BLUElink Ocean Forecasting Australia An Overview

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Centre for Weather and Climate Research, A
partnership of the Bureau of Meteorology and
CSIRO Bureau of Meteorology CSIRO, Wealth from
Oceans National Research Flagship Royal
Australian Navy
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National capabilities
OFAM1.0
0.1??0.1?
ROAM
OceanMAPSv1.0b
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Timeline 2003 - BLUElink project, Bureau, CSIRO
and RAN 2006 - BLUElink Reanalysis v2.1 2007 -
BLUElink OceanMAPS operational notice issued 2007
- BLUElinkII project (follow-on project) continue
to mid-2010
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National services
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Ocean forecast support
Support
Operational ocean chart briefings Operation
centre broadcast to ROs Monthly
briefing Regional contributors Briefing report
circulated Seasonal outlook General
communication Significant mesoscale
oceanography Bi-monthly publication society
bulletin BLUElink user forums Annual forum,
Melbourne07, Perth08 User surveys Product
development Coastal sea level Heat content -
forecast Diagnostics Case studies Coastal
upwelling and sea level North west cape currents
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Ocean forecast support
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Ocean forecast support
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Performance
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Performance
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Performance
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Performance
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Performance
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Impact of observations
Publications
Oke and Schiller, 2007 Impact to ocean
reanalysis of different observation types, GRL,
34 Schiller, A., P. R. Oke, G. B. Brassington, M.
Entel, R. Fiedler, D. A. Griffin, J. Mansbridge,
2008 Eddy-resolving ocean circulation in the
Asian-Australian region inferred from an ocean
reanalysis effort, Progress in Oceanography, 76,
334-365
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Impact to ocean reanalysis of different
observations types, Oke and Schiller, 2007, GRL,
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Total number of in situ sea surface salinity
observations (a) 1996-2000, (b) 2001-2005
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Applications - government
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Royal Australian Navy demonstration of 3D sonar
envelope based on an single profile estimate of
ocean state. Development continues on downscaling
BLUElink ocean forecasts through ROAM to extend
this capability to a full 3D estimate of ocean
state.
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Applications - government
Organisations
Marine Park Authorities Marine park management,
coral bleaching monitoring, eco-tourism
management Australian Fisheries Management
Authority Bio-catch planning and
management Environmental Protection
Agencies Salinity discharge, dredging, industrial
waste management
Heat content and heat content anomaly for
tropical cyclone forecasting, coral bleaching,
seasonal rainfall outlooks
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Observed and OceanMAPS analysed Bonney coast sea
surface temperature and surface currents. Showing
an extreme upwelling event.
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Applications - industry
Organisations
Woodside Petroleum Engineering design of
underwater pipelines, Offshore construction,
Management of oil and gas operations APASA Search
and rescue tracking, oil spill monitoring New
Zealand oil spill Ocean drifter comparisons
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Multiple nested modelling system has been
developed to downscale BLUElink to the North West
Shelf by ROMS and further downscaled to SUNTANS
to simulate internal waves. Comparisons between
simulated and observed have shown encouraging
results.
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Applications - all

• Ocean state and circulation
• Ocean state - Sonar (Naval operations,
  Hydrography surveys)
• Ocean state - bio-catch mapping
• Ocean climatology (Ocean forecasting, anomalous
  ocean weather, case studies, engineering design)
• Ocean currents (HMAS Sydney search, Tracking
  detached DART buoys, recreational yacht racing,
  lavae distribution, reef/island connectivity)
• Observation design and evaluation (IMOS, Argo,
  SMOS, etc)
• and continuing to grow
• Coastal/Shelf conditions
• Storm induced coastally trapped waves (nonlocal
  sea level), (Port and River management)
• Coastal upwelling (Health risk, Fisheries,
  Pollutants, Fog)
• Boundary current (EAC/LC) interactions with the
  shelf (BGC, Fisheries)
• Heat content (Coral bleaching management,
  coastal storms)
• Shelf currents (Oil and Gas infrastructure and
  operations, SAR, Ship towing/salvage, Ship
  scuttling operations, Bildge water discharge)
• Strait currents and sea level - (Maritime
  safety)
• Downscaling - internal waves (Oil and gas
  industry)
• Weather
• Tropical cyclones - heat content and coupled
  response
• East coast cyclones - heat content in EAC eddies
• Coastal SST under cloudy conditions

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Future
OFAM2.0
Planned
BLUElink OceanMAPS - Indo-Pacific eddy-resolving,
real-time analyses cycle, tide gauges,
initialisation BLUElink Reanalysis v3.0 -
Indo-Pacific eddy resolving, initialisation CLAM-T
C - Operational coupled ocean-atmosphere tropical
cyclone forecasting ROAM - Coupled wave-ocean
model OFAM2.0 - Indo-Pacific eddy-resolving,
increaed vertical resolution, shelf process
resolving CLAM - Coupled ocean-wave-atmosphere
regional modelling system BODAS - Ensemble Kalman
Filter assimilation for regional
applications RAMSSA - Skin SST product
Schematic of OFAM2.0 grid showing every 20th grid
point. Eddy-resolving in Indian-Pacific,
eddy-permitting globally.
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Ocean surface wake induced by TC Zoe in the South
Pacific. Experiments for CLAM-TC.
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Future
OFAM2.0
Longer term
Coupled global ocean-wave-weather forecast system
and reanalysis Coupled regional
ocean-wave-weather ensemble forecasting Coupled
biogeochemical forecasting
Schematic of OFAM2.0 grid showing every 20th grid
point. Eddy-resolving in Indian-Pacific,
eddy-permitting globally.
GOOS wishlist
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24hr global coverage real-time SLA, SST, SSS and
Colour Geostationary SLA, SST, SSS and
Colour Ocean drifting buoy, 1??1? Argo daily
cycling 1??1?, CTD, biogeochem Indian ocean
moored array Shallow seas moored array or
dedicated glider network Acoustic array?
Phytoplankton concentration at 5 m in 5, June
1995 from BLUElink-BGC run. The nutrient
injection associated with the formation of
cyclonic eddies stimulates phytoplankton growth
in the East Australian Current.
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Performance
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Slide detailed comments
Slide1 OFAM1.0 (Ocean Forecast Australia Model)
shows the horizontal grid used in MOM4p0d.
0.1??0.1? (90E-180E, 75S-16N), eddy permitting in
the Indian-South Pacific and coarse resolution
elsewhere. OFAM1.0 has been applied in a
free-model integration, BRAN1.0, 1.5 and 2.1 as
well as the current operational system
OceanMAPSv1.0b. OceanMAPSv1.0b (Ocean Model,
Analysis and Prediction System) is Australias
first generation ocean forecasting system that
has been operational at the Bureau of Meteorology
since August 2007 (www.bom.gov.au/nmoc/bulletins/A
POB69.pdf). OceanMAPS supports data products
through ftp for registered users, a GODAE OPeNDAP
server for research users (godae.bom.gov.au) and
an online graphical public service
(www.bom.gov.au/forecasts). ROAM (Relocatable
Ocean-Atmosphere Model) is a high resolution
regional modelling system developed for the Royal
Australian Navy to perform higher resolution
downscaling within OceanMAPS for Naval
operations.Trained Naval personnel can define,
run, monitor and analyse model runs through the
Graphical User Interface shown on the
slide. Slide 2 The impact of satellite
altimetry, satellite SST and Argo are assessed
through withhold experiments in an ocean
reanalysis based on OFAM and BODAS. A comparison
of the analysed SST with observed SST
demonstrates the quality of analysis increases
from, AltimetryArgo, SSTArgo, AltimetrySST,
all observations. The total number of in situ sea
surface salinity observations in the
Asian-Australian region is shown for two five
year periods. The second five year period
demonstrates the impact of the Argo program which
will significantly improve ocean climatologies
and contribute to operational forecasts. Slide
3 The Directorate of Oceanography and
Meteorology of the Royal Australian Navy provide
environmental assessment for defense operations.
Sonar envelopes are simulated using single
profile estimates of ocean state. BLUElink
information from OceanMAPS and ROAM downscaling
is being trialed to extending sonar simulations
using full 3D estimates of the ocean
state. Slide 4 Heat content of the upper ocean
has been developed to support tropical cyclone
forecasting, coral bleaching monitoring and
marine park management. Heat content anomalies
are computed relative to CARS which are being
examined for use in seasonal rainfall
outlooks. The Bonney Coast in South Australia is
a region that consistently experiences coastal
upwelling. The event on the 10 February 2008 was
a particularly pronounced event that gave rise to
a stable surface atmospheric boundary layer and
coastal fog. OceanMAPS analyses and forecasts
provided close comparisons to the observed SSTs.
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Slide detailed comments
Slide 5 University of Western Australia,
MetOcean Engineers and Woodside have teamed up to
develop and validate a multiply nested model to
simulate internal waves on the North West Shelf
of Australia which occur frequently and have
significant implications for engineering design
of oil and gas infrastructure. The configuration
consists of BLUElink reanalyses being downscaled
to the shelf by ROMS with the addition of tides
and then down scaled to SUNTANS the Stanford
Unstructured Nonhydrostatic Terrain-following
Adaptive Navier-stokes Simulator to model
internal waves. The results from this
configuration have produced simulations that are
very encouraging. The BLUElink reanalysis is
believed to be providing superior performance to
simulations based on nesting in a free-model
integration. Slide 6 OFAM2.0 (Ocean Forecast
Australia Model) shows the horizontal grid used
with MOM4p1. Greater than 0.1??0.1? (90E-180E,
75S-16N), eddy resolving in the Indian-South
Pacific and eddy-permitting globally elsewhere.
OFAM2.0 will be applied to BRAN3.0 as well as an
operational system OceanMAPSv2.0 A biogeochemical
model based on a simulation of OFAM with an
ecosystem with nitrate, phytoplankton,
zooplankton and detritus components. Nitrogen is
cycled between these 4 pools as a system of
Ordinary differential equations that are imbedded
in to the MOM4 tracer code Dietze et al 2008 in
prep. For the results shown, the ocean model
with NPZD ecosystem is spun up for two years and
you are seeing the results from the 3rd year.
The key processes affecting the NPZD model are
mixed layer depth, nitrate and light (which is
seasonally varying and linked to the MLD - i.e.
deeper MLD less integrated light available in the
mixed layer). The anti-cyclonic eddies have low
phytoplankton because of low nitrate and low
light (they are much deeper than the cyclonic
eddies). CLAM-TC (Coupled Limited Area Model -
Tropical Cyclone) is a coupled atmosphere-ocean
tropical cyclone forecasting system being
developed at the Bureau of Meteorology and the
BLUElink project. The research system uses a
regional ocean model based on MOM4p1 nested
inside BRAN2.1 or OceanMAPSv1.0b and coupled to
the Bureau of Meteorology TC-LAPS system via
OASIS. Simulations for TC Ingrid and TC Zoe in
the south west Pacific are being used as case
studies. The image shows the ocean surface wake
in the regional ocean model in response to TC Zoe
forcing.
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Slide detailed comments
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