why does waves move towards the beach, and not “outwards” or “sidewards”?
In: Earth Science
Waves start in the middle of the ocean and move in every direction, mostly determined by the wind. When a wave gets closer to a coastline, the rising sea bottom makes the wave crest at the top.
If the shore was perfectly straight you’d see sideways waves, outwards would be unlikely as there is little force to create them there compared to what goes on in the middle of the ocean. But because the shore is almost never straight, each point tends to slow the waves and make them wrap around it, thereby making the waves more parallel to the shore
They almost never break perfectly perpendicular to the shoreline either, which is what surfers take advantage of to surf waves
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