Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Tidal bulges



David Dockstader says:

Unlike the problem of pushing the girl on the swing where you can push as
hard as you want any time that you want, the tides are stuck with something
like NOAA's 63 term equation, where as Dan and Dave B have pointed out only
two terms have sufficient amplitude contribute significantly to the tides.
...
You are assuming that the 63 terms represent celestial bodies. It seems
more likely that many (most) of them represent the effect of the
continents, ocean depths, etc. These are likely to 'contribute
significantly', although they do not appear on the driving force side of
the equation.

Things do not have to be in synchronization to be related.
...
But the moon and tides *would* have to be in synchronization if you want to
believe that the tidal bulge is a good description of what's going on.

--
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UCSD