Workshop objectives
This workshop aimed to bring together experts in the field of ocean and coupled data assimilation to discuss the latest progress in the field, to outline the main challenges and to identify new directions for research.
Background
Ocean data assimilation underpins many forecasting and reanalysis applications. Seasonal forecasts rely on ocean data assimilation to produce initial conditions for the ocean component of coupled forecasts. The production of multi-decadal ocean and coupled reanalyses has enabled the calibration of these forecasts and allows studies into the climate of the ocean’s recent past. Higher resolution global and regional short-range forecasts of the ocean also require initialisation through data assimilation which has been the focus of groups contributing to the Data Assimilation Task Team (DA-TT) of OceanPredict. With the advent of coupled NWP at many operational centres, including ECMWF, improving methods for ocean and coupled data assimilation is ever more important.
Meeting format
The workshop took place online over 4 days.
The first 3 days consisted of invited and contributed oral presentations.
Poster presentations were also included with dedicated poster sessions.
A series of working group discussions took place on the 4th day with a final plenary session to discuss the main recommendations.