On the recovery of regional ocean tide models using satellite altimetry

Abstract

Radar altimeter ranges from the GEOS‐3 spacecraft, collected over a 12‐month period between May, 1975, and May, 1976, were analyzed in an attempt to obtain regional ocean tide models for the M₂ constituent in the Sargasso Sea. Modeling of the ocean tide was attempted using Fourier solutions on profiles of altimetry data and also functional analysis techniques at crossover points. The methods use either discrete subsets of the data or the complete data set simultaneously. The resultant ocean tide models for the M₂ tide were compared against the Mofjeld (1975) empirical model for the area.