1 minute read
The motion of the ocean
The ripples move across the sea……
It’s not just the tides that make the sea move – waves do too!
WHAT MAKES WAVES?
Most ocean waves happen because of wind.
Wind blows over the surface of the sea, pushing water up into ripples.
and more wind makes them bigger . The stretch of water over which the wind blows is called the fetch .
The bigger the fetch, the bigger the waves can get!
Wind blowing over the sea makes waves form.
What did the ocean say to the shore? Nothing. It just waved!
Giant ‘rogue waves’ at sea can sink boats.
Answer on page 34
In Sebastian2020,Steudtner surfed the biggest wave ever surfed, at Nazaré, Portugal. It was 26 m high – as tall as an 8-storey block of flats! Woohoo!
Nazaré, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, has the biggest breakers in the world
Bob, bob, bobbing!
Wave Motion
Waves roll across the sea, but they don’t actually move the water forwards. Waves are a kind of energy moving through the water. As a wave passes by, the water just moves up and down – and so do any birds or boats sitting on it.
In shallow water near the shore, waves start to drag on the seabed. That makes them tip forward and break .
