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4.5 Ocean Data Assimilation Systems for GODAE*
Lead author: Jim Cummings (NRL, Monterey)
Author/co-authors: James Cummings1, Laurent Bertino2, Pierre Brasseur3, Ichiro Fukumori4, Masafumi Kamachi5, Matt Martin6, Kristian Mogensen7, Peter Oke8, Charles E. Testut9 Jacques Verron10 and Anthony Weaver11
1Naval Research Laboratory 7 Grace Hopper Ave., Monterey, CA, USA
2Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center Thormøhlensgt. 47 N-5006 Bergen, Norway
3Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Laboratoire des Ecoulements Géophysiques et Industriels, Grenoble, France
4Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA, USA M
5Meteorological Research Institute 1-1 Nagamine, Tsukuba 305-0052, Japan
6Met Office Fitzroy Road, Exeter, United Kingdom
7European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom
8Center for Australian Weather and Climate GPO Box 1538, Hobart TAS, Australia
9Mercator Océan, Toulouse, France
10Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Laboratoire des Ecoulements Géophysiques et Industriels, Grenoble, France
11Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation Avancée en Calcul Scientifique 42 avenue G. Coriolis 31057 Toulouse Cedex 01 France
Abstract
Ocean data assimilation has reached a sufficient level of maturity such that observations are routinely combined with model forecasts to produce a variety of ocean products. Approaches to ocean data assimilation vary widely, both in terms of the sophistication of the method and the observations assimilated, but also in terms of improving the details of the assimilation, such as forecast error covariances, model biases, observation representation errors, and quality control of the observations. In this paper we compare ocean data assimilation systems that have been developed within the GODAE community. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the methods and present practical aspects of the implementations, including observing systems used in the assimilation, specification of the error covariances, and analysis performance results. Finally, we describe plans for improving the systems in the post-GODAE time period beyond 2008. The GODAE systems discussed include: (1) Bluelink Ocean Data Assimilation System (BODAS), (2) Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO), (3) Forecast Ocean Assimilation Model (FOAM), (4) MERCATOR, (5) the Multivariate Ocean Variational Estimation / Meteorological Research Institute system (MOVE/MRI), (6) the Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation (NCODA) system, (7) the Nucleus for European Modeling of the Ocean Variational Data Assimilation (NEMOVAR) system, and (8) the Towards an Operational Prediction system for the North Atlantic European coastal Zones (TOPAZ) system.
* Co-authors and assimilation systems are listed in alphabetical order
(Last Updated: 13-10-2008)