To obtain internal tidal currents and full-depth tidal currents from limited mooring observations, a method is put forward combining harmonic analysis and modal decomposition. Harmonic analysis is used to separate tidal currents of different constituents, and modal decomposition is used to calculate full-depth tidal currents of each mode. By adding the barotropic tidal currents to all the baroclinic ones, the full-depth tidal currents of each constituent are reconstructed. The feasibility and accuracy of the proposed method is tested by twin experiments. Then, the method is used to extract tidal currents of each mode and to reconstruct full-depth tidal currents for M 2 and K 1 from a 3-month-long time series of acoustic Doppler current data observed at a station in the northern South China Sea. Results indicate that the total kinetic energy (KE) of M 2 is 25% larger than that of K 1 . For M 2 , the first baroclinic mode is the dominant one, followed by the barotropic one, and the sum of these modes accounts for more than 90% of the total M 2 KE. Tidal constituent K 1 is dominated by the barotropic mode, which accounts for more than 90% of the total K 1 KE.
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