scholarly journals The Regional Ice Ocean Prediction System v2: a pan-Canadian ocean analysis system using an online tidal harmonic analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 1445-1467
Author(s):  
Gregory C. Smith ◽  
Yimin Liu ◽  
Mounir Benkiran ◽  
Kamel Chikhar ◽  
Dorina Surcel Colan ◽  
...  

Abstract. Canada has the longest coastline in the world and includes diverse ocean environments, from the frozen waters of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to the confluence region of Labrador and Gulf Stream waters on the east coast. There is a strong need for a pan-Canadian operational regional ocean prediction capacity covering all Canadian coastal areas in support of marine activities including emergency response, search and rescue, and safe navigation in ice-infested waters. Here we present the first pan-Canadian operational regional ocean analysis system developed as part of the Regional Ice Ocean Prediction System version 2 (RIOPSv2) running in operations at the Canadian Centre for Meteorological and Environmental Prediction (CCMEP). The RIOPSv2 domain extends from 26∘ N in the Atlantic Ocean through the Arctic Ocean to 44∘ N in the Pacific Ocean, with a model grid resolution that varies between 3 and 8 km. RIOPSv2 includes a multivariate data assimilation system based on a reduced-order extended Kalman filter together with a 3D-Var bias correction system for water mass properties. The analysis system assimilates satellite observations of sea level anomaly and sea surface temperature, as well as in situ temperature and salinity measurements. Background model error is specified in terms of seasonally varying model anomalies from a 10-year forced model integration, allowing inhomogeneous anisotropic multivariate error covariances. A novel online tidal harmonic analysis method is introduced that uses a sliding-window approach to reduce numerical costs and allow for the time-varying harmonic constants necessary in seasonally ice-infested waters. Compared to the Global Ice Ocean Prediction System (GIOPS) running at CCMEP, RIOPSv2 also includes a spatial filtering of model fields as part of the observation operator for sea surface temperature (SST). In addition to the tidal harmonic analysis, the observation operator for sea level anomaly (SLA) is also modified to remove the inverse barometer effect due to the application of atmospheric pressure forcing fields. RIOPSv2 is compared to GIOPS and shown to provide similar innovation statistics over a 3-year evaluation period. Specific improvements are found near the Gulf Stream for all model fields due to the higher model grid resolution, with smaller root mean squared (rms) innovations for RIOPSv2 of about 5 cm for SLA and 0.5 ∘C for SST. Verification against along-track satellite observations demonstrates the improved representation of mesoscale features in RIOPSv2 compared to GIOPS, with increased correlations of SLA (0.83 compared to 0.73) and reduced rms differences (12 cm compared to 14 cm). While the RIOPSv2 grid resolution is 3 times higher than GIOPS, the power spectral density of surface kinetic energy provides an indication that the effective resolution of RIOPSv2 is roughly double that of the global system (35 km compared to 66 km). Observations made as part of the Year of Polar Prediction (2017–2019) provide a rare glimpse at errors in Arctic water mass properties and show average salinity biases over the upper 500 m of 0.3–0.4 psu in the eastern Beaufort Sea in RIOPSv2.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory C. Smith ◽  
Yimin Liu ◽  
Mounir Benkiran ◽  
Kamel Chikhar ◽  
Dorina Surcel Colan ◽  
...  

Abstract. Canada has the longest coastline in the world and includes a diversity of ocean environments, from the frozen waters of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to the confluence region of Labrador and Gulf Stream waters on the East Coast. There is a strong need for a pan-Canadian operational regional ocean prediction capacity covering all Canadian coastal areas, in support of marine activities including emergency response, search and rescue as well as safe navigation in ice-infested waters. Here we present the first pan-Canadian operational regional ocean analysis system developed as part of the Regional Ice Ocean Prediction System version 2 (RIOPSv2) running in operations at the Canadian Centre for Meteorological and Environmental Prediction (CCMEP). The RIOPSv2 domain extends from 26° N in the Atlantic Ocean through the Arctic Ocean to 44° N in the Pacific Ocean, with a model grid-resolution that varies between 3 and 8 km. RIOPSv2 includes a multi-variate data assimilation system based on a reduced-order extended Kalman filter together with a 3DVar bias correction system for water mass properties. The analysis system assimilates satellite observations of sea level anomaly and sea surface temperature, as well as in situ temperature and salinity measurements. Background model error is specified in terms of seasonally varying model anomalies from a 10-year forced model integration allowing inhomogeneous anisotropic multi-variate error covariances. A novel online tidal harmonic analysis method is introduced that uses a sliding-window approach to reduce numerical costs and to allow time-varying harmonic constants, necessary in seasonally ice-infested waters. As compared to the Global Ice Ocean Prediction System (GIOPS) running at CCMEP, RIOPSv2 also includes a spatial filtering of model fields as part of the observation operator for sea surface temperature. In addition to the tidal harmonic analysis, the observation operator for sea level anomaly is also modified to remove the inverse barometer effect due to the application of atmospheric pressure forcing fields. RIOPSv2 is compared to GIOPS and shown to provide similar innovation statistics over a 3-year evaluation period. Specific improvements are found in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream for all model fields due to the higher model grid-resolution, with smaller root-mean-squared (RMS) innovations for RIOPSv2 of about 5 cm for SLA and 0.5 °C for SST. Verification against along-track satellite observations demonstrates the improved representation of meso-scale features in RIOPSv2 compared to GIOPS, with increased correlations of SLA (0.83 compared to 0.73) and reduced RMS differences (12 cm compared to 14 cm). While the RIOPSv2 grid resolution is 3 times higher than GIOPS, the power spectral density of surface kinetic energy provides an indication that the effective resolution of RIOPSv2 is roughly double that of the global system (35 km as compared to 66 km). Observations made as part of the Year of Polar Prediction (2017–19) provide a rare glimpse at errors in Arctic water mass properties and show salinity biases of 0.3–0.4 psu in the eastern Beaufort Sea in RIOPSv2.


2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (sup1) ◽  
pp. 354-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smitha Ratheesh ◽  
Rashmi Sharma ◽  
K. V. S. R. Prasad ◽  
Sujit Basu

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 1657-1674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Storto ◽  
Paolo Oddo ◽  
Elisa Cozzani ◽  
Emanuel Ferreira Coelho

AbstractBecause of the systematic error in the processing of altimetry data, sea level anomaly (SLA) observation errors are likely affected by nonnegligible spatial correlations. To account for these, we exploit the synergy of altimetry data with in situ profiles from gliders, piloted to follow the altimetry tracks during the Long-Term Glider Mission for Environmental Characterization 2017 (LOGMEC17) observational campaign in the Ligurian Sea. The assimilation of along-track unfiltered sea level anomalies in a regional ocean analysis and forecast system is consequently optimized by means of introducing spatial correlations for the SLA observation errors. In particular, collocated data of glider and altimetry are used to derive an along-track error covariance model for the sea level anomaly assimilation, assuming that most of the covariance behavior versus separation distance stems from altimetry. Spatial scales of the altimetry error are found to have a correlation radius of about 12 km for the dataset utilized in the Ligurian Sea, using a simple Gaussian shape for the error correlation, shorter than the correlation radius found through assimilation output diagnostics. A variational data assimilation system is modified to relax the usual assumption of uncorrelated altimetry observation errors, thus allowing for along-track error correlations. Its implementation provides promising results in the regional ocean prediction system, outperforming in most verification skill scores the use of uncorrelated observational errors without compromising the analysis scheme efficiency.


Ocean Science ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 925-945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Onken

Abstract. A relocatable ocean prediction system (ROPS) was employed to an observational data set which was collected in June 2014 in the waters to the west of Sardinia (western Mediterranean) in the framework of the REP14-MED experiment. The observational data, comprising more than 6000 temperature and salinity profiles from a fleet of underwater gliders and shipborne probes, were assimilated in the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS), which is the heart of ROPS, and verified against independent observations from ScanFish tows by means of the forecast skill score as defined by Murphy(1993). A simplified objective analysis (OA) method was utilised for assimilation, taking account of only those profiles which were located within a predetermined time window W. As a result of a sensitivity study, the highest skill score was obtained for a correlation length scale C = 12.5 km, W = 24 h, and r = 1, where r is the ratio between the error of the observations and the background error, both for temperature and salinity. Additional ROPS runs showed that (i) the skill score of assimilation runs was mostly higher than the score of a control run without assimilation, (i) the skill score increased with increasing forecast range, and (iii) the skill score for temperature was higher than the score for salinity in the majority of cases. Further on, it is demonstrated that the vast number of observations can be managed by the applied OA method without data reduction, enabling timely operational forecasts even on a commercially available personal computer or a laptop.


2010 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 1177-1192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jieshun Zhu ◽  
Entcho Demirov ◽  
Fred Dupont ◽  
Daniel Wright

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