How does the Moon affect Earth's tides?

NARRATOR: Large bodies of water on Earth are subject to the tides, the regular coming and going of water, or ebb and flood tide. The sea shifts from one to the other at about six hour intervals. The place with the greatest discrepancy between ebb and flood tide is probably Canada. Sea level shifts by 15 meters. The North Sea recedes up to four meters, and the Baltic recedes by only around 30 centimeters.

HANS JÜRGEN BRUMSACK: "I always compare what causes tidal flow here to a mini tsunami. The tide comes in at regular intervals and isn't very dangerous if you are familiar with the area. The places where you'll find the most extreme tides is on the open coastline of the Atlantic."

NARRATOR: But where does the water go during ebb tide? Is it like in a bathtub, someone pulls a plug and the water just flows out? The Moon drives the tides. Its gravitational pull acts like a huge magnet. It causes the water to surge upwards, towards the sky. The largest concentration of water is at the point where the Moon is closest to the Earth, a tidal bulge forms here.

But a bulge forms on the opposite side of the earth as well. The most widely accepted theory states that the Moon and Earth rotate around the same axis and this causes centrifugal forces that displace the water. The Earth also rotates on its own axis once a day, and that's why we have high and low tides twice a day. We can also thank the tides for the mudflats on the German North Sea coast.

BRUMSACK: "We view the sea flats as a kind of bioreactor, or a water treatment plant. And that's exactly what happens here. The water inundates the sand and then recedes during the ebb tide, but the nutrients in the water stay in the sand and provide basic nutrition for marine life."

NARRATOR: The mudflats are a kind of nursery for many young animals. Some of them can even live in both salt and freshwater. They are perfectly adapted to the moon-driven tides.