Web-service for tidal elevations and currents predictions

Accurate information about ocean tide currents is essential for renewable energy site assessment or evaluation of oceanic conditions for offshore implementation.

The TIPS website provides tidal information at two levels:

  • Free demonstration product: one week of tidal currents on any point of the ocean, on a fixed period (January 2014)
  • Paying service: 7/7 24/24 access to tidal currents and elevations on any period and any point of the ocean + additional diagnostics
The TIPS web-service provides tidal elevation and velocity time series at any point of the global ocean for any time period in the past and in the future. This tidal information is extracted from the high-resolution tidal models developed by NOVELTIS.
For more than 10 years, NOVELTIS has developed highly accurate tidal atlases on behalf of the French and European Space Agencies (CNES and ESA). Among other applications, these atlases are used to correct the satellite altimetry sea surface height measurements and to provide boundary conditions to ocean circulation models. With TIPS, NOVELTIS has broadened the scope of its tidal atlases applications by providing tidal currents and elevations predictions to end-users from the offshore operations and renewable marine energy industries.

Web-service for tidal elevations and currents predictions

Accurate information about ocean tide currents is essential for renewable energy site assessment or evaluation of oceanic conditions for offshore implementation.

The TIPS website provides tidal information at two levels:

  • Free demonstration product: one week of tidal currents on any point of the ocean, on a fixed period (January 2014)
  • Paying service: 7/7 24/24 access to tidal currents and elevations on any period and any point of the ocean + additional diagnostics
The TIPS web-service provides tidal elevation and velocity time series at any point of the global ocean for any time period in the past and in the future. This tidal information is extracted from the high-resolution tidal models developed by NOVELTIS.
For more than 10 years, NOVELTIS has developed highly accurate tidal atlases on behalf of the French and European Space Agencies (CNES and ESA). Among other applications, these atlases are used to correct the satellite altimetry sea surface height measurements and to provide boundary conditions to ocean circulation models. With TIPS, NOVELTIS has broadened the scope of its tidal atlases applications by providing tidal currents and elevations predictions to end-users from the offshore operations and renewable marine energy industries.
NOVELTIS - TIPS website
NOVELTIS - TIPS regional
The ocean tide is a dominant process of the ocean circulation dynamics on the continental shelves and in the coastal areas. It shows up as rises and decreases in the sea level once or twice a day, with amplitudes ranging from a few centimeters to several meters, depending on the regions. The currents generated by the displacements of such water masses can reach several m/s locally. It is important to understand the ocean tide process for many coastal applications such as tourism, fisheries, offshore operations and marine energies. It can be well known in some very peculiar regions, thanks to local historical observations, but in most regions of the global ocean, modelling is still the only mean to estimate the ocean tide elevations and velocities. However, the ocean tide process is particularly complex to model because it strongly interacts with the bottom of the ocean, which is still poorly mapped.

Means used

NOVELTIS has implemented accurate high resolution tidal atlases on global, regional and local bases, using hydrodynamic modelling as well as the assimilation of tide gauge and satellite altimetry tidal observations.

  • Use of the most recent bathymetric databases
  • High resolution unstructured grids
  • Tidal atlases were carefully validated using tide gauges and satellite altimetry data
  • Computed in two horizontal dimensions and they provide mean-depth tidal information
  • 3-D tidal currents can also be estimated locally (on demand)

This type of mesh is of particular interest in areas of steep topographic gradients, where the tidal currents generally show high variability, as well as in the shallow waters, where the energy dissipation is the highest, due to the bottom friction.

Results

In addition to tidal elevation and current time series, NOVELTIS proposes to its clients a set of diagnostics based on these datasets:
  • Currents roses giving the main directions of the velocities

  • Dates and elevations of high and low waters

  • Lowest astronomical tide level (LAT)

Client / Partner(s)

Logo CNES
Logo esa