Extraction of Internal Tidal Currents and Reconstruction of Full-Depth Tidal Currents from Mooring Observations

Abstract

AbstractTo obtain internal tidal currents and full-depth tidal currents from limited mooring observations, a method is put forward combining harmonic analysis and modal decomposition. Harmonic analysis is used to separate tidal currents of different constituents, and modal decomposition is used to calculate full-depth tidal currents of each mode. By adding the barotropic tidal currents to all the baroclinic ones, the full-depth tidal currents of each constituent are reconstructed. The feasibility and accuracy of the proposed method is tested by twin experiments. Then, the method is used to extract tidal currents of each mode and to reconstruct full-depth tidal currents for M2 and K1 from a 3-month-long time series of acoustic Doppler current data observed at a station in the northern South China Sea. Results indicate that the total kinetic energy (KE) of M2 is 25% larger than that of K1. For M2, the first baroclinic mode is the dominant one, followed by the barotropic one, and the sum of these modes accounts for more than 90% of the total M2 KE. Tidal constituent K1 is dominated by the barotropic mode, which accounts for more than 90% of the total K1 KE.