Tide Peaks Toolbox

A set of functions for obtaining useful tidal statistics from the identified and classified peaks and troughs in a tide gauge record

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The Tide Peaks Toolbox consists of a group of functions for computing a range of useful outputs from a tide gauge record. These include functions which create a regular time series at specified intervals, execute UTide (Codiga, 2011) to estimate harmonic constituent amplitudes and produce tide predictions and non-tidal residuals, compute tidal datums from the amplitude of primary constituents, identify peaks and troughs and classify them according to semidiurnal, diurnal, and spring tidal cycles, compute tidal datums (or planes) from the classified peaks and troughs, and compute skew surges (the height between the predicted and observed water level high and low waters, regardless of timing offset).

Included functions:

tp_regdata.m - Interpolates time series to specified regular intervals

tp_coefdatums.m - Computes tidal datums from primary constituent equations

tp_peaks.m - Locates peaks and troughs in a tidal time series

tp_classpeaks.m - Classifies peaks and troughs according to diurnal and spring tidal cycles

tp_pkdatums.m - Computes tidal datums from classified peaks and troughs

tp_skewsurge.m - Computes skew surges (observed minus predicted peak/trough heights)

Requires 'Utide' tidal analysis functions by Daniel Codiga* available from Mathworks File Exchange at: https://au.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/46523-utide-unified-tidal-analysis-and-prediction-functions

See the included User Manual 'Tide Peaks Toolbox User Manual v1.0 11Jun2023.pdf' for further information.

A template execution script 'm_tpdemo.m' and sample time series 'HobartTG2021.mat' is included for demonstrating the functions.

The following study compares the difference between tidal datums computed from constituent equations versus peaks and troughs for a global dataset of 206 tide gauges. Please consider citing this paper if you use this toolbox:

Palmer, K., Watson, C.S., Hunter, J.R., Hague, B.S., and Power, H.E., 2023. An improved method for computing tidal datums. Coastal Engineering. DOI: 10.1016/j.coastaleng.2023.104354