Characteristics of Tides in the Bay of Bengal

A vertically integrated 2D numerical model was developed for the simulation of major tidal constituents (M₂, S₂, N₂, K₁ and O₁) in the Bay of Bengal. The bathymetry for the model domain was derived from an improved ETOPO5 dataset prepared in our earlier work. The simulated tidal elevations showed good agreement with the hourly tide gauge observations at Paradip, Visakhapatnam, and Chennai. The amplitudes and phases of M₂, S₂, K₁, and O₁ at the coastal stations, obtained from harmonic analysis of simulated tides, were found to agree well with those obtained from Admiralty Tide Tables with the RMS misfit 9.2, 5.6, 2.9 and 3.1 cm, respectively. In the Bay of Bengal, semi-diurnal tides (M₂, S₂, and N₂) attain highest amplitudes (180, 80, 30 cm, respectively) in the Gulf of Martaban while amplitudes of diurnal tides (K₁, O₁) reaches maximum (20, 12 cm, respectively) in the Malacca Strait. The continental shelf in the head bay and along the southern coast of Myanmar is about 200 km wide and the amplitudes of semi-diurnal tides are doubled in these regions while the diurnal tides amplify only marginally, which is consistent with Clarke and Battisti theory. In the north eastern end of the head bay and the Gulf of Martaban, the geometrical configuration of the coastline, in addition to the wide continental shelf, could contribute to the amplification of both semi-diurnal and diurnal constituents. In the Malacca Strait, the amplitudes of both semi-diurnal and diurnal tides are found to increase gradually from the northern end to the 2.5°N and decreases towards southern boundary. The co-tidal and co-range charts of M₂ and S₂ tidal constituents also show the presence of two degenerate amphidromic points in the head bay. A virtual amphidromic point for M₂ is identified in the Malacca Strait.