It isn’t possible to understand the relationship of the earth and the moon without having at least some idea how a spinning top works. So it would be an idea to bone up on gyroscopes. However, the earth isn’t a gyroscope for two reasons:
1 it is an oblate sphere and thus asymmetrical and:
2 it is part of a twin planet system.
There is a third problem but it is covered by #1: The earth has a chaotic fluid carapace.
This is a complex skin that has itself a system of gyroscopes or vortices, intimately connected to the surface of the planet making it hard for whatever causes them to accomplish “vortex shedding”. Instead these phenomena skid along the surface as ocean gyres or above the surface as weather.
As well as being several miles shorter in diameter through the poles compared to its equatorial diameter (about 20 miles IIRC, not a lot in 8000 -but enough) the earth is gifted with gravitational anomalies (mascons.) The main ones are to the east of North America and south of the Himalayas (negative anomalies.) And from New Zealand to Indonesia; the northern stretch of the Mid Atlantic Ridge and the Chilean Andes (positive anomalies.)
The largest anomaly is the Indonesian-New Zealand one and may explain why almost all earthquake series start and end with quakes between the Fijian Islands and Papua New Guinea. (There is another minor series that oscillates between the islands in the Norwegian Sea and South Atlantic. Presumably the importance of this will be revealed in its own sweet time.)
All these anomalies have a unsettling effect on the rotational properties of the earth that in some manner is controlled or catered for by the moon. (And probably the planets.) This has the result of allowing the weather in any region to be indicated by the time of the phase of the moon.
Unfortunately, this lunar effect doesn’t work in a linear process. Fortunately for us, neither do I.
So how do gyres work?
I was looking up torque (leverage) to try and explain the lifting property of gyroscopes and came across this little demonstration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leCEmJA0WsI
While it deals with torque conversion or hydraulic couples it could also help one to understand the initiation of movement in a reservoir.
I haven’t had much time to think about how it might apply to ocean motion but I can see possibilities. I have the idea it could also lead to an explanation of the coupling of volcanoes and anticyclones in tele-connections. (Ugh!y daze yet, though.)
More talk on torque:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDq-3Ou0VdU
When he wrote Principia all the engineering and mathematical terms in use in Europe were Latin terms. The reason is that guildsmen and scholars all over Europe spoke so many different languages that commerce outside one’s own town could be difficult.
To this day some regions have accent so stron that a native of a different part of the same country might not understand you.
Imagine if he was brought up in the region of a different tribe. Despite being under the same laws and governments, they wouldn’t speak the same language. This was true until a few centuries ago of one of the smallest countries in Europe, even today remnants of the Welsh language is slightly different at one end of the country to the other.
A similar regionality applies in France and there are 4 major varieties of German. Switzerland has three international languages and not one of its own. Luxembourg has two languages plus french and Dutch. So if you think you have difficulties understanding the difference between torque and force… think again.
I can’t say I was ever a diligent student of Newton bt I don’t believe he used the term torque. Instead he relied on the use of analogies. He spoke of wheels and spokes. I presume that he meant a spoke to be a full radius, not the engineering marvel a bicycle spoke is today.
But the point is, a torque IS a force but it is a term applied to angular momentum. When you lift a weight you think of it’s motion as one of a straight line up. Ditto when you push it. But when you apply leverage to it you actually twist it out of a straight line.
Just like conventional dynamics rotational motion has the same moments of inertia, motion in a straight line (overall) and reaction to forces. The same laws of motion apply and the same mathematical conventions do too.
When a machine is rotated and brought up to speed, it’s acceleration is measured in terms of plus and minus a given direction. Conventionally it is posative in a clockwise direction and negative in an anticlockwise direction. In reality the direction depends on which side the observation is made. Two people standing either side of a rotating wheel see it moving in different directions.
In real life it is decelerating when being braked and on paper is said to be negatively accelerating or moving anticlockwise. If it is getting up speed it is accelerating and moving clockwise on paper.
Today instead of Latin we have Internet. And I suppose (luckily for me, English.)