IAPSO compilation of pelagic tides

Abstract

The harmonic method of analyzing and predicting tides was an outstanding scientific accomplishment in the nineteenth century. Except for the building of bigger and better mechanical tide‐predicting machines, procedures were essentially unchanged during the first half of the twentieth century. Cotidal and co‐range charts were empirical, based on observed tides along coastlines and at a few islands. More recently, numerical solutions of Laplace tidal equations have become feasible on newlydeveloped, more powerful computers. Simultaneously, oceanographic engineers have succeeded in measuring tides on the sea floor at great depths. To make pelagic tide data available to the oceanographic community, in particular to those involved in tidal modeling, the IAPSO Advisory Committee on Tides and Mean Sea Level has published a compilation of pelagic tides. The first edition, published in 1979, has harmonic constants for 108 stations, each at least 100 m deep and one nautical mile offshore.