Eli5 Why doesn’t low gravity mean higher sea level?

Question

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12282031/Indian-Ocean-gravity-hole-sea-levels-300ft-lower-experts-think-know-why.html

In: 1

Answer 1

The Indian Ocean geoid low is an abnormality where the density of the earth is less than the surrounding regions. Since there’s less mass, there’s less local gravity than the areas surrounding it. Note the key word here: it’s *surrounded* by more dense areas. Those areas would have higher gravitational pull, and consequently have a slight siphoning effect. This pulls water away from the Indian Ocean geoid low and lowers the sea level there.