Year 10 Monday 21/2: The Science of Big Waves

Pre-viewing:

1. Where do ocean waves come from? What gets them started? Waves are formed by the action of the wind blowing across the ocean. They start when wind ripples and these form wavelets and finally waves when the wavelets combine together.
2. What do you think a surfer should know about waves before they try and ride a wave while surfing? The surfers should have extensive knowledge about the wave heights, reefs, wave length,where and how they break, safezones and the intensity of the force before they even set foot into the water. This could enable them to have vital information about the break which could save their lives.

Question for the Video:

1. Observe all the waves that you see and describe how they form and break. Use as many words found in the segment for you descriptions. Most waves seen in the video are Mavericks which are created by the Wave Factory pushing waves together from a WNW direction which causes the waves to have a small rise and when they get closer to the shore, the waves are refracted into converging waves which become quite large when the waves hit the launching pad which are a group of rocks that intensify wave energy. The other waves seen are the ones near the Alaska Pole which are small but are numerous and these help create larger waves like the Maverick. The waves break when they lose energy and when the wave peak travels faster than the wave base and the waves break along with the energy they contain.
2. Describe how waves are formed, how they originate, and how they are measured? Waves are formed by wind blowing across the ocean, especially in areas closer to the Poles, such as Alaska. This helps create a large multitude of waves that sometimes when the weather climates are correct, corrects small or massive waves. The wave is created from natural wind energy where the wave's energy carries the wind energy with it all the way towards shore
3. What is a maverick wave and what is special about the way it is formed? The big wave (Maverick) is a huge 25 metre + set of wave(s) that appear and are created by the storms and winds from the Alaska Pole that is nicknamed the Wave Factory. The way they're formed is special because the wave becomes so big and lasts for about 20 seconds because the wave factory has pushed many waves together as this is the only place around the world where this happens.
4. How is energy stored and transferred during wave? Energy is stored when the wave grows, the energy transfers when it hits the ocean floor and bounces back up and makes the wave grow upwards that makes the waves bigger and 'spins' the particles as slowly goes down to the ocean floor and then back upwards.
5. List any kind of advice given by the surfers about how to survive these “big waves.” If you go to catch a big wave, you should attempt the jump on when the wave is building to its height. This will mean to you will not get caught on the wave as it is going down, therefore you don't smash yourself on the way down.