The process by which the direction of waves moving in shallow water at an angle to the submarine contours is altered. The part of the wave train travelling in shallower water moves more slowly than that still advancing in deeper water. The lines of the wave crests therefore become more parallel with the submarine contours closer to the coast.
The change in the approach angle of a wave as it moves towards the shore. As water becomes shallow, waves slow down. This change in speed causes the orthogonals of a wave to ‘bend’ so that the line of the wave mirrors the submarine contours. Refraction causes waves to converge on headlands and diverge in bays. This means that the energy of the waves is concentrated on the headlands rather than on the beaches. See Bristow and Pucillo (2006) Sedimentol. 53, 4 and Gamito and Musgrave (2002) Computers & Graphics 26 on calculating shallow-water wave refraction.
Wave refraction
- Fick’s second law
- fiction
- fictionalism
- fictional names
- fictitious capital
- fictitious force
- FID
- fideism
- fides quaerens intellectum
- fiducial inference
- fiducial marker
- fiducial point
- fiduciary issue
- fief
- field
- field bus
- field capacity
- field coil
- field current
- field curvature
- field effect
- field-effect transistor
- racemization
- racemose inflorescence
- Race Relations Act (1976)