Abstract
Surface elevation and current records contain non-tidal variance, often dismissed as noise. The processes responsible for the non-tidal component may also modulate the tidal signal, altering its strength and frequency structure. Because of their manner of generation and propagation, internal tides are inherently irregular. The non-stationary character of these and other tidal processes provides an integral and useful property of tidal records, because it provides an opportunity to obtain insights into tidal dynamics and the interaction of tidal and non-tidal processes. It is, moreover, productive to use multiple approaches in analyzing coastal and estuarine tidal processes so that both the time-varying and average frequency content are determined. Only by confronting the causes of non-stationary behaviour in this way can some of the remaining challenges in tidal analysis and prediction be overcome, e.g. shelf and estuarine currents, river tides, internal tides, tide-surge interactions and tidally influenced ecological processes. Several examples illustrate the utility of non-stationary tidal analysis methods.
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Analyses of internal asymmetry and sediment transport were supported by a National Science Foundation project: “Suspended particulate matter dynamics in advection-dominated environments”. River-flow hindcasts and salmonid shallow-water habitat (SWHA) analyses were supported by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
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Jay, D., Kukulka, T. Revising the paradigm of tidal analysis – the uses of non-stationary data. Ocean Dynamics 53, 110–125 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-003-0042-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-003-0042-y