Synthesis of forced oscillations, Part I: Tidal dynamics and the influence of the loading and self-attraction effect

Free oscillations in the period range from 9 to 40 h and their corresponding adjoint solutions are used to synthesize semidiurnal and diurnal tides of second degree. The free oscillations are determined with explicit consideration of frictional terms and the full loading and self-attraction effect. This allows for a detailed analysis of the loading and self-attraction effect on the dynamics of ocean tides, e.g. a physical explanation is given for the induced phase delay computed by ocean tide models.Further, the synthesis gives a spectral composition of certain well known tidal features and pairs of free oscillations are identified, diminishing their contribution either on a global or local scale.