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Chapter 4 - Tidal analysis and prediction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2014

David Pugh  and
Philip Woodworth
David Pugh
Affiliation:
National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool
Philip Woodworth
Affiliation:
National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool
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Summary

  1. By what astrology of fear or hope

  2. Dare I to cast thy horoscope!

  3. By the new Moon thy life appears;

  4. Longfellow, To a child

Tidal analysis of data collected by observations of sea levels and currents has two purposes. Firstly, a good analysis provides the basis for predicting tides at future times, a valuable aid for shipping and other operations. Secondly, the results of an analysis can be interpreted scientifically in terms of the hydrodynamics of the seas and their responses to tidal forcing. An analysis provides parameters that can be mapped to describe the tidal characteristics of a region. Preliminary tidal analyses can also be used to check tide gauge performance, as discussed in Chapter 2.

The process of analysis reduces many thousands of numbers, for example a year of hourly sea levels consists of 8760 values, to a few significant stable numbers that contain the soul or quintessence of the record [1]. An example of statistical tidal analysis is given in the description of sea levels in Section 1.6. In tidal analysis the aim is to produce significant time-stable parameters that describe the tidal régime at the place of observation. These parameters should be in a form suitable for prediction, should be related physically to the process of tide generation, and should have some regional stability.

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Type
Chapter
Information
Sea-Level Science
Understanding Tides, Surges, Tsunamis and Mean Sea-Level Changes
 , pp. 60 - 96
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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The many countries that make tidal predictions available include: United States , France , United Kingdom Admiralty , UK NOC , Canada , Australia

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