Muography for a dense tide monitoring network

Abstract

Sub-hourly to seasonal and interannual oceanographic phenomena can be better understood with high special resolution and high frequency tidal observations. However, while current tidal measurements can provide sufficiently high observational density in terms of time, the observational density in terms of space is low mainly due to the high expense of constructing tide gauge stations. In this work, we designed a novel tide monitoring technique with muography that could be operated in near-shore basements (or similar structures on land below sea level) and found that more practical, stable, robust and cost-effective high-spatiotemporal-density tide measurements are possible. Although the time resolution, sensitivity, and the distance between the detectors and the shorelines are tradeoffs, hourly and annual sensitivity (ability to detect the tide height variations) of less than 10 cm and 1 mm can be statistically attained, respectively. It is anticipated that the current muographic technique could be applied as an alternative, cost-effective and convenient dense tidal monitor network strategy in coastal areas worldwide.