Ocean Analysis System

Regional climatology

CSIRO has developed and maintains an Atlas of Regional Seas—a regional (10N-60S: 90E-180E) high resolution, three-dimensional ocean climatology of temperature and salinity fields.

Under the initiative, the present Atlas will be enhanced with additional temperature and salinity information for the Indonesian and New Zealand regions, as well as further historical data from alternative sources, once quality controlled. The resulting enhanced climatology will constitute the first-guess field to be used by the analysis and forecast systems.

Regional analyses

An initial step in ocean forecasting will be development of a daily, updated 'nowcast'—a comparison between what the computer models predicts will happen today, and what is really happening. This process assists scientists to refine their models.

Near-real-time altimeter data (Jason-1 and Envisat) and coastal tide-gauge sea level estimates will be used to map sea-surface topography. These maps will be used, in conjunction with a statistical projection method, the Regional Atlas, and available in situ data (e.g. Argo profiling floats, XBTs, research and navy vessels) to infer three-dimensional estimates of the ocean’s temperature and salinity structure.

A real-time sea surface temperature (SST) analysis will be developed, with around 5-10 km spatial resolution in the Australian region. The analysis will take advantage of geostationary satellite data to get some resolution of the diurnal cycle and microwave SST data to eliminate gaps arising from cloud cover.

Surface currents will be estimated from sequential images of remotely sensed sea surface temperatures (SST), using a method that tracks the movements of small-scale features.

A high-quality, validated, enhanced regional resolution wind vector product will be developed. The product will be built from global and regional Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) products blended with data and will include surface wave effects. These products will used to force the forecast models.

Operational ocean analysis system

Once developed, the various components of the regional analysis system will be integrated by the Bureau of Meteorology under a common framework for routine monitoring of performance to provide operational analyses of subsurface thermal structure, surface currents, wind stress, SST and surface topography.