Making Metocean Data Useful to the Users Aldo

Making Metocean Data Useful to the Users Aldo Drago, Joel Azzopardi and Adam Gauci Physical Oceanography Unit, IOI-Malta Operational Centre, University of Malta Contribution of Operational Oceanography Marine data and information services delivered by operational oceanography are triggering an unprecedented leap in the economic value of metocean data, becoming essential for managing marine resources efficiently, and feeding benefits to the marine-related industry and the services sectors. The future points to multiple-purpose observing systems and enhanced techniques to simulate the functioning and response of the marine ecosystem to external factors, linking marine data to economic, environmental and social domains. Such systems cater not only for monitoring, but also for research, service provision, security, safety and for policy purposes. This is critical to competitiveness, product development and enhancement of services, and will help implement the EU Integrated Maritime Policy. MONGOOS and Euro. GOOS are the associations of national providers of operational oceanography services in the Mediterranean and European Seas respectively, both contributing to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and recently to the Marine Core Service (MCS) of the European GMES program through the My. Ocean project. These services are freely available to public and private entities to support applications in the fields of climate, maritime transport, aquaculture, marine energy resources including oil and gas exploration, tourism, coastal engineering and management, and many other sectors. The merging of national datasets to regional scale marine core data supplies is leading to a proliferation of dedicated services with downscaling to sub-regional and coastal domains, and is unraveling opportunities to meet the demands of local communities, coastal users and national responsible entities. The Physical Oceanography Unit of the IOI-Malta Operational Centre at the University of Malta is promoting this approach to downscale services to the local scale. Several demonstration activities are delivered by making use and integrating MCS data to local marine observations and higher resolution forecasts for the preparation and provision of dedicated services that address real specific needs of sub-regional and local users. As a marine core service, the My. Ocean objective is to provide to users the best generic information available on the state of the ocean. My. Ocean (2009 -2012) and now My. Ocean 2 (2012 -2014) are committed to develop and run a European service based on a worldwide capacity for ocean monitoring and forecasting, using observations data , modelling and assimilation systems. Data and Downstream Services from Malta The Malta My. Ocean SST and Ocean Colour Dashboards are intended to promote the application of the My. Ocean Marine Core Service to the benefit of Maltese users with an online service that merges satellite-derived and model data into useful operational statistical descriptions of key environmental parameters at five pre-defined coastal subareas around the Maltese Islands. The online web platform also provides the Chlorophylla forecast based on OPATM-BFM Tracer Model which has been developed and is run by the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS) in Trieste (Italy). More information from www. capemalta. net/myocean HF Radar network Public radar data interface The CALYPSO HF Radar data interface provides real time hourly averaged maps of sea surface currents in the stretch of sea between Malta and Sicily. Data are collected by a network of three HF radar stations which have been set up within the CALYPSO project with part financing by the EU under the Operational Programme Italia-Malta 2007 -2013. More information from www. capemalta. net/calypso The Early Warning System for the Maltese Islands and the Central Mediterranean provides alerts of extreme weather and sea conditions over nine sub-areas within the Central Mediterranean region. Chlorophyll-a Dashboard Sea Surface Temperature Dashboard The Malta MEDSLIK Oil Spill Service is intended to monitor oil slick movements in the Malta Channel with a focus on the Maltese Islands. The service is being extended to support the backtracking of oil spills to potential sources, and will form part of the online regional service provided under the MEDESS 4 MS project. The interface can be accessed from www. capemalta. net/RISKMED_Malta RISKMAP for the nine sub-areas A number of meteo-marine real-time observing stations around the Maltese Islands are maintained by the Physical Oceanography Unit. The project website can be found at: www. medess 4 ms. eu MEDSLIK oil slick simulation Operational forecasting activities provide predictions of atmospheric and sea state conditions. The ROSARIO-II Malta Shelf forecasting system provides forecast fields of sea temperature, salinity, current magnitude and direction for the area around the Maltese Islands (www. capemalta. net/MFSTEP/results 0. html). The MARIA/ETA atmospheric and MARIA/WAM wave modelling systems provide forecasts of air temperature, atmospheric pressure, precipitation and wave conditions. (www. capemalta. net/maria/pages/atmosforecast. html) The Malta Med. GLOSS station at Portomaso collects sea level data, sea water temperature and atmospheric pressure. VEL m/s DEPTH= 0 m HOUR= 1. 5 Wave Height (m) and Direction 38. 0 Web interface linking to observing systems Web interface for Med. GLOSS Station The solar energy station at the University campus measures Air Temperature, Atmospheric Pressure, Net Radiation, Solar Radiation and Relative Humidity. 37. 0 37. 5 0. 4 36. 5 36. 0 0. 3 Latitude / Deg. N 37. 0 Latitude / Deg. N The Marsaxlokk weather station installed on the tip of the harbour breakwater measures Wind Magnitude and Direction, Wind Gust, Atmospheric Pressure and Air Temperature every 2 minutes. 0. 6 36. 5 36. 0 35. 5 0. 2 35. 0 34. 5 0. 1 35. 5 13. 8 34. 0 11 12 13 14 15 16 14. 3 Longitude / Deg. E 14. 8 17 Longitude / Deg. E Forecast of wave height and direction for the Central Mediterranean Physical Oceanography Unit, IOI-Malta Operational Centre, University of Malta. Tel: 2340 2844, 2144 0972 Website: www. capemalta. net Contact: Prof. Aldo Drago (aldo. drago@um. edu. mt) Forecast of sea currents in the Malta shelf area