Chapter 4 - Tides modeling using satellite altimetry across Southeast Asian seas

Abstract

Tides play a major part in ocean circulation modeling toward climate change. The advancement of satellite radar altimeter technology signifies better accuracy of sea surface height (SSH) measurements after the launching of the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite. The altimetry SSH can act as tide gauge measurements for each location globally. This study aims to derive the purely empirical tide models across the SEAs via the least-square harmonic analysis approach. The empirical tide models with 0.125 degrees spatial resolution have been determined using TOPEX, Jason-1, Jason-2, Jason-3, and Geosat Follow-On satellite missions based on the best geophysical corrections within the study area. The tide models were compared with the coastal tide gauges and DTU10 tide model. The findings show that the derived tide models show significant improvement over the DTU10 tide model near coastal areas. However, more investigation should be conducted toward developing better precision of the tide model in the complex areas.