Development of Black Sea nowcasting and forecasting system

Abstract

Abstract. The paper presents the development of the Black Sea community nowcasting and forecasting system under the Black Sea GOOS initiative and the EU framework projects ARENA, ASCABOS and ECOOP. One of the objectives of the Black Sea Global Ocean Observing System project is a promotion of the nowcasting and forecasting system of the Black Sea, in order to implement the operational oceanography in the Black Sea region. The first phase in the realization of this goal was the development of the pilot nowcasting and forecasting system of the Black Sea circulation in the framework of project ARENA funded by the EU. The ARENA project included the implementation of advanced modeling and data assimilation tools for near real time prediction. Further progress in development of the Black Sea nowcasting and forecasting system was made in the frame of ASCABOS project, which was targeted at strengthening the communication system, ensuring flexible and operative infrastructure for data and information exchange between the Black Sea partners and end-users. The improvement of the system was made in the framework of the ECOOP project. As a result it was transformed into a real-time mode operational nowcasting and forecasting system. The paper provides the general description of the main parts of the system: circulation and ecosystem models, data assimilation approaches, the system architecture as well as their qualitative and quantitative calibrations.

Black Sea coastal forecasting system

“…The model of the coastal ecosystem is coupled with the basin-scale physical and biogeochemical models (Korotaev et al, 2011). The biogeochemical model extends to 200 m depth with 26 z-levels, compressed to the sea surface.…”

“…The Black Sea circulation model uses atmospheric forcing of the regional atmospheric model of ALADIN family simulated by the Romanian Meteorological Agency (NMA) and assimilates space altimetry, sea surface temperature (SST), climatic temperature and salinity profiles. A detailed description of the basin-scale Black Sea nowcasting and forecasting system is presented by Korotaev et al (2011). The regional models run in the oceanographic institutes of the corresponding riparian countries.…”

“…(Blatov et al, 1984;Korotaev et al, 2011;Kostianoy and Kosarev, 2008). The Black Sea, with a surface area of 423 000 km 2 , is an elongated basin situated between 40 • 56 and 46 • 33 N with its maximum dimension along the longitude equal to 1148 km.…”

An operational biogeochemical model of the North-East Atlantic: Model description and skill assessment

“…Holt et al, 2003;Elliott et al, 2007;Siddorn et al, 2007;Korotaev et al, 2011;Kordzadze and Demetrashvili, 2011;Stanev et al, 2011;Zhuang et al, 2011;Mateus et al, 2012), few models routinely produce forecasts of the biogeochemical fields (e.g. Siddorn et al, 2007;Mateus et al, 2012;Wan et al, 2012).…”

Untitled

“…Attraction of new technologies of observations including satellite methods of measurement and progress of computer facilities providing creation of highly resolving numerical models allowing to reproduce sea processes by sufficiently high adequacy promoted better understanding of physical and biogeochemical processes in the Black Sea (Oguz et al, 1992;Oguz and Besiktepe, 1999;Stanev, 2005;Korotaev and Eremeev, 2006;Salihoglu et al, 2011;Oguz et al, 2012). Especially the large scientific and technical achievement of the Black Sea operative oceanography is the development of the Black Sea Nowcasting/Forecasting System which allows to carry out continuous control over the current state of the Black Sea and its change for some days forward (Besiktepe, 2003a(Besiktepe, , 2003bKubryakov et al, 2006;Korotaev et al, , 2011Kordzadze and Demetrashvili, 2010). Creation of such system was promoted by the leading oceanographic centers of the Black Sea riparian countries: Institute of Oceanology (Bulgaria), Institute of Geophysics (Georgia), National Institute of Marine Research (Romania), State Oceanographic Institute (Russia), Institute of Marine Sciences-Middle East Technical University (Turkey) and Marine Hydrophysical Institute (Ukraine).…”