| A competitive state-of-the-art empirical ocean tide model for the diurnal, semidiurnal, monthly, and fortnightly ocean tides is estimated from almost three years of TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P) altimetric data. This ocean tide model is then used to predict the contributions of the ocean tides to tidal variations in the rotation of the Earth. Comparisons of the presented T/P ocean tide model to tide gauge observations and a proposed error analysis both indicate accuracies of the model to be of the order 2-3 cm. Application of the predicted contribution of the monthly and fortnightly ocean tides to observed variations of the Earth's rotation rate provide preliminary estimates of the anelasticity of the Earth's mantle at the monthly and fortnightly periods which are consistent with observations of mantle anelasticity at the Chandler wobble period, but are not consistent with observations of mantle anelasticity at the 18.6 year period.;Tide gauge comparisons show that the T/P models have improvements of 19 cm... |
