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Surface waves

Wind blowing over a calm lake surface first produces an effect that may appear as a widely varying and fluctuating ruffling of the surface. The first wave motion to develop is relatively regular, consisting of small, uniformly developed waves called capillary waves. These are quite transient, dissipating rapidly if the wind dies away or developing to the more commonly observed and more persistent gravity waves.

Energy will be continually fed to the waves by the frictional drag of the air moving over the water and by the direct force of the wind on the upwind face of the waves. The latter effect occurs only while the waves move more slowly than the wind. Pressure differences at the air–water interface also contribute energy to surface waves. Energy losses occur due mainly to turbulence in the water and, to a smaller extent, to the effects of viscosity.

Waves will continue to grow as long as there is a net addition of energy to them. Their height will increase as a function of wind speed and duration and the distance over which it blows (fetch). Most lakes are so small that fetch considerations are unimportant. Studies in larger lakes, however, have shown that the height of the highest waves are related to the fetch. In these lakes, waves as high as several metres are common, although waves of about 7 metres (23 feet) are the highest to be expected. Wave heights in a given portion of a lake may vary considerably, due to interactions that suppress some waves and amplify others. As waves develop, their lengths increase, even after their height has stopped increasing. The phenomenon of swell, commonly observed in the oceans, is not truly realized, even in the largest lakes.

Waves travel in the same direction as the wind that generated them and at right angles to their crests. If they meet a solid object rather than a sloping beach, much of their energy will be reflected. If they enter shallow water obliquely, they are refracted. Wave speed, for waves longer than four times the depth of the water, is approximately equal to the square root of the product of the depth and the gravitational acceleration. For waves in relatively deep water, the wave speed is proportional to the square root of the wavelength.

As wave height increases, the sharpening of the wave crest may result in instability and a breaking off of the crest, a process hastened by the wind. This results in the familiar whitecaps. Waves that run ashore break up in surf. The wave height first decreases slightly, then increases, and the speed decreases, and eventually the wave form disappears as it crumbles into breakers. These can be plunging forms, in which the top curls right over the forward face, or of the spilling type, in which the crest spills down the forward face. A particular wave may break several times before reaching shore.