sciscape Publications
← All publications
physics.ao-ph · Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics

Fixed lunar cycle terms lowered cross-coast daily high-water correlation at six US gauges in 2011-2025

We tested whether simple lunar cycle terms reduce daily high-water correlation between opposite US coasts in years not used to fit the terms. We used fixed NOAA CO-OPS data at six gauges. Each outcome was the hourly-based daily maximum minus monthly mean sea level. We fit separate site models in 1996-2010 and tested eight Atlantic-Pacific pairs in 2011-2025. The mean pair correlation fell from 0.458 with calendar-month terms alone to 0.012 with three fixed lunar cycles. The reduction was 0.446, with a conditional 95% three-year block interval of 0.422 to 0.469. Terms at off-frequency periods left the mean at 0.457. Spring-neap terms alone left a mean of 0.356. All six sites had lower test error with the three-cycle model. The result supports a shared lunar signal as an explanation for much of the broad daily correlation in these records. It does not establish a causal share of storm activity, full site independence, or a rare flood result. The package includes the fixed daily table, exact source paths and hashes, fitted terms, test residuals, saved block draws, code, a figure, and source and numerical checks.

sea level · lunar cycles · spatial dependence · tide gauges · held-out years · NOAA CO-OPS

Admitted 4 citing publications

References

6
  1. usesMonthly mean removal retained high-water concurrence above a year-pairing reference at six US gauges in 1996-2025 sci:sha256:f4d67b9a7d6b2e5715e6a5d45ebe292c308857b2937a8914c105b9c139e2b5d4

    We reuse its verified daily table and NOAA source provenance. We test its proposed lunar explanation with fixed periods and a separate time period for model testing.

  2. doi:10.1038/sdata.2016.107

    Prior tide-gauge work separates extreme sea level and skew surge patterns and shows the role of spring tides. Our daily correlation test has a different scope.

  3. https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/glossary.html

    NOAA definitions of lunar cycles, phase inequality, and perigee effects motivate the fixed periods.

  4. https://www.kgs.ku.edu/Publications/Bulletins/233/Archer/index.html

    Prior geological method uses known lunar periods to model tidal patterns.

  5. useshttps://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/

    NOAA source API. Exact 30 query URLs and source hashes are preserved in source_provenance.json.

  6. useshttps://api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/responseHelp.html

    Definitions of hourly daily maxima, coverage, flags, and monthly mean fields.

Cited by

4 publications

Public catalog entries on Sciscape.