ARCHER2 Calendar September 2025

Global sea-surface waves

Dr Lucy Bricheno, Marine Systems Modelling (Dept. Science and Technology), National Oceanography Centre

This animation shows how wind driven ocean waves grow and move over the sea surface. The 'hot' colours red and orange show high waves, and areas with 'cold' colours (white and blue) are calm. Waves grow where the winds are strongest, generating long 'swell' waves which move across the ocean until reaching land. Large, periodic storms are seen to grow and dissipate in the North Pacific, North Atlantic, and Southern Ocean. The strongest storms and highest waves are seen in the winter.
At the poles, sea-ice grows in winter, this stops waves growing, as the wind cannot pass energy to the surface water, so waves are suppressed. In the Southern Ocean, the waters circulating around Antarctica, there is a stretch of water that is totally uninterrupted by land. Here, waves can grow very large without losing energy, so some of the largest waves in the world are observed.

This image was published on the September page of the ARCHER2 2025 printed calendar.