C.K. Tai
Satellite Oceanography & Climatology Division
Ocean Sensors Branch
Recent Publications
To see Dr. Tai's complete list of publications, abstracts, and citation metrics, visit his
ResearcherID page.
Dr. C.K. Tai received a BS in Physics from National
Taiwan University, then a MS and a PhD in applied physics from Harvard.
His research interests at the time were in geophysical fluid dynamics
(GFD) instability theories and their manifestations in various GFD
systems. He went on to MIT to work as a post-doc for Carl Wunsch, who
introduced him to satellite altimetry. Ever since that time, his research
interests have been in satellite altimetry and its interplay with physical
oceanography. Dr. Tai went on to Scripps as a research faculty. He joined
NOAA in December 1991 as a GS-15 research scientist.
For his most recent research interests and results, Tai (2004 and 2006)
provide the most fundamental aspects of satellite altimetry as a
satellite measurement system, namely, the resolution (i.e., Nyquist
frequency and wavenumbers) and aliasing of altimetric sea level. These two
papers provide advice on the best ways to process the data to enhance
resolution and reduce aliasing. Tai and Fu (2005) gives an example of the
application of these principles, wherein the signal is found to be twice
as large if processed correctly.
Moreover, Tai (2008, 2009) explore the best strategy for combining data
from various coordinated (e.g., TOPEX and Jason) or uncoordinated (e.g.,
TOPEX and ERS-2) altimetry missions. Most recently, in collaboration with
Dr. Quanan Zheng at the University of Maryland, the penetration of the Rossby waves and eddies
into the South China Sea through the Luzon Strait and the Kuroshio is
explored.
Recent Publications
Tai, C.-K., 2011: Inferring the global mean sea level from a global tide
gauge network. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 30, 102-106.
[ DOI: 10.1007/s13131-011-0140-5 ]
Zheng, Q., C.-K. Tai, et al, 2011: Satellite altimeter observations of
nonlinear Rossby eddy-Kuroshio interaction at the Luzon Strait. J.
Oceanogr., 67, 365-376.
[ DOI: 10.1007/s10872-011-0035-2 ]
Tai, C.-K., 2009: The temporal aliasing formulas for the Tandem Mission of
Jason-1 and TOPEX-Poseidon. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 26, 352-367.
Tai, C.-K., 2008: On the aliasing and resolving power of sea level low-
pass filtered onto a regular grid from along-track altimeter data of
uncoordinated satellites: The smoothing strategy. J. Atm. Oceanic Tech.,
25, 4, 617-624.
Tai, C.-K., 2006, Aliasing of sea level sampled by a single exact-
repeat altimetric satellite or a coordinated constellation of satellites:
analytic aliasing formulas, J. Atmos. Oceanic Tech., 23, 252-267.
Tai, C.-K., and L.-L. Fu, 2005, The 25-day-period large-scale oscillations in
the Argentine Basin revisited, J. Phys. Oceanogr., 35, 1473-1479.
Tai, C.-K., 2004, The resolving power of a single exact-repeat
altimetric satellite or a coordinated constellation of satellites, J.
Atmos. Oceanic Tech., 21, 810-818.
E-mail: CK.Tai@noaa.gov
Dept. of Commerce • NOAA • NESDIS • STAR • Last revised: October 28, 2011