A Preliminary Study of the Establishment of Ocean Tide Models in South China Sea from T/P Altimetry

Based on the characteristic of the perfect spatial distribution of the T/P altimeter data,a spatial analysis method is performed, which transfers the constituents harmonic constant H and into a pair of orthogonal parameters U and V, and then expresses each of them with a polynomial function.As Parameters, the polynomial coefficients are derived with altimeter data on the least squares criteria. Thus the models of the main tidal wave in South China Sea are established.72 wees of TOPEX/POSEIDON data through weeks 11 to 82 are included in the calculation.The models are evaluated with different approaches and data set. The conclusion is that the tide models can provide partial tide amplitudes with 3cm accuracy, phase lags deviation of those amplitudes which are large over 10 cm are within ±10°, and the tide models derived are better than those of Schwiderski and SR95.1.