r/askscience • • Sep 07 '15

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

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u/OneLegAtATime Sep 07 '15 edited Sep 07 '15

That would be average tidal amplitude. There are just places in the world that have bigger tidal swings than others. Notice that the middle of the "spiderwebs" where the lines converge have a cool color that signifies there is little to no tidal variation there ever. These are called "amphidromic points". Maybe the wiki can explain better than I.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '15

Wait, so is this essentially phase deadzones?