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Abstract
Tides of the Ross Sea and Ross Ice Shelf Cavity Laurie Padman S. Erofeeva I. Joughin A standard tide model based on the depth-integrated shallow water equations does not adequately reproduce available tide height measurements on the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS). The primary sources of error are uncertainties in parameterizations of tidal energy dissipation and lack of knowledge of the thickness of the water column under the RIS including ice shelf grounding line location. Changing the parameterization of benthic friction, and data assimilation of the tide height measurements, are used to improve model quality. Synthetic aperture radar interferograms provide independent data for testing improvements in model performance. Tidal currents over the open Ross Sea are dominated by diurnal tides in the form of topographically trapped vorticity waves (TVWs). The strongest modeled currents exceed 1 m s-1 over the upper continental slope in the northwestern Ross Sea. Some of this diurnal TVW energy leaks into the central continental shelf area of the Ross Sea by propagating along the edges of the bank/trough systems. |
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