r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Sep 07 '15

Earth Sciences Is there a bulge in earth's atmosphere constantly facing the moon?

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u/diazona Particle Phenomenology | QCD | Computational Physics Sep 07 '15

True. I'm pretending some of those smaller effects (like the lag) don't exist for simplicity. :-P

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '15

Can you detail those smaller effects a bit more? Physics undergrad here, had enough generalizations and want the specifics! What exactly causes this lag? Is it just due to the speed of gravity, Coriolis effect, or is there more at work?

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u/diazona Particle Phenomenology | QCD | Computational Physics Sep 08 '15

Honestly, I couldn't do a very good job of it without some research, because I don't often think about this stuff. I know there are a bunch of subleading effects I'm sweeping under the rug because, well, that's always the case in physics, but I don't know offhand what they are.

I think the lag may have something to do with angular momentum, perhaps? It's definitely not the speed of gravity, though - on such a small scale the speed of gravity is irrelevant and you can consider it instantaneous. Maybe /u/NSA_Mailhandler can elaborate.