One
of the great rhythms of our world is the incessant rise and fall of
the tides, a great symphony of interaction of sun, moon, ocean, and
earth. Humankind has observed the tides for thousands of years and
was able to roughly correlate the relative position of the sun and
moon with the state of the tides, but it was not until Sir Isaac Newton
formulated the theory of gravitation that the cause of tides became
known.
Tidal
observations were first made by observing the rise and fall of tides
as registered on a graduated staff, but by the mid-Nineteenth Century
several types of automatic recording tide gauges were operational.
After accumulating masses of data and correlating with astronomic
observations of the sun and moon, it became possible to bring tidal
predictions within the reach of computation by the latter half of
the Nineteenth Century. Tide and tidal current tables became regular
additions to the products of the Coast Survey.
Join
the Coast Surveyors as they installed the tide gages along our Nation’s
coast that formed the basis for tidal predictions as well as monitored
the rise of global sea level…
