Tides – Geography Notes

The periodical rise and fall of the sea level, once or twice a day, mainly due to the attraction of the sun and the moon, is called a tide. Movement of water caused by meteorological effects (winds and atmospheric pressure changes) are called surges. Surges are not regular like tides. The study of tides is very complex, spatially and temporally, as it has great variations in frequency, magnitude and height.

TYPES OF TIDES

The strong gravitational pull exerted by the sun and the moon on the earth’s surface causes the tides. The water of the earth closer to the moon gets pulled under the influence of the moon’s gravitational force and causes high tide. During the full moon and new
moon days, the sun, the moon and the earth are in the same line and the tides are highest. These tides are called spring tides. But when the moon is in its first and last
quarter, the ocean waters get drawn in diagonally opposite directions by the gravitational pull of sun and earth resulting in low tides. These tides are called neap tides.

TIDE DIAGRAM

Tide example diagram – wikipediaHIGHEST TIDES

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, and those enormous tides alone make that the Bay of Fundy is one of the world’s greatest natural wonders.
Tucked into a pocket between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy is famous for having dramatic differences between its high and low tides. In fact, the tides observed here are tied with Ungava Bay (located farther north) for the largest tides on Earth. Under typical conditions, high tide at the head (the most inland part) of the Bay of Fundy is as much as 17 meters (about 56 feet) higher than low tide.

TIDAL POWER STATIONS LIST

Tidal currents are a very potential source of tidal energy which is harnessed by many developed countries on a very large scale and to some extent in India as well

Station	Country	Capacity (MW)
Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station	South Korea	254
Rance Tidal Power Station	France	240
Annapolis Royal Generating Station	Canada	20
Jiangxia Tidal Power Station	China	3.2
Kislaya Guba Tidal Power Station	Russia	1.7
Uldolmok Tidal Power Station	South Korea	1.5
Eastern Scheldt Barrier Tidal Power Plant	The Netherlands	1.25
Strangford Lough SeaGen (Decommissioned in 2016)	United Kingdom	1.2

 

WORLD GEOGRAPHY COMPLETE NOTES