118. Tides should be uniform if they were caused by the Moon

"Furthermore, the velocity and path of the Moon are uniform and should therefore exert a uniform influence on the Earth’s tides, when in actuality the Earth’s tides vary greatly and do not follow the Moon. Earth’s lakes, ponds, marshes and other inland bodies of water also inexplicably remain forever outside the Moon’s gravitational grasp! If  “gravity” was truly drawing Earth’s oceans up to it, all lakes, ponds and other bodies of standing water should certainly have tides as well."

Dubay does not understand the mechanism that creates tides

Dubay imagines that at high tide the Moon would always be at its apex.  However Dubays thinking is simplistic as usual because the tides are affected by other things than just the gravity of the Moon.

1. The gravity of the Sun.  This is less of an effect than the Moon due to its distance, but it is there.
2. The shape of the Earth.  The Earth is not a perfect sphere which causes gravity to vary slightly in different locations.
3. The irregularity of land masses and ocean depths also has an effect.  For example, the rising slope of the ocean floor approaching the U.S. East (known as the continental rise, continental slope, and continental shelf) slows down the tidal "bulge" or "wave" of water. The lag can be hours or even close to an entire day in some parts of the world.  Think of the wave or bulge that you see when you throw a rock into a pond. The wave travels outward in a ring. If there is a tree or other obstruction in the pond, the ring of waves would travel and wrap around it. The same holds true for the tides.
4. Funnel-shaped bays can dramatically alter tidal magnitude.
5. Local wind and weather patterns also can affect tides.  Strong offshore winds can move water away from coastlines, exaggerating low tide exposures. Onshore winds may act to pile up water onto the shoreline, virtually eliminating low tide exposures.
6. Because of this complexity, an area can be affected by more than one tidal wave.  These waves interfere with each other.  Coinciding waves peaks make the tide higher, coinciding wave troughs make the low tide lower, and a coinciding peak and trough make the tide less extreme.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide 
• http://ryanmarciniak.com/archives/518 
• https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/tides07_cycles.html 

The influence of the Sun and the Moon can clearly be seen in the occurrence of spring tides.  Spring tides are when the difference between low and high tides are at their greatest.  These happen close to a full Moon or a new Moon, which is when the Sun, Earth and Moon are in alignment.

Without going into the exact mechanisms involved, the take away here is that the tides are absolutely and incontrovertibly connected with the position of the Moon as it orbits the Earth.

Second, if you have ever paid attention to how water behaves in a bath, a swimming pool, a teacup, a lake etc, you will have noticed that any disturbance to the water creates waves.  This isn’t just one single wave that moves over the surface of the water, it is always a complex series of waves.  In the case of the tides it is the pull of the Moon that is disturbs the oceans creating waves.  These wave patterns will not be simple, but they are predictable.

What flat earthers should take notice of is that the tides can be and are predicted, in many places on the coast completely accurately, far in advance.  These calculations are made based on a Moon being in orbit around a spherical Earth due to gravity, and the Earth’s orbit around the sun.  This would be impossible if gravity was not real and if sciences model of the solar system was incorrect.

• https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/tide-table1.htm 
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predicting_machine

Note also that flat earthers offer no explanation of their own as to why tides occur on a stationary flat Earth.  Perhaps there is a great invisible spoon hanging down from the firmament giving the oceans a good stir.

As for Dubay's claim that tides should be observed on all bodies of water ...  the size of the body of water obviously makes a difference.  The amount of water in a teacup is too small for any effect of the Moon to be detectable.  However if the body of water is large enough the Moon can indeed be seen to have an effect.  For example the Great Lakes in the US.

See: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gltides.html

< Prev    111-120   Next >