Facts & Profile
Waves

In fluid dynamics, wind waves, or wind-generated waves, are water surface waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water. They result from the wind blowing over an area (or fetch) of fluid surface. Waves in the oceans can travel thousands of miles before reaching land. Wind waves on Earth range in size from small ripples, to waves over 100 ft (30 m) high, being limited by wind speed, duration, affected area and water depth.
When directly generated and affected by local waters, a wind wave system is called a wind sea (or wind waves). Wind waves will travel in a great circle route after being generated - curving slightly left in the southern hemisphere and slightly right in the northern hemisphere. After moving out of the area of fetch, wind waves are called swells and can travel thousands of miles. A noteworthy example of this are waves generated south of Tasmania during heavy winds that will travel to southern California producing desirable surfing conditions. More generally, a swell consists of wind-generated waves that are not significantly affected by the local wind at that time. They have been generated elsewhere or some time ago. Wind waves in the ocean are called ocean surface waves.
Wind waves have a certain amount of randomness: subsequent waves differ in height, duration, and shape with limited predictability. They can be described as a stochastic process, in combination with the physics governing their generation, growth, propagation, and decay—as well as governing the interdependence between flow quantities such as: the water surface movements, flow velocities and water pressure. The key statistics of wind waves (both seas and swells) in evolving sea states can be predicted with wind wave models.

Although waves are usually considered in the water seas of Earth, the hydrocarbon seas of Titan may also have wind-driven waves.

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This text is based on the article Wind wave from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported (short version). A list of the authors is available on Wikipedia.