Moon induces tides in Atmosphere ??

[Widdekind]

If earth's moon causes "rock tides", and "ocean tides", does it also induce tides into our atmosphere ? Would such atmospheric tides affect satellites in LEO ?

[swansont]

yes, there are atmospheric tides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_tide

[lemur]

Could this re-open the discussion about moonlight madness. Could air-pressure be part of the cause?

[Widdekind]

yes, there are atmospheric tides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_tide

 

Thanks for the link. Much of the "moon-air-tides" result from the swelling seas "lifting up" the sky above them.

 

Lunar atmospheric tides

 

Atmospheric tides are also produced through the gravitational effects of the Moon. Lunar (gravitational) tides are much weaker than solar (thermal) tides and are generated by the motion of the Earth's oceans (caused by the Moon) and to a lesser extent the effect of the Moon's gravitational attraction on the atmosphere.

Is not a typical earth-atmospheric scale-height of order 10 km? And, are not such scale-heights inversely proportional, to surface-gravity, H ~ kT/mg ? And more, is not the differential gravity, induced at earth, by the moon -- as measured in earth surface-gravities -- of order (m/M) x (R_e/D)³ ~ 10^-7 ? Thus, the atmospheric expansion, "allowed" by the "easing off of downward gravity", when the moon is over-head (or far under-foot), would only be of order 1 mm. Evidently, gravity is weak, and the air is thin, giving gravity little to grip.

 

---

 

Evidently, tides in the far-hotter-and-so-much-more-swollen ionosphere, are much more in magnitude, rising & falling fully 40 miles, 2x per day. If the ionosphere has a scale-height, of ~1000 km (x100), a 10^-7 effect would swell the same by ~10 cm... what accounts, for an ~100 km effect, a million times more ??

 

Edited June 4, 2011 by Widdekind

[mooeypoo]

Could this re-open the discussion about moonlight madness. Could air-pressure be part of the cause?

 

No. That would be thread hijackin, lemur.

 

 

 

 

Stick to the ACTUAL subject of this thread, please.

[lemur]

No. That would be thread hijackin, lemur.

 

 

 

 

Stick to the ACTUAL subject of this thread, please.

I just mentioned it as a potential application of this topic. I'm not interested enough in it to post a thread on it. If there was a thread on photoelectric fabric, I would mention sailboats - not to hijack, just to indicate prospective relevance.

[mooeypoo]

I just mentioned it as a potential application of this topic. I'm not interested enough in it to post a thread on it. If there was a thread on photoelectric fabric, I would mention sailboats - not to hijack, just to indicate prospective relevance.

 

 

Asking such a question in the thread generally results in shifting the subject, which LEADS to talking about a different subject. Hence thread hijacking.

 

Now, if you want to disagree, do so in PM.

 

Please get back on topic on this one.

[Widdekind]

If moon-induced ionospheric tides, today, are 40 miles tall; then, 4 Gya, when the moon was >10x closer, so that its tides were >1000x stronger, would those tides have been 40 K miles tall? That would have enveloped the moon itself, so that earth's moon would have orbited inside of earth's ionosphere.