NCOM_AmSeas

The U.S. Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) was developed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and is maintained by the U.S. Navy Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC).

CARICOOS_C

The Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System (CARICOOS) implemented a high-resolution coastal modeling system utilizing the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) to improve our understanding of coastal circulation dynamics in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands (PRVI). The model employs unstructured triangular elements in the horizontal domain to achieve a more accurate geometric representation of intricate coastlines. Quality checks. The resulting model mesh comprised 175,616 irregular triangular elements and 91,221 nodes, with resolutions ranging from 100 meters at the coast to 3 kilometers at the boundary. The operational model configuration underwent continuous updates in recent years, providing a one-day nowcast and a three-day forecast. Boundary conditions were established using a regional version of the Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) for American Seas (AmSeas), which assimilates quality-controlled observations from satellite products through the NRL-developed Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation (NCODA) system. Spatially varying meteorological conditions were supplied by the CARICOOS 2/6-km Weather Research and Forecasting Models (WRF). Hourly variables at the ocean-air interface contributes to driving and constraining the exchange of momentum, heat, and upper-layer circulation. Wind stress was computed using the bulk formula of Large and Pond, and surface net heat fluxes were calculated with a bulk parameterization scheme. Fourteen tidal constituents (M2, N2, S2, O1, K1, NU2, J1, P1, Q1, M4, MF, MM, SA, SSA) were incorporated into the PRVI-FVCOM simulation. The T-tide MATLAB package predicted the amplitude and phases of these tidal constituents, with harmonic constants specified by the TPXO-7.2 dataset. These tide-induced elevations were added to the sub-tidal components and imposed along the open boundaries.

STOFS_ATL_C

The Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System 3D component for the Northwest Atlantic basin (STOFS-3D-Atlantic), covers the U.S. East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. STOFS-3D-Atlantic utilizes the Semi-implicit Cross-scale Hydroscience Integrated System Model (SCHISM) as its hydrodynamic modeling core. Its unstructured grid comprises 2,926,236 nodes and 5,654,157 triangular or quadrilateral elements, with resolutions ranging from 1.5–2 km near the shoreline, ~600 m in floodplains, down to 8 m in watershed rivers, and 2–10 m along levees. The landward boundary of the domain along the U.S. coastline corresponds to the 10-m contour above xGEOID20B, encompassing the coastal transition zone most susceptible to coastal and inland flooding. Vertical grid layers vary from 49 in the deepest parts of the Atlantic Ocean to a single layer in floodplain areas. The water levels generated by STOFS-3D-Atlantic represent the combined tidal and subtidal water surface elevations, all referenced to xGEOID20B. The STOFS-3D-Atlantic system provides users with 24-hour nowcasts and up to 96-hour forecast guidance for water level conditions, along with two- and three-dimensional fields of water temperature, salinity, and currents. It operates once daily at 12 UTC.

Global_HYCOM_Navy_C

Basic description of Global HYCOM are found at http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/global/about/GODAE11_poster_d1.pdf
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/global/. HYCOM is a new generation of models where the vertical layers of the model are varied by region and depth. In the open, stratified ocean, isopyncal (constant density) layers are used. Approaching the sharp continental shelves terrain-following (sigma) layers are used, and in the surface or unstratified regions horizontal (z-level) layers are used. This mixture of vertical coordinates allows the physics to smoothly transfer the open ocean physics to the shallow water (http://hycom.org/). The surface layer thickness ranges from 0.17 meters inshore to a maximum of 1.0 meters offshore. The Navy global HYCOM model is an eddy resolving global model run once a day and produces 2-day nowcasts and 6-day forecasts. The model is initialized daily from the 3D Navy’s multi-variate data assimilation of a wide variety of sources in-situ and remotely sensed. Navy global HYCOM model is forced by the Navy NAVGEM 3-hourly winds, radiation and precipitation. Navy’s Global HYCOM includes a global model of tides from Oregon State University.

Global_HYCOM_NCEP_C

RTOFS - Real-time Operational Forecast System (Global). Basic description of Global HYCOM are found at http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/global/about/GODAE11_poster_d1.pdf
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/global/. HYCOM is a new generation of models where the vertical layers of the model are varied by region and depth. In the open, stratified ocean, isopyncal (constant density) layers are used. Approaching the sharp continental shelves terrain-following (sigma) layers are used, and in the surface or unstratified regions horizontal (z-level) layers are used. This mixture of vertical coordinates allows the physics to smoothly transfer the open ocean physics to the shallow water (http://hycom.org/). The surface layer thickness ranges from 0.17 meters inshore to a maximum of 1.0 meters offshore. The NCEP global HYCOM model is an eddy resolving global model run once a day and produces 2-day nowcasts and 6-day forecasts. The model is initialized daily from the 3D Navy’s multi-variate data assimilation of a wide variety of sources in-situ and remotely sensed. NCEP global HYCOM model is forced by the NOAA GFS 3-hourly winds, radiation and precipitation. At the present time, Global HYCOM does not include tides or tidal forcing.

COPERNICUS_GLOBAL_C

The Copernicus Global Operational Forecast is run and delivered by Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). CMEMS is the European Earth observation and monitoring program, which provides oceanographic products and services from in-situ measurement, remotely sensed images and model output, to end- users or service providers including maritime safety, coastal and marine environment, weather and climate forecasting, and marine resources. The forecasting system is based on version 3.1 of the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO) ocean model. The bathymetry used in the system is a combination of two different databases. For regions deeper than 300 m ETOPO1 dataset is used while in shallow water (depth < 200m) GEBCO 8. Depth was linearly interpolated between 200 and 300m depth. The atmospheric fields for forcing the ocean model comes from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Integrated Forecast System. A 3-hour sampling of the atmospheric variables is used to reproduce the diurnal cycle, which includes wind speed, surface air temperature, humidity, mean sea level pressure, downward longwave and shortwave radiative fluxes, and rainfall. Data assimilation for the modeling includes in-situ data of vertical profiles of temperature and salinity, and satellite data of sea level anomaly, sea surface temperature and sea ice concentration. http://marine.copernicus.eu/

BLUELINK_V3_C

The Bluelink OceanMAPS operational ocean forecasting model is run and delivered by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), Australia. The model is under ongoing development by a collaborative effort among BOM, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Royal Australian Navy (RAN) under the Bluelink partnership since 2003 with the goal of developing and sustaining operational systems for the global ocean circulation. Currently Bluelink team develops and enhances ocean forecasting capabilities for ocean circulation for global, regional and littoral scales. The latest version of the OceanMAPS model is v.4.0i which was operationally implemented in June 2022.

The forecasting system is based on Ocean Forecasting Australia Model (OFAM) which is a near-global (i.e., excludes polar areas) eddy-resolving configuration of the Modular Ocean Model-MOM (version 5.0 (Griffies,2012)). MOM is a numerical representation of the ocean’s hydrostatic primitive equations and is developed and supported by researchers at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. The bathymetry dataset used in the Bluelink v4.0i system is GEBCO at 0.5-minute resolution, and 0.15-minute resolution product developed by Geoscience Australia. The atmospheric fields for forcing the ocean model come from Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator- Global (ACCESS-G) model which is also operated by BoM. For each forecast, data assimilation process is carried out using available observations, including satellite remote sensing (e.g. sea surface temperature, satellite altimetry) and in-situ data such as water temperature and salinity profiles from ARGO floats, XBT and CTD.

GIOPS_C

The Global Ice Ocean Prediction System (GIOPS) provides global ice and ocean analyses and 10 day forecasts daily at 00GMT on a 1/4° resolution grid. The model has 50 levels ranging from 1 m to 250 m thickness at depth. GIOPS includes a full multivariate ocean data assimilation system that combines satellite observations of sea level anomaly and sea surface temperature (SST) together with in situ observations of temperature and salinity. In situ observations are obtained from a variety of sources including: the Argo network of autonomous profiling floats, moorings, ships of opportunity, marine mammals and research cruises. Ocean analyses are blended with sea ice analyses that combine satellite retrievals of sea ice concentration with Daily Ice Charts and RADARSAT image analyses produced by the Canadian Ice Service. Atmospheric fluxes for 10 day forecasts are calculated using fields from the Global Deterministic Prediction System. Ice and ocean forecast and analysis products from GIOPS are: sea surface height (m), water temperature (°C), water salinity (psu), currents (m/s), sea ice fraction (%), snow depth on sea ice (m), ice thickness (m), ice drift velocity (m/s), Ice pressure (N/m).