Where does seawater go when it’s low tide?
In: Physics
Think of it this way,
When you move from one place to another, you are no longer in the place you were before.
This is what water does, it moves from one place to another
Think of it like tug of war. You’ve got one end of a rope, I’ve got the other end. If I pull the rope hard, you have less, I have more. If you pull hard, you have more, I have less.
The sea is no difference. High Tide here basically means low tide on the other side of the sea. Low Tide here means High Tide on the other side. In larger seas/oceans this may take some time because of the big distance, but the sea is just sloshing back and forth between coastlines.
Imagine tugging/pinching up on a sheet that’s on a bed. Your hand is the moon, the height of the sheet is the water level. It’s high tide where your hand is.
Now let go and pinch up somewhere else on the sheet. That area is high tide, the other area is now low tide.
The high point travels in relation to where the moon is vs the earth’s seas.
If you have access to a second hand, press up from underneath the sheet with your palm. That’s the effect from the sun. Occasionally, the two can combine or be opposite, and since water is limited, that can result in higher or lower tides.
Note: someone else could likely improve upon this a lot. Hopefully it’s a nice start.
To the part of the ocean right underneath the moon. There’s a bulge of seawater right there due to gravity
(There’s also a second bulge on the opposite side of the planet from the moon, but that one’s a little more confusing to think about. It basically means the same thing for tides though.)
Did you ever see interstellar? [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hf_XkgE1d0) scene in particular. In this scene the black hole near the planet is pulling all the water up towards in giant swells of water, which leaves only a little water between the swells.
Same thing is happening on earth. The moon pulls, the water rises towards it. So the water is basically going into big swells that move back and forth. Luckily the moon is a lot smaller so its gravity is much weaker, and we dont have to deal with that nightmare fuel.
There’s a lot more to it, and this is very over simplified, but that should get you started anyway.
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