Anomalous 18.61-Year Nodal Cycles in the Gulf of Tonkin Revealed by Tide Gauges and Satellite Altimeter Records

Understanding nodal tidal characteristics is essential for accurate long-term tidal prediction. Observational nodal evolution of tides is mainly based on tide gauge records in coastal areas which are limited in time and space, thus impeding coherent determinations of basin-wide patterns of tidal var...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-08, Vol.14 (15), p.3672
Main Authors: Pan, Haidong, Devlin, Adam Thomas, Xu, Tengfei, Lv, Xianqing, Wei, Zexun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
18.61-year nodal cycle
Altimeters
Coastal zone
Coasts
Constituents
Gauges
Gulf of Tonkin
Harmonic analysis
Remote sensing
satellite altimeter data
Satellite observation
Satellites
Sea level
Tidal amplitude
Tidal effects
tidal variability
tides
TOPEX
Topography
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Summary:Understanding nodal tidal characteristics is essential for accurate long-term tidal prediction. Observational nodal evolution of tides is mainly based on tide gauge records in coastal areas which are limited in time and space, thus impeding coherent determinations of basin-wide patterns of tidal variability. In this paper, we indicate the potential of satellite altimeter data to investigate 18.61-year nodal modulations of main constituents in the Gulf of Tonkin. Three tide gauges and multi-source satellite altimeter observations (TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason1, Jason2, and Jason3) revealed that 18.61-year nodal cycles in tidal amplitudes have noticeable deviations from the equilibrium tidal theory in the Gulf of Tonkin. In general, M2 and N2 nodal modulations are anomalously larger than theoretical values while K2, K1, and O1 nodal modulations are noticeably smaller than theoretical values. Compared to point-based tide gauges, satellite altimeter records can provide basin-wide features of nodal modulations of main constituents. Although overlapping geographical blocks are applied to eliminate the effect of tidal alias originated from long-period sampling intervals, the estimation of nodal cycles of minor constituents are still questionable. Nevertheless, the methods described here provide a strong foundation for future research on time-varying tidal dynamics using the combination of tide gauges and satellite altimeter data.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs14153672