Joint ECMWF/OceanPredict workshop on Advances in Ocean Data Assimilation

The use of ocean reanalysis and forecasts become more and more common for a large variety of applications. Requirements from the users are toward a higher resolution, leading to model increased resolution and complexity to better represent a larger spectrum of ocean phenomenon. In parallel, ocean observing systems also evolve to better capture smaller scale and higher frequency ocean features....

The impact of assimilating simulated wide-swath altimetry observations from the upcoming SWOT mission has been assessed using Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs). This mission has the potential to bring about a step change in our ability to observe the ocean mesoscale, but work to ameliorate the effects of correlated errors in the processing of the SWOT observations and the...

In the South Pacific’s Western Boundary Current, the East Australian Current (EAC) System, we combine a high-resolution (2.5-6km) numerical ocean model with an unprecedented observational data set, using 4-dimensional variational data assimilation. In addition to the traditional data streams (satellite derived SSH and SST, Argo profiling floats and XBT lines) we exploit novel observations that...

Prediction of ocean surface velocities remains a challenging and crucial aspect of operational ocean forecasting systems. Accurate surface velocities are important for coupled ocean/atmosphere/sea-ice/wave forecasting and for application such as search and rescue, offshore oil and gas operations and shipping. Surface velocities are not routinely assimilated in global forecasting systems,...