New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts

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Tides and sea-level variability in the south-west Pacific from TOPEX/Poseidon

M. G. G. Foreman

Institute of Ocean Sciences
P.O. Box 6000
Sidney, BC V8L 4B2
Canada

R. G. Bell

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research Limited
P.O. Box 11 115
Hamilton, New Zealand
email: r.bell@niwa.co.nz

J. Y. Cherniawsky

Institute of Ocean Sciences
P.O. Box 6000
Sidney, BC V8L 4B2
Canada

B. Beckley

Raytheon ITSS Corporation
Lanham
Maryland, United States

Abstract  A harmonic-analysis technique is used to compute tidal amplitudes and phases over the south-west Pacific Ocean from the first 300 cycles (up to November 2000) of TOPEX/Poseidon satellite altimetry. The analysis is performed along groundtracks and at track crossover locations and the resultant harmonics are shown to compare favourably with those from open-coast sea-level gauges and from regional and global tidal models. Small-scale oscillations (<400 km) in along-track amplitudes and phases are used to identify likely regions of M₂ internal tide generation, or aliasing between K₁ and semi-annual signals. Tidal harmonics derived from satellite altimetry were used to improve the open-sea boundary forcing for a limited-area tidal model and produce a better validation with coastal sea-level gauges.

Keywords  satellite altimetry; TOPEX/Poseidon; tides; internal tides; model; South Pacific Ocean

M03023; Received 9 May 2003; accepted 12 May 2004; Online publication date 5 August 2004
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 2004, Vol. 38: 649-669
0028-8330/04/3804-0649 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2004

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