Global Interaction of Ocean and Terrestrial Tides

Let us examine the influence exerted on ocean tides by the equilibrium effect of terrestrial tides and the loading and self-attraction effects of ocean tides, the exclusion of which means (see Section 3.2) that the Earth constitutes a perfectly rigid body, and, therefore, there is no interaction between the ocean and the terrestrial tides. It is natural to ask oneself a question: is such a supposition justified? The estimates of a self-consistent equilibrium tide in the ocean, presented in section 1.4, indicate that the opposite is true. But ocean tides are not in equilibrium, and the question, there fore, remains open. Provinding the answer to this question is the object of this chapter.