Can we break the limitations of Rayleigh criterion and Nyquist-Shannon
theorem in Tidal Harmonic Analysis?
Abstract
Recent observation reveals a stunning fact that the coastal tides are
experiencing a rapid change in the last century in several places in the
world. To achieve a wide and refined understanding of the phenomenon,
high-accuracy tide level data is needed more than ever. In-situ
measurements – the traditional and main data source to support tidal
harmonic analysis – are often sparse and limited to fixed positions,
insufficient to provide information about the spatiotemporal variability
of tidal processes beyond the tidal gauges. Satellite altimetry may
fundamentally change the situation. This technology measures water level
with increased spatial coverage and resolutions. However, satellite
altimetry has not been used in tidal analysis due to two major
limitations in the harmonic analysis: a) a minimum length of sampled
observed data is required to recognize a sufficient number of tidal
constituents according to the Rayleigh criterion and b) data
sampling/acquisition frequency must be at least two times the major
tidal frequencies to avoid the aliasing issue dictated by Nyquist
theorem. To address these issues, a novel compressed-sensing approach is
proposed to break the limitations. In this method, the prior information
of the regional tides (e.g., a reference tidal station near the location
of interest) is collected to support a stepwise optimization process to
obtain the amplitudes and phase terms of the tide signal for data series
with different lengths and time intervals. Instead of least-square-fit
approach, stochastic gradient decent is employed using Pytorch. A
preliminary study shows that the proposed method can generate the tidal
amplitudes and phases with a sampling interval of 16 days and a total
data length of 30 days with an acceptable error. The results of this
study can be useful to determine an optimum frequency and length for
tidal data acquisition for the upcoming SWOT (Surface Water Ocean
Topography) satellite, which is supposed to be launched in November 2022
to measure sea and terrestrial water level around the globe for three
years and with average revisit time of 11 days.