You are here:
AN APPROACH FOR CLASSIFYING TIDAL REGIMES BASED ON TIDAL CONSTITUENTS
Citation:
Power, J H. AN APPROACH FOR CLASSIFYING TIDAL REGIMES BASED ON TIDAL CONSTITUENTS. Presented at Estuarine Research Federation, Seattle, WA, September 14-18, 2003.
Description:
Tidal fluctuations can be one of the dominant physical processes in estuaries. This paper presents a numerical classification of tidal regimes that can be used to summarize local conditions and facilitate comparisons among locations. Tide predictions are customarily calculated using 37 constituents that are expressed as the constituent's amplitude and phase (epoch). Consequently, each constituent for a given location can be viewed as a complex number, and a set of constituents from multiple locations can be examined for patterns using complex principal component analysis. This was done using tidal constituents for 92 primary U.S. tide stations, and clear evidence of tidal regime patterns was obtained, with the first three components dominating. Applications of this classification scheme will be presented.