GGE6022 hydrography knowledge

Inverse Barometric Effect: A Contribution to Dynamic Ocean Topography

One of the topics I omitted in the first post of this series was the inverse barometric (IB) effect. Think of someone jumping on the side of a waterbed, their mass adds pressure to the water which in turn causes it to flow to places where there is less pressure, like the other side of the bed. In the natural world high pressure weather systems can push the ocean down much like the person jumping on the water bed. With a low pressure system such as a rainstorm the opposite happens, more water can move into the area, like the side of the water bed without a person on it.