Motion of the Ocean

We see the beach everyday but do we really know much about the ocean were so comfortable to swim in? In beach waves the wind blows, pressure and friction cause a disturbance to the balance of the waters surface. It is through these forces that energy gets transferred from the air to the water and creates a wave. The size of the waves depend on how fast the wind is blowing, how long the wind blows for and the distance of over the water that the wind blows. Waves break when the water becomes shallow, the most familiar break to us is the shore break. As the wave is coming into shore the reef or ground begins to slow the wave down, causing the bottom of the wave to slow down and the top to continue moving creating a barrel affect as the wave breaks on the shore.