(December 30, 2016)

Earth’s magnetic field is built up from many contributing sources ranging from the planet’s core to the magnetosphere in space. Untangling and identifying the different sources allows geomagnetic scientists to gather information about the individual processes that combine to create the full field.

One contributor is the ocean. But how do the tides affect Earth’s magnetic field? Seawater is an electrical conductor, and therefore interacts with the magnetic field. As the tides cycle around the ocean basins, the ocean water essentially tries to pull the geomagnetic field lines along. Because the salty water is a good, but not great, conductor, the interaction is relatively weak. The strongest component is from the regular lunar tide that happens about twice per day (actually 12.42 hours).