If a water pipeline was built at sea level eg. Gulf of Mexico and the other end was at sea level in southern Chile, then the pipeline was primed with pumps, would the water then gravity feed and flow on it's own due to the weaker gravity at the equator and the equatorial bulge making sea level higher and further from the centre of the earth? (Eg. Sea level at the poles is 21km closer to the centre of the earth compared to the equator).
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1$\begingroup$ Related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/8074/2451 $\endgroup$– Qmechanic ♦Commented Aug 3, 2019 at 14:54
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Would the water then gravity feed and flow on it's own due to the weaker gravity at the equator and the equatorial bulge making sea level higher and further from the centre of the earth?
No. You are using the wrong metric. The correct metric is potential energy rather than force. To first order, sea level is a surface where potential energy due to the gravitation and centrifugal forces are constant. While other factors do come into play, these are small. For example, sea level on the east and west coasts of Panama differ by about 20 centimeters due to different densities of Caribbean versus Pacific waters and different tides. But these are small effects. The largest effect is that potential energy at sea level is more or less the same across the globe.
answered Aug 3, 2019 at 15:58
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$\begingroup$ In addition to the 21KM equatorial bulge sea level difference (from the centre of the earth), apparently sea level can vary up to 300 feet in different areas ( johnenglander.net/sea-level-rise-blog/… ). I've also seen renders of how our oceans would look if the earth where to stop spinning - the ocean runs away from the equator to form two oceans, one at the North Pole and one at the South Pole. National Geographic also remark "sea levels are slightly higher in equatorial regions than near the poles." -NG Encyclopaedia entry $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 4, 2019 at 0:32