The pattern of falling and rising sea levels compared to land is what we call the tides. What causes this movement in the ocean? The answer is gravity. Mainly, the gravitational forces of the Moon and the Sun. The main component to understanding how the tides work is knowing the relationship between the Sun and Moon, and the movement of planet Earth. While the Earth spins on its axis, the water in the ocean stays at equal levels around the planet due to Earth’s gravitational force pulling inwards and force pushing outward. However, the gravitational forces of the Moon are strong enough to disturb this stability by accelerating the water towards the Moon. This action causes the water to “bulge”. While the Moon orbits Earth and the planet rotates, the bulge moves also. As the Earth rotates, every spot on the planet passes through the side closest to the Moon and the side farthest from the Moon once a day and this is what causes the two high tides. The two low tides …show more content…
This is when there are two high and two low waters per tidal day. These are common on the Atlantic coasts of the U.S. and Europe. This graph shows two high and low water tidal days which is known as Semi-diurnal Tides.
The third and final type of tide is the Mixed Tide. These occur when the Moon moves furthest north or south of the equator. With Mixed Tides, there is a higher high water and lower high water as well as higher low water and lower low water. These tides tend to occur around the west coast of Canada and the United States.
This graph shows the mixed tides occurring in tidal days.
The horizontal movement of water is known as the current. Currents can either be tidal or non-tidal. A Tidal current is the sporadic horizontal flow of water along with the rise and fall of the tide. Any current not due to the tidal movement is known as non-tidal. These include the permanent current of the ocean and also temporary currents due to the