glabella - the answers

[Kirsten Talmage]

> Hutch: All bodies of water have tides, even the smallest of lakes and
> ponds (I thought). Just that the smallest bodies of water aren't big
> enough for the tides to show. I think the Med has tides. It may be small
> enough that the tides don't evidence themselves much. Naah!
> [I believe Hutch is wrong here.  The water level can't rise unless it has
> somewhere to come from, and when it falls, it needs somewhere to go.  In
> the oceans, the water is sloshing all the way around the planet, so a
> high tide in one place is balanced by a low tide somewhere else.  And I
> must mention an anecdote from my past.  In 1988, I was installing some
> weather monitoring equipment on the Greek island of Santorini.  We were
> putting the station down by the beach, and we asked the navy guys helping
> us out how far up the tide would come.  They looked puzzled, and when we
> explained further about the water rising and falling twice a day, these
> Aegean sailors became convinced that we were completely nuts.  They
> apparently had never heard of tides!]

	Hutch is techinically right, but a tide of a couple of inches
would insignificant compared to waves. I don't know how big
mediterranean tides would be.  The slope and shape of the shoreline
has a big difference too (Bay of Fundy, for example...)

kir