake, landslides or explosions and by the movement of a ship or a fish.
Here confined to seawater oscillations caused by frictional drag caused by a wind force over the sea surface.
Wind waves vary from small ripples to huge rogue waves.
Waves can travel thousands of miles before reaching land.
how are they formed?
As wind blows over water it tries to drag water surface with it.
The surface cannot move as fast as air, so it rises.
When it rises, gravity pulls the water back’
Momentum of falling waters reaches below the surface.
Water pressure from below pushes falling water up again.
This tug of war between gravity and water pressure cause the up-down movement of fluid.
There is also a small component of to and fro motion of water in a wave.
The wave may travels forward for thousands of mile but but the water particles don’t.
Otherwise all the oceans would empty onto the shore!!!!!
A wave transfers energy from one water molecule to the next causing water particles to move in a circular pattern as shown by the bottle movement on a water surface.
This circular motion of water particle does not occur over the entire depth of water.
There are multiple circles of water particle movements where circles grow smaller with increasing depths as seen in the next diagram to the right.
At a depth about equal to half the wavelength, the motion stops. As they propagate across the open ocean, wind-generated waves maintain a constant speed, which is unaffected by depth until they reach shallow water
