MyOcean at its second annual review

MyOcean members and European Commission reviewers met a few days ago for their second annual meeting in Rome, at Cnr, under the high patronage of Birgit Blasch, Deputy Head of Unit in the Research Executive Agency, Pierre Bahurel, MyOcean project coordinator, Enrico Brugnoli, Director of Cnr- Earth Science and Environmental Department, and Cristina Sabbioni, Director of Cnr-Institute of Atmospheric Science and Climate.

Two years after kick-off, 120 people coming from all over Europe had the opportunity to hear about MyOcean achievements, challenges and future developments in terms of data production, calibration, validation, system architecture, R&D and service delivered to users.

MyOcean is the main European project dedicated to the implementation of the 'Global Monitoring for Environment and Security' (Gmes). It  involves 61 partners from 29 countries, major centres in Europe involved in ocean operational monitoring & forecasting research (such as Cnr Italy) and partners from the whole European maritime community.

Since April 2009, MyOcean delivers a pre-operational, open and free service providing state-of-the-art information available on the Global Ocean (worldwide coverage) and on European seas, based on the combination of space and in situ observations, and their assimilation into 3D models such as: temperature, salinity, currents, sea ice, sea level, wind and biogeochemical parameter. MyOcean will move to an operational prototype in April 2012, while the full operation is foreseen as from 2014.

This project is dedicated to the benefits of users. The four major areas of benefits are: marine safety, marine resources, coastal and marine environment and weather/climate and seasonal forecasting. Its products are available to anyone, anywhere (the service covers the oceans all over the globe), at any depth (models give access to a 3D depiction) and at any time (in real time, with short term forecast, and also past situations for at least the last twenty-five years).

As early as day two of the Annual review, European Commission reviewers gave a first feedback which helped the MyOcean work teams to improve, adapt or confirm their roadmaps.

In the framework of this project Cnr has developed the satellite Ocean Colour Operational Production System which delivers every day satellite biogechemical parameters (such as chlorophyll) to monitor the coastal and marine ecosystem state and marine resources of the whole ocean and of the European seas, such as the Mediterranean. These data are used every day by more than 400 users (public and private) developing specific users oriented products to manage the coastal and marine environmental problems and to European and national agencies to define mid-long term  strategy for marine resources exploitation. They are also operationally used in biogeochemical model, to improve short and long term prediction of the ecosystem state and CO2 ocean-atmosphere exchanges.

Cnr in MyOcean is moreover responsible to provide operational sea surface temperature field based on several satellite sensors  assimilated every day by Mediterranean Forecasting System to improve the quality of their forecasting.

Fonte: Cristina Sabbioni, Istituto di matematica applicata e tecnologie informatiche, Pavia, tel. 0382/548202, email ulisse.stefanelli@imati.cnr.it