HF Radar Observation of Tidal Current over the Beibu Gulf,South China Sea

In this paper, a new fully-digital high frequency(HF) radar system OSMAR-SD(ocean state measuring and analyzing radar, S-smaller, D-digital) is employed for observation of the tidal current over the Beibu Gulf, South China Sea. This system can operate at two frequencies to achieve wider range and better resolution of measurement. Experimental results show that the radar measurements agree with the tide level data well. The environmental noise level is also analyzed to demonstrate its detrimental effect upon the measurement, the period of this effect is about 24 h. Moreover, it's the first time that the characteristic of the irregular diurnal tide over Beibu Gulf is clearly measured by HF radar.