Citation Information

References

This work was initially supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), administered by Universities Space Research Association (USRA) under contract with NASA. It is currently supported under the NASA Cryospheric Sciences Program (Grant Numbers 80NSSC22K0379 and 80NSSC21K0911).

Please consider citing our article in the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS):

T. C. Sutterley, S. L. Howard, L. Padman, and M. Siegfried, “pyTMD: Python-based tidal prediction software,” Journal of Open Source Software, 10(116), 8566 (2025). doi: 10.21105/joss.08566 BibTeX

Dependencies

This software is also dependent on other commonly used Python packages:

• h5netcdf: Pythonic interface to netCDF4 via h5py

• lxml: processing XML and HTML in Python

• numpy: Scientific Computing Tools For Python

• pint: Python package to define, operate and manipulate physical quantities

• platformdirs: Python module for determining platform-specific directories

• pyproj: Python interface to PROJ library

• scipy: Scientific Tools for Python

• timescale: Python tools for time and astronomical calculations

• xarray: N-D labeled arrays and datasets in Python

Optional Dependencies

• cartopy: Python package designed for geospatial data processing

• dask: Parallel computing with task scheduling

• ipyleaflet: Jupyter / Leaflet bridge enabling interactive maps

• ipywidgets: interactive HTML widgets for Jupyter notebooks and IPython

• jplephem: Astronomical Ephemeris for Python

• matplotlib: Python 2D plotting library

• obstore: Simple, high-throughput Python interface for object storage

• pandas: Python Data Analysis Library

• pyarrow: Apache Arrow Python bindings

• s3fs: Pythonic file interface to S3 built on top of botocore

• zarr: Chunked, compressed, N-dimensional arrays in Python

Credits

The Tidal Model Driver (TMD) Matlab Toolbox was developed by Laurie Padman, Lana Erofeeva and Susan Howard. An updated version of the TMD Matlab Toolbox (TMD3) was developed by Chad Greene. The OSU Tidal Inversion Software (OTIS) and OSU Tidal Prediction Software (OTPS) were developed by Lana Erofeeva and Gary Egbert (copyright OSU, licensed for non-commercial use). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) PREdict Tidal Heights (PERTH3) software was developed by Richard Ray and Remko Scharroo. An updated and more versatile version of the NASA GSFC tidal prediction software (PERTH5) was developed by Richard Ray. The pyFES prediction software was funded and supported by CNES and the FES model is distributed by AVISO.

Data Citations

Internally, pyTMD includes datasets from the following:

• D E Cartwright and A C Edden. Corrected Tables of Tidal Harmonics. Geophysical Journal International, 33(3):253–264, September 1973. URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246x.1973.tb03420.x, doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.1973.tb03420.x.

• D E Cartwright and R J Tayler. New Computations of the Tide-generating Potential. Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 23(1):45–73, June 1971. URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-246X.1971.tb01803.x, doi:10.1111/j.1365-246X.1971.tb01803.x.

• S Desai, J Wahr, and B Beckley. Revisiting the pole tide for and from satellite altimetry. Journal of Geodesy, 89(12):1233–1243, December 2015. URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-015-0848-7, doi:10.1007/s00190-015-0848-7.

• T Hartmann and H-G Wenzel. The HW95 tidal potential catalogue. Geophysical Research Letters, 22(24):3553–3556, December 1995. URL: https://doi.org/10.1029/95gl03324, doi:10.1029/95GL03324.

• G Petit and B Luzum. IERS Conventions (2010). Technical Report 36, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), US Naval Observatory (USNO), 2010. URL: http://www.iers.org/nn_11216/IERS/EN/Publications/TechnicalNotes/tn36.html.

• R D Ray and S Y Erofeeva. Long-period tidal variations in the length of day. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 119(2):1498–1509, February 2014. URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/2013jb010830, doi:10.1002/2013JB010830.

• Y Tamura. A Harmonic Development of the Tide-Generating Potential. Marees Terrestres Bulletin d'Informations, 99:6813–6855, July 1987.

Disclaimer

This package includes software developed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (UW-APL). It is not sponsored or maintained by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), AVISO, CNES or NASA.

Warning

Outputs from this software should be used for scientific or technical purposes only. This software should not be used for coastal navigation or any application that may risk life or property.