By Anna Xie
This map shows the ocean oscillations which are the world’s tides and its ranges, projected with an ocean-centric Spilhaus projection. This map was created by Dave Taylor. It uses FES2014 data from Aviso+, which is data that keeps track of the high and low tides.
The Spillhaus projection comes from South African-American geophysicist and oceanographer, Athelstan Spilhaus. He tackled the problem of there not being a projection that displays the oceans in an unbroken view. He achieved this by carefully selecting opposite points as the centers for two hemispheric projections.
These waves are classified as microtidal, mesotidal, and macrotidal. Microtidal consists of 86% of the world’s tides and is a tide of less than two meters, mesotidal waves are between 2-4 meters, and macrotidal is when tides are greater than 4 meters and consists of only 1% of the world’s tides. Tides can be as big as 16 meters!
Tidal waves are a result of the gravitational pull of the moon and sun on the oceans. The rotation of the Earth and the alignment of celestial bodies has caused the regular rise and fall of sea level, creating high and low tides. The causes of variations include the coastal shape, ocean basin size, and water depth.
Tidal energy is actually a renewable resource used in small programs in Northern Ireland, South Korea, and Maine. There are three types of tidal energy generators: turbines, dams, and tidal lagoons that are used to convert tidal energy to electricity. Geographic information systems (GIS) also rely on tidal calculations. GIS must account for tides when mapping the ocean floor and also reflects on the area’s depth. Predicting tides is also important for shipping and travel across oceans because ships need to decide which channel to go to based on their ship’s weight, the ocean depth, and the tidal range.
Oceanic Oscillations — Pathfinder Geospatial