Tide Model CST1 of China and Its Application for the Water Level Reducer of Bathymetric Data

ABSTRACT

The performance of global tide models in China's seas is far worse than in deep water, owing to generally larger and more complex tides. An ocean tide model (named CST1) was developed by Princeton Ocean Model (POM) and blending assimilation technique, which includes 13 major constituents with a 1.2' × 1.2' spatial resolution. The nautical charts over the Chinese continental shelves and ETOPO1 database are used to generate the bathymetric grid model. The bottom friction coefficient is parameterized through a linear dependency on the depth of each grid. The weight parameter in blending assimilation is a function of the amplitude of constituent. Compared with 33 tide gauges along the Chinese coastline, the Root Sum Square (RSS) error of 8 major constituents is 12.09 cm, and the RSS of 4 major constituents (M2, S2, K1, O1) is 10.76 cm. CST1 with spatially interpolated residual water level was used to provide water level reducers for bathymetric survey. An example near amphidromic point of semi-diurnal constituents in the Yellow Sea demonstrated its process. Assessment showed that it can meet the required accuracies of standards of hydrographic surveys in China. The application proved that CST1 can predict adequately precise astronomical tide level, and is potentially economical and the best approach to provide water level reducers, although some checks should be made in survey planning stage.

KEYWORDS:

• Bathymetric survey
• the Chinese seas
• tide model
• water level reducer

Funding

This work is partly supported by the National Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 41501500, 41020144004, 41104018) and the National High-tech R&D Program (grant nos. 2009AA121405, 2012BAB16B01).