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Chapter 6 - Shallow-water and coastal tides

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2014

David Pugh  and
Philip Woodworth
David Pugh
Affiliation:
National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool
Philip Woodworth
Affiliation:
National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool
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Summary

‘. . . I don’t see the good of the tides. What’s the good of a sea if it’s going to be mud in a few hours.’ ‘It’s like breathing,’ said Titty. ‘Up and down. Up and down. It makes everything alive.’

Arthur Ransome, Secret Water

In the previous chapter we showed how the amplitudes of the tidal waves generated in the deep oceans increase when they spread onto the shallow surrounding continental shelves. In this chapter we consider the further and more extreme distortions that occur as the tidal waves propagate into the even shallower coastal waters and rivers. The behaviour of these distorted tides is very important for near-shore human activities such as recreational pursuits and coastal navigation. The distortions are also important for geological and biological processes in the coastal zone.

Introduction: some observations

Sea-level records from shallow-water locations normally show that the interval from low to high water is shorter than the interval from high to low water: the rise time is more rapid than the fall. Offshore the flood currents are stronger than the ebb currents. High waters occur earlier than simple predictions, and low waters are later.

Type
Chapter
Information
Sea-Level Science
Understanding Tides, Surges, Tsunamis and Mean Sea-Level Changes
 , pp. 133 - 154
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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