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New Wave and Ocean Models at the Met Office
( Last Updated: 15-12-2008 )
New models for ocean and wave forecasting have been introduced to keep the Met Office at the forefront of operational services for the marine environment.
After more than a decade of running using the ocean component of the Unified Model, the FOAM system has been transitioned to use NEMO, a state-of-the-art ocean model being developed through European collaboration. The transition marks the end of a three year programme of development work by staff in the Ocean Forecasting R&D team. The new FOAM-NEMO system has already made an impact within the international community, being hailed as having "remarkably" small biases by US experts, and with a poster on the system being selected for a best poster award at the recent Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment international conference in Nice.
The current Met Office wave model within the wave forecasting system is being replaced with the WaveWatch III model, originally developed at NOAA, and now the focus of a major international collaborative effort. The upgrade is the result of 18 months of effort by the Wave Forecasting R&D team, and will result in the retirement of a model that has been in use for several decades. The combination of the latest in wave modelling technology with Met Office surface winds provides a significant increase in the quality of the wave forecast products. The performance of the Met Office system in an on-going international intercomparison of global wave forecasts has been seen to improve markedly as a result of the upgrade.