Estimation of extreme wave heights using GEOSAT measurements

Satellite technology has yielded a large database of global ocean wave heights which may be used for engineering applications. However, the sampling protocol used by the satellite leads to some difficulties in making use of these data for practical applications. These difficulties and techniques to estimate extreme wave heights using satellite measurements are discussed. Significant wave heights for a 50-year return period are estimated using GEOSAT measurements for several regions around North America. Techniques described here may be used for estimation of wave heights associated with any specified return interval in regions where buoy data are not readily available.     

Detection of ocean waves using satellite altimetry: Application to equatorial Kelvin waves

A new method for wave motion detection from satellite altimetric measurements of sea surface height is presented. The essence of the approach is to construct a two‐dimensional traveling‐wave Fourier series representation of the amplitude field within a prespecified oceanic region. The method employs an iterative, nonlinear least‐squares technique based on the Marquardt‐Levenberg algorithm to solve for model parameters describing characteristic features of the evolving wave system. The Marquardt‐Levenberg Fourier series (MLFS) algorithm was applied to Kelvin waves active during the 1986–1987 El Nino event in the equatorial Pacific ocean using GEOSAT Exact Repeat Mission altimetry data. Characteristics of the wave system were found to be in essential agreement with earlier field measurements and the observations of Cheney and Miller (1987) obtained using time series developed from GEOSAT data. The advantage of the present detection scheme lies in its speed and ability to determine a wave system's dispersion relation over a finite range of wavenumbers, and hence the group velocity of that system.     

Orthogonal intersections of megatrends in the Western Pacific ocean basin: a case study of the Mid-Pacific mountains

Present-day tectonic concepts of events on the western paleo-Pacific lithosphere must be assessed relative to new data. Data collected by the newer techniques of geophysical surveying reveal leaky fracture zones, trending NNW–SSE and WSW–ENE; non-sequential in-line ages on most seamount chains; and orthogonal intersections of fracture zones. The fracture zones meander, braid, merge, splay, start and stop at any place, and are generally aligned with, or contain, linear chains of seamount. The combination of these in-line features is called megatrends. When the GEOSAT data are compared to the available bathymetry, this seemingly jumbled tectonic structure is verified. As the pole of rotation changes, the stress field changes alignment to agree with the Chandler wobble of Earth. Younger megatrends, propagating ever eastward, cross the older, already imprinted megatrends. During the Cretaceous, the voluminous outpouring of igneous rock created the large Pacific plateaus and rises where the megatrends, active and inactive, orthogonally intersected. The magma floods at the intersections flowed outwardly, and the outward flooding accounts for the fanning magnetic lineations around the Manihiki, Magellan, Shatskiy, and Hess rises. A case study of the Mid-Pacific Mountains (MPM), lying in the north-central Pacific Ocean basin, shows that the MPM formed about 125–110-Ma by overprinting the orthogonal intersections of fracture zones at the Molokai and Easter/Krusenstern–Emperor megatrends and the Murray and Tubai/Mamua megatrends. The MPM have been undergoing distortion into a vortex structure, a feature which has been confirmed by updated bathymetry, GEOSAT altimetry data, and drillsite information.     

GEOSAT及其轨道特征

本文介绍了美国的海洋测高卫星GEOSAT,分析讨论了GEOSAT的理论设计轨道及实测轨道特征。     

GEOSAT GM的精密轨道确定及精度估计

对最近公开的ＧＥＯＳＡＴ ＧＭ期间的ＴＲＡＮＥＴ Ｄｏｐｐｌｅｒ数据作了分析,利用这些数据和新的ＪＧＭ３重力场模型,计算了ＧＥＯＳＡＴ在ＧＭ期间的精密历元．９１个６天弧解给出的平均的Ｄｏｐｐｌｅｒ残差为４．３ｍｍ／ｓ,估计出所计算的轨道径向精度约为１０ｃｍ。     

Ocean tides from T/P, ERS-1, and GEOSAT altimetry

 Aliasing of the diurnal and semi-diurnal tides is a major problem when estimating the ocean tides from satellite altimetry. As a result of aliasing, the tides become correlated and many years of altimeter observations may be needed to seperate them. For the three major satellite altimetry missions to date i.e., GEOSAT, ERS-1, and TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P), the alias periods as well as the Rayleigh periods over which the tides decorrelate can be identified. Especially in case of GEOSAT and ERS-1, severe correlation problems arise. However, it is shown by means of covariance analyses that the tidal phase advance differences on crossing satellite groundtracks can significantly reduce the correlations among the diurnal and semi-diurnal tides and among these tides and the seasonal cycles of ocean variability. Therefore, it has been attempted to solve a multi-satellite response tidal solution for the diurnal and semi-diurnal bands from a total of 7 years of altimetry. Unfortunately, it could be shown that the GEOSAT and ERS-1 orbit errors are too large to improve a 3-year T/P tidal solution with about 2 years of GEOSAT and 2 years of ERS-1 altimeter observations. However, these results are preliminary and it is expected that more accurate orbits, which have become available recently for ERS-1, and additional altimeter data from ERS-2 and the GEOSAT Follow-On (GFO) should lead to an improved T/P tidal model. Received: 4 May 1999 / Accepted: 24 January 2000     

Sea State Hindcast with ECMWF Data Using a Spectral Wave Model for Typical Monsoon Months

A third generation wave prediction model (WAM) suitably modified for the Indianseas was used to simulate the sea state during typical monsoon months of July 1987,88 and 89. During July 1987, small-scale disturbances over the Arabian Sea and theBay of Bengal as reported from earlier works were noticed in the wave hindcast. Thegridded monthly averaged wave heights for the above periods were compared with theGEOSAT altimeter data. A comparison between model computed wave parameters andavailable ship observations was also carried out for July 1987, 88 and 89.The modelwas run with ECMWF analyzed wind field for a period of one month. The comparisonshowed that the wave heights from the model matches with those from GEOSATAltimeter and ships of opportunity.