wind-generated waves – Adventures in Oceanography and Teaching

24 Days of #KitchenOceanography — Wind-driven mixing

mglessmer — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 07:00:33 +0000

Welcome to 24 days of #KitchenOceanography! Both English and German instructions below. Herzlich Willkommen zu 24 Tagen Küchen-Ozeanographie! Deutsche und Englische Anleitungen weiter unten.

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Strong gusts of wind -> lots of energy transferred to the water -> wind waves with large amplitudes

mglessmer — Sun, 08 Sep 2019 06:11:56 +0000

We are still in the “interesting weather” period here in Kiel. Feels more like April than like September, but I am not complaining. I love the rapid change between dark clouds and blue skies and sunshine! Also I like how much more interesting wave pattern get if the wind comes in gusts rather than blowing […]

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From wind-driven capillary waves to gravity waves on a calm lake

mglessmer — Sat, 17 Aug 2019 16:10:13 +0000

The picture above I thought was too pretty to not put on my blog (because my blog’s main function to me is still my personal brain dump), but the picture below is actually interesting from a physics point of view. In the middle of the lake, the surface looks a lot rougher and crumpled than […]

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Wave watching in Kleinwaabs — and my first real Insta story!

mglessmer — Fri, 14 Jun 2019 13:05:19 +0000

So today (and tomorrow and the day after) is the big event that I have been working towards all year in my not-so-new-anymore job: The GEO-Tag der Natur! If you are curious about what’s going on there, check out our Instagram account @geo.tag.der.natur that Kati is doing an amazing job with! As you can imagine, […]

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Observing a breeze making waves on Parsteiner See

mglessmer — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 18:29:18 +0000

Yesterday, I happened to be at Parsteiner See for work. At first, the sea was completely calm and the only waves were the ones we made doing our photo shoots, like so: Other than that, the lake was completely calm. But then suddenly, I spotted a breeze going over the lake. It becomes visible in […]

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Atmospheric & water wave watching

mglessmer — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 04:23:26 +0000

What I find really fascinating about watching waves in the atmosphere rather than on water is that all the waves that become visible are not surface waves like on water, but internal waves. Which we have to go to great lengths to make visible in water (for example by adding dyes in tank experiments) but […]

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Wind-driven waves in natural flumes for #flumefriday

mglessmer — Fri, 31 May 2019 13:05:39 +0000

On a bike tour with my friend Frauke in Greetsiel two or three weeks ago, she pointed out how well one could see that the waves on the puddles left in the Wadden Sea close to low tide were wind-generated. That was that for the bike tour — now I had to take pictures. Below […]

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The wonders of a Wadden Sea. Or what someone addicted to #wavewatching thinks they are

mglessmer — Tue, 07 May 2019 13:05:39 +0000

As someone living on the German Baltic Sea coast, I don’t spend a lot of time on the North Sea coast (except, actually, my week-long vacation after Easter with my godson and his family, and when my friend Frauke and I went to Sylt earlier this year, or when Frauke and I are going back […]

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Night swimming… or at least night-time wave watching

mglessmer — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 21:15:52 +0000

Looking at Kiel fjord in the picture below, it is quite obvious from the shape of the waves that those waves are some ship’s wake. Why is that obvious? Because the waves a) have a very short wavelength for their height, and b) are also all of the same wavelength. What I mean by that […]

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Wave watching from a train

mglessmer — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 05:09:25 +0000

You know how they say that the journey is the destination? That was certainly the case for my spontaneous mini-vacation yesterday (and how awesome is it that my #BestTravelBuddy is up for a cross country trip on a day’s notice?). We went all the way from the east coast to the west coast — which […]

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