• Question: How many waves occur every second in the sea?

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      Asked by amyjordan to Chia-Yu, Helen, Matthew, Matt H, Rhod on 24 Jun 2013.
      • Photo: Matt Carnie

        Matt Carnie answered on 24 Jun 2013:

        Waves are caused by strong winds whipping up the surface of the sea. Since there are usually strong winds almost everywhere over the sea then there will be a lot of waves!

        It would be possible to count how many waves pass through a certain point in the ocean at any one time. Ocean scientists use wave buoys to do this. The amount of time between waves peaks is called the wave period. In fact I use this information to tell me how good the surf is. I look at this buoy: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=62303 which is 50 miles from where I live. If the wave period is 7 seconds or above, I know there is likely to be some good quality waves for surfing.

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