Inversion of Tidal Open Boundary Conditions of the M2 Constituent in the Bohai and Yellow Seas

Open boundary conditions (OBCs) of the M-2 tidal constituent in the Bohai and Yellow Seas (BYS) were inverted successfully through assimilation of TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) altimeter data. An improved independent points (IPs) scheme was employed in the inversion. Under the assumption that the OBC was spatially varying, values at a set of IPs along the open boundary were inverted using the adjoint method and those at other points were calculated by the spline interpolation. The OBC inverted with the improved scheme was closer to reality in terms of smoothness than that inverted with the Cressman interpolation. The scheme was calibrated in twin experiments. Practical experiments showed that the misfits between simulated results and observations were smaller when the spline interpolation was used.