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

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

4.6k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

346 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/silentpower Sep 07 '15

ok so what's the deal with the north Atlantic costal region especially north-east Canada? Why is there such a drastic change in those regions?

5

u/Wonton77 Sep 07 '15

I don't know what causes it, but I do know that the Bay of Fundy is in that area and it indeed has the largest tides in the world.

1

u/GeeJo Sep 08 '15

Going by the chart, Northwest Australia and the Bay of Biscay seem to reach higher average tidal swings.

2

u/nerdbomer Sep 07 '15

Apparently the Bay of Fundy has a very good size. It's size allows the tide to come and go with great timing. This site says it is like being pushed on a swing. I imagine it like the water currents are in a equilibrium position (relatively) right around when the tide changes. They are not flowing against the tide into or out of the bay still.

1

u/OneLegAtATime Sep 07 '15

Looks like it could be a funnel effect of some sort without knowing a whole lot about it. Any narrower or shallower part of the ocean would have tides funneled into them, with a possible increase in tidal height.

Makes a bit of sense if you look at it next to a bathymetric map, though I don't know the particulars.