Why are some waves rougher than others?

Answer 1

Waves are generated by wind power in most cases, the longer, stronger the wind blows the more powerful the wave will be, and vice versa.

Answer 2

A wave might be rougher than others because there are two things that control how rough a wave is. The air above can make waves rougher. High wind speed causes higher and rougher waves. A boat or ship moving through the water will also determine how rough a wave is. The faster the ship or boat is moving, the greater the speed and height of the wave.

Answer 3

There are a number of factors. Wind blowing over the surface of the ocean, as well as the size of the area it is continuously blowing over, the “fetch” are factors. Robert Guza, a professor at University of San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography who thinks deeply about waves, puts it this way: n a wind eggbeater.” And once they are headed in a direction they tend to become traveling groups. As they head off in the same direction , they are also engulfing each other, then they get organize into “somewhat” stable and predictable packs of different sizes.

“In oceanographic terms, a "swell" is a series of waves that has outlasted the winds that formed it.”

When you look at these “coherent” and perhaps far-reaching wave “caravans”, the sort of swells we are likely to observe at a beach will commonly arrive in groups of 12 to 16 waves. That range, coupled with the tendency of wave groups to bundle their tallest waves in the center of the pack speaks to the difference in size too. As well as the fact that A group will 'modulate' the wave amplitude of the wave pack, in so that the first wave in a group is tiny, the next one is bigger and so on until you get the biggest one in the middle of the group. Then they get smaller again. The last one is tiny, so the biggest wave in the group is in the middle of the wave group, whichever number of waves are in the “group”.

Answer 4

Sorry I missed the Prof's quote so here again from beginning.

There are a number of factors. Wind blowing over the surface of the ocean, as well as the size of the area it is continuously blowing over, the “fetch” are factors. Robert Guza, a professor at University of San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography who thinks deeply about waves, puts it this way: “You wouldn't expect waves to [have regular properties], given that they're generated by sort of turning on a wind eggbeater.”

But once they are headed in a direction they tend to become traveling groups. As they head off in the same direction, they are also engulfing each other, then they get organize into “somewhat” stable and predictable packs of different sizes.

“In oceanographic terms, a "swell" is a series of waves that has outlasted the winds that formed it.”

When you look at these “coherent” and perhaps far-reaching wave “caravans”, the sort of swells we are likely to observe at a beach will commonly arrive in groups of 12 to 16 waves. That range, coupled with the tendency of wave groups to bundle their tallest waves in the center of the pack speaks to the difference in size too. As well as the fact that A group will 'modulate' the wave amplitude of the wave pack, in so that the first wave in a group is tiny, the next one is bigger and so on until you get the biggest one in the middle of the group. Then they get smaller again. The last one is tiny, so the biggest wave in the group is in the middle of the wave group, whichever number of waves are in the “group”.