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Overview

This guide will walk you through signing up for the necessary account and then choosing between two methods to download and clip the tide model for use in CoastSeg.

Part 1: Register for the Tide Model

You only need to do this part once. Be sure to save your username and password in a safe place. Be aware that AVISO may update their registration guide at any time and this page may be out of date.

Step 1: Register

Step 2: Select the Tide Model

  • Select the FES Model During the registration process, you'll be presented with various data models to choose from. Ensure you select the FES (Finite Element Solution - Oceanic Tides Heights) model.

Step 3: Account Verification

  • Confirmation Email: After completing the registration, AVISO will send you a confirmation email. Check your inbox (and spam folder if necessary) for this email.
  • Verify Your Account: Click on the link provided in the email to verify your account. This step is crucial to activate your account and gain access to the data models.

Step 4: Accessing Your Dashboard

  • Login: Once your account is verified, log into your AVISO account.
  • Navigate to Products: On your account dashboard, you'll find a left side menu. Click on the My products option. image

Step 5: Confirm Your Subscription

  • Check Your Subscriptions: Under My AVISO+ select My Products, ensure that under Your current subscriptions: it lists FES (Finite Element Solution - Oceanic Tides Heights). This confirms that you've successfully subscribed to the desired model.

FES_products FES_subscription_under_my_products_page

Part 2: Download the Tide Model

Space and Time Requirements

  • Storage Space: Ensure you have at least 12GB of free space available for fes2022.
  • If you want both fes2014 and fes2022 you will need at least ~27 GB of free space.
  • Time Commitment: The download and setup process for the fes2022 model takes approximately 1-2 hours. This is a one-time requirement.

Download_tide_model.ipynb Notebook

The easiest way to download the tide model is to use this notebook. Run all the code in the notebook and you're done!

  1. Prepare: Ensure you have you are in an activated coastseg environment and know your AVISO email and password.
  2. Open Notebook: Launch Download_tide_model.ipynb in Jupyter Notebook.
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cd CoastSeg
jupyter lab Download_tide_model.ipynb

3.Run Code: Execute the download cells in the notebook. The notebook will guide you through the download and clipping process automatically (please note in CoastSeg 2.1.0 and beyond no longer recommend clipping the tide model)

4.Check Results: Confirm that the model files are correctly downloaded in the specified directory.

  • Example Output from Downloading Tide Model Step in Notebook download_tide_model_notebook

  • Example Output from Clipping Tide Model Step in Notebook (clipping is no longer recommended) clip_tide_model

5.Downloaded Tide Model Contents

  • Below is an example of the CoastSeg tide model contents for the FES2022 tide model after the model was downloaded.

Screenshot 2026-09-03 114444

  • FES2022 folder contents, showing the 34 NetCDF files (.nc) that make up the global ocean tide constituents.

Screenshot 2026-09-03 114348

  • Structure of the downloaded tide model. Please note your folders may not exactly match these folder names here because when new FES models are released the date attached to the ocean tide and load tide folder names change.
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├── CoastSeg
|
|___tide_model
|    |_ fes2022b
|    |     |_load_tide
|    |     |       |__2n2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__eps2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__j1_fes2022.nc
|    |     |       |__ ....
|    |     |_ocean_tide
|    |     |       |__2n2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__eps2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__j1_fes2022.nc
|    |     |       |__ ....
|    |
  1. (LEGACY, Not Recommended) Clip the Tide Model

  2. (Please note in CoastSeg 2.1.0 and beyond clipping the tide model is no longer required and NOT recommended.)

  3. Clipping the tide model takes an extra ~10GB of disk space and make tide correction slower.

  4. (LEGACY) : Below is an example of the CoastSeg tide model contents for FES 2014 after the model was downloaded and clipped. (Please note in CoastSeg 2.1.0 and beyond clipping the tide model is no longer required.)

legacy tide model contents

(LEGACY) Why is the tide model clipped?

  • (Please note in CoastSeg 2.1.0 and beyond clipping the tide model is no longer required and NOT recommended.)

To make the tide predictions compute faster we will clip the model it to various regions across the planet. After we've clipped the model to each region, when we want to predict the tide at a particular latitude and longitude we first figure out which region the point lies within, then we load the tide model we clipped to that region.

(LEGACY) Structure of Clipped Tide Model in CoastSeg

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├── CoastSeg
|
|___tide_model
|    |_ fes2014
|    |     |_load_tide
|    |     |       |__2n2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__eps2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__ ....
|    |     |_ocean_tide
|    |     |       |__2n2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__eps2.nc.gz
|    |     |       |__ ....
|    |
|    |_ region0
|    |     |_fes2014
|    |     |       |__load_tide
|    |     |       |       |__2n2.nc
|    |     |       |       |__eps2.nc
|    |     |       |       |__....
|    |     |       |__ocean_tide
|    |     |       |       |__2n2.nc
|    |     |       |       |__eps2.nc
|    |     |       |       |__....
|    |_ region1
|    |_ region2
|    |_ region3
|    |_ region4
|    |_ region5
|    |_ region6
|    |_ region7
|    |_ region8
|    |_ region9
|    |_ region10

Running into Problems?


  1. Your account may not be verified yet, which means you can't download the model
  2. Occasionally the AVISO server goes down. Wait a few hours and try again and see if its working.

How to Perform Tide Correction

⚠️ You must have downloaded the FES2022 and/or FES2014 tide model before attempting to correct tides

⚠️ Important: Read Before Using Tide Correction Button

If the tide model was NOT downloaded to CoastSeg/tide_model then the tide correction button will NOT work. The tide correction button will try to load the tide model from <CoastSeg location>/tide_model and an error will occur. If you downloaded the tide model to a different location please move it to CoastSeg/tide_model and be sure to clip the tide model.

For detailed instructions on performing tide correction, see How to Tidally Correct.

Credits

Thank you DEA-Coastlines for making a guide on how to use pyTMD and pyTMD for making a easy to use script to download the AVISO FES 2014 and FES 2022 Model. The model_tides in this code has been modified and the original function was originally written by Robbi Bishop-Taylor for the dea-tools package https://github.com/GeoscienceAustralia/dea-notebooks/blob/develop/Tools/dea_tools/coastal.py#L466-L473 . For more informaion on the FES 2014 model please visit https://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/products/auxiliary-products/global-tide-fes/description-fes2014.html and https://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/products/auxiliary-products/global-tide-fes/release-fes22.html for the FES 2022 model.