Arctic ocean tidal constituents atlas

• Main Authors: Hart-Davis, M., Ray, R., Andersen, O., Howard, S., Padman, L., Nilsen, F., Dettmering, D.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5020891

Ocean tides are a vital component of global ocean circulation, with their role in the Arctic Ocean being crucial for ocean and sea ice dynamics. Recently, significant advances have been made in global ocean tide models, however, difficulties remain in the coastal regions as well as in the higher latitudes. The latter is related to the poorly resolved bottom topography, the influence of sea ice and limited regular satellite altimetry measurements. Although modelling efforts are attempting to improve our ocean tide estimates in the Arctic Ocean, the tidal in-situ network is an additional limiting factor in this region. In-situ measurements from tide gauges or ocean bottom pressure sensors are crucial sources of information that can be used to understand the spatial variability of tides as well as validate the advances made in modelled estimates. However, globally in-situ tidal constituent databases contain a limited number of observations with, for example, TICON-3 containing 111 above 60°N and 21 above 70°N with the distribution of these measurements mainly being around North America. This abstract presents the results of a concerted effort to produce a harmonised dataset of tidal constituents in the Arctic region. This dataset combines in-situ measurements from tide gauges, ocean bottom pressure sensors and GNSS reflectometry, which results in approximately 691 measurements above 60°N and 313 above 70°N with a much greater spatial distribution across the full Arctic ocean. The resultant dataset is quality assessed and compared to recent tide models to determine the reliability of the different data sources used.