CIRFA Seminar Thursday 28. October

Abstract:

Among the most pertinent applications in operational oceanography is the prediction of drift trajectories, e.g. paths of large floating objects including ice bergs, oil spill simulations, and identification of search areas during Search-and-Rescue missions. This requires modeling of surface currents in real time and into the future with high spatial and temporal resolution.

Skillful predictions require an accurate description of surface processes relevant for drift of the respective objects, but also precise knowledge of the current state of the ocean in order to integrate the ocean’s state a few hours or days into the future. Remote sensing techniques play an important role to determine the state of the ocean for initialisation of the ocean model.

During the forward integration, the chaotic nature of oceanic flow hampers our ability to make skillful forecasts, but methods are under development to identify predictable aspects and uncertainties in drift forecasting.