Introduction

• Objective: Develop regional ocean forecasting capability

• AU$15M co-investment for Phase 1

• Partners: Bureau, CSIRO, Navy

• Launched 2003,

• Phase1 due for completion in early 2007

• An ocean forecasting system for Australia, providing reliable and accurate ocean information for the national public good, enhancing the sustainability and management of our marine environment and ensuring safe and effective operations at sea

• Phase 2 has been negotiated, near AU$17M further co-investment

• http://www.cmar.csiro.au/bluelink

Priorities

1. Core operational ocean forecast model (OFAM)

Maintain world-class core system

2. New Regional/Coastal Forecast System

Synergy with regional mesoLAPS, e.g. SE Aust

Applications drawn to GBR and NWS Regional System: coupled ocean-atmosphere (3-5km resolution)

Improved fine-scale nesting, e.g. for ROAM

3. Enhanced relocatable ocean model

ROAM ↔ Navy

Other marine, coastal applications

Priorities

4. Coupling

Coupled ocean-atmosphere, e.g. TCs

Ecosystem/biogeochemistry

“new” weather prediction

5. Observing system

Infrastructure for AusIOOS, initial contributions from IMOS

New data: satellites, CODAR, salinity, …

Ocean Forecasting Australia Model, OFAM

… every 10th grid point shown

Global configuration of MOM4

Eddy-resolving around Australia

10 m vertical resolution to 200 m depth

Surface fluxes from ECMWF (for reanalyses)

Minimum resolution: ~100km

~10km resolution

Bluelink Ocean Data Assimilation System, BODAS

Assimilates observations of SLA, SST, in situ T and S

Model

SLA+

SST

in situT + S

Observations Analysis

SOOPXBT

Observing System Experiments

How important are different components of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) for ocean reanalysis?

Experiment design

With-hold each component of the observing system

6-month integrations (1st half of 2003 and 2006)

compare to with-held observations

treat BRAN1.5, with all observations assimilated, as the “truth”

Observing System Experiments

Assimilation of Argo/XBT and SST reduces the forecast error of SLA by ~50% compared to the assimilation of altimetry

Assimilation of Altimetry and Argo only reduces the forecast error of SST by a small amount

2003

Observing System Experiments:Impact on upper ocean temperature (0-1000 m)

Depth average (0-1000 m) of the temperature error introduced by with-holding: all obs (top)SSTAltimetryArgo/XBT (bottom)…in 2003 (left) and 2006 (right); and the zonal average (left panels) in the Australian region.

All components offer a unique and essential contribution to the ocean reanalysis.

Importance of Argo/XBT

Importance of SST

Importance of ALTIMETRY