OSCAR

Ocean Surface Current Analysis Real-time

Principal Investigators

Others:

Overview

The over arching goal of the OSCAR project at ESR is to transition the research surface current model developed by Bonjean and Lagerloef (2000), the outcome of several years of NASA sponsored research, into a processing system and data center that will provide operational ocean surface velocity fields, derived from satellite altimeter and vector wind data, to a broad-based user community.

The regional focus is the tropical Pacific, where we provide data for a variety of users, with potential applications in fisheries management and recruitment, monitoring debris drift, larvae drift, oil spills, fronts and eddies, as well as on-going large scale ENSO monitoring, diagnostics and prediction. We will encourage additional uses in search and rescue, naval and maritime operations. The data will be subjected to extensive validation and error analysis, and applied to various ocean, climate and dynamic basic research problems. The user base derives from the NOAA CoastWatch and climate prediction programs, the broad research community, the Navy's operational ocean analysis program, and other civilian uses. The end product is a turnkey system running at NOAA/NESDIS, with an established user clientele and easy Internet data access.

The project will transition that capability to operational oceanographic applications. The end product will be velocity maps updated daily, with a goal for eventual 2-day maximum delay from time of satellite measurement. Grid resolution will be 100 km for the basin scale, and finer resolution in the vicinity of the Pacific Islands. The team consists of private non-profit, educational and government partners with broad experience and familiarity with the data, and the scientific and technical issues. Two Partners are the original developers of the surface current derivation techniques, and two are closely tied to satellite data sources and primary processing centers. Others represent NOAA/NESDIS, Climate Prediction Center, CoastWatch, NMFS and the Navy to evaluate uses and applications.

On-going work at ESR will develop and improve the models and algorithms for computing surface velocities, distribute data to colleagues, and provide monthly analyses to Climate Diagnostics Bulletin.

The Partners:

Multiple institutions and their facilities are critical to this project:

The NOAA/NESDIS Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry is an established facility for operational altimeter data processing for NOAA. They will provide the timely access to the altimeter IGDR data sets, plus any necessary altimeter error correction and data processing. The end-product surface current processing and data center is located here as well.

The University of South Florida Department of Marine Science is where Gary Mitchum is a faculty professor and has been PI on the on-going NASA-funded Topex/Poseidon research through which the altimeter gridding analysis and the surface current analyses have been developed. They have extended the gridding analysis to include multiple altimeters and provide routine surface height fields.

The Florida State University (FSU), Center for Ocean and Atmosphere Prediction Studies (COAPS) has a long standing legacy of providing gridded ocean wind data to the research community using both conventional ship and satellite based data. Mark Bourassa is leading the effort for processing scatterometer winds.

Earth and Space Research (ESR) is the site where the work is on-going to develop and improve the models and algorithms for computing surface velocities, distribute data to colleagues, and provide the pilot monthly analyses to Climate Diagnostics Bulletin.

The NOAA Hawaii CoastWatch node serves a wide audience of maritime users in the Pacific. This existing NOAA facility will be key to communication, education and accessibility for the surface current data.

The Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi has a strong program in satellite oceanography and works with the Naval Oceanographic Office to provide near-real time, global ocean analyses and forecasts based on all available altimeters.

The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (Vern Kousky) delivers national and global weather, water, climate and space weather guidance, forecasts, warnings and analyses to its Partners and External User Communities.

The NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (Willa Zhu and Nancy Soreide) developed and serve the OSCAR website.

Links

The OSCAR web page is www.oscar.noaa.gov

Presentations

Status of Ocean Surface Current Analyses Real-time (OSCAR) and on the OSCAR-2 follow-on project (talk), F. Bonjean, G. Lagerloef, E. Johnson, J. Gunn, G. Mitchum, M. Bourassa, R. Cheney, and R. Legeckis, Ocean Surface Topography Science Team meeting, St. Petersburg, Florida, November 4-6, 2004.

Interviews

Watch video clip interviews of ESR scientists, Dr. Gary S.E. Lagerloef and Dr. Fabrice Bonjean, as part of the educational development materials for NASA sponsored website on Ocean Surface Currents of which Ocean Surface Currents Analysis Real Time (OSCAR) is a part. The interviews and the NASA website were developed by Dr. Henry David Snyder of Gallaudet University and M. Sara Tweedie of Tweedie & Associates, NASA HQ.