Essay On Tides

The term ‘tides’ describes the fluctuations in the rise and fall of the sea’s water height with respect to the land surface, this oscillation is produced by the gravitational attraction of the moon and the sun. In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton explained that ocean tides result from the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon on the oceans of the earth (Sumich, J.L., 1996). Tides can also be classified as very long period waves that have the capability to travel through the ocean due to the mutual gravitational attraction. Tides are generated in the oceans and progress towards the coastline where they appear as the regular rise and fall of the sea surface. Gravity is one of the major contributors in creating tides. Inertia (the resistance of any

From his observations he has concluded that there is a difference of a factor of almost 3 times between the spring tides (3.5mmol m-1 d-1) and neap tides (1.3mmol m-1 d-1). This increase could have been a result from a pulse of strong turbulent dissipation occurring within the base of the sun-surface chlorophyll associated with high frequency internal solitons. Throughout the neap tides the highest mid-water turbulent dissipation was below the sub surface chlorophyll maximum with high frequency waves being weaker relative to spring tides. The neap tides were dominated by short mixing events. ‘A simple assessment of the implications of the flux dependence on these short events leads to a substantial increase in the estimate of the spring tide vertical nitrate flux’. During spring tides, there is an abundance of nitrate fluxes left over as the nitrate rates are levels are higher than what the primary producers can take in this could lead to a fortnightly cycle of nitrate supply during spring tides followed by being consumed by the phytoplankton and growth toward