The global tide is simulated with the global ocean general circulation model ICON-O using a newly developed tidal module, which computes the full tidal potential. The simulated coastal M2 amplitudes, derived by a discrete Fourier transformation of the output sea level time series, are compared with the according values derived from satellite altimetry (TPXO-8 atlas). The experiments are repeated with four uniform and sixteen irregular triangular grids. The results show that the quality of the coastal tide simulation depends primarily on the coastal resolution and that the ocean interior can be resolved up to twenty times lower without causing considerable reductions in quality. The mesh transition zones between areas of different resolutions are formed by cell bisection and subsequent local spring optimisation tolerating a triangular cell’s maximum angle up to 84°. Numerical problems with these high-grade non-equiangular cells were not encountered. The results emphasise the numerical feasibility and potential efficiency of highly irregular computational meshes used by ICON-O.

使用新开发的潮汐模块，使用全球海洋总环流模型ICON-O模拟全球潮汐，该模块可计算全部潮汐潜力。通过对输出海平面时间序列进行离散傅里叶变换得出的模拟沿海M2振幅与从卫星测高仪得出的相应值（TPXO-8地图集）进行比较。用四个均匀的和十六个不规则的三角形网格重复该实验。结果表明，沿海潮汐模拟的质量主要取决于海岸的分辨率，并且在不引起质量显着降低的情况下，海洋内部分辨率可以降低多达二十倍。不同分辨率区域之间的网格过渡区域是通过单元格分割和随后的局部弹簧优化形成的，该优化允许三角形单元格的最大角度达到84°。这些高级非等距单元的数值问题并未遇到。结果强调了ICON-O使用的高度不规则计算网格的数值可行性和潜在效率。