Signatures of low-dimensional chaos in hourly water level measurements at coastal site of Mariupol, Ukraine

Abstract

Variations of water levels in ports and estuaries are important for ship guidance and navigation and are influenced by a variety of factors. The hourly data that was collected from the coastal site at the Port of Mariupol, Ukraine during January–December 2005 were analysed with an objective to reveal features of chaotic behaviour. The concepts and methods of chaos theory (average mutual information, correlation dimension, false nearest neighbours, Lyapunov exponents) were applied. The manifestation of low-dimensional chaos was found in the time series. The possibility of nonlinear prediction was concluded.