breaking waves – Adventures in Oceanography and Teaching

One of the most difficult #friendlywaves I’ve ever gotten! Did I get it right?

mglessmer — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 13:58:21 +0000

Florian sent me a #friendlywave — a wave picture he took, with hopes that I might be able to explain what is going on there. And this one had me puzzled for some time! This is what the picture looks like: What I knew about it: Florian was on the ferry from Wisschafen to Glückstadt, crossing the […]

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Such a pretty #friendlywaves!

mglessmer — Mon, 18 May 2020 12:05:50 +0000

My long time Twitter friend Anne shared these beautiful pictures and I absolutely had to do a #friendlywaves post where I explain other people’s wave pictures. Take a moment to admire the beautiful picture below. Wouldn’t you love to be there? I certainly would! What can we learn from this picture? First — it’s a windy […]

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A beautiful #friendlywaves from Spain

mglessmer — Mon, 04 May 2020 14:40:23 +0000

A reader of my blog, Rocío*, sent me this beautiful image from Arnao beach (Castrillón- Asturias-Spain), and I asked if I could use it in a #friendlywaves post. He agreed, so here we go! First, let’s check out the original image in all its beauty, before I start scribbling on it. What features of the waves […]

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A #friendlywaves from Cyprus

mglessmer — Wed, 15 May 2019 17:09:41 +0000

My friend Alice (of the awesome Instagram @scied_alice and the equally awesome blog, which you should totally follow) sent me a #friendlywaves from her trip to Cyprus. She said that this was a simple one, so I am looking forward to what else she has up her sleeve once I pass this test ;-) So here we go […]

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Same beach, different waves. Why?

mglessmer — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 06:15:33 +0000

Here is a puzzle for you. Walking along a beach, first, the waves looked like this: One wave breaking at a time. That’s the situation you also see in the foreground of the picture below, while in the background, a little further down the beach, something else starts happening. If we look closely at that […]

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Wave watching: Refraction and diffraction of waves

mglessmer — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 13:20:42 +0000

A little more wave watching, today with a focus on how waves change direction when they run into shallow water. Let’s look at this beautiful wave and see what happens when it reaches the shallow shore. Above, you see the wake of the pilot ship, consisting of many wavelets that propagate as parallel wave crests towards […]

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Waves break when they reach a critical steepness

mglessmer — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 11:36:58 +0000

You can quite accurately predict when a wave is going to break. When it will break depends on its steepness, which depends on the slope that it is running up on. So due to the funny beach shape caused by the differential erosion on the upstream and downstream sides of groynes we can watch one […]

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Types of breaking waves depending on steepness of slope – small scale

mglessmer — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 03:21:09 +0000

Video of different types of breakers – small scale. In this recent post we talked about types of breakers depending on the steepness of the slope. But even on a single stretch of coast line you can easily observe several kinds of breakers. My friend E lend her cabin on an island just outside of […]

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Waves breaking depending on steepness of the slope

mglessmer — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 03:24:30 +0000

Waves breaking on slopes of different steepnesses. Depending on a slope’s steepness, waves can break in very different ways. On nearly horizontal beaches, spilling breakers develop. On steeper beaches, plunging breakers, the kind of breakers that form the tunnels that people surf in, form. And on very steep beaches, the breakers don’t actually break, but […]

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Internal waves in the atmosphere

mglessmer — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 03:36:26 +0000

A photo of internal waves in the atmosphere. Internal waves exist on the interface between fluids of different densities. In the ocean they are mostly observed through their surface imprint. In the tank, we could also observe them by looking in from the side, but this is hardly feasible in the ocean. But luckily vision […]

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