Operational Oceanography

The group is concentrated on Mediterranean nowcasting/forecasting activities ranging from real time data analysis to assimilation techniques development and forecast assessment. In particular its areas of active research are:
- Real Time quality control and dissemination protocols for satellite and in situ data
- Optimal Estimation techniques for initialization of forecasts
- Daily production and dissemination of ten days Mediterranean Sea forecasts and high resolution Adriatic Sea forecasts.
- Study of the Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea dynamics with numerical models.
- Development of coupled marine ecological models for studies of short-term forecasts and of the impacts of the climatic change on the ecosystems.
- Air-sea interaction studies in particular for off-line and synchronous ocean-atmopshere modelling.

In the framework of Operational Oceanography INGV has been involved in several European Union Projects and Italian international Projects, in particular:

 

1. it participated to MERSEA-Strand 1 project and it has responsibilities for the intercomparison of the basic four European pre-operational ocean forecasting systems: MFS, MERCATOR, TOPAZ and FOAM;
2. it coordinated the Mediterranean Forecasting System Toward Environmental Predictions (MFSTEP ) project that will expand and upgrade the operational forecasting system in the Mediterranean Sea;
3. it coordinates the international program, funded by the Italian Ministry of Environment and Territory, Adriatic coastal areas and river basin management system (ADRICOSM) for the implementation of operational forecasting inthe Adriatic shelf and coastal areas.
4. It participates to MERSEA Integrated project approved under FP6 to build an European ocean forecasting capability and INGV is responsible for the Mediterranean Sea forecasting activities.
5. It participates to the ASI PRIMI Project for the setup of the Oil spill monitoring system for the Mediterranean Sea.
6. It partecipates to ECOOP project financed by European Commission in the VI FP for the development of the European COastal-shelf sea OPerational observing and forecasting system.
7. It partecipates to the project BOSS4 financed by European Commission in the VI FP for building operational sustainable services for GMES.
8. It partecipates to the project SEADATANET financed by European Commission for the development of an European infrastructure for ocean and marine data management
9. partecipated to the MARCOAST project financed by ESA for the provision of operational products.

 

The main objective of the Global Oceanography group is to study the role of the ocean in the global climate system and evaluate the impacts of climate changes on the physical state of the ocean and its ecosystem. The oceans play an important role on climate variability at long time scales through processes of heat storing and heat transport, large scale circulation, biomass distribution and CO2 exchanges at the ocean-atmosphere interface. The instruments available to the Global Ocean group are numerical models of different complexity and resolution, and ocean data assimilation systems. In summary, the research activity in such a context is devoted to the development of the physical and biogeochemical aspects of the oceanic component of an Earth System Model. The numerical activities of the Global Ocean group comprises:

• the development of ocean general circulation models aimed to the study of the large-scale circulation and structure of the oceans and their impact on climate;

• the development of a global marine biogeochemical model and its coupling with the general circulation model aimed to the study of interaction between physical and biogeochemical processes in the oceans;

• the development and implementation of ocean data assimilation methods in order to produce global multidecadal ocean analyses which represent a comprehensive, accurate 3D solution of the global ocean state. Such analyses are used to give an estimate of the oceanic variability at different time and spatial scales. They also provide a model validation tool and the initial conditions for the seasonal forecast activity.

ATTENZIONE! si informa che INGV non fornisce nessun servizio di previsione sismica

• Climate
• Oceanography
• Seismology
• Volcanology
• Projects
• Publications

• Mediterranean sea forecasting
• Adriatic sea forecasting
• Data assimilation techniques