Tidal Effects on Determining a Point at the Bottom of the Sea by Combining GPS and Sonar Observations

Abstract

This paper discusses tidal effects on an observation scheme to determine a point at the bottom of the sea by combining GPS and Sonar observations. For the purpose, three kinds of Earth tides are introduced (i.e., the crust tide, the equipotential surface point (ocean depth) tide, and the geoid tide). The corresponding mathematical expressions are derived to demonstrate the tidal effects on GPS and Sonar observations. The relations between the Earth tides are also discussed. Theoretical results imply a very interesting conclusion, namely that, for a local area, the static position of a point at the bottom of sea can be obtained by the dynamic observations without any tidal correction. Actually, the tidal effects cancel each other in the mentioned observation scheme. It therefore indicates that the observation scheme is free of tidal effects. Furthermore, we learned that the divergence caused by any error source on ocean surface is canceled and does not affect the final results. Therefore, to determine the position of a point at the bottom of sea, we need not consider any tidal effects.