Algorithm for harmonic tidal analysis along T/P tracks: Taking differences of observed sea surface heights at adjacent points as observations

Abstract

An algorithm (differential mode) is presented for the improvement of harmonic tidal analysis along T/P tracks, in which the differences between the observed sea surface heights at adjacent points are taken as observations. Also, the observation equations are constrained with the results of the crossover analysis; the parameter estimations are performed at 0.1° latitude intervals by the least squares. Cycle 10 to 330 T/P altimeter data covering the China Sea and the Northwest Pacific Ocean (2°–50°N,105°–150°E) are adopted for a refined along-track harmonic tidal analysis, and harmonic constants of 12 constituents in 8 474 points are obtained, which indicates that the algorithm can efficiently remove non-tidal effects in the altimeter observations, and improve the precision of tide parameters. Moreover, parameters along altimetry tracks represent a smoother distribution than those obtained by traditional algorithms. The root mean squares of the fitting errors between the tidal height model and the observations reduce from 11 cm to 1.3 cm.