Few things in nature are as predictable as the tides in the ocean. These persistent, short-period, and large-scale phenomena, driven by the gravitational pull of the Moon and Sun, are apparent in almost all types of oceanographic and satellite observations. They also directly affect the rhythm of life of millions of people and countless ecosystems.

Recently, however, researchers have noticed subtle changes in surface measurements of tides that don't match changes in the gravitational pull of the moon and sun. Instead, the collected data and theory suggest that a warming ocean surface may be behind the observations. To investigate these phenomena, Dr. Michael Schindelegger of the University of Bonn is using supercomputing resources at the Jülich Supercomputing Center (JSC) to better understand observational data collected from 1993–2020, improving the accuracy of three-dimensional (3D) ocean circulation. models in process. (Sarah Waldrip, more at phys.org)