New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research abstracts
Ocean tides around New Zealand
ROY A. WALTERS
DEREK G. GORING
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric
Research Ltd
P. O. Box 8602
Christchurch, New Zealand
email: r.walters@niwa.cri.nz
ROB G. BELL
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric
Research Ltd
P. O. Box 11 115
Hamilton, New Zealand
Abstract The distribution of amplitude and phase for eight
ocean tidal constituents (M2, S2, N2, K2, K1, O1, P1, Q1) is presented as tidal
maps for the New Zealand area. The distribution was calculated using a
barotropic tidal model driven by TOPEX/Poseidon data on the outer ocean
boundaries. The maps exhibit the known features of the tides in this area such
as a complete rotation of the semi-diurnal tides around New Zealand and the
reduced spring-neap variations on the east coast. They also point out several
new features for which there are few or no observations, such as diurnal
trapped waves and shelf waves. A comparison of the model results with
observations shows that sea level errors are within 0.1 m in amplitude and
10deg. in phase for the largest constituents at all locations, including sites
where the data are of low quality and where the geometry is not adequately
resolved. For locations where the geometry is adequately represented and the
observations are of high quality, sea level errors are within 0.02 m in
amplitude and 7deg. in phase. These results represent the most accurate and
highest resolution calculations of tides and currents yet attained for this
area.
Keywords tides; Harmonic Model; TOPEX/Poseidon; New
Zealand
New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 2001, Vol. 35:
567-579
0028-8330/01/3503-0567 $7.00 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand
2001
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (3166K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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