David Griffin (CSIRO, Australia); Florent Lyard (LEGOS, France); Loren Carrère (CLS, France); Nicolas Picot (CNES, France)

The FES2014 global tidal model benefits from a high resolution mesh, improved hydrodynamic modelling and data assimilation techniques, as well as a 20-year-long altimeter time series and a large dataset of tide gauge observations for data assimilation. In addition to the tidal elevations, the FES2014 global tidal atlas provides the tidal current velocity, which is of particular interest for many scientific (ocean circulation analysis, ocean dynamics modelling…) and industrial (offshore activities, tidal energy site assessment…) applications.

Validation of the tidal currents is challenging as it requires long and accurate time series of current-meter observations. Luckily, for more than 10 years Australia has been maintaining a network of about 50 ADCP instruments all around the country, principally through its government-supported Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS). The Australian continental shelf has a wide range of tidal regimes ranging from macro-tidal to micro-tidal, thus providing ideal conditions to thoroughly test a model.

This paper presents an assessment of the barotropic FES2014 tidal current atlas against the depth-averaged tidal constituents computed from the IMOS current-meter data around Australia.