Waves & Tides
All About Waves and Tides
Waves are caused by winds blowing across the surface of the ocean and sculpts seawater into crested shapes, forming valleys and hills across the sea floor. The size and intensity of the waves are determined by multiple things: how fast the wind blows, how long it blows for, and how far it can go uninterrupted.
Tides are a form of waves that causes water to move up and down. They are caused by the forces coming from the sun and moon. Both the earth and the moon have gravitational pulls to keep each other in orbit. Because the Earth's gravity is greater than the moon's pull, the Earth isn't affected much by the moon's gravity. However, our oceans are affected by it. The moon pulls, or tugs, on the ocean and causes the water to "bulge" out, and move towards the moon (tidal force). This creates what is known as a high tide. When there are high tides, each side of the Earth will have high tides, while the adjacent sides will experience low tides. Tidal forces affect the entire earth, and can change due to global warming, seasons, moon phases, and more.
There are two types of tides that occur during the moon phases: Spring tides and Neap tides.
Spring tides occur twice a month when the Sun, Earth, and Moon line up. The gravitational power they have creates high tides and low tides (where the water has been displaced). Spring tides always happen when the Moon is at the full or new phase, which is when the Sun, Moon and Earth are in alignment. These are the highest tides.
Neap tides occur around the first and last quarter phase of the Moon, when the Moon’s orbit around Earth brings it perpendicular to the Sun. When the Sun and Moon are at right angles to each other, the Sun’s gravitational pull works against the Moon’s gravitational tug and partially cancels it out, this creates the moderate tides that we call neap tides.
When Earth and Theia crashed into each other, we basically merged together and became one big planet. However, the crash caused this new found planet to tilt, which made us be on an axis now. This impact of the hit was also so incredibly huge, that we are still spinning from the hit. This rotation and the tilt of our planet allows the sun to hit different places from different angles. It created the change of seasons, and is why we have Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.
The Moon Phases
Notice how the shape of the moon is never the same every night. This is because the moon goes through multiple phases; eight to be exact. This is due to the rotation of both the Earth and the moon, along with the reflection of the sun.
The rotation of the Earth and it's tilted axis is the reason we are able to see so many different phases of the moon.
These are the tides during moon phases, illustrating when spring and neap tides occur.
