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> Doesn't sound like a lot but it's still 524 times higher than the effect of the moon's gravity which creates the tides.

Contrary to common belief, tides are not caused by the direct influence of the moon's gravity (it's far too weak to have any effect)[1]. The tidal forces are caused by the gravitational gradient from the moon (and the "centrifugal" forces from our path around the earth-moon barycenter), and I don't believe you'd get the same effects from a gravity source on the surface of the earth.

Even a lot of very respectable scientists and textbooks get this wrong.

[1] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwChk4S99i4 for a pretty good explanation

⬐ vilhelm_s

It seems this would made the effect from the icebergs bigger rather than smaller, because the gradient decays by r^3 instead of r^2, so the distance is more important?

Like, the gravitational acceleration is a = GM/r^2 while the gradient is da/dr = -2GM/r^3

So for moon vs glacier at 1000km you'd get

- 2 * (Gravitational constant) * (mass of moon) / (391184 km)^3 = - 1.638×10^-13 reciprocal seconds squared

vs

- 2 * (Gravitational constant) * (1e19 kg) / (1000 km)^3= -1.335×10^-9 reciprocal seconds squared

⬐ curiousgeorgio

It's the gradient applied over the whole ocean that causes the tides. In other words, the forces are not enough to create any kind of local change in the depth of the ocean. It's not a gravitational "pulling" as we're accustomed to think about, but more of a global squeezing of water from that gradient applied to the entire ocean. I'll have to give some more thought to the idea of a gravity source on the surface of the earth, but I doubt it would work the same way (we're comparing a relatively small mass in a concentrated location on the earth with that same mass distributed mostly evenly over the earth).

⬐ coliveira

Nothing of this disproves the effect of the polar ice. The forces still apply, they're just not shifting daily.

⬐ curiousgeorgio

> The forces still apply, they're just not shifting daily.

No, the forces are completely different. If we have an object on the surface of the earth that has enough mass to roughly produce the same nearby gravitational acceleration as that felt by the moon (which is minuscule and undetectable by most instruments), that object would not produce changes in ocean levels as we see with the moon. Again, the oceans are not rising/falling due to the moon's gravity pulling on them. It only happens because the moon is far enough away that its tiny gravitational acceleration on the earth is (1) felt everywhere on earth, and (2) felt everywhere on earth in slightly different amounts.

For a smaller, closer object (even with similar nearby gravitational acceleration), the tidal forces will not be the same because that gravitational acceleration will fall off to near zero in a very short distance.

⬐ coliveira

You are mixing tidal forces with local attraction forces due to ice. Even though the forces due to ice are not felt everywhere in the planet, they do have an effect that can be calculated, and it is stronger in the body of water closer to the poles. The result of this force causes water attraction in the polar regions. So the effect that is felt in other parts of the planet is not due to the gravity force, but due to the displacement of water happening in polar regions - after all the water needs to go somewhere.

⬐ curiousgeorgio

> You are mixing tidal forces with local attraction forces due to ice. Even though the forces due to ice are not felt everywhere in the planet, they do have an effect that can be calculated.

No, I mentioned tidal forces because I was originally responding to someone who compared it to the moon's effect on tides. The only reason ocean tides are so noticeable is due to tidal forces, not direct gravitational attraction from the moon.

If you're indeed talking about local attraction forces due to ice, I encourage you to actually do the math - it's not enough to actually displace any significant amount of water compared to what the mass of the rest of the earth is doing.

⬐ curiousgeorgio

I was originally responding to the claim that "it's still 524 times higher than the effect of the moon's gravity which creates the tides" - that's why I mentioned tidal forces. If the ice creates that much direct, local gravitational attraction[1], then my point is we shouldn't be comparing it to the moon at all (because the forces involved are not the same as those involved with the moon and tides).

[1] Even the claim about the ice sheet (and its melting) contributing significantly (via gravity) to global sea level change seems dubious since, as noted elsewhere in this discussion, the Earth Gravitational Model appears to be affected much more by factors other than ice sheet thickness or surface features.

⬐ rovolo

As you said, it's the gradient which matters. The gradient determines how much the sea level changes over a distance. But, the sea level change is distinct from the tides. The difference in water level between two connected locations at the same moment in time is the same for the ocean and the lake.

The video you linked to compares lakes and oceans because the lunar tides vary with time. The lake level difference between Cleveland and Buffalo at 6 will be the same as the sea level difference between New York and Providence at ~5:30. You need to compare your sea level to the sea level a quarter of the way around the world to understand why your local sea level changes from 6:00 to 12:00.

⬐ pge

Just to add to this answer and perhaps save you the click, what he is referring to is that the force pulling the water upward at high tide is not the direct gravitational pull of the moon. It is that the gravitational force from the moon at the edge of the earth is greater than the force at the center (because it is closer to the moon). Similarly the force on the opposite side of the earth is less (because that side is further from the moon than the earth's center). So the water molecules are drawn away from the center of the earth (near side because they are being pulled slightly harder than the center of the earth, and far side because they are being pulled slightly less hard than the center of the earth). Hence the high tides on both sides of the earth, not just the side closer to moon.

⬐ mcguire

Or, to put it another way, the surfaces of the Earth closest to and farthest away from the Moon are traveling at the same orbital velocity of the Earth. However, they should be in different orbits; the point closest to the Moon is too slow for the orbit it is in and the point farthest is too fast. The former wants to into a lower orbit while the latter wants to go into a higher orbit.

⬐ mcguire

In a further translation from gibberish:

Or, to put it another way, the surfaces of the Earth closest to and farthest away from the Moon are traveling at the same orbital velocity around the center of the Earth/Moon system. However, they should be in different orbits; the point closest to the Moon is too slow for the orbit it is in and the point farthest away is too fast. The former wants to into a lower orbit while the latter wants to go into a higher orbit.

⬐ dwaltrip

If I correctly understood the video linked above, the primary cause is actually due to the tidal acceleration (e.g. moon's gravity) of objects on sides 1 and 3 (see diagram below), relative towards the earth's surface, being mostly radially inward [1]. The majority of the ocean water along the sides of Earth is being pulled in very slightly, and in aggregate across the massive surface of the ocean, this results in enough pressure to push up the water at sides 2 and 4. Tides are pushed up due to pressure, not pulled up.

The analogy they used is that tides are more like a pimple being squeezed than taffy being stretched.

[1] See timestamp 4:45 in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwChk4S99i4&feature=youtu.be...

---

Diagram:

   1
 4 E 2      M
   3

E = Earth

M = Moon

Numbers = 4 "sides" of the Earth, relative to the Earth-Moon line

Like tides?

What Physics Teachers Get Wrong About Tides! | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwChk4S99i4

⬐ pilom

Seriously? He gets this worked up explaining the difference between "the water is pulled out at the earth moon line" and "the water is pushed from the poles towards the earth moon line"? The net effect is identical.

⬐ geomark

If I understand his explanation correctly, the math says the effect can't be identical because the difference in gravitional force is much too small to lift the water that much. It has to be squeezed from the poles to raise the water high enough to account for tides.

⬐ southern_cross

Yeah, this is pretty much exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. Except that the guy in question was generally replacing "relatively simple explanation which is more wrong than right" with "relatively simple explanation which is more right that wrong". Meanwhile the guy in the video seems to be adding quite a bit of complexity, even though he says that he's actually presenting a simplified view of the matter.

IIRC, one of the examples from the book thing had to do with the explanation and illustration of how light gets refracted when passing through glass. The overall effect is supposedly explained by the fact that light slows down as it enters glass, and typically a wavefront illustration is used to depict this. He went on to explain how the illustration is wrong and what the correct illustration should be instead, but I don't remember the details. And now that we have meta-materials which can bend light the wrong way, the whole "slowing down causes refraction" idea may be wrong, too. In fact, I remember reading an early potential explanation of this new effect (which as I recall had to do with the notion that the magnetic aspects of light might be affected differently than how the electrical aspects of light are, or vice versa) and thinking to myself "Aha - now that makes perfect sense!" And if that explanation makes sense for meta-materials then it also probably makes sense for regular materials. But once again I don't remember the details.

BTW, I understand the need to often simplify things quite a bit when you're dealing with students, but if we have "simple but incorrect" vs. "simple but correct" then we should be working hard to eliminate the former as soon as possible. If his critique of the situation is valid then it kind of beggars belief that we are still teaching so many things the wrong way!