![]() ![]() The most common tidal patterns are: (a) semi-diurnal: two high tides and two low tides each lunar day (b) diurnal: a single high tide and low tidal per lunar day (c) mixed: usually two high tides and two low tides each lunar day, featuring significantly different heights. These cycles all follow the same order but the duration of each stage may vary within a lunar day (25 hours and 50 minutes, the time it takes for the moon to complete a full rotation around the Earth), which enables different tidal patterns. ![]() A tidal cycle consists of four main stages: the sea level rises over the course of a few hours ( flood tide), reaches its highest point (high tide), falls over several hours ( ebb tide), and hits its lowest level ( low tide). These very same forces are present in the moon-Earth system, making it so that the combination of all forces, from both systems, together with an array of environmental factors, are responsible for creating the phenomenon of tides on our planet. ![]() When the Earth moves around the sun, it maintains its orbit due to the equilibrium of two forces: gravitational and centrifugal. According to the law of universal gravitation, tides are protuberances of water induced by the pull that the sun and the moon exert over the Earth. Sir Isaac Newton (1687) explained that tides are caused by the effects of gravity – that is, by the attraction of a given mass for another. Most shorelines on the planet experience semidiurnal tides (two high tides and two low tides per lunar day), making it so that each transition between low to high lasts approximately 12 hours and 25 minutes. There are three main tidal patterns: semidiurnal, diurnal, and mixed. ![]()
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