Connections Between Ocean Bottom Topography and Earth's Climate

Special Issue-Bathymetry from Space considered to be a solved problem in oceanography. The general physics of tides were understood, and they could be modeled with reasonable fidelity using relatively simple differential equations solved on computers. In general, it was thought that improvements in tide models would be made only by having higherresolution models run on faster computers. The advent of satellite altimetry by GEOSAT, more recently provided to a higher precision by TOPEX/Poseidon, reinvigorated interest in the tides. But the resulting research was largely an "engineering" issue related to perfecting the numerical models of the tides so that they could be used to remove tidal effects from the altimetry observations. However, in the process of refining tidal models, new and interesting physics were revealed. In particular, the application of data assimilation methods revealed that dissipation of the tides was more complicated than previously understood.