Identification

Title

Diurnal and semidiurnal tides in global surface pressure fields

Abstract

Global surface pressure data from 1976 to 1997 from over 7500 land stations and the Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set have been analyzed using harmonic and zonal harmonic methods. It is found that the diurnal pressure oscillation (S-1) is comparable to the semidiurnal pressure oscillation (S-2) in magnitude over much of the globe except for the low-latitude open oceans, where S-2 is about twice as strong as S-1. Over many land areas, such as the western United States, the Tibetan Plateau, and eastern Africa, S-1 is even stronger than S-2. This is in contrast to the conventional notion that S-2 predominates over much of the globe. The highest amplitudes (similar to 1.3 mb) of S-1 are found over northern South America and eastern Africa close to the equator. Here S-1 is also strong (similar to 1.1 mb) over high terrain such as the Rockies and the Tibetan Plateau. The largest amplitudes of S-2 (similar to 1.0-1.3 mb) are in the Tropics over South America, the eastern and western Pacific. and the Indian Ocean. Here S-1 peaks around 0600-0800 LST at low latitudes and around 1000-1200 LST over most of midlatitudes. while S-2 peaks around 1000 and 2200 LST over low- and midlatitudes. Here S-1 is much stronger over the land than over the ocean and its amplitude distribution is strongly influenced by landmasses, while the land-sea differences of S-2 are small. The spatial variations of S-1 correlate significantly with spatial variations in the diurnal temperature range at the surface, suggesting that sensible heating from the ground is a major forcing for S-1. Although S-2 is much more homogeneous zonally than S-1, there are considerable zonal variations in the amplitude of S-2 which cannot be explained by zonal variations in ozone and water vapor. Other forcings such as those through clouds' reflection and absorption of solar radiation and latent hearing in convective precipitation are needed to explain the observed regional and zonal variations in S-2. The migrating rides S-1 and S-2 predominate over other zonal wave components. However, the nonmigrating tides are substantially stronger than previously reported. The amplitudes of both the migrating and nonmigrating tides decrease rapidly poleward with a slower pace at middle and high latitudes.

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document

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https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7pc33cf

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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Text

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title

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reference date

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publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

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Temporal reference

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End position

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date type

publication

effective date

1999-11-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 1999 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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Responsible organisations

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contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-17T17:55:55.728964

Metadata language

eng; USA