Wave watchers around the world know that no two waves are the same. Yet each and every wave that rises, peaks, and crashes onto the beach is generated by a much larger force originating thousands of miles away. Surf journalist team Evan Slater and Peter Taras capture the essence of waves and the swells that produce them in this breathtaking collection of wave photography. Slater characterizes four distinct swells from different corners of the globe and traces their journeys throughout the year from storm to seashore. His reflective, informative essays amplify these powerful images of hundreds of waves frozen in time, beautiful, simple, universal, yet wholly unique—and the best thing to watch on the planet.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Secret World of Weather and The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs, learn to tap into nature and notice the hidden clues all around you Before GPS, before the compass, and even before cartography, humankind was navigating. Now this singular guide helps us rediscover what our ancestors long understood—that a windswept tree, the depth of a puddle, or a trill of birdsong can help us find our way, if we know what to look and listen for. Adventurer and navigation expert Tristan Gooley unlocks the directional clues hidden in the sun, moon, stars, clouds, weather patterns, lengthening shadows, changing tides, plant growth, and the habits of wildlife. Rich with navigational anecdotes collected across ages, continents, and cultures, The Natural Navigator will help keep you on course and open your eyes to the wonders, large and small, of the natural world.

This book was published in 2004. The Interaction of Ocean Waves and Wind describes in detail the two-way interaction between wind and ocean waves and shows how ocean waves affect weather forecasting on timescales of 5 to 90 days. Winds generate ocean waves, but at the same time airflow is modified due to the loss of energy and momentum to the waves; thus, momentum loss from the atmosphere to the ocean depends on the state of the waves. This volume discusses ocean wave evolution according to the energy balance equation. An extensive overview of nonlinear transfer is given, and as a by-product the role of four-wave interactions in the generation of extreme events, such as freak waves, is discussed. Effects on ocean circulation are described. Coupled ocean-wave, atmosphere modelling gives improved weather and wave forecasts. This volume will interest ocean wave modellers, physicists and applied mathematicians, and engineers interested in shipping and coastal protection.

The goals of wind wave research are relatively well defined: to be able to predict the wind wave field and its effect on the environment. That environment could be natural (beaches, the atmosphere etc.) or imposed by human endeavour (ports, harbours, coastal settlements etc.). Although the goals are similar, the specific requirements of these various fields differ considerably.This book attempts to summarise the current state of this knowledge and to place this understanding into a common frame work. It attempts to take a balanced approach between the pragmatic engineering view of requiring a short term result and the scientific quest for detailed understanding. Thus, it attempts to provide a rigorous description of the physical processes involved as well as practical predictive tools.

A number of studies have aimed to find those factors affecting the drag coefficient at the ocean surface. The direction of swell relative to the local wind has been proposed as a contributing factor. Different approaches have been used, but the results have been inconclusive. Here observed and modelled 2D wave spectra are compared. The data is obtained by the microwave MIROS-radar and the WAM-model (cycle-4) at different locations in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. Based on the fact that the WAM source functions are not accounting for swell effects, a difference between the observed and simulated wind-sea growth is expected in situations where wind is opposing swell and wind is blowing in the same direction as swell if this effect should be considered significant. In this study no clear evidence is found that swell have a significant impact on integrated wave parameters, but may affect the shape of the wave spectrum. However, this type of analysis is highly sensitive to the accuracy of the modeled wind forcing, demanding both a high spatial resolution and a small integration time step, and preferably stationary wind conditions.