A comparison of global and regional ocean tide models with tide gauges in the East Asian marginal seas

Abstract

To enhance storm surge forecasting and establish open boundary conditions for sophistical numerical simulation of tides and tidal currents in the Bohai Sea, Yellow Sea, and East China Sea, this study evaluated the accuracy of eight global and regional tide models (EOT20, FES2014, NAO.99Jb, TPXO9, DTU16, HAMTIDE12, OSU12, and GOT4.10c) based on 41 tide gauges in the region. The differences between tide models and 8 offshore tide gauges were notable, with the root mean square (RMS) values ranging from 12.67 to 25.97 cm for M₂, 6.09–13.73 cm for S₂, 2.96–6.56 cm for K₁, and 2.50–4.20 cm for O₁. For the offshore stations, the NAO.99Jb model demonstrated superior performance with the root square sum (RSS) value of 12.63 cm among the eight tide models. For the island and coastal stations, the EOT20 model performed the best for M₂ (RMS 13.03 cm), the FES2014 model for S₂ (RMS 6.26 cm), and the DTU16 model for K₁ and O₁ (RMS 2.73 cm and 2.26 cm, respectively). Overall, the EOT20 model also exhibited the lowest RSS value (15.22 cm) among the eight models for 24 island and coastal stations. The EOT20 model slightly outperformed others with the RSS of 14.88 cm across all 32 tide gauges. Regarding the Sa tidal component, great discrepancies were found between TIDAL CONSTANTS (TICON) harmonic constant data and tide gauges. The reason for this is that the Doodson number for the Sa tidal component derived from tide gauge data, which is influenced by meteorological factors, should be (0,0,1,0,0,0), while the TICON harmonic constant data employed the Doodson number of (0,0,1,0,0,−1) corresponding to the basic astronomical variables. A correction method was proposed to adjust tidal constants from inconsistent Doodson numbers. Comparing with the harmonic constants of the Sa tidal component at 28 coastal tide stations revealed large errors in the NAO.99b, FES2014, and EOT20 models, with RMS values of 19.03, 22.08, and 13.61 cm, respectively. Consequently, caution should be taken when using the Sa results from these ocean tide models.