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Coupled Prediction (CP-TT)

Introduction

The availability of high resolution estimates of the ocean state provides the opportunity to develop high resolution coupled prediction for general weather and ocean weather applications and conduct experiments into the impact of high resolution ocean state on the coupled atmospheric, wave and oceanic states. There is also interest in exploring the impact of high resolution ocean states in seasonal forecasting systems, which currently use low resolution ocean models compared with models used for operational mesoscale oceanography.

It is therefore proposed that a working group within the ocean prediction and seasonal forecast community is best placed to drive the initial development in this form of coupled prediction.

This task team is planning to develop a clear plan that complements specific efforts being undertaken by the atmospheric and seasonal communities to explore coupled prediction and actively solicits comment and feedback and is open to contributions from and exchange between these communities where there is sufficient interest.

The CP-TT is led by :

Objectives

Objectives of the high-resolution and coupled prediction TT include:

  • Coordinate and extend capacity within the meteorological and oceanographic community for coupled high resolution prediction systems
  • Develop a community, from within the current meteorological and oceanographic communities, that will target high resolution coupled prediction systems to facilitate the exchange of methods for accelerated development in this application
  • Exploit high resolution coupled prediction systems to evaluate the impact to atmospheric, wave and ocean prediction, assess the gains relative to less computationally intensive alternatives.
  • To compile results from numerical experiments and observations regarding the impact of explicit representation of high resolution air/sea interaction on the prediction of various atmosphere and ocean phenomena at different time scales.
  • Propose and undertake or exploit/enhance existing observational experiments to facilitate the evaluation of the impact of observations on high resolution coupled initialisation and coupled data assimilation.

Activities

The majority of applications for both the atmospheric and ocean weather prediction lie within the coupled ocean-atmosphere boundary layers. Even those industries that operate above or below this zone frequently must transit through or operate within it (i.e. airline and offshore industries). Natural systems including the terrestrial and marine ecosystems interact strongly with and are critically dependent on the coupled boundary layers.

There is an increasing emphasis in research of the ocean in seamless predictability from medium-range (3-16 days) to seasonal time scales. The OceanPredict community is well positioned to contribute achieving the goal of a seamless operational forecasting capability from weather through to seasonal climate variability, and to demonstrate the needs for ocean observations to support such a capability.

The mission goal of the Coupled Prediction Task Team (CP-TT) is draw together the international scientific and technical expertise in ocean, sea-ice and wave prediction and to seek collaboration with equivalent expert groups in atmospheric-land surface-hydrology prediction to accelerate the scientific and technical development of fully coupled systems for short- to medium-range prediction.

Maintaining the established links within the community, and developing new links with groups such as the longer-range prediction groups (e.g. seasonal prediction), and with the waves and sea-ice communities will be a critical success factor for this Task Team. Specific initiatives for joint forum will be pursued as the primary method for addressing these objectives

This task team will retain a view across the full range of activities of coupled prediction inclusive of relevant DA but with coordination with the DA-TT. Specific activities to extend the methods of DA for coupled systems would be core to DA-TT. The behaviour of the DA methods as part of a coupled prediction system will be of mutual and cross-cutting interest and will be coordinated.

The observational requirements will be developed through leveraging established methods and planned initiatives of the Observing System Evaluation Task Team. The OS-Eval TT has established a linkage with these communities.

Members

List of members:

No First name Last name Affiliation Country Role
 1 Santha Akella  GSFC/NASA USA Co-chair
 2 Gary Brassington  BoM Australia  Member
 3 Phil Browne  ECMWF UK Member
 4 Eric Chassignet  Florida State University USA  Member
 5 Jim Cummings  NOAA USA  Member
 6 James Doyle NRL USA New member
 7 Yann Drillet  Mercator Ocean France  Member
 8 Dmitry Dukhovskoy NOAA USA New member
 9 Chris Harris  Met Office UK Co-chair
10 Patrick Hogan  NOAA USA  Member
11 Jae-Il Kwon KIOST South Korea New member
12 Guimei Liu  NMEFC China  New member
13 Gustavo Marques NCAR USA New member
14 Avichal Mehra  NOAA USA  Member
15 Kristian Mogensen  ECMWF UK Co-chair
16 Andy Moore UCSC USA New member
17 Andrew Peterson ECCC Canada Member
18 Jonah Roberts-Jones Met Office UK Member
19 Hal Ritchie ECCC Canada Member
20 Paul Sandery  BoM Australia  Member
21 Gregory Smith  Environment Canada Canada  Member
22  Yuhei Takaya  JMA Japan  Member
23 Ricardo Todling  GSFC/NASA USA Member
24 Akiyoshi Wada  MRI-JMA Japan  Member

 

Patron champions:

Hendrik Tolman, NOAA, USA
Hui Wang, NMEFC, China

 

Status: January 2024

 

Workshop and meetings

Since the new co-chairs have joined the CP-TT lead, a strong effort is being put on meetings and workshops to grow the TT community.  The CP-TT now holds regular online TT meetings and has started an online lecture series. It also organising a joint workshop with the OS-Eval TT.

 Joint OS-Eval TT/CP-TT workshop in Tsukuba, Japan, 15-18 Nov 2022 including the SynObs kick-off

 

CP-TT online meetings

→ CP-TT online meeting (3), 13 March 2023

CP-TT online meeting (2), June 2022

CP-TT online meeting (1), March 2022

 

CP-TT online lecture series

CP-TT online lecture (2), March 2023

CP-TT online lecture (1), June 2022

 

CP-TT meeting history

→ Joint GOV-WGNE Workshop 2013

 

Overview of all OceanPredict meetings and workshops

TT quad-charts

The task team quad-chart provides a quick glance at the TT’s activities, achievements and future plans.

 

Coupled Prediction Task Team (CP-TT) – October 2019
Short description and objectives of the activities started or planned for this year:
Accomplishments of the TT this year:
Main activities:

• Facilitate exchange of national and international programs on coupled prediction in and Earth Systems Modelling context with a focus on the role of and impact on oceans

• Facilitate participation and exchanges for the Year of Polar Prediction

• Report on comparison of processes (e.g., SST/diurnal cycle, sea ice impacts on fluxes and coupling)

• Planning for focused meeting on coupled data assimilation and forecasting

• Further high resolution OceanPredict coupled global NWP systems operational

• Continue interactions with the Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE), the OceanPredict Data Assimilation Task Team (DA-TT) and Coupled Global Modelling (CGM) Committee

Main achievements:

• Updates on members’ coupled prediction activities at OceanPredict ’19 in Halifax in May 2019

• CP-TT interactions with other TTs at OceanPredict’19

• Started search for new CP-TT co-chair after Hal Ritchie stepped down following retirement from Environment and Climate Change Canada

• Members participated in modelling support and exchanges for the Year of Polar Prediction

• Members participated in further operational implementation of high resolution coupled global NWP system

• Consulted regarding the Joint OS-Eval TT / CP-TT meeting in Japan 10-13 November 2020

• Continued interactions with WGNE, DA-TT, IV-TT, CGM

• SST diurnal cycles study and coupled modelling studies continued

Future plans to continue/ improve current activities:
Issues/ problems:
Main future plans:

• Facilitate R&D on identified system priorities (e.g. Coupling methods, SST / diurnal cycles)

• Complete search for new CP-TT co-chair

• Report on comparison of processes (e.g., SST/diurnal cycle, sea ice impacts on fluxes and coupling)

• Planning and participation in the Joint OS-Eval TT / CP-TT meeting in Japan 10-13 November 2020

• Further high resolution OP coupled global NWP systems operational

• Continue interactions with WGNE, DA-TT, IV-TT, CGM

Main issues:

• Government travel restrictions are limiting / jeopardizing participation in OPST meetings

• Institutional priorities limit members’ time for specific TT activities which must be carried out on a “best effort” basis.

Resources needed to better support CP-TT activities:

• No special request at this point

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