Dynamics of Ocean Tides

Six years have passed since this book was written. These years have been marked by rapid progress in theoretical and experimental studies of ocean tides and by the expansion of their applications, particularly in satellite navigation and space geodesy. In their turn, improvements in the methods of space navigation and space geodesy have resulted in the development of new technology to obtain empirical information and in the ever-increasing use of the data of satellite altimetry. Apart from this purely experimental aspect, important results have also been obtained in the field of the theory of ocean tides. These are, firstly, the solution of the problem that has remained in the background for a long time, regarding the parameterization of solitary islands, island chains, and archipelagoes; secondly, the conclusion of the investigations into the global interaction of oceanic and atmospheric gravitational tides and the establishment of the nature of the latter; thirdly, intensive development of investigations into the vertical structure of tidal flow, based on the high level models in the hierarchy of the planetary boundary-level models; fourthly, the appearance of the results produced by modelling the evolution of the spectrum of natural oscillations and global tides in the Paleoocean and their use in constructing the theory of the tidal evolution of the Earth-Moon system; and, finally, the development of new combined methods to calculate the global ocean tides. In this book we have tried to present systematically the current state of knowledge on ocean tides and, after a critical interpretation, to focus attention on questions as yet unsolved, the purposeful and systematic study of which would facilitate a speedy progress in ascertaining the dynamics of ocean tides - an important and intensively developing component part of the science of the ocean.