Chapter 5, page 4
5.4 5.1 The cause of the ocean tides.
5.2 The tide spatioles.
5.3 The tide basins.
5.4 The tide mechanism.
5.5 The times of the ocean tides.
5.6 The range of a tide basin.
The tide mechanism.
.1 Analysing the phenomenon of the ocean tides, one is confronted with two facts, which at first defy the common sense, and then, eventually, help to understand its mechanism.
An apparent contradiction.
.2 As the processes of the generation of a tide take place, the water density decreases, and its volume increases proportionally to its depth, ceteris paribus, with all the other factors remaining the same.
.3 However, it is near the coasts, in shallow waters, that the tide, meant as variation of the water level, shows its highest values.
.4 In fact, counterdeductively, the importance of a tide is almost everywhere roughly in inverse proportion to the quantity of water that is in the place under consideration.
Another oddity.
.5 The time a tide wave takes to make a complete tour around the central point, and on the edge of a basin, is independent with regard to its vastness. Even if there is a huge difference between the smallest basin and the largest one, being the ratio over 1:40. In fact, the time taken is equal to the cadence of the cycle (either diurnal, or semi-diurnal).
The time taken by a tide wave.
Distinguishing the tide phases.
.6 To understand these apparent oddities, it is necessary to distinguish all the phases of a tide, within a basin, in the following order.
Decreasing of the water density.
.7 A tide would be generated the moment the water density decreases.
#18 - The tide generation.
The thrust fronts.
.8 In the phase of generation (decrease of density), the water is going to occupy a little more volume (primary increase of the water level - not to be mistaken with the secondary one, due to the arrival of the tide wave unto the coast).
.9 At that very moment, it engenders thrust fronts, which are conveyed towards all the directions.
.10 The larger the depth, the higher the thrust fronts, ceteris paribus, with all the other factors remaining the same.
The thrust fronts turn into tide wave components.
.11 As the thrust fronts get reduced either in their height, or in their width, or both - generally that occurs for those going towards the coast - they get amplified, and eventually turn into tide wave components.
#21 - the thrust fronts turn
into tide wave components.
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