Reported September 2009

MAKING WAVES: Waves are the result of wind traveling over water. Imagine a breeze blowing gently across the surface of a lake, creating small waves. The waves arise from the surface tension of water. The molecules on the water's surface hold together and form a sort of 'skin,' which makes the surface stretchy, and therefore 'sticky.' As more air passes over that sticky surface, it grabs some molecules and pushes them into molecules ahead, which push on other molecules, and so on, so that the wave travels to the opposite end of the shore. The water mostly stays in place; it's the disturbance caused by the wind that is moving across the water. In strong wind, the waves become choppy. The stronger the wind, the larger the waves, because as the waves move, they run into each other and merge, adding their energy together to become bigger and move faster.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Prof. David T. Sandwell
Scripps Inst. of Oceano
La Jolla, CA 92093-0225
(858) 534-7109
dsandwell@ucsd.edu

Peter Weiss
American Geophysical Union
Washington, DC 20009-1277
(800) 966-2481
http://www.agu.org
pweiss@agu.org

American Meteorological Society
Boston, MA 02108-3693
(617) 227-2425
http://www.ametsoc.org

American Association of Physics Teachers
College Park, MD
(301) 209-3311
http://www.aapt.org

James Riordon, Media Relations
American Physical Society
College Park, MD
(301) 209-3238
http://www.aps.org
Riordon@aps.org

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