Preface: Developments in the science and history of tides

Abstract

Abstract. This special issue marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Liverpool Tidal Institute (LTI), one of a number of important scientific developments in 1919. The preface gives a brief history of how the LTI came about and the roles of its first two directors, Joseph Proudman and Arthur Doodson. It also gives a short overview of the research on tides at the LTI through the years. Summaries are given of the 26 papers in the special issue. It will be seen that the topics of many of them could be thought of as providing a continuation of the research first undertaken at the LTI. Altogether, they provide an interesting snapshot of work on tides now being made by groups around the world.

Tidal science before and after Newton

“…However, with the benefit of hindsight, one can identify other eras during the following centuries. These include the dynamical work of Laplace in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; the development of the harmonic method by Kelvin and Darwin, the drawing of global cotidal charts by Whewell, Airy, Bache, Harris, and others, and the technological developments of tide gauge networks (the data from which are now important for long-term climate studies) and tide prediction machines (Woodworth, 2020) during the 19th century; and the theoretical work of Proudman and developments in tidal prediction by Doodson at the Liverpool Tidal Institute (LTI) in the mid-20th century (Woodworth et al, 2021). It is obvious that there are many omissions and simplifications in such a list.…”

“…However, there is still a need to understand the tides better in coastal waters and at high latitudes, and the altimeters of recently launched and upcoming missions such as CryoSat-2, Sentinel-3, Sentinel-6, and SWOT should meet these challenges to a great extent. Tides continue to be important factors in a wide range of research that is of both scientific and practical importance, as noted by the various papers in a special issue of Ocean Science to mark the centenary of the founding of the LTI in 2019 (Woodworth et al, 2021). Cartwright himself had been Assistant Director at the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences (Bidston), as the LTI was known at the time.…”

O problema de Fleming sobre as marés e as conjecturasde Galilei

“…Essa afirmativa, contudo, não pode ser estimada aqui, devido a simplicidade do modelo. A estimativa para α = 10 −3 fornece uma densidade para a Lua elevada, ρ L = 3.1 × 10 2 g/cm 3 , mas não descartável de imediato. Podemos comparar com a densidade da Terra, que é ρ T = 5.46 g/cm 3 .…”

“…Este problema possui, ao ser resolvido, três desdobramentos de interesse. Primeiro, importante a ser destacado, é o estudo das marés em si, que continua atual principalmente quanto a sua associação com a medida do tempo, o impacto na biologia marinha, questões climáticas, e processos astrofísicas [3][4][5][6][7]. Sobre esse conteúdo, vale consultar as publicações do centenário Liverpool Tidal Institute [8].…”

Advances in the observation and understanding of changes in sea level and tides

“…258 Many aspects of tidal research are included in papers in a special issue of Ocean Science. 259 Otherwise, a summary of progress in measuring tides with altimeter data was provided by Ref. 260.…”