Weather and climate of tidally locked, inhabited moon with oceans

This follows another question that brought me some curiousity about the general state of an earth-like moon tidally locked to a gas giant planet.

There's been questions about a world tidally locked to its star and how this affects their climate (the world being divided in an extremely hot side and an extremely cold side) and population distribution, but in this case since we have a moon revolving around a planet which in turn revolves around the sun, I'm making the assumption the difference in sunlight received won't be as radical.

Of course only one side will ever be fully exposed to the star while the other is blocked by the gas giant when it would be facing the light source, but it seems like to the people on that side of the moon it would just look like the planet "rises" from the side opposite to the sun, completely covers the sun towards midday, and then sets as the sun also starts to set? I assume for the moon's other side it would look like a normal day on Earth. This still results on a colder climate on the side that's facing the planet, right?

There's also the problem of all the water "bulging" towards the gas giant. I assume the extremity of this depends on the giant's pull (mass, distance), but there's also going to be rain, right? Can rivers and lakes still form on the opposite side of the moon in this planet I assume has one huge ocean? Can we still have green, lush, humid forests on the side away from the planet? Most I can think of is big basins creating oasis-like biomes... But what about the winds and erosion of the dry side?

In such conditions, is the limit between "cold" and "hot" sides still the best place to populate or could life be viable anywhere in this planet?

This post might be a bit vague as I'm trying to contribute with as much as what I have already thought of as possible, correct assumptions or not, as food for thought, so I'll re-state my question here in the end as being: what are the general climate conditions in such a world and how does it affect its population?

posted about 6 years ago

Nicolás Marzano‭

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