Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

MODELING OF MEAN SEA LEVEL IN PERSIAN GULF AND OMAN SEA USING T/P SATELLITE ALTIMETRY DATA

K. Lari, M. Najafi Alamdari and M. Abrehdary

Abstract

For the determination of mean sea level in Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, the instantaneous sea level heights observed by Topex/Poseidon satellite during the years 1992 to 2003 (altimetry data) are used. The sea level observation is formulated as a function of the mean sea level, linear trend, and periodic constituents of tidal origin with known high and low frequencies into a regression model. The tidal part of the model is exchanged by assemblies of tidal constituents assumed by three different ocean tide models: 12 major tidal constituent; FES95.1; FESO4. Each time the fitness of model to the observations in space and in time is tested in terms of the variance factor. The best of the models is selected to derive the mean sea level in the region of interest. The mean sea level is proved to be determined with the accuracy comparable to the accuracy of observations known to be 2 cm in average.