Mercator Ocean

Editorial

This month’s newsletter is devoted to the MyOcean (http://www.myocean.eu/) numerical ecosystem models. A focus is here put on the Global Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea as well as on the Arctic Ocean, with the description of products that are already or will be part of the MyOcean catalogue either in July or December 2011 (http://operation.myocean.eu/web/24-catalogue.php).

Scientific articles are displayed as follows: First, Elmoussaoui et al. are describing the Mercator Ocean Global Oceanmulti-nutrient and multi-plankton biogeochemical model PISCES that is embedded in the operational Mercator Ocean physical systems. Two simulations are carried out in order to evaluate the impacts of physical data assimilation on modeled biogeochemical tracer distributions. Those simulations constitute preliminary versions of the global ecosystem operational product that will be available in the MyOcean December 2011 catalogue. Then, Teruzzi et al. are presenting the operational system for short-term forecast of the Mediterranean biogeochemistry implemented in the V0 version of MyOcean project. Their coupled physical-biogeochemical model OPATM-BFM has been used for the operational simulations over a period spanning more than 3 years. The third paper by Dorofeev et al. is displaying the Black Sea ecosystem model coupled with the basin dynamics, improved within the MyOcean project. Long term evolution of the Black Sea ecosystem is studied and a regional bio-optical model is developed to reproduce the variability of the water transparency based on sea colour observations. Finally, Samuelsen et al. are presenting the Arctic Ocean ecosystem model that will be available from the MyOcean December 2011 catalogue. It consists of a coupling of the NORWegian ECOlogical Model (NORWECOM) to the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) in the TOPAZ system.  The variables that will be provided are chlorophyll-a, diffuse attenuation coefficients, nitrate, phosphate, silicate, and oxygen.

The next April 2011 issue will be a special publication with a common newsletter between the Mercator Ocean Forecasting Center in Toulouse and the Coriolis Infrastructure in Brest, more focused on observations.