eli5: Waves come in at New York, and waves come in at Europe. What happens in the middle?
In: Earth Science
More waves. Wind blows the water to create most surface level waves. This happens in deep water as well.
The waves pass through each other in the middle. When the waves hit a shoreline some of that energy gets reflected and begins moving in the opposite direction, back towards the other shoreline on the opposite continent. Most waves aren’t perfectly reflected though so they end up moving at angles to each other which allows them to move past one another without too much energy loss. And some waves moving towards the same shoreline will meet up and add together. The moon also adds energy by constantly pulling on the water as it gets closer and farther over the night cycle.
You can try the experiment yourself in the bathtub, stay as still as you can and wait for the bathwater to calm to a still state, then just push your hand through the water towards the back of the bathtub and watch the wave bounce off the back. It will then travel towards the front and then bounce towards the back again. Here your hand is adding energy like the moon and you can start to get predictable tides if you add waves at a constant rate.
Giant waves in between. They are harder to notice because the whole ocean is moving/they are more underwater.
Imagine the earth is a cup of water, and if you move it around, the water goes from one side to the other, you don’t really notice the peak of the water moving in the middle but you do when it hits the sides.
Now imagine the cup is a ball (Earth) instead and gravity is holding the water in at all angles, give it a spin and that’s what we got.
There are waves in the middle.
Waves “come in” because the water is getting shallower as you get close to the beach/coast. In the middle, they just go up and down.
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