5.3 Dynamic Model of Tides
177
Timor Sea
15
"
Fig. 5.15: Amphidromic system in Timor Sea, north-west shelf of Australia (data
courtesy of L. Mason)
contemporary tidal models has been substantially improved by a combination of
the finite element hydrodynamic model and available data, including altimeter
data from the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite (Le Provost et ai., 1995, 1998b) .
This approach is known as data assimilation (Komen et ai., 1994).
The present ocean tide prediction models provide very accurate tide heights
and a root-mean-square error of prediction is about 3 cm in the deep ocean.
On the shelves and in the coastal waters, the error of prediction is slightly
higher, at about 10.5 cm. Figure 5.13 (see colour plate p.563) illustrates the
amplitudes and phases of the major lunar tide constituent M2, resulting from
the model FES 95.2 developed by Le Provost et al. (1998a).
Let us now focus our attention on tides in shelf waters. Probably the best
known tides are those in the North Sea (Fig. 5.14) . The North Sea is a rather